The massacre in Pakistan

Last week, a squad of six Tal­ibans stormed an Army-run school in Peshawar, Pakistan, and slaughtered 141 persons, 132 of them school­children. Doctors said the children, some as young as five years, were all shot either in the head or the chest.

Afghan Taliban cruelty seems to have risen to incredible heights since the ascendancy of its new leader, Maulana Fazlullah who, like Boko Haram’s Abubakar Shekau, glories in ruthless bloodletting.
A shocked world expectedly ex­pressed revulsion. From Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron condemned the “horrifying tar­geting of children.” The United States President, Barack Obama, remarked that the Taliban has once more displayed its depravity.
We commend the people of Pesha­war who have bravely defied the threats of the Taliban and gathered to honour the victims with flowers and mementos. Nigerians know what this sad incident feels like because the Pakistani Taliban and the Nigerian Boko Haram are two sides of the same coin. They are one and the same in bloodthirstiness and psychopathic violence. Indeed, Boko Haram is known also as the Nigerian Taliban. Both sides share the same antipathy to Western edu­cation. It is, therefore, not surpris­ing they attacked the school.
We understand the pain and an­guish of the Pakistani people. They have had to bear previous, numer­ous Taliban bloodshed, but the pe­culiarity of this case is that most Pakistanis could not reconcile Tali­ban politics with the massacre of in­nocent children. All the signs and protests seem to indicate they are not taking this massacre lying low at all, and agitation for revenge has almost begun.
There is a sign that the Pakistani government, in a fit of anger, has now lifted a moratorium on death sentences by which more than 500 Taliban terrorists might soon be ex­ecuted. Much as this might assuage some feelings and look like the Tali­bans’ just recompense for their das­tardly act, we urge the Pakistanis to reflect deeply on this move. Policy change at a time of emotional upset is never rational.
Taliban watchers seem unanimous that the group has been in a state of rage owing to its recent reverses on the battlefield. It is lashing out hard to show that it is still capable of causing as much damage as it wishes. The answer to that is that the Pakistani Army should not re­lent. Indeed, the massacre of those innocent children should serve as an impetus to move more strongly against the Taliban with a view to finally seeing to its final destruction or disbandment.
Thus, the backlash from the Pe­shawar massacre of innocent per­sons seems to have released vital energies against the Taliban. As one Pakistani put it, “the mood of the entire nation toward the Tali­ban was always of hatred, but there was an element of fear attached to it. This time, after they killed our children, the anger and sorrow have deepened so much that the fear has been eliminated. Every Pakistani is angry enough to forget the fear of the Taliban. Everyone is demand­ing action against them.”
We sympathise with the people and government of Pakistan on this horrible incident. The excesses of the Taliban and by extension, Boko Haram, may finally be their undo­ing. Many Pakistanis who had on religious grounds been tolerant of the jihadists now seem totally against them. The same reaction greeted the Boko Haram attack on the Kano Central Mosque where it killed 120 Muslim worshippers. Like all totalitarian and extremist organisations in history, they will eventually be destroyed by their own internal contradictions. It is only a matter of time.