The wave of terrorist violence that has hit Pakistan recently exposes the Pakistan Army’s gross failure in doing what the country and Constitution mandated the force to do – to protect the lives and property of the people and the nation.
This failure raises serious questions about the army leadership’s ability to perform its fundamental duty towards the nation and its people.
The reason for this failure is loud and clear–the army has been busy in political engineering in the past two years. General Asim Munir’s blind hatred towards the former Prime Minister Imran Khan and the extent to which he had gone in the past year to humiliate Khan and his wife has come to haunt him and the country as a whole.
The army, under General Munir, has become parasites, nibbling at the very roots of the nation, leaving it impoverished and vulnerable to terrorism from all sides, except, ironically, from the eastern border. During his 15 months of tenure, Munir has managed to create two enemies on the country’s western border, which was the most secure strategic backyard not long ago. Iran has attacked Pakistan. So has Afghanistan.
Terrorism also stems from the western border areas–angry Baloch militants are measuring the army’s capability to take them on. So far the army has failed despite an orchestrated campaign to punish young men and women from Balochistan, abducting them and locking them up in secret prisons where they are beaten to death and their mutilated bodies thrown in dumps and street corners.
The army’s response to terrorism emanating from Afghanistan in the form of TTP is to bomb the neighbouring country with jets and drones and push millions of Afghans across the border. The Afghan Taliban, once Pakistan’s closest allies, has now become a bitter adversary. TTP, working under the patronage of the Taliban, has gained strength with every day Munir has been in GHQ as the Army chief. Several hundred security personnel, including soldiers and officers, have paid a heavy price for Munir’s failure to stop TTP from raiding border military installations and carrying out suicide attacks across the country.
The army’s ineptitude has emboldened even the beleaguered Baloch militants who have been targeting key military installations like the naval air base in Turbat. The killing of five Chinese workers in a suicide bombing has rattled the army and the country. The Chinese are livid at the failure of their so-called ally to protect their interests.
The Pakistan Army has rarely been caught in such a vicious bind as now under General Asim Munir. Last time was 1971.
