Pakistan Army should leave politics and get back to security. An airbase was just attacked

The return to power of the Afghan Taliban naturally encouraged all their associated groups to spring back into action. And Pakistan is certainly the most favourite target.

akistan’s security establishment thought that it had gotten rid of the threat of terrorism. But Friday, 3 November showed that they were wrong. The attack on the MM Alam Air Base at Mianwali, Punjab has shocked the country.  Militants have demonstrated their capability to capture a hard target—a training facility of the Pakistan Air Force.

After launching several counter-terrorism operations, the last being Radd-ul-Fasaad in 2017, the Pakistani military claimed that it had rid the country of terrorism.

Even those who did not completely agree, would not have imagined that terrorists would strike at a hard target in Punjab, usually considered the safest territory. Now the worry is that the Mianwali attack could be the beginning of another round of terrorism in Punjab. This ought to shake the ruling establishment out of its slumber and expose the country’s vulnerability to violence. This attack could be another inflection point for Pakistan.

The Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan (TJP), an affiliate of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attack. The TTP and its various components have attacked both soft and hard targets in Pakistan, including the Army General Headquarters (GHQ) in 2009, the Mehran naval airbase in 2011, the Minhas air base in 2012, and the Badaber non-flying airbase in 2015. The latest attack is an indicator that the problem of terrorism had just been swept under the carpet. Because terror elements swung right back into action at the first opportunity.