During a series of interactions between them on the issue of terrorism and militancy, the most serious concern of the civilian leadership has been how we would be able to protect the life and property of people with the available resources, skills and capacity of the law enforcing and security agencies.
With the country’s counterterrorism capacity having been badly exposed many times in the recent years, the Karachi airport attack being the latest example, the policy of dialogue has been pursued. It is said that despite clear warnings and repeated intelligence reports, if the incidents like the Karachi airport attack and DI Khan jailbreak could not be averted, how the people could face the full-scale blowback of militants if the all-out military operation is launched in North Waziristan.
Since the menace of militancy and extremism is scattered all over, it is believed even if the military operation in the NWA becomes 100 percent successful, it would not mean elimination of terrorism and militancy in the country. During the recent years, several military operations were launched in areas like Swat and in most of the tribal agencies following which the militant activities in those particular areas were also checked to a great extent but terrorist activities never stopped. Such activities instead gathered more pace and severity.
According to the Interior Ministry documents, there are 60 proscribed organisations, including hardened terrorist outfits operating in Pakistan. In many cases, they are interlinked and spread all over the country. Thinking as if everyone is in North Waziristan is nothing but self-deception.
Then there are problems of IDPs, the “good Taliban” who have a peace agreement with the military authorities and the possible immigration of greater number of tribal people to Afghanistan where the Afghan intelligence agency with the support of RAW is doing everything possible to fuel terrorism in Pakistan.
As against the policy of dialogue, which the facts prove, brought a considerable size of relief during the recent months in the otherwise terrorism-stricken country, the fallout of a full-fledged military operation in North Waziristan would be too serious and too vast.
In view of the complexities involved in this issue, owing to the disappointing level of State’s capacity to counter terrorism and because of serious damage to life, property, business and economy of the country, each and every APC held during the recent years called for dialogue with the Taliban.
The APC convened by the present government also decided in unison to initiate the dialogue process. However, the kind of support the civilian government wanted from political parties and other key players to seriously pursue the peace process was not available.
The government in its dialogue policy had opened doors for negotiations with all the anti-state and non-state groups within the limits of the Constitution and without compromising the primary interests of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the State.
Despite certain hiccups and challenges, the dialogue process brought a unilateral ceasefire from the TTP and for the first time since 9/11, a comprehensive government-TTP dialogue process started. The peace talks also led to divisions and infighting within the TTP as some influential Taliban groups were clearly inclined to enter into a peace deal with the government.
During the talks process, there were fewer incidents of terrorism like the one in the federal courts area while numerous attacks were carried out against the security personnel. Generally, the TTP distanced itself from such attacks whereas in the recent Islamabad Sabzi Mandi terrorist attack case, the TTP condemned it and termed it un-Islamic.
While the talks process got suspended because of the Taliban infighting, there were also incidents of terrorism and retaliatory strikes by the armed forces, which further created complications and led to the latest terrorist attack in Karachi.
The government is now under tremendous pressure to call off the dialogue process and go for a full-fledged military operation in North Waziristan. The civil-military leadership met on Tuesday and is expected to meet again soon to evolve a strategy. In the present situation, the best option could be the third option where the dialogue process would continue to woo those who are interested in peace whereas others could be targeted by surgical strikes. In the meantime, the government would have to work day and night to improve its counterterrorism capacity.
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