By Sanjay Kumar
Two horrifying terror attacks on the same day demonstrate that current strategy against the Taliban isn’t working. Time to do something about it.
Two horrifying terror attacks on the same day demonstrate that current strategy against the Taliban isn’t working. It’s time to do something about it.
January 20 was a bloody day for Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the space of a couple of hours, two different Taliban-affiliated groups carried out horrifying attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Pakistan saw a deadly terror attack on a university campus in the northwestern part of the country, claiming at least 22 lives and injuring more than 60 people. Bacha Khan University, located in the town of Charsadda in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, was in the middle of commemorating the death of the legendary Pashtun leader, Badshah Khan, whom the university is named after. In the middle of a poetry recitation that was taking place as a part of the ceremony, gunfire erupted. The ensuing four-hour long gun battle claimed the lives of many students and teachers, who joined the tragic ranks of the many victims of terror in the country.
Terror also struck Afghanistan in the evening of that same day, when a bus belonging to the Afghan station ToloTV was attacked by a suicide bomber. Seven journalists are confirmed to have died, with many more wounded. This is the first time that so many journalists have been targeted by the Taliban in Kabul.
The two targets share one important commonality: the Taliban targeted “soft targets” that often criticize its behavior. Educational institutions and the media are vocal in their opinion against the Taliban and their methods.
Read the full story at The Diplomat