The security situation continues to spiral downwards since the TTP called off the ceasefire earlier last week. On Saturday, three more police personnel were martyred after unidentified armed men sprayed a mobile van with bullets on GT Road in the Akora Khattak area of Nowshera district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Since Wednesday, a series of attacks have been conducted by the TTP and it appears that our security forces are one step behind.
A day earlier on Friday, a constable was gunned down in Mardan district by unidentified attackers. On Thursday, one man was killed and a security official injured in an attack on the Army Public School for Girls in the Azam Warsak area of South Waziristan. On the same day in Charsadda, a constable was returning home from duty when unidentified persons opened fire at him, killing him on the spot. In addition this, the death toll from a suicide attack on a police truck in Quetta on Wednesday rose to four, as two more persons died during treatment.
With the TTP claiming responsibility for all of these attacks, this is a war being waged against our security forces and we do not have the luxury or time to ponder our next move. For a while it seemed as if the talks were not going to be fruitful, so there must have been a Plan B that we were planning to pursue if things go south.
On top of all of this, the attack on the Pakistan Embassy personnel in Kabul just illustrates the lengths the TTP are willing to go to. It is extremely unfortunate and tragic that we find ourselves in this position where innocent blood is being shed. While we must push Kabul to clamp down on the TTP cells operating on Afghan soil, we must simultaneously be initiating a nationwide operation to counter and eradicate the TTP cells that have infiltrated parts of the country.