JUST weeks after the terror strike in Pathankot, Pakistan was hit by an even more deadly attack. Before that, in the same fortnight, there were major terror attacks in Istanbul, Jakarta and Ouagadougou. Terrorists, belonging to a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, attacked the Bacha Khan University campus in Charsadda near the city of Peshawar in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. The university is named after Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi. Ghaffar Khan, popularly known as “Frontier Gandhi” in India and “Bacha Khan” among his Pashtun compatriots, died 28 years ago. In fact, the terror attack on the university coincided with his death anniversary. Bacha Khan was a strong votary of non-violence and has spent a considerable part of his life in British and Pakistani jails for his active role in the freedom struggle and later on for his espousal of autonomy for Pashtun areas in Pakistan. The Bacha Khan University was established in 2012 when the left of centre Awami National Party was in power in the province. The party is led today by one of Ghaffar Khan's grandsons. Thousands of Awami Party members were targeted for assassination by the extremist groups in the last two decades for espousing a secular ideology. Four gunmen entered the lightly guarded campus of the Bacha Khan University on a cold foggy morning on January 20 and brutally killed around 30 people, most of them students. The terrorist siege lasting more than six hours ended after the killing of the four terrorists. Two lecturers in the university had to take recourse to fire arms and in the process were instrumental in saving the lives of many students. One of them a chemistry lecturer, lost his life defending his students. This was the second major attack on an educational institution by the Pakistani Taliban. In the December 2014 attack on a school run by the Pakistani military in Peshawar, 145 people were killed, most of them school children. After that traumatic event, the Pakistani army had declared an all-out war against terrorism, pledging to root the scourge completely by the end of 2016. Terror attacks were much fewer in 2015 as compared to the preceding years, after the Pakistani army intensified its counter insurgency efforts. Hundreds of militants have been killed in the last year. More than 300 militants have been hanged in the past year. The latest attack however has shown that the battle against terrorism is far from being won. The Pakistani army has claimed that the attack was planned and coordinated from across the border in Afghanistan. The Pakistani army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif has called the Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani and the Commander of the US forces in Afghanistan for help in nabbing the perpetrators of the attack. TTP leaders, including its nominal chief, Mullah Mansoor, are known to have fled to sanctuaries across the border in Afghanistan. A Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander, Umar Mansoor was quick to take credit for the attack on the Bacha Khan University. A day before the attack, the TTP had claimed credit for a suicide attack on a police post in the KP province which killed eleven people. But soon after the attack on Bacha Khan University, the TTP spokesman, Muhammad Khurasani issued a statement denying the involvement of his group, calling the terrorist attack an “un-Islamic act”. The statement condemned the attack on “a non military educational institution”. The TTP has said that it would bring the perpetrator of the attack before a Sharia Court for trial. The TTP had however given the credit for the December 2014 Peshawar school massacre to Umar Mansoor. The TTP in the past had specialised in attacks on educational institutions, especially schools imparting education to female students. The TTP had ordered the attack on the school girl activist Malala Yousafzai in 2012. She was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Many observers of the region have concluded that the TTP is no longer a unified force, with individual commanders now striking out on their own. Adding to the terrorist threat is the growing presence of the Islamic State (IS) in Pakistan. The group has already struck roots in Afghanistan and is battling for turf with the Afghan Taliban. The power and the reach of the TTP in Pakistan has been considerably reduced after the Pakistani military launched an all-out offensive in the tribal areas and in cities like Karachi, where many TTP leaders were hiding, from the beginning of 2015 following the December 2014 Peshawar school attack. Most of the radical “madrassas” have been closed down. After the Bacha Khan University massacre, Gen. Sharif once again reiterated the army's commitment “to wipe out the menace of terrorism from our homeland”. But some radical preachers like the head cleric of the “Lal Masjid” in Islamabad, Abdul Aziz, are still being allowed to continue with their activities. Immediately after the attack on the university, some Pakistani commentators and politicians even blamed Indian intelligence agencies citing the unfortunate speech of the Indian defense minister calling for unspecified action against Pakistan to avenge the Pathankot terror attack. In the other high profile terror attacks around the globe in the first half of January, the IS has claimed responsibility for the ones in Istanbul and Jakarta. The attack on the luxury hotel in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, was by the al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The Istanbul attack was carried out by a lone suicide bomber, who turned out to be a Syrian IS recruit who was born in Saudi Arabia. The targets were foreign tourists. Tourism contributes a substantial chunk of revenue for the Turkish government. Among the ten people killed in the attack in the second week of January were nine German nationals. The attack took place near one of the most famous tourist sites of the city. The IS seems to have taken a conscious decision to take on the Turkish government with which it was previously on friendly terms. The Turkish government had previously looked the other way as fighters along with arms and money were allowed to slip into Syria mainly for the benefit of terrorist groups like the IS and the al Nusra Front. After the Paris bombing, Turkey has come under tremendous pressure from its NATO allies to stop aid from reaching groups which the West has classified as terrorist. It has started arresting and repatriating individuals, including some from India, intent on crossing to Syria to join the IS. Turkey has received more than $3 billion in aid from the EU to cooperate. Previously, the IS only targeted groups in Turkey that it considered its enemies. The terror attack in Ankara that killed more than a hundred people in October last year was targeted against a peace rally that was dominated by Kurds. In July 2015, the IS suicide bombers killed 30 Turkish Kurds on their way to rebuild the city of Kobani in Syria. The other IS attack that rattled the international community was in Jakarta in the second week of January. The suicide attack in a busy commercial area of the Indonesian capital, claimed the lives of seven people, including the five attackers were also killed. Though the casualties were limited the attack has shaken the governments in the region. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim country where extremist groups have been active there for a long time. The Bali bombings in 2002 killed more than 200 people, many of them foreign tourists. Indonesian extremists are fighting in Syria. Before that they had seen action in Afghanistan and in the Philippines. Neighbouring countries are worried about the IS drive to recruit Malay speakers in the region. Thailand is faced with a Malay insurgency in its southern provinces. The city state of Singapore recently arrested 27 Bangladeshi workers suspected of sympathising with radical groups like the IS and al Qaeda. They were accused of planning to carry out terrorist attacks outside Singapore. 26 of them were deported from Singapore. Twelve of the 26 were arrested on arrival in Dhaka on “terror charges”. The attack in Ouagadougou was the first by the AQIM in the poor landlocked West African country. The terrorist after laying siege to the luxury hotel killed 22 people, many of them foreigners. The country's security forces helped by the French special forces, managed to rescue 130 people from the hotel and killing three of the terrorists. France has a military base in Burkina Faso. The statement from the AQIM said that the attack was “revenge against France and the disbelieving West”. The group had previously targeted the Radisson Blue hotel in the Malian capital Bamako, late last year, killing many foreigners. Violent jihadism seems to be now entrenching itself in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Iraq and Egypt too witnessed serious terrorist violence as the New Year began. A shopping mall and cafe in a town near Baghdad came under attack by suicide bombers. 45 people were killed in the second week of January in other terror attacks in the Iraqi capital. In Egypt, a group affiliated with the IS has claimed credit for a bomb blast in the El Haram neighbourhood in Cairo. Around ten people, many of them security personnel were killed in the explosion. The threat posed by extremist groups is being taken much more seriously by governments around the world. In India, the government carried out a massive security sweep on the eve of the Republic Day. The government arrested 14 alleged IS sympathisers from six cities. With the French president as the chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations, the Indian government took no chances.