The attack by terrorists in Sibi ended with the killing of seven law enforcement personnel and the injuring of 22 more, as the passage of the President’s motorcade meant that the main target was kept safe. While the nation may congratulate itself that the country’s President is unharmed, the attempt shows that the decision to hold the Sibi Mela, and that the President, was due to inaugurate it, was known to the terrorists. Balochistan is in the grip of two different strands of terrorism, one by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and the other the Balochistan Liberation Army. Apart from there being signs of these two organisations cooperating, the Islamic State-Khorasaan Province has also begun its activity, with the horrific blast on March 4 in Peshawar.
There seems to be a general lack of capacity of the law enforcing agencies to handle this threat. The multiplicity of threats may be one reason why the terrorists have got the apparent freedom to act. The Sibi blast may be an illustration of the problem. The security personnel were only able to save the President by sacrificing a large number of people not because they could foil the attack and capture the terrorists before they could explode their device. The attack could only be described as a failure because the President escaped. The loss of seven persons is a failure, probably of intelligence. The assumption that a Taliban victory in Afghanistan would end this terrorism doesn’t seem valid. The Afghan Taliban have refused to hand over TTP cadres on Afghan soil who are wanted by the Pakistan government. In other words, they are providing terrorist’s sanctuary.
Perhaps this is not the best time to be having a political crisis, as the intelligence-gathering agencies might be distracted by the threat to the government, when there is an even more serious threat to the state. If the state is not protected, there will be none of the playing of little games that the agencies have indulged, apparently to the detriment to deal with real threats. Talking has proved ineffective, now is the time to take the threat seriously.
