Pakistan: Herof 2.0 In Balochistan – OpEd
The wave of attacks on Wednesday in Balochistan, which the perpetrators so identified Herof 2.0, is not a new story. Violence is marketed as a product, and the headline is possibly supposed to propagate faster than the fact. But as the truths were beaten out with the shooting. The movement was spurred, dispersed, and very swiftly engulfed. The Pakistani security forces had positioned themselves everywhere and the order was restored within hours, and a long-term show was deprived to the attackers which they desired most.
Important is that contemporary militancy is perception based. Not a lot of individuals can take the risk of trying to look large by seeming to strike multiple places at the same time and then flooding the social media with fictitious content. The gap between the claims and the outcome was wide on this occasion. According to the security sources, the attacks are known as the Fitna al Hindustan which is also a foreign sponsored network that is linked to the BLA. The pattern, whether one has all the labels, is hard to miss coordinated messaging, messaging exterior amplification, on the ground failures, which augurs badly with bad planning and weak capacity.
Look at Quetta's Saryab Road. The intended attack on a police van, was not transformed into a rolling crisis. Their fire was immediately resumed by the police, a reinforcement of Frontier Corps was brought up, and four of the raiders were killed. That command is only noteworthy, not triumphalism, but in what it promises regarding preparedness. Quick reaction will prevent loss of lives and discouragement of copycat strikes and panic. Failing to prolong an incident that an event, terror groups cannot create the story of the day, and they cannot take communities hostage of fear.
Elsewhere the raids were merely reconnaissance in nature, intended to determine the strength of the defences, and to carry away propaganda. The militants tried to raid the Headquarters of the Frontier Corps at Nushki and had to resist. In Dalbandin, they reported that around the Frontier Corps Headquarters, explosions were reported and the security forces cordoned areas and attacked the attackers who went on clearing the areas. It was also tried to attack the office of the Deputy Commissioner and the police lines in Kalat yet again the reaction quashed the situation. These do not bear the fruit of a force at work. They are the results of a struggle to seem to be relevant.
The choice of targets is also quite eloquent. Reportedly, attacks have been made in Pasni to strike a Pakistan Coast Guards station as well as in Gwadar to attack a colony of labourers, as well as grenade and far-ranged fire attacks on posts in Balicha, Tump, Mastung, and Kharan. It shows their character as one of the groups is drifting off to the soft civilian worlds. Shooting down into homes of workers is not a liberation. And there is no decency of turning daily wage earners into the bargain chip. It is a disguised blackmail.
This is not only a press release line because the state stated that the province was still under control, two, or three people slightly wounded, and no strategic installations were damaged. It is an indicator on which these campaigns must be assessed. The terror groups make efforts to disrupt the government, disrupt strategic places, and cause larger riots. Otherwise, they should not be left to have symbolic victory by the general population. The last currency that they are left with to spend on is fear and fear lasts if people spend.
Context should also not be disregarded. The recent violence as ascribed by governments is seen to be due to the recent campaigns in which more than fifty militants had been killed in Balochistan. And if such a figure is true, then Herof 2.0 is a game that not quite fails to introduce a new chapter and more that comes out as a critical effort to demonstrate existence following a devastating loss. It is probable that pressurized groups will burst out. They should have a dramatic re-setting, which they can sell to recruits and donors. Despair, however, is no policy, and a precipitated campaign can fall as soon as it finds a properly organized reply.
The aspect that is the hardest fact is regarding the payer. It puts the blame on Bashir Zeb Baloch, Allah Nazar and Harbiyar Marri that is said to be operating outside Pakistan with its base being in Afghanistan. The bigger question is whether we are conversant with all the details of how it works or not. Leadership characters and manipulators will also keep the line of fire as far off as possible and the young men are pushed towards head-on assaults, suicide missions and abortive raids. The struck down bodies are hardly ever those which gave the orders. It is not resistance, but it is exploitation.
Propaganda is then introduced into the process. The people who are killed as part of failed attacks, civil wars and factional conflicts may be repackaged into forced disappearance through the help of related activist and media networks just like the briefing claims. It is a toxic game as it obscures actual problems of humanity. Balochistan is not without actual grounds to be concerned about and needs to be taken with sober reason; like lack of governance, the missing persons cases, and development, which is not always just. The armed groups would also destroy the same debate that should be offered to ordinary citizens through the application of pain to recruit.
In this sense, the security policy of Pakistan has two tasks at the same time. The latter is simple: prevent the attacks, protect civilians and disrupt the routes, through which money, weapons, and instructions are brought out. The latter is more challenging: ensure that the legal political arena is open, that policing is responsible, and the citizens are not asked to decide between militants and a heavy hand. Any successful counterterrorist activities should be as non-violent as possible without infringing the breathing space of civics. The floor is not secure since individuals are not listened to regardless of their safety.