The realities of fighting terror in Pakistan

Last updated on: May 7, 2013 at 6:36 pm by Svend White

The realities of fighting terror in Pakistan 2013-05-07T18:36:49-05:00 Svend White

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The article below illustrates why I think Washington demands of Pakistan are often not only unfair, but seriously unrealistic given the challenges the country faces on multiple fronts today.

And world powers looking the other way as conflicts continue to rage in Kashmir and elsewhere doesn’t aid the cause, either.

AP IMPACT: Pakistan police losing terrorism fight – Yahoo! News

BADABER, Pakistan – Brothers Mushtaq and Ishaq Ali left the police force a month ago, terrified of dying as their colleagues had — beheaded by militants on a rutted village road before a shocked crowd.

They went straight to the local Urdu-language newspaper to announce their resignation. They were too poor to pay for a personal ad, so the editor of The Daily Moon, Rasheed Iqbal, published a news story instead. He has run dozens like it.

“They just want to get the word out to the Taliban that they are not with the police anymore so they won’t kill them,” said Iqbal. “They know that no one can protect them, and especially not their fellow policemen.”

Outgunned and out-financed, police in volatile northwestern Pakistan are fighting a losing battle against insurgents, dozens of interviews by The Associated Press show. They are dying in large numbers, and many survivors are leaving the force.

The number of terrorist attacks against police has gone up from 113 in 2005 to 1,820 last year, according to National Police Bureau. The death toll for policemen in that time has increased from nine to 575. In the northwestern area alone, 127 policemen have died so far this year in suicide bombings and assassinations, and another 260 have been wounded.

The crisis means the police cannot do the nuts-and-bolts work needed to stave off an insurgency fueled by the Taliban and al-Qaida. While the military can pound mountain hideouts, analysts and local officials say it is the police who should hunt down insurgents, win over the people, and restore order.

“The only way to save Pakistan is to think of extremism and insurgency in North West Frontier Province as a law enforcement issue,” said Hassan Abbas, a South Asia expert at Harvard University’s Belfer Center Project for Science. “Rather than buying more F-16s, Pakistan should invest in modernizing its police.”

[There’s more.]

Speaking of which, we’re off to the Land of the Pure in a mere 6 1/2 hours. A lot of people in Lahore are eagerly awaiting our daughter’s arrival, now aged 2 3/4.

This will be my 5th time. I must hold the world’s record for the least sight-seeing. Sigh…

I think I’ll try to see another Punjabi film in Lahore. That was truly an anthropological adventure.

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