Countering terrorism

AFTER having been in the devious war on terror for eight long years and lost thousands of precious lives, the authorities have at last woken up to the need to set up a central counter-terrorism agency assigned to coordinate intelligence, emanating from different sources, about brewing trouble, to be able to nip it in the bud. According to Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who was talking to newsmen on Friday at Islamabad, an authority, known as the National Counter Terrorism Authority, has been constituted to serve as "a focal institution to coordinate and unify" all national counter-terrorism efforts. So far, as a critical eye would have observed, it has been a haphazard approach to the problem, which leaves the man in the street to his fate. It is not uncommon to hear, after a deadly incident has actually taken place, that information about a possible attack, even on the specific institution that has been hit, was available. Then road barriers would go up, denying passage to all and sundry, in utter disregard of the fact that one wore a suspicious look or it was an ordinary law-abiding citizen pleading to reach the place that provided him daily bread and butter. Things would ease, as time passed; there was no coherent policy. One hopes that the new agency NACTA, would replace this thoughtless manner of tackling the terrorist threat with solid pre-emptive measures.