State Security Must Wake up
By Air Marshal (Retd.) Ayaz Ahmed Khan
Los Angeles, CA
The attack on Tuesday targeting a major grid station outside Peshawar proves the failure of the Pukhtunkha governmet to defend key persons and vital installations. Dozens of gunmen attacked the facility in the Shaikh Mohammadi locality near Bara killing seven people and destroying vital equipment.
Peshawar the provincial capital went dark; people panicked, and as a result confusion prevailed. Clearly no lessons have been learnt from the previous hundreds of terrorist bombings. This third attack on this grid station which is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s biggest, proves that the provincial administration and the security agencies are sleeping, if not paralyzed. The terrorists have been emboldened by the tardiness of the provincial administration. The seven policemen at the facility were obviously no match for the horde of heavily armed militants.
This attack bore a striking resemblance to the last year’s Bannu jailbreak, in which militants managed to free hundreds of prisoners including their high-profile comrades. The lack of a timely response from army units in the area, police rapid reaction teams of the police and Frontier Constabulary has shocked the public. They were present nearby, but were not dispatched to defend the vital facility when it came under attack. This lapse is inexcusable as the grid station is located only a few kilometers from the Bara tribal region and a short distance from the Peshawar cantonment. This vital installation has been the target of previous forays by militants of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.
The past weeks have witnessed increased militant activity in and around Peshawar. Last week a suicide bomber targeted, and missed, the FC commandant in the provincial capital’s cantonment area, though several others were killed. Only a few months back the Commandant of the Frontier Contabulary was killed outside the FC Headquarter in Balahisar Fort. Despite a large reinforcement of FC troops and police force, terrorist attacks have multiplied. Targeted sectarian killings are also on the rise in Peshawar city. If such brazen attacks can occur in and around the KP capital, which has a sizable military, FC and Police presence, one must question the adequacy of security safeguards in place in the more remote parts of the province. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan is determined to sabotage the general elections to create chaos in the country, and it is succeeding.
The interior ministry had already warned of terrorist attacks in the run-up to the elections. It specifically pointed out that government installations in Peshawar could be targeted by the TTP. Given this intelligence, the poor level of security at the grid station is unacceptable. With the militants’ intentions becoming clear, security must be beefed up at all vital installations, especially in areas that have been targeted by militants and insurgents in the past. The intelligence agencies have totally failed in providing proactive and actionable intelligence. Despite politically motivated assurances the state security agencies remain complacent and are unable to track and destroy the terrorists and their hideouts.
There is no government writ in FATA and the foreign and domestic terrorists have bases, hideouts and are permanently in strength in North Waziristan, Orakzai Agency, Bara and Tira. Mangal Bagh and his Nisar-ul-Islam fighters are in full control of Tira. Despite the heavy presence of Pakistani troops in Wana and of the Frontier Corps - Frontier constabulary in all the FATA Agencies, Darra Adem Khel, Tira and Miranshah are occupied by Pakistani insurgents, foreign terrorists, mostly Arabs, Uzbeks, Tajiks and Chechens. Twenty-five restaurants in Miranshah serve Arab dishes. Soft peddling by the provincial administration, and lack of forceful action by the Army, FC and the police has emboldened the insurgents and terrorists. The provincial government, the intelligence agencies, the military, the FC and the Police must wake up before it is too late. In fact it is already too late. |
