Outsiders are perplexed over the rhetorical commitment of Pakistani leaders to ‘fight terrorism of all shades’ and lofty claims on strategies to deal with them. The country needs friends and supporters on world stage. But its interior minister is wasting no opportunity to offend others, the latest being Bangladesh.
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Our major problem is that we cannot seem to separate Counter-insurgency (CI) operations from Counter-terrorism (CT). Terrorism is more urban-based, insurgency normally operates mainly in rural areas. With great sacrifice CI has been a resounding success, a CT policy does finally exist now but it is yet to be translated into reality. Contrast the CI operations in the Al-Qaeda …
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Consider the theatrics of the absurd by some political clerics at the killing of the terrorist responsible for slaughtering thousands of innocent Pakistanis. Indeed pathetic that the fundamentally moderate Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) should label Tehrik-e-Taliban-i-Pakistan (TTP) chief Hakimullah Mehsud a “Shaheed” (martyr)! To safeguard their fiefdoms, politicians and clerics often turn to appeasement of militants. The Army did well by immediately …
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The small, portly man was laid out in bed that autumn morning in 2009, wrapped in a shawl, the intravenous line in his arm carrying ever-waning hope that he might yet beat back acute diabetes and a crippling renal disorder. He had come home to his father-in-law’s home in the small village of Makeen just days earlier, family sources would …
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The death of Hakimullah Mehsud, Pakistan’s most wanted man, in a US drone strike on Friday, November 1, in the country’s restive North Waziristan region in semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas, has changed the security environment in the South Asian nation. The United States had set a 5 million dollar head money on the slain leader while Pakistan …
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