The country must target all violent extremist groups, without distinction, as part of a new counterterrorism approach, writes Husain Haqqani, former ambassador of Pakistan to the U.S.
and wounded nearly 200, is the latest reminder of the enduring terrorist threat that plagues the nuclear-armed country of 220 million people.
Pakistan has faced terror attacks from one group or another since the late 1990s, when local veterans of the U.S.-backed mujahideen in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet Union during the 1980s turned their attention to other issues and causes closer to home. The government’s approach has ever since then been to work with some jihadis but spurn others.
Volunteers carry an injured police officer to a hospital following an attack on a police compound in Karachi on February 17. At least seven people were killed when a Pakistan Taliban suicide squad stormed a police compound in the port city of Karachi, with a gun battle raging for hours.Pakistani leaders 13 years ago, “You can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors.
in Pakistan since 2000, resulting in 66,601 deaths, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, a website that tracks terror attacks across the region. Groups such as the Afghan Taliban have enjoyed active Pakistani government support over the years, notwithstanding the militants’ longstanding ties with Al-Qaeda. That’s because the country’s all-powerful military saw them as allies in ensuring that Pakistan maintained greater influence than India in Afghanistan after the