Residents of Swat protest against resurgent militancy
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is once again the province most endangered by resurgent terrorism, as the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has set its sights on targeting law enforcers in a bid to establish a “shadow” government in direct opposition to the state. After years of unrest, peace was established in KP through determined efforts by security agencies, only to be set aside when policies changed under then-prime minister Imran Khan and the generals who backed him. There was, however, a method to the madness. One observer noted that the almost 10 years the PTI has spent in power in KP brought the province’s economy, police, health, and education to the brink of disaster but faced little pushback because populist decisions helped it retain a favorable public image.
The PTI’s ambivalence toward rumbles of the TTP reviving its fortunes in KP can be traced all the way back to the 2013 general elections when the militant group sidelined the Awami National Party by attacking its leaders, martyring senior party leader Bashir Ahmed Bilour in a suicide attack during a public event. The attacks were so incessant that the ANP’s central leadership went so far as to stating that then-TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud “was the chief election commissioner of the 2013 elections.” The only party to largely escape the violence was the PTI, which tended to describe the militancy as a direct result of “flawed” policies of its political rivals.
After several years of peace bolstered by military operations, the TTP started to reassert itself in KP after the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Kabul, with civilians and politicians alike sounding alarm over threats of violence if they didn’t pay “protection money” to the militants. Amidst this, reports emerged of politicians from KP avoiding the region, with several decamping to Islamabad to ensure their security. In recent months, as the TTP ramps up its militancy, law enforcers have vowed that they would tackle the threat through intelligence-based operations, with hopes for the situation to improve in a few months. Unfortunately, little attention has been paid to reshaping the public narrative and securing “hearts and minds,” despite mass protests against the violence. Local politicians continue to be disregarded by the public, and youth radicalized by years of violence increasingly find the “utopia” of Afghanistan a favorable option to the confused policies of the state of Pakistan in the region.