Karachi - A Resilient City in the Face of Terrorism
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Keywords

Karachi Situation, Karachi Operation, Sustained Stability, Economic Development

Abstract

Karachi’s situation is very difficult to address. Three decades of violence has taken its toll on the socio-economic fabric of the city. The operational side of addressing the conflict situation has met with successes in post-Karachi operation. The figures are indicative of the strides made to break the infrastructure of the terrorism in Karachi, which also had political and international linkages. The backbone of the terrorists has been broken, main infrastructure dismantled, sleeping cells are now being targeted and lots of pre-emptive intelligence based operations are being carried out in Karachi. However, what has made the task of addressing the conflict matrix of Karachi more daunting and challenging is the resurfacing of the hard core realities: first, the criminal groups; armed groups and the non-state actors have overt and covert support of the political parties, second, this has resulted in the operation supposedly acquiring a political dimension, which is being resisted and resented by the mainstream political parties of Sindh as well as Karachi. The sustainability of the operation lies in addressing the issues of politicization of over stretched and under-funded police, lack of political will to take difficult decisions and the ability of political parties to clean their ranks and files and the issue of governance and de-weaponization of the city.

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