Pakistan in Media

Just as some semblance of normal life had begun to return to the battered city of Mingora, a suicide bomber has shown it is too soon for people to abandon the shroud of fear they have carried everywhere with them for months. Fourteen policemen died in Sunday’s attack on a police station. Following the blast the NWFP information minister has acknowledged that there is still some way to go before terrorism is vanquished. The suicide attack in Mingora, days after a similar attack on security forces in Khyber Agency, goes to confirm fears that the Taliban are anxious to show that they are not a defeated force. Indeed, their new young commander will be eager to demonstrate he is no less ruthless and no less effective than his predecessor. He undoubtedly realises too that the resumption of such attacks may be the only way to hold together a force in danger of fragmenting.

One question that arises is whether an important opportunity has been lost. There were analysts who suggested that the Taliban should have been gone after in Waziristan immediately after the drone attack that took out Baitullah Mehsud. Others hold that such premature action may have been unwise. It is impossible to say if there is one correct answer. But what is needed now is a serious assessment of the task that still lies ahead. The Taliban for the present remain a group that is largely intact. The recovery of pre-teen would-be suicide bombers in Swat suggests that they have planned meticulously and that dozens more boys may be preparing to carry out suicide missions in other places. If there are too many suicide bombings in the coming months, the myth that the Taliban are invincible will be resurrected and this will make the task of inflicting a final defeat on them all the harder.
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