Pakistan’s unfinished war on terror

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/2016/03/pakistans-unfinished-war-on-terror/



Pakistan cannot wipe out terrorism through hard-core military operations in tribal areas as more and more people in urban and metropolitan centers are getting drawn to extremist ideology. University campuses, for example, are becoming breeding grounds of various forms of terrorism. Hence there is need for a broader anti-terror strategy

Pakistan’s unfinished war on terror
By Salman Rafi on March 17, 2016

While Pakistani officials continue to make upbeat assessments about the success of military operations against the Taliban based in FATA (federally administered tribal areas), neither is this operation based on a thoroughly considered de-radicalization strategy nor is the success of the operation an outright victory against the various forms of terrorism Pakistan is facing.

Most important of all, the presence of religiously inspired extremist thought in Pakistan’s top ranking universities has not only been not considered important enough to be countered but has also been completely left out of the much-celebrated and talked about National Action Plan (NAP). Hence the question: how far can Pakistan go in countering terrorism through hard-core military operations?

Pakistan’s military operation in FATA region, which is a part of NAP, is reaching its final stages as the strategists claim a clear-cut victory based on a crude calculation of the number of terrorist incidents taking place in Pakistan since June 2014 i.e., the beginning of this operation. Were numbers to be taken as the ultimate indicator of success, we would be tempted to leave out of our scope the qualitative aspect of terrorism i.e., radicalization of certain sections of the society and the imperative of reversing it.

Fewer attacks in a given period of time do not necessarily indicate a long-term success. On the contrary, it can also suggest a dangerous trend i.e., dislocation of the locus of terrorism from one center to the other. In the case of Pakistan, it has moved and continues to gradually move away from FATA, or rural areas, to the sub-urban, urban and even metropolitan centers.