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I still remember that when I was 6 years old, I woke up one night in the Pakistan Air Force’s Mess at Chaklala Airbase due to a tremor. My father had just been posted there and we were living in a small temporary residence for the first few months. He himself was awake and told me to go back to sleep as it was no earthquake, but in fact, an American C-5 Galaxy Aircraft had landed. It was one plane out of many that came to Pakistan, bringing aid for the Afghan refugees and of course, arms for the Mujahideen. The year was 1985 and Russia was fighting a bloody war in Afghanistan. Since there had been a long standing cold war between the then two superpowers, America was making sure that communism does not spread to the state of Afghanistan. The Mujahideens of that time were regarded as heroes, who were fighting against the evil reds and such depictions are apparent in movies like Rambo III and Charlie Wilson’s War.

When the Soviet Union lost the Afghan war, and in doing so, collapsed economically, America left us Pakistanis in the middle of a huge refugee crisis and thousands of trained mercenaries, who did not know what to do, now that the enemy has been defeated.

Pakistan is a third world country, and in a situation like this, where it needed support to help create peace on its Western border, all help was taken away. Afghanistan fell into civil war and nobody bothered to care about the countless that died in the daily conflicts. With millions of refugees stranded in Pakistan and with no hope of them returning, they became a constant burden on Pakistan’s limited resources.

In these long decades of conflicts, those that came as babies grew into young men, and they got all their education from the same madrassas(religious schools) that America helped Pakistan create. This new generation called themselves Taliban, which is a Persian word and means Students. We must keep in mind that these people were brought up at a time when doing Jihad (holy war) was the slogan to fight the Russians. These people were brainwashed into thinking that the greatest honor that they can get is to lay down their lives in the path of God. With the emergence of Taliban, one province of Afghanistan fell after another… so much so that even Kabul, the Afghan capital came under their control. After a long time there seemed a hope for peace in Afghanistan and looking at this hope, Pakistan recognized the Taliban rule on Afghanistan. This ensured that western border will be secure, no drug trafficking will be allowed and people will finally start returning to their homes. All was finally coming to peace and then the unthinkable happened … the twin towers on 9/11 fell.

The whole episode of 9/11 is shrouded in mystery. I find it really hard to swallow that those people who are really concerned about keeping long beards and keeping the women inside the houses will have enough brains to commit such a precise and well planned attack. But discussing the conspiracy theories is not the part of this topic, thus we move on to the aftermath of American war on terror in Afghanistan. During all this time the new face of enemy became America and whoever allied with it which Pakistan had to. The local populace was never happy of this union and since it had a lot of sympathies with the Taliban, it helped them hide whoever came from the porous Pak-Afghan border; the same Mujahideen (holy warriors) turned Taliban (Students) turned terrorists.

Again America left it to Pakistan to clear the mess that it had created. We were left with an enemy who knew the Pakistani terrain very well, the local customs, languages and a huge population that had sympathies with them partly because of the drone attacks that came from Afghanistan. When Pakistan Army went into its tribal areas to clear them from Taliban, they met heavy resistance. They met an enemy that had no honor, which used drug money to fund itself and used innocent civilians as human shields. They used Islam politically as religion is a great motivator and thousands of people were rolled in as they promised them martyrdom … the best thing they can achieve in this life.

With brutal beheadings, creating a reign of terror and showing no honor, the Taliban quickly lost support in many areas that they once governed. The Pakistan Army fought back and the Taliban are now on the run. But in all this, they are still taking their revenge by killing innocent civilians in suicide attacks.

We are at war and we have the enemy in our midst. Long has Pakistan been blamed for harboring terrorists but nobody blames the country that helped create this menace in the first place. We Pakistanis are now surrounded by terror. We do not know when and where the next bomb is going to go off. What we need from the world is to understand our plight and stand with us as we try to uproot this reign of terror created by the Taliban.

Islam does not promote terror, but it tells us to act against it. It has been said in the Holy book Koran that he who saves one life, saves all of humanity and he who kills, kills all of humanity. The essence of Islam is peace, which sadly has been lost in the false hopes of martyrdom and glory.