Pakistan, May 11 -- On Saturday, the Fateh Khel police post in Bannu was hit by an explosives-laden vehicle, followed by gunfire from several directions and the reported use of quadcopters, leaving 15 police personnel martyred and three injured. The men asked to hold the line in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are too often being pushed into a new kind of war with an old kind of state behind them: drones, suicide vehicles and organised militant alliances on one side, under-equipped posts, exhausted constables and delayed attention on the other.

There is no ambiguity about the enemy. Armed groups operating under shifting names and splintered banners are killing Pakistani policemen, civilians and local elders while exploiting the Afghan border, sanctua...