On Monday, the TTP called off the ceasefire agreed with the government in June and ordered its militants to stage attacks across the country. This is a concerning development but not a surprising one given the trajectory of the negotiations. As per reports, this decision was supposedly taken after the Pakistan military launched an operation in the Lakki Marwat district. While the TTP is expectedly claiming that the ceasefire was violated by the other party, the fact of the matter is that the group was never serious about negotiations and the frequency of attacks continued to increase throughout this duration.
Talks between the two sides first started in October last year, and the process has broken down and resumed again a number of times since then. But with the unreasonable demands being tabled by the TTP, many saw it coming that there would be limited gains from holding talks, other than just buying more time. Looking back, it is safe to say that this strategy failed, and as Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari pointed out earlier this month, there is nothing wrong in admitting this and re-examining our approach to deal with the militant group.
While the government and intelligence agencies are yet to comment on the matter, what needs to be done next should be a fairly straightforward guess. The security agencies must have formulated a plan b for when talks collapse completely, and now with the threat of attacks escalating further, we will have to act fast.
Attacks have been on the rise since September, and most of them have taken place in and around Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, South Waziristan, and North Waziristan districts in KP. However, reports also suggest that TTP militants have infiltrated other parts of the country, so we will probably see a different strategy being employed in urban centres to counter this threat.
With the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar arriving in Kabul on Tuesday for wide-ranging talks with Afghan Taliban leadership, it is certain that the TTP will be on the agenda. Thus far, the Afghan Taliban government’s assurances have not helped the situation whatsoever. Kabul’s denial about the TTP operating from Afghan soil is a major hurdle that needs to be addressed because Islamabad has exercised immense patience and also agreed to hold talks upon its insistence. Now, we must adopt a harder stance and push the Afghan Taliban government to clamp down on the group. It is time to go on the offensive and root out any cells that have been established in the country as we cannot afford a repeat of the nightmarish security situation we experienced during the previous decade.