In a bid to deal with militancy in the North Waziristan Agency (NWA), the authorities have decided to launch an operation against anti-state elements and foreign radical elements that have recently become a pain in the neck for the security forces. Many incidents of firing and bomb blasts at checks posts or on military convoys have been reported in the area. The recent beheading of 13 soldiers at the hands of the Taliban in the main city, Miran Shah, has persuaded the authorities to revise their policy of ignoring the activities of the insurgents. The militants went as far as to behead two soldiers and hang their heads on poles at different places in Miran Shah. Yet the kid gloves do not seem to have come off. The planned action is in the form of launching surgical strikes and carefully targeted attacks to, at least in appearance, prevent collateral damage but in fact to save the military’s strategic assets, the so-called ‘good Taliban’. Regrettably, the realisation is yet to dawn upon the military establishment that its strategic depth policy has neither served the country nor would it bring any good fortune in the foreseeable future. Although no one has claimed responsibility for the soldiers’ beheading, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Hakimullah Mehsud has released a video of the embarrassing Bannu jailbreak. Despite US pressure, the government has so far refused to launch an operation in NWA. It is believed that the militants who fled from South Waziristan during the military offensive there, took refuge in NWA and have even been shifted to the eastern provinces in Afghanistan — a known Haqqani network stronghold — to avert any loss in the event of a military offensive in NWA. These Pakistani Taliban, allies of the Haqqani network, have been using Afghan soil to launch attacks inside Pakistan. Recent incidents have reinforced the perception of the ineffectiveness of the Pakistan army’s duplicitous policy, which does not seem to have been abandoned even today. Targeted attacks will be launched on the ‘bad Taliban’ in NWA but how they intend to identify and separate the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’, on the ground, is a secret formula yet to be made public. The Pakistani civil and military establishment seriously needs to come out of its self-created, self-subscribed utopia and embrace reality. The militant mindset, Pakistani or Afghan, is bred from the same stock. Pakistan’s longstanding support to such groups has only earned it a bad name in the international community. It is time that our military establishment understands that it is time to quit its dual policies and eliminate all terrorist forces. *