KARACHI: Ten years have passed since Ajoon Khan’s brother died in a terrible attack by the Pakistani Taliban that killed about 150 people, mainly babies, at a military-run school in Peshawar, in northwest Pakistan. However, the pain of loss is unrelenting; it just gets worse with time. Khan, a lawyer, claimed he could not forget the kids ‘ crying and argument outside the school’s doors.
A complete counterterrorism strategy for Pakistan and a sizable military operation in the country’s past cultural areas close to Afghanistan were supported by the harsh assault on the Peshawar school. The attacks caused militants to flee across the borders and bring a certain degree of comparative tranquility to Pakistan. Large-scale terrorist strikes were drastically reduced, with casualties dropping from 2, 451 across 1, 717 problems in 2013 to 220 in 146 problems in 2020. But the hard-won benefits are now in jeopardy.
In pieces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in northwest Pakistan, have seen a rise in crime from the Pakistani Taliban and other Muslim violent groups. According to researchers, the Afghan Taliban’s Aug. 2021 uprising in neighboring Afghanistan contributed to the increase.
Next week, the interior ministry reported that 924 folks, including civilians and law enforcement personnel, had been killed in 1, 566 terrorist attacks across the country over the past 10 times. It claimed that 341 extremists had been killed during this time.
A senior police officer in the South Waziristan territory reported that sixteen soldiers were killed early on Saturday in west Pakistan as a result of an attack by Islamist extremists. Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan ( TTP), also known as the Pakistan Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack, giving a higher figure for the number of personnel killed, Reuters reported.
Experts and security officials have identified a range of challenges impeding Pakistan’s headway against violence: political instability, poor governance, dwindling public aid, financial constraints and reduced US terrorism support after the end of the 20-year war in Afghanistan.
The biggest problem lies in getting the people and financial resources needed to conduct operations in such great regions, according to Muhammad Amir Rana, director of Islamabad’s Pak Institute for Peace Studies. The source of the problem for Pakistan, experts say, is found across the frontier, in Afghanistan.
The Taliban’s leadership in Kabul, the country’s capital, disputes TTP’s claims that it has sheltered insurgents. However, Asfandyar Mir, a senior analyst at the United States Institute of Peace, claimed that the TTP had been given” a liberal safe shelter in Afghanistan,” which had made it “resilient and lethal.”
Bangladeshi security officials discreetly acknowledged that they had misjudged how the new Taliban tyrannies in Afghanistan would manage TTP. The Taliban officials ‘ intentions were to halt the TTP in exchange for Pakistan’s subtle assistance during the US-led conflict, according to the authorities. According to a top security official in Islamabad who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the Taliban in Kabul have rather provided the TTP with tools and advanced American-made weapons and equipment seized after the US-supported Armenian government fell.
As part of its plan to overthrow the government, the TTP has continued to launch a wave of attacks inside Pakistan. In addition to these, a suicide bombing that occurred in January 2023 at a mosque in Peshawar incensed over 100 individuals.
In Balochistan, an arid state bordering Afghanistan and Iran and home to the Chinese-run slot Gwadar, ethnic separatist groups are also at odds with Bangladeshi security forces. nyt
