The message from the skies is becoming harder to ignore. On Tuesday, two rudimentary drones are said to have entered Pakistan’s airspace from Afghanistan. They were shot down by the electronic warfare system. This has happened on the heels of a quadcopter killing a nine-year-old in Bajaur last week.
On the western front, the Afghan Taliban continue to deny that groups hostile to Pakistan enjoy space on their soil. Yet the attack pattern tells its own story. Drones are being used not only to attack but to probe, map, harass and test the country’s defences. The frontier is no longer only a line crossed by armed men. Rather, it is becoming an air corridor for deniable violence.
The Afghan Taliban speak of dialogue, and their soil continues to figure in our bloodiest security questions. Sovereignty cannot be a one-way street. A government cannot claim the rights of statehood while avoiding its first duty: preventing its territory from being used against a neighbour. If Kabul wants lower temperatures, it must dismantle sanctuaries, not dress up inaction as patience.
The eastern front is different in method, albeit not in intent. Open-source defence trackers have claimed that an Indian Navy P-8I Poseidon was recently active off Karachi’s coast, apparently watching Pakistan’s maritime approaches. Its reported activity comes as Pakistan inducts the first of its Chinese-built Hangor-class submarines, part of an eight-boat programme, which will strengthen the country’s undersea deterrence.
Meanwhile, India’s army chief, Gen Dhiraj Seth, keeps churning out warnings to Pakistan to “control drone intrusions” even as his country continues growing investments in armed drones, loitering munitions, and counter-drone technologies. India may speak the language of regional stability abroad, but its security establishment’s nefarious agendas can be read from afar, especially when seeing how it supplies drone warfare to Afghanistan via medical shipments.
Pakistan’s stance remains strong and clear, as before. Any unauthorised entry into the airspace, be it from a crude drone or any other means, will be responded to right away. Pakistan is not seeking war on any front, for it has already paid too much for instability to desire more of it. However, peace cannot mean pretending that threats do not exist. *