Over the years, the police have been completely politicized. Political appointments, transfers and shoulder promotions in the police cadre reflect the worst form of cronyism usually associated with the medieval monarchies or the utilitarian states of the past centuries. All this is crowned by the traditional corruption and incompetence in the rank and file of the police. Police stations have been torture cells for the ordinary citizens of the country and tools of power in the armory of the privileged class or the rulers to settle scores with their opponents. This centuries-old anti people culture of police posts leaves much to be desired what to speak of their competence to provide security to the citizens of the state or monitor the movement of the terrorist designated elements of the banned militant outfits under the fourth schedule of the Anti-Terrorist Act or their working as the eyes and ears of the civilian rulers. Thus, the depoliticizing and the capacity building of the police along with judicial reforms is the utmost need of the day that brooks no delay. The current Thana culture creates hardcore criminals and fills the ranks of militants though the police force has been the target of terrorists considering it one of the pillars of the power of the state. The force has received equally hard blows from militants. According to credible reports, they have killed 2500 and seriously injured 3900 policemen since 2009. The Government has thus far failed to give an alternative national narrative to rally the nation for an all-out war against terrorism. The Ulema of the country also have failed to evolve an Islamic discourse to rebut the terrorists’ warped and violent ideology or their jihadist narrative except a few edicts. The militants are committed to their self-righteous, ultra-conservative and obscurant ideology and have been ruthlessly busy in projecting their extremist version of Jihad targeting all the segments of the society by the optimal use of the modern means of communication. The adherents of their ideology include not only the seminary students but also graduates from the premier institutes of higher education. The involvement of the graduates of the IBA in the massacre of Agha Khani community in Karachi was an eye opener for us. After the initial edicts against the extremist jihad of militants, the Ulema were coerced into silence by target killing of prominent scholars including Mufti Sarfraz Ahmed Naeemi and many others. We should come out of our delusion that terrorist attacks are carried out in isolation by different militant groups without an agenda. This is the biggest mistake we have been making since the past two decades. The militants have a broad consensus on the political agenda of overthrowing the rulers of the Muslim states who supposedly safeguard the interests of the Western states hostile to Muslim causes, and establishing a caliphate that in its national ideology knows no borders in line with the Pan-Islamist discourse of political Islam. From Hizb-u-Tahrir to the Afghan Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Daesh or ISIS, IS Khorasan to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, all are committed to the establishment of a caliphate. The militants are committed to their self-righteous, ultra-conservative and obscurant ideology and have been ruthlessly busy in projecting their extremist version of Jihad targeting all the segments of the society by the optimal use of the modern means of communication Their ideology has attracted militants from Muslims living in different parts of the planet especially from the Arab and African, Central Asian and Caucasian Muslim states or regions. We find among their ranks Arabs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens, Dagestanis, Uigurs and jihadists from the Muslim Diaspora of the European states. This brings me back to the Memoirs of George Tenet, in which he has observed that ‘terrorists are as interconnected as rest of us in this borderless cyber world’. They have their communication systems, communication experts, financiers, facilitators and sympathizers in every city and town. It is very expensive to maintain huge militias and organize terrorist attacks without homegrown financial and logistic support. They generate their funds through extortions, ransoms, bank robberies and donations by local and foreign patrons. They have their own ways of communication, coordination and transfer of funds. They purposely remain diffuse, scattered and clandestine working under different banners to hoodwink the security forces. These are well-known tactics of guerrilla warfare. Their strategy is to target civilians to create fear, tie down the security forces in low intensity warfare and tire the state. The Government has to crack down hard on the non-traditional banking channels or Hundi system in the country. This system is going on unobtrusively with the connivance of FIA in all the provincial capitals of the country. They live ascetic and hard lives. Their ideological discourse and commitment to their cause have a motivational attraction to the devout Muslims without knowing their real intentions. They have the time on their side. We are coming to the end of our options. How many more military operations could we afford to launch against them after the Raad-ul-Fasad? The nation, as a well-knit body, will have to stand by the security forces to make the Raad ul Fasad as the last blow to these retrogressive forces or be ready to go down in history as a failed state like Somalia, Libya and Syria. As a nation, we have been very ungrateful after having this beautiful land. Remember dear men, the Almighty forgives individual lapses of morality but not the collective ingratitude of a people. We have been an ungrateful nation and continue to be so, unfortunately, living in self-delusion and in our selfish world refusing to look beyond our nose. This is not the way societies have developed into formidable nations. It will be pertinent to revert to Khalil Gibran who, with a sense of melancholy, talked of such a nation in his everlasting diction, “Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle. Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation”. We still have time to reawaken, forgive our past blunders, and stand up as a spirited nation against the enemies of our country. Concluded The writer was a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and he has authored two books