WHILE Pakistan may not be witnessing the mass-casualty ter ror attacks particularly against civilian targets in urhan centres that the nation saw a decade ago, the militants are mal
The area in question covers three provinces KP, Balochistan and Punjab. It is also close to the Afghan border. In fact, some observers say that the southern KP districts provide `easy` access to militants to carry out attacks in neighbouring areas of Punjab and Balochistan. Experts have attributed the high frequency of attacks to the insufficient presence of troops in the area, while others say militant networks are quite active in this region. It is a fact that security forces are engaged on multiple fronts to counter the terrorist threat. Moreover, southern KP is also considered a hotbed of TTP activity. The security planners need to take all these realities into account while forging a counterterrorism plan that can bring peace to the affected areas, and prevent militant activities from metastasising into another full-blown insurgency.

It should be remembered that the earlier insurgencies which started out of Malakand and former Fata took similar trajectories, that led to a high civilian casualty rate. It took the sacrifice of many security men to neutralise the threat through multiple military operations. We can debate the folly of engaging the banned T TP for `peace`, and indeed, there should be accountability of all state functionaries who allowed the militants to return and establish a fresh foothold in their former stomping grounds. But the immediate need is to stop militant attacks and break up terrorist networks. Already major attacks have occurred in Karachi, Chitral, Peshawar, Mianwali, Zhob and Gwadar.

Therefore, through intelligence-based operations, security forces need to pre-empt terrorists, and plug the gaps that allow militants to strike at security men and civilians. Unless these steps are taken, Pakistan will be dragged back to its violent past when bloodthirsty outfits struck at will, and the state was reduced to fighting the fires lit by the militants. Better intelligence gathering and proactive CT strategies are urgently needed.