One wasn’t surprised that the militants finally attacked the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) camp in Badaber near Peshawar as it must have been one of their prime targets all these years.

Rather, one was surprised that such an attack didn’t take place earlier. The delay could have been due to one or the other reason -- possibly better security at the Badaber camp, existence of more important and vulnerable targets for the militants in different parts of Pakistan, or the presence until sometimes ago of lashkars raised by volunteers in Badaber and nearby villages to defend their area against militants based in the adjacent tribal territories.

These lashkars of armed villagers, who paid a heavy price for defying the militants due to the retaliatory targeted killings and suicide bombings carried out against them by the terrorists, folded up when the government withdrew its support out of concern that they could one day start defying the law.

The attack on the PAF camp Badaber, established in 1959 by the US to serve as its listening post of the CIA on the Soviet Union until it was closed down in 1970, was waiting to happen. The camp, which was also used as a training centre for Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s and where Soviet and Afghan prisoners were held, has been an accessible and vulnerable target due to its proximity to three militants-infested tribal areas, including Khyber Agency, the gun-manufacturing town of Darra Adamkhel which is also known as Frontier Region Kohat, and the Frontier Region Peshawar. The last-named two are semi-tribal areas and are among the six Frontier Regions straddling the boundary between the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and the settled districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Despite a series of military operations that evicted the assorted militant groups, including the Maulana Fazlullah-headed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Mangal Bagh-led Lashkar-i-Islam from Khyber Agency, FR Kohat and FR Peshawar over a period of time, it is apparent that the militants are still able to seek passage or hide in these areas while preparing for launching attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or in other parts of Pakistan. No doubt the tribal areas have become inhospitable for the militants due to the presence of security forces and the lack of support by the people, the fact remains that they could still intimidate some tribesmen to assist them or make use of their sleeper cells operating in and outside Fata.

The September 18 assault on the PAF Badaber camp killed at least 29 defence personnel, including 23 officers and other ranks from the air force, three civilian PAF employees and three Pakistan Army soldiers who were part of the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) that was rushed to the site of the attack to fight the attackers. This was one of the biggest losses of security forces personnel in a single attack since 2003 when Pakistan began its military operations against the militants in Fata.

Unlike the past, such terrorist operations by multiple attackers, the Badaber attack was carried out by men who weren’t wearing suicide jackets. Instead, they were heavily armed and carried enough provisions of ammunition and food to enable them to fight longer, possibly for a day and night after making a bid to occupy the PAF camp. Still it was a suicide operation, usually described as the "fidayee" mission by the militants, because all of these young men had opted to fight until death and cause maximum human and material losses.

From the terrorists’ point of view, it must have been a morale-booster as they overcame the security parameters and penetrated the PAF camp, caught most of the airmen offering the early morning Fajr prayers in the mosque off-guard and inflicted significant damage in the area where they were eventually contained. Though the outlawed TTP which claimed responsibility for the attack lost as many as 14 of its fighters, the fact that it was able to motivate so many men to go on a suicidal mission showed that it still has enough manpower to undertake such complex operations.

There is no doubt the TTP and its allied militant groups have lost territory they previously held in Fata, Swat and other places due to the military operations against them and the frequency of their attacks has slowed down. Still these weakened and fractious militant organisations with depleted strength continue to motivate and train fighters in their bases in Afghanistan in areas close to the Durand Line border to pose a significant threat to Pakistan. One reason of their tenacity is being able to ensure fewer human losses in every military operation directed at them by managing their escape from the battlefield before the start of action.

The Badaber attack triggered a debate about the preparedness of the defence, intelligence and law-enforcement agencies to tackle such threats. It certainly was a serious security lapse. Sadly enough, defence installations have suffered a number of terrorists attacks and yet newer targets are chosen by the militants and assaulted with relative ease and at the time of their choosing. In fact, the PAF installations in Peshawar including the camp at Badaber had been alerted about specific terrorist  threats and even then the attack couldn’t be thwarted in time.

Investigators were quickly able to identify five of the 14 attackers, who included three from Khyber Agency and two from Swat. This information got leaked to the media and federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was understandably annoyed as he felt it could adversely affect the investigation. He ordered an investigation into the leak to add to the series of investigations now taking place at the level of the PAF, the army, the intelligence agencies and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police as all of them were responsible to varying degrees for the protection of the Badaber base and its surroundings.

The presence of Swati fighters among the attackers explained the deep involvement of the TTP head Maulana Fazlullah, who belongs to Swat and partly ruled the valley prior to the May 2009 military action, in the planning and execution of the attack. The name of one of his leading commanders, Khalifa Omar Mansoor hailing from Adezai village located not far from Badaber, has also figured as the mastermind of the attack. It shouldn’t be surprising because this person was also the mastermind of the brutal terrorist strike at the Army Public School, Peshawar in which 147 people, including 122 schoolchildren, were shot dead on December 16, 2014.

Both Fazlullah and Omar Mansoor are based in Afghanistan and are forever planning and executing new attacks. The presence of the safe havens of the Pakistani militants in Afghanistan is an undeniable fact, but Kabul has been countering Islamabad’s allegations on this point by pointing to the presence of the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network leadership in Pakistan.

As expected, Kabul rejected Islamabad’s latest allegation that the attack on the PAF camp in Badaber was planned and carried out by militants based in Afghanistan. Pakistan is keen to share evidence to this effect with the Afghan government, but will this make any difference to the uneasy relationship between the two neighbouring countries considering the fact that the proof of the involvement of Afghanistan-based Pakistani Taliban in the attack on the army-run school in Peshawar last December was also shared with President Ashraf Ghani and his unity government without getting any real cooperation from Kabul to go after the masterminds of that assault.