Black October

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

October 2009 will go down in history as a black month. The terrorists hit various targets with lethal effect this month. The tally of the dead and injured crossed 100 even though there is a week left before October draws to a close. The targets included GHQ, an aeronautical complex, a police training centre, the Islamic University, a restaurant, a crowded shopping centre and two army brigadiers.

There is something terribly wrong with Pakistan. A few hundred terrorists operating from within the country have taken hostage 170 million people. A country that supports the sixth largest army in the world finds itself defenceless against a handful of terrorists. The interior minister says India is behind these terror acts. Is he stating a fact or offering an excuse? It does not matter whether the terrorist is home-grown or imported. The fact is, he is a menace to the state and should have been uprooted long ago. Terrorists, as the interior minister has often said, have no religion, no country and no borders. Indian aid does not make him a holy cow. The simple fact is we do not have the capability and intelligence needed to fight terrorism, especially suicide bombers.

The country is dealing with guerrilla warfare today but the police and paramilitary forces are neither trained nor capable of fighting this. The bureaucracy and political leadership have no clue how to fight a person who does not value his or other people's lives. He is a Muslim but commits the cardinal sin of suicide. The government responds to a terror attack in a knee-jerk fashion. It places a few more roadblocks which only add to traffic congestions and is an open invitation to the suicide bomber to blow up the stranded vehicles. The other step which the government takes is to declare 'red alert' in the targeted city/country. There are probably over a hundred 'red alerts' lying dormant in the archives of the interior ministry right now.

Then follows the beefing up of security at the check posts, which is convenient for these bombers. When a terrorist is stopped at the check post for identification, he just explodes taking the security personnel down with him. A police officer was killed on the Motorway last Saturday because he was not prepared and did not know how to deal with a possible suspect. He stopped a suspicious-looking car and then started searching it. The suicide bomber who was still in the driving seat pulled the jacket cord and killed the sub-inspector and himself. The other strategy the government has tried is closing down the educational institutions after the attack on the Islamic University. This was akin to dancing to the tune of the terrorists. They have succeeded in closing educational institutions and bringing traffic to a standstill.

The army and air force are carrying out their duties splendidly. They have cleared Swat and are now in the process of eliminating the Taliban from South Waziristan. Once this area is secured, the Taliban will become history. Despite a bomb a day, people have not lost hope yet. They believe that their ordeal will be over soon. They understand that the Taliban and Pakistan cannot co-exist. One has to yield, and that will not be Pakistan. Since its inception, Pakistan has been under the Indian threat, a neighbour that is 10 times bigger than Pakistan. So how can a band of desperados – the Taliban -- make Pakistan do its bidding?

The weakest link in the war against terror is our intelligence agencies. They are still focused on the political elements. They have yet to bust a suicide plot before it happens.

The Punjab chief minister is also sceptical about their performance. He has called for quality intelligence apparatus to fight terrorism.

The referendum: The home-cooked KLB referendum sponsored by the Jamaat-e-Islami has gone a step further than Zia's referendum which had elected him president. Zia got 97 per cent votes cast while JI got 99 per cent. JI was the only party that welcomed Zia's referendum when everybody else called it fraudulent. The JI referendum has no validity. Tomorrow it may hold a referendum for approval of the JI manifesto and announce 100 per cent acceptance by the people. If the JI wants to be in power, it should follow the election route.

By: Abdul Rouf

arboofti@hotmail.com