Hard talk is one thing but tall claims should be made carefully. “Daish will not be allowed in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” said our army chief during a week of military diplomacy in the US recently.

Music to American ears? Can the chief prevent diehard Taliban and their surrogates in Af-Pak from heading to the Middle East’s combustible inferno to join the warriors of the so-called Islamic State? We can remove IS wall chalking but bigots on a suicide mission are difficult, though not impossible, to deter.

The general said that the military operation in progress was “against all hues and colours, and it is without any exception, whether it is Haqqani Network or Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan or anything”.

Read| Those who butchered soldiers will not be spared: Raheel

His pledge to continue the war against extremists until all terrorist groups were eliminated will be tested in his ability to de-link elements within the security agencies from the militant non-state actors and religious hardliners working for far too long as proxies in regional turf battles.

Another statement by the army chief, that Operation Zarb-i-Azb was not just a military offensive but “a concept to defeat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations”, defies ground reality, for this cliché does not address the confusion that prevails in society over how to tackle the militant mindset.

Forces of destructive religious extremism were unleashed due to faulty state policies, and the sponsors of violence and intolerance still find themselves perched on the fulcrum of internal conflict.

Instead of denials and blame games, we should set our house in order.

Frenzied fanaticism was yet again on display in Lahore’s suburbs recently when a mob, instigated by allegations of blasphemy against a poor and illiterate Christian couple, burnt them to ashes in the furnace of an avaricious brick-kiln owner. Can a military offensive defeat this mindset? General, think before you speak.

Last month’s military diplomacy coincided with the sixth anniversary of the Mumbai terror attacks. Also, the prime minister has just concluded an important diplomatic mission to Nepal for the Saarc summit against the backdrop of aggressive Indian designs to tarnish our image and alienate us on account of terror networks to sidetrack the real dispute over Kashmir.

“India’s propaganda that Pakistan shields terrorists is in fact an attempt to hide its own sins. We are curbing terrorism and terrorists,” said the prime minister a few weeks ago, adding that “blaming Pakistani institutions for acts of terrorism is a pack of lies.”

However, instead of denials and blame games, we should set our house in order.

The trial — in a speedy trial anti-terrorism court in Adiala jail — of the seven LeT operatives arrested for their role in the November 2008 Mumbai attacks is progressing at a snail’s pace.

Although the FIA’s Special Investigation Group did a very professional job of collecting evidence for the culprits’ indictment, the trial process slowed down following the FIA prosecutor’s murder and some material witnesses resiling from the original testimony: this may result in considerable national embarrassment if the ends of justice are not met soon.

The ‘concept’ of defeating terrorism in all its manifestations must start with addressing our basic internal security fault lines. Tackling sectarian terrorism should be our foremost priority.

Hardly a day passes when Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) militants do not target Shias in the country. Jhang was the epicentre of sectarian hatred in the early 1980s when firebrand cleric Haq Nawaz Jhangvi’s vitriolic anti-Barelvi tirades suddenly turned anti-Shia during the Zia era.

He, along with three others, founded the Anjuman-i-Sipah-i-Sahaba in 1985, later renaming it Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan.

After his murder in 1990, Riaz Basra, Malik Ishaq, Akram Lahori and Ghulam Rasul established a militant wing of the now banned SSP (which has re-emerged as the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat) and named it after him as Lashkar-i-Jhangvi.

Riaz Basra was arrested in 1992 by Lahore police but escaped from a judicial lock-up in 1994 and went on a spree of ‘holy’ killings till his capture and death in 2002. Meanwhile, Ghulam Rasul was also accounted for by the Punjab police.

The remaining two out of the original gang of four are still reportedly masterminding sectarian attacks from behind prison walls or detention centres.

The Shia Hazara community in Balochistan has also become a victim of savage attacks, especially since the escape of two hard-core LJ militants Saifullah Kurd and Dawood Badini from a high-security detention facility in Quetta cantonment in early 2008.

Finally, one of the aforementioned fugitives has recently been apprehended and this may prove to be an important breakthrough.

The TTP remains responsible for most violence in the country. It claims to have carried out “778 attacks since 2000”, according to a recent report released in London that ranked Pakistan third on the Global Terrorism Index.

The year 2013 was the most violent, with 2,345 lives lost in 1,933 incidents, and the decision to launch the military operation in North Waziristan Agency in June this year was belated but necessary. Its results so far are being acclaimed as more than satisfactory but the battle is far from over.

The military operation in Fata against TTP and its affiliates should bring in its wake rehabilitation of IDPs, economic opportunities and a criminal justice framework. Effective border control measures and proper administrative systems need to be established.

In Balochistan, the writ of the state should be enforced through the rule of law by expanding the jurisdiction of police so that the Frontier Corps can concentrate on border control. Similarly, the Karachi operation should focus on eliminating crime rather than the criminals. Violence begets violence and brutalises society.

This is a dangerous trend and yet another destructive extreme.

In the absence of a national security policy, a counterterrorism strategy or a counter-extremism plan, the military is trying to do what it is trained to do: shoot to kill those that it considers to be enemies of the state.

Unfortunately, the battle for hearts and minds cannot be fought or won through guns alone.

It is socio-economic justice, rule of law and due process that will eventually make a difference.

The writer is a retired police officer.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2014