Daily Times Editorial May 27, 2011

Better late than never

The Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) met with the prime minister chairing and took a number of decisions regarding the struggle against terrorism, which has assumed alarming proportions after the attack on PNS Mehran in Karachi. The DCC decided that coordinated efforts would be made to prevent/pre-empt terrorist acts. The security agencies would be fully authorised to use all means to eliminate/crush terrorists with full might and vigour. An appeal was made to all citizens to cooperate fully in this struggle. The DCC reiterated that Pakistan’s strategic assets were safe and expressed full confidence in the ability and capacity of the armed forces, intelligence and other security forces in meeting the challenge. The DCC also discussed regional security, which obviously means Afghanistan and the situation obtaining on our western border came into focus. There is no denying the nexus between events in Afghanistan and the security situation inside Pakistan.
As though to underline the threat, a suicide bomber drove a truck into a CIA police station in Peshawar on the very day the DCC met. The powerful explosion demolished the building, killing eight security personnel and wounding 48. It may be recalled that this is the second terrorist attack in Peshawar in recent days. The other day some US consulate personnel were targeted.
Meanwhile words of encouragement came from British Prime Minister David Cameron after his meeting with US President Barack Obama, currently on a visit to Britain. Cameron had promised Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in a telephonic conversation recently that he would convey Pakistan’s views and concerns to President Obama. Cameron said Pakistan’s enemies were also the UK’s enemies, and that meant taking account of how much Pakistan had suffered from terrorism as well as its successes against the extremists. In the aftermath of the Abbottabad raid that eliminated Osama bin Laden, it was a reminder that must sound sweet to Islamabad’s ears. Cameron emphasised the need to work even more closely with Pakistan now rather than walk away on the basis of suspicions about the Pakistani military establishment and its intelligence arms’ ties with terrorists. Obama struck an overly optimistic note by claiming al Qaeda’s back had been broken by the killing of Osama bin Laden. This statement reminds one of our COAS General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani’s statement recently that Pakistan had broken the back of the terrorists. If proof was needed that the terrorists still retain dangerous capability even with a ‘broken back’, the PNS Mehran attack and the demolition of the police station in Peshawar should lay any complacency to rest.
In this space we have been arguing consistently for Pakistan’s leaders, civilian and military, to wake up to the internal threat that looms over the country’s future. Even if it has taken the series of events after the Abbottabad raid, including the two spectacular incidents mentioned above, to focus the national leadership’s mind on the task, it can only be welcomed with the adage: better late than never. Now that the DCC has asked for citizens’ cooperation and underlined the need for a national consensus in the struggle against terrorism, the main points of the approach/strategy for the anti-terrorist campaign must be clearly understood. The national consensus that exists against the heinous acts of the terrorists can and will be strengthened if the badly shaken public confidence because of recent events is restored through effective action against the terrorists.
For that, it is essential that the eroded intelligence capacity since the breach with hitherto nurtured extremist forces be strengthened through hard work and clever design. Prevention and pre-emption is only possible if real time intelligence becomes available before any event. Equally important, as the PNS Mehran and other incidents have indicated, there is a need to purge the security forces’ ranks of all sympathisers of the terrorists who act as the eyes and ears of the conspirators and pass on critical information. Last but not least, if citizens’ full cooperation is desired, there must be an intelligent balance struck between the determined effort against the terrorists and convenience of the general public. To take one example, the rash of barriers and check posts that have sprung up all over the country, and which only serve the purpose of irritating citizens going about their daily lives while at the same time offering tempting targets in the shape of the long lines of cars to the terrorists, should be revisited in favour of a more intelligent procedure.