There are basically two schools of thought regarding the strategy to deal with extremism, militancy, and violent tendencies in dealing with terrorism. First, there is a belief that we should utilize all the force at the state, governmental, institutional, and societal levels to meet this issue head-on. Individuals or groups who challenge the state’s authority or act above the law and constitution are entitled to zero tolerance and no compromise.
The application of force should only be resorted to when frontlines at home become unavoidable. First of all, a political strategy should be developed, then emphasize that it ranks first. On the handling of terrorism and extremism, use it as a basis for action. If we actually want to fight extremism and terrorism, our whole initiative has to be carried out on a strong political agenda because victory here cannot be achieved without the support of the public and their efforts. The leadership of popular political parties needs to take an undiluted stance about terrorism and extremism; any vagueness or contradicting attitude will prove to be encouragement towards terrorism and extremism.
The use of force against terrorists may have temporarily positive results, but oftentimes the facilitators who hide under democracy and politics survive to resume their activities after some time. Thus, this cycle keeps placing the country in a crisis. Although the present regime has brought about some changes in view of the terrorism scenario, the question still persists as a fundamental challenge before which spectacular steps on the state and governmental level have to be undertaken to proceed with significant decisions. Presently, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have remained significant hotspots regarding terrorist incidents. And it is because these two provinces are strategically important. Eradication of terrorism in the mentioned provinces would be the first need to proceed with development work here. Afghanistan is a challenge, as the banned terror organization TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) is fully functional there.
Pakistan-based facilitators assist it in carrying out operations against our security forces and even civilian population. The Afghan government has not done much to address issues that were a cause of concern for us and spawned mistrust between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Things have really gone downhill since the Taliban started running the government in Afghanistan. Pakistan has already conveyed its stance and proved the point to the Afghan government that TTP terrorists based in Afghanistan, enjoying Afghan support, are not only committing acts of terrorism against Pakistan but are also destabilising our domestic politics.
In recent years, the overall number of terrorist incidents has risen in Pakistan, specifically against our defense and security forces. Recently, there was suicide bombing in Quetta that claimed 27 lives and wounded 56. The incident occurred near the railway station platform. This proves that facilitators exist, who are moving ahead and operating within Pakistan, and it depicts how serious the whole scenario has come.
Despite this surge in terrorist attacks, no response has come from the political leadership except for the usual condemnatory statements. No better performance has been seen in the case of the provincial governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. The question then naturally comes to mind: what steps must we take in order to win the war against terrorism? While the state is trying to address these issues, the forces internally are putting up resistance. The last two get-togethers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have offered nothing in the way of concrete solutions.
The primary issue is that our political agenda is always, for us, mired in controversy. The religious politicians and their sympathizers have their agendas and recommendations too. Meanwhile, the ruling alliance comprises the PML-N, PPP, MQM, PML-Q, IPP, ANP, and PTI, making them possess both the government and the opposition. However, in their war of internal antagonism, there is no perceivable attempt or tactic to get a grip on terrorism and extremism. The confrontation between the government and PTI proves to be beneficial for the extremists. However, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government could not introduce prosperity in the province besides failure to reign in terrorism. The coalition of PPP and PML-N government in Balochistan also failed to deliver much.
While in the Parliament, it concentrates all its authority through amendments and PTI opposes every move of the government. But unfortunately, there is no consistency in the fight against terrorism and extremism. This weakness and scant interest in the security matters has proved the position weaker than before. We are so involved in our localized wars that we forget to take care of regional politics or perform adequate measures against the double policy of Afghanistan under the regime of Taliban.
The entire government system and political leadership seems to be limited to “condemnatory statements.” It seems an opportunistic political culture, weak democracy, and confused political and religious leadership left themselves at the mercy of extremism and terrorism. They have shifted their responsibility to the military, security agencies, and police.
The question then is: if the popular political leadership does not have something concrete to stand for on terrorism and extremism, whether they happen to be in power or in opposition, it does not matter; it will serve no purpose whatsoever. Such leadership is not going to fix the economy or pass meaningful legislation. An administration that does not regard terrorism and extremism as a threat, whether democratic or autocratic, weak or strong, cannot safeguard Pakistan and its people or help the country come out of its hardships.
This finally ends up helping anti-state and anti-public forces. The opportunist faction shrewdly projects all terrorism and extremism on the doorstep of the state institutions. They are turning out to be innocent and are succeeding in this venture. Any strategy adopted for the elimination of terrorism reveals huge political divides. When the political leadership places all blame at the doorsteps of security institutions, it only ends up helping the terrorists, as they cash in on our vulnerabilities and try to become masters of the state structure.