Bushra Gohar - ANP Senior Vice President

The much needed clearing of North Waziristan of terrorists and establishing the state's writ is several years too late – unfortunately, it is still bogged down with the ‘Good, Bad Taliban’ policy.

The operation is a reaction to the Karachi Airport terror attack as well as regional developments ad international pressure and not the result of a substantive shift in our foreign or security policies.

Just like operations in other FATA agencies, again there are unconfirmed reports that ‘Good Taliban’ have been provided a safe passage or allowed to leave well before the commencement of the operation. Independent media access is being controlled so it is very difficult to verify claims of targeting and killing terrorists.

Civilian casualties too are not being reported or verified.

By flushing out or allowing 'Good' terrorists safe passage from one location to another is not a sustainable solution to a much deeper problem. The root of the problem lies between Rawalpindi and Islamabad and has to be dealt with at that level.

The nation is faced with existential threats because of the flawed and self destructive strategic depth policies. There are still some terrorists groups regarded as strategic assets who use our soil to carry out terror attacks in other countries or are used to intimidate and build pressures internally. With such policies we cannot expect to receive flowers from the other side. Outsourcing of our first line of defence to proxies has weakened the country's internal security.

The scourge of terrorism and extremism cannot be handled through knee jerk reactions but need a clear and demonstrated shift in security and foreign policies.