On Friday, 17th February 2017, Chief of the Army Staff, COAS, General Qamar Javed Bajwa held a telephone conversation with US General John Nicholson, Commander of Resolute Support Mission (RSM) in Afghanistan, conveying his concerns over continued acts of “terrorism” in Pakistan from Afghanistan, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement. “Most of the incidents in Pakistan are claimed by terrorist organizations with leadership hiding in Afghanistan,” General Bajwa told US General John Nicholson. “The COAS said that such terrorist activities and inaction against them are testing our current policy of cross-border restraint,” the ISPR said in a statement.
Comment:
Pakistan has been rocked by eight attacks in just five day across the country in which more than 100 people were killed and hundreds were injured. The sudden escalation of attacks caught the nation by surprise, even though the political and military leadership employed the National Action Plan, after the brutal attack on the Peshawar Army Public school on 16 December 2014, employed military operations in tribal areas, undertook combing operations in urban and rural areas and arrested hundreds of people. They have been claiming that they have broken the back of “terrorist” groups and they are on the run. However, eight attacks in five days from Karachi to Lahore and Quetta to Peshawar on civilians and security forces has raised a big question mark over their claim. To brush asides fingers pointing towards them, they launched raids, just after alleged suicide attack on a shrine in Sehwan, Sindh, in which 88 people killed. The rulers claimed that they have killed 100 “terrorists” belonged to various banned militant and sectarian outfits.
Some people in the media raised a question that how is it possible that the regime came to know about so many “terrorists” in just one day, after the Sehwan attack? And if the rulers knew of them for some time, then why did the regime wait for some brutal tragedy to take place in order to neutralize them. Also the regime openly and strongly blamed the Afghan government for not taking action against groups who are using Afghan soil and launching attacks inside Pakistan. They closed the Torkham border, between Pakistan and Afghanistan, amongst other crossing points. The Afghan Embassy officials were summoned to the Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi, where they were handed over a list of 76 terrorists orchestrating “terrorist” activities in Pakistan from the Afghan soil. And hours after this demand, Pakistan security forces pounded the camps of alleged “terrorist” groups across the border in Afghanistan in the night of 17 February.
It is not surprising that before these attacks, the regime was facing an upheaval task to revive military courts, but after these attacks call for reviving them has gained momentum and now it seems possible which was seemed all most impossible just few days back. Also in this atmosphere of fear and hysteria, no one dares to cross-question the regime as to whether those being killed as “terrorists” were actually “terrorist.” It’s as if the regime has granted itself a license to kill with full impunity.
We have seen this atmosphere of free reign in the past as well after the Peshawar Army Public School massacre. The regime promised to eradicate “terrorism” and “extremism” but instead we saw the killing of those sincere Mujaheedeens who fight against US forces in Afghanistan and Indian forces in occupied Kashmir, as well as the arrest of politicians and political workers who demand the implementation of Islam and establishment of the Khilafah. The Shabab of Hizb ut Tahrir in Pakistan have been abducted, jailed and tortured severely in the past two years in which the Nation Action Plan was in full swing. So the current atmosphere of intimidation, extension of military courts and making laws more harsh against Islam will only be used to suppress the voices of Islam in Pakistan, which is the demand of the US in order to consolidate the US presence in the region. And the rulers are blindly following Washington’s dictates, instead of uprooting the actual cause of instability in Pakistan and this region, the US presence.
As the Muslims of Pakistan will never abandon Islam and accept the hegemony of America, so attacks against them will continue to take place, planned by the US agencies and their Raymond Davis Network, so the rulers use the pretext of so-called “terrorism” to suppress the call of Islam in Pakistan. The only solution is the eradication of the US presence, which these agent rulers will never dare to do. Such bold measures will only be undertaken by the Khilafah (Caliphate) on the Method of Prophethood.
Shahzad Shaikh
Deputy to the Official Spokesman of Hizb ut Tahrir in the Wilayah of Pakistan