Kamal Mustafa
When I see today’s date, it breaks my heart. We have just started the holy month. These days are meant for quiet worship. But in the streets of Bannu, that peace was completely destroyed. Instead of hearing the sunset prayer to break their fast, our soldiers were hit by the deadly blast of a suicide bomber.
On February 21, 2026, the soil of this country drank the blood of two more of its best sons. Lieutenant Colonel Shahzada Gul Faraz wasn’t just a rank on a piece of paper; he was a battle-hardened commander from Mansehra who knew the cost of war, a man who led from the front lines. And Sepoy Karamat Shah, a young lad from Peshawar with his whole life ahead of him. They were there to defeat the FAK people on an intelligence-based operation. They weren’t laying their lives in fair combat. They were martyred in a cowardly ambush by the Fitna al-Khwarij, an Indian proxy who dared to call themselves Muslims while butchering believers in the month of Ramadan.
Enough is truly enough.
I’ve spent years analysing this bloody game of chess on our western border, and frankly, I am exhausted. I am done with the polite press releases. I am finished with the thick dossiers of evidence we hand over to Kabul. I am sick of being told to “give time” to the interim government next door.
How much more time do they need? How many more coffins do we have to drape in the flag?
Let’s be clear about what happened in Sarai Dargah. A motorcycle rickshaw, laden with highly explosive material, crashed into the MRAP. Our boys didn’t die stumbling into a trap; they died springing one. They were out there on an Intelligence-Based Operation (IBO), hunting down a suicide bomber to keep the people of Bannu safe. And that is exactly what they did. When that vehicle-borne bomber rammed into them, Lt Col Faraz and Sepoy Karamat took the full force of the blast. They absorbed the fire so the civilians in the market wouldn’t have to.
In the firefight that followed, our boys wiped out five of the terrorists, stopping a disaster in its tracks. Yes, it is incredibly hard to lose a 43-year-old officer who worked for peace and a brave 28-year-old young man. But their sacrifice wasn’t in vain. Because they stood strong, hundreds of families went home safely that night. That is the ultimate victory of courage. We will carry their beautiful memory in our hearts and never, ever forget them.
These monsters didn’t just sprout from the earth in Bannu. We know exactly where they sleep. We know where they retreat to when the heat gets too high. They are sitting comfortably across the border, confident that an imaginary line on a map protects them.
We have warned our neighbour a thousand times. We have pleaded, we have demanded: “Do not let your soil be used to kill our children.” We showed them the coordinates. We gave them the names. And yet, the attacks keep coming. They claim ignorance, or they claim they are “trying,” but the result is always the same: Pakistani mothers are weeping over fresh graves.
Bannu has become an open wound. Just look at the timeline-it reads like a war diary. The cantonment breach last March, the twelve-hour gun battle in September… the footprints always lead back to the same place: Afghan soil.
It breaks my heart to see our soldiers dying because we are fighting with one hand tied behind our backs. The reality of war is ugly, but it is basic. You cannot end a threat by endlessly swatting at the tail of the snake while it keeps regenerating. You have to strike the head. And right now, the head of this terror network is resting comfortably in Kunar, Paktika, and Khost, just waiting to strike our boys again, but we should not give them another chance.
So, where does that leave us? As I see it, Pakistan has exactly two options left on the table.
Option One: We stop asking for permission. We launch precision strikes on the Khwarij hideouts. We use our drones, our air power, and our special forces to turn their safe havens into graveyards. We hit them in their homes so they stop coming to ours. We treat them exactly as international law allows a nation to treat an imminent, existential threat.
Option Two: See Option One.
There is no third option.
You lose the right to cry about “sovereignty” the moment your backyard becomes a launchpad for mass murder against your neighbour. Col Faraz was a man of action; he didn’t hesitate when he saw the enemy. Why should the state he died for hesitate now?
These Fitna al-Khwarij have proven they have no religion, no honour, and no humanity. The only language they understand is force.
To the families of Lt Col Faraz and Sepoy Karamat, we owe you a debt that cannot be paid with words or condolences. It can only be paid with justice. And that justice is waiting across the border, demanding we strike.
The writer is a freelance columnist.
