Just one day after peaceful elections in the once-war-ravaged defunct Federally Tribal Administered Areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, blood-thirsty terrorists struck a government-run hospital in Dera Ismail Khan on Sunday and killed six people besides leaving 28 others wounded. Among the martyred, two are policemen and four civilians. The suicide bomber, stated to be a woman, aged 28, worked as booby-trap as the first gunmen attacked a police check-post at Kotla Saidan and left two policemen dead. When their bodies were being shifted to the trauma centre of the District Headquarters Hospital, the burqa-clad suicide bomber detonated the explosives strapped to her body and hit colleagues and relatives of the slain constables. The sporadic gun attacks on police officials and other law-enforcement agencies personnel and bomb attacks keep on reminding the state and the people that the menace of terrorism has been beaten, but not totally. We have seen gun attacks on security forces and commoners in Balochistan and suicide bombings in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Balochistan. Banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan’s Khorasani group has accepted responsibility for the attack. Last year, just ahead of the spring season, Swat, the scenic valley of Pakistan, turned red with the blood of 11 heroes, all security officials, when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a Pakistan Army camp in Kabal area. Similarly, Dera Ismail Khan has seen wave of carnage in the last decade for its proximity to North Waziristan. The recent blast shows that militants have hideouts and sympathisers across Pakistan and in neighbouring countries to carry out their sport of blood at will. The Dera Ismail Khan blast points to some security loopholes that allowed the bomber to blow herself up near the hospital. After terrorists have been flushed out of Waziristan, Dera Ismail Khan should return to normalcy. The area is still dotted with checkpoints, which are manned by police and armed forces personnel. There are approximately 6,000 policemen in Dera Ismail Khan and most of them are deployed on checkpoints. These checkpoints should remain there for the time now. The police have arrested 16 suspects in the attack, all of whom belong to the banned organisations. Our security forces have earned lots of gains in their war on terrorism in the last two decades. Over the years, the spat of bombing has been controlled with the dedicated fight and huge sacrifices by the armed forces. The recent bombing shows the war is not over yet, and we fully support the forces in their efforts to eradicate terrorism once and for all. *