Pakistan paying for its own misdeeds

The attack in the northwestern city of Peshawar on October 28 was Pakistan’s deadliest since 2007 killing 105 and turning shops selling wedding dresses, toys and jewelry into a mass of burning debris and bodies. It came as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited the country to offer support for its fight against a strengthening al-Qaida and Taliban-led insurgency based along the Afghan border.

The bomb was directed squarely at civilians, unlike many previous blasts that have targeted security forces or government or Western interests.

For a country badly bloodied by a wave of suicide attacks (at least eight this month alone), the next tragedy appears to be collapse of governance. The Pakistani state is pitted against a wide array of militant groups across the country in a situation teetering on the brink of a civil war. And the chasm between the government and the people seems to be growing by the day.

October has been the cruelest month. Militants have struck UN offices, police buildings, army headquarters in Rawalpindi and ambushed security forces. The government response has been on expected lines: it swiftly sent troops to battle the entrenched militants in trouble-torn South Waziristan and beefed up security in all major cities. Reportedly, there were at least 72 check posts at entry and exit points around sensitive installations in Islamabad before these attacks. Now, the check points have been increased up to 300 in the federal capital.

The U.S. believes fighting the insurgents on the frontier is vital to defeating extremism in Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan, where Taliban militants with links to those in Pakistan are waging an ever more violent campaign against American and NATO troops. Underlining the threat in both nations, Taliban militants in suicide vests stormed a guest house used by U.N. staff in the heart of the Afghan capital on Wednesday, killing 11 people — six of them U.N. staff, including one American. Pakistanis should by now realize that the so-called ‘jihadis’ do not have country, citizenship and ‘religion.They are opportunists and maniacs.They love to kill and glorify. If there is peace there will be development but there is war there will be total destruction of ‘nation’. And in today’s time one cannot live in isolation and must follow the international rule of peace and cooperation. The Pakistani government and military is responsible for it as they harbored anti-social, radical elements. The old saying goes true for Pakistan... “If you dig a ditch for someone, you’ll be the first one to fall into it...”

It’s a self-generated war. If Pakistan is able to rein in the ISI and eliminate the support from areas within the government that are sympathetic to the Taliban - most of the battle will be won without firing a shot. What goes around, comes around. This nation has sponsored and trained the fanatics and now they are biting the hand that fed them. The face of terror is same everywhere. The common Pakistani people are paying the price for the deeds of their rulers.