Pakistan’s Strong Stand Against Terrorism – OpEd
The fight against terrorism in Pakistan is a long and difficult struggle that the country is currently in a crossroad. The security forces of the country are displaying a new determination, coherence and a clear understanding of their strategies which was after years of war against the extremists in making the country unstable and terrorizing the people. The latest development in many regions around the globe, whether it was crackdowns by spies or demining efforts and immediate response by the police force, give reason to believe that there is an organized effort at the national level to annihilate terrorist threats permanently. These are not a one-off event of law enforcement; it is a bigger and holistic perspective of ensuring the Pakistani sovereignty and to provide a long-term peace to its citizens.
The effectiveness of the Intelligent-Based Operations (IBOs) in the Pakistan scenario is one of the keys to this push of the intensified counterterrorism. The next milestone would also be the recent arrest of two among the main facilitators of the Datta Khel Bazaar attack. The Miranshah operation, the one that the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) carried out, illustrates how intelligence dissemination and adequate usage of surveillance are allowing the law enforcement agencies to eliminate terrorist organizations within their ranks. Such arrests are not just destroying a single threat, but are also disabling the chain of command, financing, logistics and communication over which terrorist groups run. The terror of the Datta Khel facilitators is an assurance of the improved intelligence machine of Pakistan and its insistence to stay above the evolving threats.
Since an intelligence-based work is taking place, at the same time, the Pakistan Army is engaged in one of most difficult and hard work in counterterrorism demining tasks. In the rugged regions of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the militants have always been employing the improvised explosive devices, buried explosives, and the use of a tunnel system to ensure that they remain always present and imminent to the civilians and the security personnel. The ongoing military demining operation of the Army has already swept an area of 82 square kilometers of explosive areas and tunnels at the ground and this is an immense success story with the regard to the complexity of the operation and the danger. It has swept a total area of 114 square kilometers but at a very great cost five soldiers have been killed and 115 others injured in the process.
It is depressing as an illustration of the ugly reality of the Pakistan war on terror, but it highlights the military will on the other hand. Such consistent removal of explosive dangers not only restores peace and security in the war troubled societies but also denies militants the physical infrastructures on which they operate. Demining is tedious, tedious, and dangerous exercise, but a necessary one to the creation of stability in the region over the long term. Each and every clear field, each and every neutralized tunnel are the footsteps in re-capturing the land occupied by the enemy forces.
Even though the Army and CTD have done a lot, the role of the police in the Pakistan counterterrorism system cannot be underestimated either. This was exposed in the fast and efficient response of police personnel in the Mandan area of Bannu district where two Khawarij terrorists ambushed a police picket. One of the terrorists was killed immediately, and the other was taken prisoner and his prisoner was valuable intelligence information regarding the Waheedullah wing of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which the two terrorists belonged to. The Bannu police has demonstrated that counterterrorism does not always have a huge operation to make sure that, in the long run, the goal of counterterrorism is to prevent a possible devastating attack, but also through the assistance of trained, vigilant, and fearless ground personnel.
Similarly, the CTD did a great job in Peshawar where it killed the mastermind of suicide attack on head office of frontier corps (FC). The intelligence behind this arrest was a great cause of concern: there are at least three other suicide bombers linked to the same network that are still active. In the meantime, the CTD did not take long to intensify its search operations by deploying the resources to block such threats before they can be heard. Such proactive steps are such the nature of a security force that will not be carried out in a reactive manner. Instead that is an attempt to preempt the threat, hunt down sleeper cells and eliminate networks before they can cause any damage.
Put together, these operations give a unique rendition of how Pakistan is functioning in terms of the aspect of terrorism and how its security organs are performing with a level of synergy never experienced before. The intelligence teams, military, and local police and the special CTD teams are operating in real time to coordinate, exchange actionable information and act in precise response. It is the required amount of unity to respond to the enemy, who is operating in the shadow, quick-changing, and is focused on exploiting the weaknesses of the region. The magnitude of the new operations involving the apprehending of facilitators, demining and preventing the looming attacks portrays the fact that Pakistan is fighting terrorism on all fronts both at the strategic level and at the operational level.
Most of all, perhaps, these attempts are a manifestation of national mentality. The Pakistani society has been victimized by the extremists in a manner that could never be imagined but this perseverance has complicated it even further. The overall anti-terrorist campaign remains so overwhelming that it condones the efforts of security forces and enables the state to follow its duties without fear. It is a powerful barrier against the people who desire to cause havoc; this oneness between the state and the institutions and individuals.
