By IANS
Islamabad : A government elected in a fair and free election alone will be able to address the challenge of militancy in Pakistan, the media contended Wednesday in the wake of the devastating suicide attacks in Rawalpindi that claimed 25 lives and wounded nearly 60.
Newspaper editorials roundly condemned the Tuesday attacks, saying they were a pointer to the failure of the government’s anti-terror policies.
The blasts were also a fallout of the ongoing army operations in the restive south Waziristan province adjoining the border with Afghanistan and the assault on Lal Masjid here to root out armed fundamentalists, the editorials maintained.
“The fact is that a military-backed government does not have the credentials to work and execute a political strategy (to counter terror). It only knows how to use the gun,” the Dawn said in an editorial titled “The terror continues”.
By identifying itself with the US, President Pervez Musharraf’s regime had “become for the militants the proverbial red rag to a bull”, it maintained.
“At no other time in its history has Pakistan been in greater need of a broad-based representative civilian government which could be expected to tackle the problem of violence in which the country is mired today.
“If the government does not move towards the establishment of a broad-based civilian government, our army will remain bogged down in an unwinnable guerrilla war which will demoralise our troops, if they are already not so,” Dawn contended.
A government elected in a fair and free electoral exercise “will alone be in a position to develop a national consensus on addressing the challenge of militancy, restoring peace, and curbing religious extremism in the country”, the newspaper said.
“There should be no difficulty in joining the dots” between the twin blasts in Rawalpindi, Daily Times said in an editorial titled “Al Qaeda attacks converge on the army”.
“The security agencies are being targeted by the Al Qaeda deputy Baitullah Mehsud who today rules in South Waziristan and has established authority there as a deputy of Osama bin Laden, based on a complete taxation system and provision of services in a territory separated from Pakistan and annexed to Al Qaeda,” the editorial said.
“When the army and paramilitary forces went into South Waziristan to at least ‘show flag’ in the state run by Baitullah Mehsud, he kidnapped hundreds of their troops”, it maintained, adding: “The Rawalpindi strikes have to be connected to the ongoing campaign of Baitullah Mehsud to attack and demoralise the army and the police in Pakistan.”
The News urged an overhaul of the intelligence apparatus.
The government “needs to improve intelligence on the groups behind the attacks, those who recruit and train the bombers, finance them, provide them the necessary equipment and then deploy them”, it said in an editorial titled “Rawalpindi blasts”.
“The only way such terrorism is going to be effectively countered and in future such acts prevented is if the intelligence and security agencies raise their performance bar at par with that of the terrorists,” the editorial maintained.