Outgunned and out-financed, police in volatile northwestern Pakistan are fighting a losing battle against insurgents, dozens of interviews by The Associated Press show. They are dying in large numbers, and many survivors are leaving the force.
The number of terrorist attacks against police has gone up from 113 in 2005 to 1,820 last year, according to National Police Bureau. The death toll for policemen in that time has increased from nine to 575. In the northwestern area alone, 127 policemen have died so far this year in suicide bombings and assassinations, and another 260 have been wounded.
The failure of the Pakistani police means that Pakistan can't really pacify the frontier area. Pakistan may be able to pummel the area enough to prompt temporary peace deals with tribal leaders, but this is just a punitive mission strategy and not a real strategy to strangle the jihadis in the tribal areas.
A punitive strategy by Pakistan may be enough for us regarding Afghanistan in the short run, but it does Pakistan little good since it just means the Pakistanis will have to start over again one day.
