ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The television ad that debuted last week starts with a simple scene: A mother is waiting on a street corner for her child to get out of school. It looks like any other sunny day in any one of Pakistan’s major cities.
Then the car bomb explodes.
The grisly scene is followed by a simple message delivered by a series of glamorous-looking Pakistani celebrities, including movie stars, singers and artists: “We are not terrorists.”
A year ago, a major ad campaign focused on the threat of terrorism in Pakistan would have been unthinkable. Pakistanis remain deeply divided over whether the war against Islamist extremism should be fought by Pakistan alone, with U.S. assistance, or not at all.
But in the midst of a seemingly unending series of suicide bomb attacks across the country, the public debate over terrorism appears to be taking on a new sense of urgency.
Thursday, Pakistani lawmakers met for a second day with the country’s top security officials in a rare closed-door parliamentary session devoted to the violence that has gripped the country. The unusual move follows a sharp rise in the number of U.S. missile strikes on alleged al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives in northwestern Pakistan, near the Afghan border.
Two missiles, thought to have been fired by a U.S. Predator drone, crashed into houses in Pakistan’s remote tribal areas Thursday evening and killed at least six, Pakistani officials said. Officials in Washington, while not officially acknowledging a U.S. role, said the attacks are needed to combat insurgents whom the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to target.
But the strikes have inflamed tensions locally and have drawn rebukes from Pakistan’s fledgling civilian government.
The silence and lack of a coherent government response to the bombings have frustrated many Pakistanis. The multimillion-dollar ad campaign that calls on the country to “Say No to Terrorism” is only one sign of the dire turn in public perceptions of security.
“Whenever we see a car go speeding by, my brother and I are thinking: Maybe it’s a suicide bomber in that car,” said Asif Raza, a copy shop owner in the popular Melody Market.
