For those who prefer listening to reading, this article can be listened to at the link.
[Dawn] Acclaimed author and veteran journalist Ahmed Rashid on Saturday said Pakistain lacked a coherent policy to tackle the resurgence of the banned Death Eater group Tehrik-e-Taliban...mindless ferocity in a turban...
Pakistain (TTP).
After the TTP called off its ceasefire on November 28, Pakistain has been hit by a wave of terrorism, mostly in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, but also in Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
and the Punjab
1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots....
town of Mianwali, which borders KP. Terror attacks have also reached as far as Islamabad and Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
Rashid addressed the issue of rising terrorism in a panel discussion held on day two of the Karachi Literature Festival. The panel was moderated by Amber Rahim Shamsi, director of the Centre of Excellence in Journalism, and also included South Asian scholar Michael Kugelman.
The session was convened in the backdrop of a book by Shahid Javed Burki, ’*Pakistain: Statecraft and Geopolitics in Today’s World*’, but Friday’s Karachi Police Office siege by the TTP overtook the discourse.
Addressing the Karachi attack, Rashid said repelling terrorism was the army and special forces’ job and not the police’s. He also pointed out that the state was without a "coherent policy" on the matter.
"We’re using the wrong forces to combat terrorism and we are not really explaining what our policy is — are we talking to the Taliban or are we attacking and bombing them?"
He blamed former army chief and president Gen Pervez
PervMusharraf
...former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date. They'll hang him if they can catch him...for the "chronic situation" of simultaneously talking with and attacking the Taliban.
"We still don’t have a counter-terrorism policy or what it entails. We are not prepared to mobilise the public in support of a policy because there is none," he said, adding that Pakistain needed to go a long way for the struggle against terrorism to turn out in its favour.
"What has happened to the hundred coppers killed in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistain's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire...
attack?" Rashid asked, recalling the attack in a mosque in the city’s Police Lines area. "They have gotten lost in newspaper pages."
KUGELMAN SAYS TTP RESURGENCE NOT A RECENT PHENOMENON
Meanwhile,
...back at the abandoned silver mine, a triangular dorsal fin appeared in the water. Then another...
Kugelman said the TTP’s resurgence in Pakistain was not a recent phenomenon, even as he agreed that the group gained momentum in August 2021 after the Afghan Taliban took over Afghanistan post-US withdrawal.
"It’s true the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has ensured Pak terror group strength, but they have been actively operating as various factions and splinter cells," he said.
Speaking on Pakistain-US relations, he said that the former needed to understand that it was not as strategically important for the latter "as people in Islamabad think it is".
"Often the country also feels left out but that’s because it places itself with China," he said, adding that the US was not going to say it publicly, "but that’s what’s going on in Washington at the moment."
"Pakistain has not been at the foremost in the US mind after we pulled out of Afghanistan," said Kugelman in response to a question posed by Rashid. "However,
there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened...
the floods have made Pakistain relevant again globally," he added.
LIKENING IMRAN’S PTI TO MODI’S BJP AN ’OVERSTATEMENT’
The panel also discussed the parallels drawn in Burki’s book between former prime minister Imran Khan
...aka
The Great Khan, who is the lightweight's lightweight...
’s PTI and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. However,
there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened...
both Kugelman and Rashid termed it an overstatement.
There were a few similarities between their ways of leading their supporters and "cashing in on popular support", Kugelman said, but he added that to liken the two is a bit of an "overstatement".
"Is Imran Khan the new Bhutto?" Shamsi asked Rashid, drawing from the book where Burki writes he was with Imran when, during a power show, the latter claimed he would "sweep the polls like Bhutto did with his support".
Rashid said Imran was "famous for his u-turns", adding that even if he enjoys popular support, "nothing is there for the people".
Responding to another question, he said Pakistain had "narcissistic leaders" in place who feel the masses owe them favours, but "really they don’t do anything for the people in terms of peace restoration or economically".
"Nobody even wants to talk to the next person while the country suffers," he rued.