Pak’s ‘good Taliban, bad Taliban’ theory recipe for disaster: Editorial

LAHORE - After the recent suicide attack on Lahore’s famous Hazrat Data Gunj Bukhsh shrine in which 43 people were killed and over 175 injured, intelligence agencies claimed that the Punjab government had already been informed about the impending threat.

Despite prior information, the provincial government failed to protect the people resulting in the massive bloodbath that ensued, which clearly shows that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led provincial government is still hesitant to initiate action against the Taliban, whose roots have only deepened across the country due to lack of the government’s will to take it head on.

An editorial in one Pakistan’s leading English dailies also opined that the country’s leadership still appears to be sticking to the non-existent ‘good Taliban’ theory.

“To cling to the ‘good Taliban, bad Taliban’ distinction is a recipe for disaster. To save Pakistan, we must fight them till the bloody end,” the editorial in The Dawn said.

While noting that the escalation in terrorist attacks against civilians was an indication of frustration among terrorists, it said that Pakistan should continue to hit the militants hard just as it did in Swat and Malakand.

“We need to pursue these monsters and eradicate them. By giving in to the terrorists, we would be handing over our state to them on a silver platter. We have to understand the enormity of the threat the terrorists pose to the Pakistani state,” the editorial said.

It also pointed out there exists a nexus between the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant groups, which were fathered by state to fulfil its nefarious ‘regional’ aims and were ably supported by the Pakistan Army.

The editorial added that the “Frankenstein Monster” created by both the political and military leadership has now gone out of control attacking even its mentors.

“There is a nexus between the TTP and other groups that were nurtured by the state for decades in an attempt to play some kind of ‘regional’ role. These groups are now out of control and have not even shirked from attacking their mentors’ abode, the General Headquaters (GHQ),” it concluded. (ANI)