Defense News quotes South Asia Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Claude Rakisits on what can be done to prevent terrorist attacks, such as the recent one carried out by the Taliban against a school in Pakistan, from taking place in the future:
Claude Rakisits, nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, believes there is little the military can actually do “except to try to prevent more of these terrorist acts — an almost impossible task.”
This is because “while the TTP may be divided and the operation against it has weakened it, the Pakistani Taliban are not a spent force. This was a daring operation. The school is located in a secure area of the city and several check points need to be passed to get to it.”
Rakisits has heard from colleagues in Peshawar that the attackers were speaking a language other than the native Pashto, which he believes indicates they may have been Uzbek allies of the TTP who have executed many high-profile terrorist attacks.
He also thinks the attack removes any hint of negotiations with the TTP, and “given the depravity of this attack, it must mean that the military’s six-month old operation must be starting to bite.”
Furthermore, “the TTP finally realizes that the military has indeed decided to target all militants, and that the days of differentiating the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban are over with.”