Daily Times

The security warning issued by the Chinese embassy in Islamabad of to its nationals residing in Pakistan should serve to remind us that this country’s fight against militant outfits is far from over. Chinese embassy has uploaded a message on its website stating that it has received information about possible terror attacks targeting Chinese organisations and personnel.

There have already been incidents in which Chinese nationals have been targeted. This June a Chinese couple was kidnapped from Quetta. A video was later released by the Islamic State in which it declared that it had kidnapped and killed the couple. Several attacks on labourers working on CPEC projects have also occurred.

Militant outfits have operated along the Pak-Afghan border region, and use these spaces to plan attacks against Pakistani and Afghan state institutions. Both states need to enhance cooperation in terms of intelligence sharing and joint operations against these outfits. In the current situation, the best course of action will be to take Chinese authorities on board as well, since the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) stands to benefit all three of these countries in years to come.

Alongside these operations, Pakistani state institutions will at some point need to resume work on society-centric measures identified in  the National Action Plan against Terrorism that remain suspended for all intents and purposes.  This will require that we immediately give up on the questionable mainstreaming policy, and ensure that no extremist group is given a chance to take their violent agenda to the domain of electoral politics.

For militant groups that operate at a regional and a global level, we will necessarily need to work with different states in the region and at the international level. For instance, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) are militant Islamist groups based in Central Asia, though their networks extend to the north-western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

Ultimately, Pakistan has to put its house in order if it is to effectively check militant threats to the safety of its citizens and of foreign nationals from allied states as well as to ensure that key economic infrastructure projects continue unaffected.  *

Published in Daily Times, December 11^th 2017.