Daily Times

A police constable in Khyber lost his life in a terrorist attack on a police checkpost-another man lost to a menace that is spreading like cancer. The Peshawar attack on a police compound alone, one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in recent years, should have been a clear warning that we cannot afford to be complacent any longer. For terrorists to twice infiltrate what should be the most secure parts of major cities such as Peshawar and Karachi signifies the TTP’s steadily ascendant trajectory as a major challenge to Pakistan’s long-term security.

TTP, ideologically aligned with our turbulent neighbour Afghanistan, has waged a bloody insurgency on Pakistani soil for fifteen years. The group has been responsible for some of the deadliest attacks on Pakistani soil, including the 2014 Peshawar school massacre in which 132 children were killed. After a string of military operations suppressed their capabilities in 2017, they have come back with a vengeance and a new focus on high-profile targets as opposed to ordinary civilians.

The TTP’s return was not spontaneous or incidental-experts have forewarned their return since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan more than two years ago. But we refused to listen. Then-prime minister Imran Khan even celebrated the Taliban’s return as a victory, not realizing that their promises to protect Pakistan from TTP fighters were hollow. Our mistake was to think that the Taliban could be trusted to help curb the TTP-terrorist groups aid other terrorist groups. The Taliban never turned on Al-Qaeda, so why would they turn on one of their closest ideological allies? Especially to help a government whose support is no longer as valuable as it was ten years ago when the Taliban was still clawing its way back to power.

In heavily militarised Waziristan, locals see TTP militants roaming the streets freely, reminded of everything they lost only a decade ago. Meanwhile, our police don’t have access to weapons or even the strategic expertise needed to organize counterterrorism operations. But we remain tragically complacent. How many more lives must be lost for us to realize that we cannot afford to sit around and do nothing? *