A splinter group of The Pakistan Taliban have now stormed a university campus in northwest Pakistan and killed 21 people in cold blood. This faction that claimed responsibility for the incident is the same one that killed 130 students at the Army Public School in Peshwar in December 2014. In fact, it is probable that the memory of that attack was still fresh in students’ minds, which caused them to flee by jumping out of windows on the university campus; a move that saved many lives.
The northwest of Pakistan, a mountainous region, is home to many splinter groups of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. The country has been waging a war against these groups by launching a massive counter terrorism offensive that has certainly lowered the rate of attacks in other parts of the the country. However, while the bomb attacks have gone down, attacks by shooting, however rare, have not yet abated, especially in the region that borders Afghanistan. Interestingly, the Pakistan Taliban have condemned this attack.
For a long time now, the terror potential of groups in Pakistan have threatened their neighbours, especially India, which has borne the brunt of many a terror attack. Is diplomacy the answer here, or do countries need to come together and launch a bigger and more effective counter-offensive to put an end to this for good?
