A sudden bang broke the silence during Friday prayers at a mosque in my neighborhood, F-11 in Islamabad. For a moment, the congregation froze. Nothing had happened, but the reaction said everything. When even a harmless noise can disrupt worship, terrorism has changed how we live. We have almost normalized the abnormal: armed policemen outside mosques, barriers around everyday life. Yet the fear remains just beneath the surface.

That fear is not new to me. I have seen how quickly a terrorist attack can change not only a society’s sense of security but also how its institutions respond. I was at the Baton Rouge Police Academy in Louisiana on 9/11. Pakistan was then under US sanctions, and our course in critical incident management was part of a tentative reopening of professional contact. Ironically, we were preparing for a crisis exercise when a program assistant burst into the session: America had been attacked. Then came the names and identities of the attackers. We hoped the trail would spare our region. It did not.

Terrorism is not defeated by adjectives.— Dr Syed Kaleem Imam

Terrorism is not defeated by adjectives.

— Dr Syed Kaleem Imam

I returned to my post as senior superintendent of police in Rawalpindi, but to a different world. A choice had been made: “We are with America.” Pakistan became a frontline ally and, soon, the frontline itself. Yesterday’s fighters became today’s militants; some drifted into crime, others into terrorism. The serpent we had nurtured with the West during the Afghan war had turned on us.

Twenty-five years later,........

© Arab News Pakistan