The bombing that took place in an imambargah in Shikarpur on Friday, killing more than 60 people and injuring dozens more, has prompted Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif to plough forward with his usual rhetoric and promises to rid the country of terror. He has gone one step further by linking terrorism and the “economic survival” of the country. Speaking at the passing out parade of the first batch of elite officers belong to the Counter Terrorism Force, he promised to win this war on terror “at any cost” and that the future of our coming generations and this nation would depend on beating back the terror threat. He also vowed to rid the country of the equally disturbing monster of electricity load shedding and gas shortages. These just seem like too many lofty promises, one of the only things the government has absolutely no shortage of. They are all very good if only the premier could have taken out some time to outline just how he and his government propose to combat terrorism and unburden the masses by making the bogey of energy outages disappear. So far, the PML-N has failed in implementing any sort of tangible plan to solve both issues. Yes, beating back the kind of terror threat Pakistan faces today, in which all sorts of soft targets, from schools to places of worship, are attacked, is inherently difficult but what is really required is that the government bring together all elements of a credible plan to beef up intelligence. The military may be conducting its operations in FATA but the blowback is almost always in the cities and there is no way conventional military operations can be conducted there. The only kind of operations in the cities are those that are intelligence-led in which strikes are pre-empted before they occur, before a suicide bomber takes off to meet his maker. Terror cells inside the cities must be broken up from within, with infiltration happening incrementally, degrading their ability to carry out attacks. What has happened to the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA)? There is no central platform where there is a coming together of intelligence gathering and dissemination, no kind of coordination at all. This kind of work cannot be left to the provincial authorities alone because terrorists do not respect provincial boundaries. We are dealing with a shadowy, elusive enemy, one that needs to be countered by an effective national action plan, not just mere words on paper or spoken at press conferences. The economy will never run whilst the electricity crisis rages on. There will be no kind of investment, whether local or foreign, if there is no confidence in the government for providing the basic amenities. We know that we need to survive, Mr PM, but just how to you plan to help us? *