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| Peshawar attack exposes Pak Army claims | |
By Farooq Ganderbali
The recent terrorist attack on the Badaber Air Force base in Peshawar has clearly betrayed the claim made by Pakistan Army about defeating terrorist groups especially Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other groups which have been targeting Pakistan for now eight years. The attack, brazen in its modus operandi, killed over 30 persons, at least half of them security personnel at the heavily secured air base in Peshawar.
In 2012, a similar, but smaller, attack by the TTP targeted the Bacha Khan Airport which is adjacent to the air force base attacked recently. The most shocking and brazen attack, however, took place in December last when TTP targeted a Pakistan Army-run school in Peshawar killing over 175 children. The attack shook the country and made Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to declare that there would no longer be any distinction made between good or bad Taliban. He declared –zero tolerance for terrorist groups. Pakistan Army chief, Raheel Sharif, made even bigger noise, flew to Kabul to admonish and threaten the new Afghan government and declared an open war against terrorists. Armed jets and combat helicopters flew to the tribal areas, especially in the north Waziristan, where TTP was alleged to have its hideouts.
Interestingly it was not the first time that combat jets and helicopters were pressed into service to kill Pakistani citizens in the tribal areas who were not long ago part of the army’s ``strategic asset``. In June 2014, the army had first launched an all-out military operation in the tribal areas after TTP refused any negotiations for truce and continued its attack against the security forces in particular. In fact, under attack, the TTP carried the attack to the heartland of Pakistan, Punjab and picked on ISI and military establishment and personnel. It was something the new Chief could not have allowed to continue without a major confrontation. The June military operation was a major offensive, the latest among the operations which have been going in the area since early 2002. The December Peshawar attack, however, laid bare the claims of victory and other lies of being in control made frequently by the chief and his senior commanders. The massacre of children in Peshawar exposed the deceit and failure of Pakistan Army to its people.
The result was another knee-jerk reaction and General Sharif deployed even larger number of troops and mobilised additional air assets. The army also quietly sought the help of the US Army to continue the Drone attacks which President Barack Obama had stopped following public outbursts in Pakistan and the US over the large number of civilian casualties. The difference this around was that the Drone killings were neither reported in the US nor in the Pakistani media. The media was kept out of the region being bombed. Reporting from the ground zero of the ``war on terrorism`` was missing from the prominent as well as local media outlets. Even the social media remained oblivious to what was happening in the tribal areas. The political leaders, including Imran Khan, who do not lose an opportunity to spew fire on Drone attacks on Pathan people, kept quiet. The Pakistan Army even sent its own Drones to kill its own people and there was a complicit silence on the part of the civil society.
The silence was principally bought by the army on the strength of its loud claim that the terrorists were on the run. Regular briefings were done by senior officials. Boastful claims of clearing areas held by terrorists were often made and reported as such. Even if the journalists tried to find the real picture, surely some might have done so, they were rebuffed, told to look at other stories, fed false information or simply threatened. Not surprisingly, some of the well known journalists like Hamid Mir were not merely threatened verbally but physical harm was inflicted on them. Some fled the country fearing death at the hands of goons employed by the security agency. The gullible were tempted with money and privileges and safety, all of which made the media a silent spectator to what was happening in the tribal areas.
The facts on the ground, in the absence of objective reporting, could be inferred from the military deployment and the likely damage the use of such deadly weapon platforms could wreak on populated areas. It is known that jets and combat helicopters carried out their deadly mission on the so-called hide-outs of terrorist groups in the tribal areas. It is also known that terrorists operate not from isolated mountain tops and valleys but from populated areas which offer them escape routes, local alert mechanism and some kind of immunity from bombing missions. Terrorists used local villagers as shield to counter all-out military offensives. It is not a secret either that TTP, and other terrorist groups, have been operating since December 2007 from Mir Ali and Miram Shah, two major urban centres in the tribal areas. Even the most precision bombing would kill civilians in hundreds. So for every terrorist killed, assuming that the dead were terrorists, several civilians lose their lives, limbs and certainly their home and belongings.
A part of the story could be gleaned from the experiences of those who have fled the war zone in the last one year or so. They talk of relentless bombing of civilian areas; market places being blow out, schools and other educational institutions strafed, bombed and rendered useless for years. Some rare photographs of the bombed zone have also emerged in the social media. They show rows of blown out buildings---homes, schools, office buildings, shops and market places with no human soul around. They are similar to the pictures which we see of Iraq and Syria on television channels. The bombed buildings, the refugees, the dead bodies, the lost children, widows, hapless women the tribal areas are missing from the public space.
In Pakistan, the tribal people don’t matter. Even Imran Khan, self-proclaimed leader of the Pashtuns, is not interested in taking a rally against the atrocities of the Pakistan Army against his people, the Pathans. He would rather cosy up to the Generals in Rawalpindi, and not take out rallies against them, to become the next premier. Hunger for power has blinded him. It has blinded others as well. The Generals have so far managed to hoodwink the people by boasting about their success in the battlefield against their own people. Some of them even publicly declared victory against their own people in the tribal areas.
Then, the attack on the Pakistan Air Force base in Peshawar happened. The deceit, the silence and the lies, all fell and dismembered as terrorists hit the army where it mattered—its secure bastion. The Peshawar air force base attack says a lot about Pakistan Army’s sham on its own people.
(The author is a Freelance Journalist and columnist)
(Disclaimer: The views, observations and opinions expressed in above write up of Scoop News are strictly author's own. Scoop News does not take any onus or liability for the veracity, accuracy, validity, completeness, suitability of any of information in the above given write up. The information, facts or figures appearing in the write up in no way manifest the position, standpoint or stance of Scoop News and the Scoop News does not assume any encumbrance or answerability of the same.)
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