The blasts in Quetta and Bajaur raise disturbing questions, particularly about the government’s talks with the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The purpose of such talks should have led to a cessation of such attacks, but it seems that they continue unabated. The terrorism that should have come to an end after the Taliban returned to power in Kabul, is continuing. The situation has apparently become more complex, for the TTP are not the only ones perpetrating terror. There are Baloch separatists on the loose, as well as other religious extremists, like the Islamic State-Khorasan. The latter is not even nominally under any sort of control of the Afghan Taliban, for it has carried out several bomb attacks there. Neither of these organisations has claimed responsibility for either of the attacks, but then, nor has anyone else.Both separatist and sectarian terrorists have been active in these areas in recent times, and it seems that this activity has not stopped.
Indeed, the readiness, which some might see as anxiety, of the present government to talk to the Tehrik Labbaik Pakistan, and also with the TTP, may unsettle those groups it is not talking to. Other groups might have gotten the message that it is essential to get away with as many atrocities as possible to persuade the state to talk. After all, the TLP has killed several policemen in its protests, while the TTP has not only claimed the APS Peshawar massacre, but also such high-profile assassinations as that of ex-PM Benazir Bhutto. At the same time, the holding, or progress, of talks is likely to tempt other groups to run amok The intelligence agencies have not been.doing their real job, haring off instead into domestic politics. They should be stopping such episodes from happening.
The USA talked to the Taliban before withdrawing, but that should not be any sort of example. The USA and its NATO allies were foreign occupiers who had a homeland to retreat to. The Pakistan government has no such place. The kind of talks going on are not supposed to represent a complete surrender by the government. It should remember that it is not like the USA and NATO forces, but like the Ghani government, which only talked a little, and that too merely about handing over its capital.
