The increasing number of attacks on the border provinces of Pakistan with Afghanistan is the result of Islamabad ignoring the security issues while being busy preparing for elections as their new army chief General Asim Munir settles down, reported Al Arabiya Post.
According to Al Arabiya Post, a local-to-national digital media organization in the Middle East, the takeover of the Taliban in Afghanistan has encouraged several other terror groups to expand their terror operation in Pakistan.
This comes when the security forces of Pakistan already face regular clashes in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) pulled out of peace talks with Islamabad on November 28.
The Al Arabiya Post report also said while Islamabad has openly backed Islamic Jihad in Afghanistan since the late 1970s, it undermined the possible repercussions of supporting an extremist religious ideology on its territory and citizens.
Pakistan has toned down its 'pro-Taliban' narrative and is behaving like a victim of terrorism to divert international attention from its failures in Afghanistan, the report added.
Meanwhile, China which has been supporting Pakistan for everything now only seems interested in using and exploiting the resources of Afghanistan and has moreover remained silent and ignorant towards the humanitarian crisis situation, the Al Arabiya Post report said.
During the last year alone, terrorists of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Gul Bahadur group, the Islamic State-Khurasan, and several others have reportedly conducted at least 165 terrorist attacks in KP province which is a 48 per cent increase from 2020. Out of all these attacks, 115 of these were orchestrated by TTP, according to the Al Arabiya Post report.
The security establishment in Pakistan has also been facing severe issues, Al Arabiya Post reported citing a report shared during a recent meeting of Pakistan's National Security Committee, that there are "capacity gaps" in KP's counterterrorism department (CTD), revealing that CTD spends less than 4 per cent of its budget on operations, with "zero allocation for procurement".
The report says that in the last year, Punjab faced only five terrorist incidents, while KP witnessed 704 such incidents.
In yet another incident on December 18, terrorists affiliated to the TTP held at a Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) compound took over the establishment in Northwestern Bannu of KP province. This resulted in a two-day security crisis for which the Pakistan Army had to do a military operation to free the hostages. Similarly, on December 20 terrorists from TTP forcibly entered a police station in Wana of South Waziristan and successfully escaped after looting arms and ammunition.
The Al Arabiya Post further reported that General Michael "Erik" Kurilla, US Central Command (CENTCOM), visited the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and discussed opportunities to strengthen the "military-to-military relationship" between CENTCOM and the Pakistan Armed Forces.
Additionally, the US State Department has offered to help Pakistan in dealing with the "threats posed by the militant outfits.". These statements suggest that Pakistan is smartly playing the 'victim' card to bring back the US in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region on the terrorism issue, the report added.
The current Prime Minister of Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif while speaking on the Bannu hostage incident said that "attempts to spread chaos in Pakistan through terrorism will be dealt with iron hands". Although ironically there are no real steps taken by the government to deal with the on-ground security crisis, the report added.
( With inputs from ANI )
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