Violence in Kashmir has become depressingly familiar over the last two decades. But the violence has been along the Line of Control or Indian-administered Kashmir. Azad Kashmir has been relatively calm, and attacks on troops unheard of. Until now. On Friday, a suicide bomber struck an army barracks in Muzaffarabad, killing two and injuring three. Responsibility was swiftly claimed by a spokesman for Baitullah Mehsud who boasted that the strike was meant to demonstrate that the aerial pounding of Mehsud’s strongholds in South Waziristan had not damaged the group’s will or capability to launch attacks inside Pakistan.

The country has witnessed scores of suicide attacks in recent years, but there is a par-ticularly grim irony in the latest strike. Militancy and Kashmir have long been synonymous, Pakistan having pledged 'moral, political and diplomatic' support to 'freedom fighters' in Indian-administered Kashmir.

In recent times the country has woken up to the dangers posed by certain militants, but even now the discourse on the subject is largely personality specific. Indivi- dual militant leaders like Maulana Fazlullah in Swat and Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan are ‘enemies’ of the state and are being attacked, but there is little by way of strategic debate about whether or not there is any role for any non-state actor under any circumstances. Now the state and its security arm have come under attack in an area where they had long found common cause with militants of different stripes. 

But let there be no illusion that Baitullah Mehsud’s reach is confined to only parts of Pakistan. On Friday, a police operation in Karachi ended up in the death of five suspected militants and the seizure of a large cache of arms and ammunition belonging to a group allegedly associated with Mehsud. Often unnoticed at the national level, in recent weeks and months the law-enforcement agencies in Karachi have broken up various groups of militants believed to be associated directly with Mehsud or having some 

other connection to South Waziristan. It’s not clear yet why Karachi has been spared violence so far — theories abound that the militants may be using the city to raise funds for their war machine in Fata or that they are using the city as a recruitment and resting place and therefore are not keen to bring too much publicity to their presence in the city — but there is little doubt that the militants do have the capacity to strike in Karachi. 

The incidents in Kashmir and Karachi, then, are just another reminder of why it is so important to go after Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan itself and dismantle his network. As long as he is alive and free, he has the will and capability to cause mayhem all over the country. The state simply cannot fail to eliminate Baitullah Mehsud and his network.