SHAFAQNA PAKISTAN (Shia News Agency)
Though Pakistan has launhced a decisive offensive against TTP yet it has failed to chalk out any strategy for Balochistan since a decade. The army chief’s high-profile visit to the Frontier Corps headquarters in Quetta on Wednesday, where he met the Balochistan chief minister and governor as well as the head of the FC Southern Command — who oversees security-related operations in the part of the province where the insurgency is at its height — makes that very clear. The Balochistan imbroglio is a complex layer-cake, none of it sweetly flavoured. The murder of 20 labourers from Sindh and Punjab appears to have stirred both the government and the military into action, though whether it is knee-jerk and short-term or strategic and focused remains to be seen. There has been talk in recent days of extending Operation Zarb-e-Azb that has emptied much of the north and south Waziristan agencies of their tribal populations — to encompass Balochistan. The reprehensible murder by separatists last week of 20 non-Baloch labourers in Turbat who were working on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, appears to have been the catalyst for this renewed focus on the province, despite the military’s ongoing operations against extremists in the country’s tribal areas. The Chief of Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif, on April 15 met Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to discuss the situation. He made a pointed reference, warning “foreign agencies and international agencies against trying to destabilise Pakistan by supporting terrorists in Balochistan”. This is a reference to India, long suspected of stirring the pot in Balochistan for its own purposes; purposes not far removed from tying up Pakistan military resources and creating difficulty on its western flank. The problem with Balochistan is that India is backing Baloch separatists while most of the BLA leaders like TTP’s Mullah Fazlullah has been hiding in Afghanistan. Now Pakistan should pressurized Afghanistan to take action against BLA along with TTP but the problem is that The Afghan intelligence agencies are under the control of Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, who is reportedly supportive of the Baloch insurgents, to the considerable frustration of our military and civilian leaderships. It is the civilian government in Balochistan, which after all has an elected set-up and assembly that should take the lead in finding a durable political resolution to the impasse. Until both Military and civilian leadership agree on a point Balochistan problem could not resolved.
pakistan.shafaqna.com
