... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
and Fata delineate three clear tactical patterns. (It must be noted that during the same time Rawalpindi, Quetta, Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
and other parts of Pakistain were also hit).
Headlines during this period included the finding of the severed heads of a police brass hat and a soldier of the Frontier Constabulary in the Gulshanabad area of Matani in the suburbs of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
On Oct 26, gunnies rubbed out two members of an anti-Taliban peace committee in Swat
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...valley. About a week later, a local leader of the newly formed Qaumi Watan Party and the head of an anti-Taliban amn lashkar (peace committee) was killed along with four other people in a suicide kaboom in Buner.
Four days later, a jacket wallah went
kaboom!near a police van in Peshawar's Qissa Khawani bazaar, killing a police brass hat, two bodyguards and two civilians.
On Dec 19, beturbanned goon attacks on polio
...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
workers in Charsadda, Nowshera and Peshawar (besides Bloody Karachi) left several workers, including women, dead. On Dec 22, a suicide attack in Peshawar left senior minister and leader of the Awami National Party, Bashir Ahmed Bilour, and seven others dead.
On Dec 27, hundreds of Death Eaters equipped with sophisticated weapons attacked a Levies post in Frontier Region Peshawar, killing two while
22 others were kidnapped; their bullet-ridden bodies were found on Dec 30 in the same area.
As seen in the light of this narration, the snuffies affiliated with the TTP have clear targets. The first target is the police and security forces -- in their bid to take control of a state or society, beturbanned goons and snuffies always try to defeat the morale of the security forces. Through a well-coordinated and networked chain of attacks, the TTP has succeeded in inflicting heavy losses on the security forces and the police in different parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
The locations where the attacks took place show that the beturbanned goon network is entrenched in almost all parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the rest of Pakistain, with a concentration in the suburbs of Peshawar. This means that beturbanned goon organizations can strike at will. This also shows that the state of Pakistain is vulnerable and too weak to provide security to its own institutions, let alone the people.
The second target are those who are under obligation or have made a commitment to help state institutions. Attacks on the leaders of peace committees in those parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa where military operations were earlier successfully carried out indicate that the beturbanned goon organizations wish to demonstrate that their networks cannot be defeated, no matter how much state force is used.
This also strengthens the discourse of those political parties that claim that any kind of military operation against terrorist networks backfires in all circumstances.
The third target is the people who are publicly expressive of their ideological opposition to the beturbanned goon organizations. They are a target in order to prove that any voice of dissent can be silenced with impunity. Fascist movements around the globe have always attempted to silence all voices of dissent.
In response to the trajectory of terrorism, there appear to have emerged three patterns of thinking that are discernible in the public and in Pakistain's policymaking and political circles.
Firstly, there is a pattern of thought that holds that terrorism in Pakistain appeared after the US sent its forces to Afghanistan following the events of 9/11. This way of thinking concludes that all the losses incurred by the security apparatus, the state, society and humanity inside Pakistain -- and were inflicted by the TTP and other beturbanned goon organizations -- are morally justified and any use of force against those who unleash terror is morally unjustified. Those with this way of thinking strongly suggest dialogue and reconciliation on the terms of the beturbanned goon organizations.
This would mean surrendering the constitution of Pakistain and implementing the beturbanned goon code of life. This would definitely lead Pakistain towards isolation from the modern world. If someone wants a 'khilafat' in Afghanistan, why wouldn't he want it in Pakistain and the whole world?
This way of thinking also ignores the fact that well before 9/11, in 1992, the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi brought Malakand division to a standstill while demanding the Sharia be implemented. The first case of someone being stoned to death took place in
Orakzai Agency... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers...
in 1998.
The second pattern of thinking holds that all terrorism in Pakistain is inflicted by foreign hands, meaning the US, Israel and India, and hence it is impossible to track terrorism and deal with it politically, socio-culturally and militarily. This also implies that Taliban- and Al Qaeda-affiliated organizations are fighting a war of liberation in Afghanistan and a war of Dire Revenge™ in Pakistain; hence, if military action against them is stopped in Pakistain, all terrorism here will vanish.
Thirdly, there is the pattern of thought that suggests that the policies of Pakistain's security establishment over the past four decades -- to use non-state actors for foreign policy objectives, the privatisation of 'jihad', the development of beturbanned goon ideological and military infrastructure across the length and breadth of Pakistain -- in addition to the country's legal and constitutional frameworks and an education system that glorifies war and spreads hatred against other nations and religions, are together responsible for the present reign of terror in Pakistain.
This way of thinking argues that insurgencies and terrorism around the globe have been neutralised through a coordinated policy of using force to tear down the beturbanned goon command structure, beturbanned goon networks and supply lines besides using a political mechanism of reintegration and reconciliation, as well as coordinated economic development.
It is now up to the state and society of Pakistain to make a choice.