The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Monday called off the ceasefire agreed with the government in June and ordered its militants to stage attacks across the country, according to a statement from the group.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs military operations are ongoing against mujahideen in different areas so it is imperative for you to carry out attacks wherever you can in the entire country,\u201d the statement said while addressing its militants.
\nThe decision, it stated, was taken after \u201ca series of non-stop attacks were launched by the military organizations in Bannu\u2019s Lakki Marwat district\u201d.<\/p>\n
The banned group said it had repeatedly warned the people of Pakistan and \u201ccontinued to be patient so that the negotiation process is not sabotaged at least by us.\u201d \u201cBut the army and intelligence agencies did not stop and continued the attacks now our retaliatory attacks will also start across the country,\u201d the statement claimed.<\/p>\n
It placed the blame for this development on \u201cunabated\u201d operations by the security forces against militants in parts of KP and called on TTP combatants to take revenge. For a nation that has experienced years of wanton violence by religious extremists who did not even spare women and children, and left parks, bazaars, schools, mosques, churches, etc awash with blood, there can scarcely be a more chilling message.<\/p>\n
Given this backdrop, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar\u2019s visit yesterday to Afghanistan \u2014 where the TTP have found safe haven \u2014 assumes even more importance.<\/p>\n
Over the last few months, however, the state has been dishing out spin rather than facts to an increasingly uneasy public. As recently as September, the authorities were insisting that the threat of a militancy redux was an \u201cexaggeration\u201d.<\/p>\n
Such claims flew in the face of evidence \u2014 including sporadic attacks, extortion demands and kidnappings \u2014 that the extremists were reasserting themselves in Swat and the tribal districts. Infuriated by the state\u2019s prevarication, residents of these areas, who have suffered the most from the militants\u2019 depredations, gave vent to their anger in several massive protests demanding action against them. Such action, possibly even another kinetic operation, is now imperative.<\/p>\n
However, far more needs to be done and some bitter truths confronted. It is quite apparent the approach taken to defeat an existential threat to the country has gone seriously awry and must be recalibrated.<\/p>\n
The truth is, the state has wasted precious time by not consolidating its success in militarily pushing TTP out of its strongholds in the north.<\/p>\n
For one, it has been over four years since Fata was merged with KP, but the expectations of a turnaround in its woefully underserved status have not been fulfilled in the absence of funding from the federal government.<\/p>\n
Second, the state has refused to engage with a peaceful civilian movement that has the potential of being a bulwark against militancy, instead casting it as inimical to Pakistan\u2019s national interests. This approach must change.<\/p>\n
Third, a clear-sighted policy to deal with violent extremists, rather than one veering between force and appeasement, is needed. For groups like the TTP, \u2018negotiations\u2019 are a means to buy space and time to regroup.<\/p>\n
But most importantly, the state needs to realise that where we are now is the result of decades of flawed, security-centric policies, particularly the notion of \u2018strategic depth\u2019 that, with the second coming of the Afghan Taliban, has boomeranged \u2014 and raised the spectre of a nightmare revisited.<\/p>\n
Shafaqna Pakistan<\/p>\n
pakistan.shafaqna.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Monday called off the ceasefire agreed with the government in June and ordered its militants to stage\u06d4\u06d4\u06d4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alqamar.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alqamar.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alqamar.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alqamar.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alqamar.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=229991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alqamar.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alqamar.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=229991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alqamar.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=229991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alqamar.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=229991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}