Pakistan, Sept. 27 -- The men who attacked Dera Ismail Khan on Saturday were not content with ramming an explosives-laden vehicle into a police checkpost. Twelve people were killed in the blast, most of them civilians. When Rescue 1122 workers arrived to carry the dead away, their ambulance was fired upon, and two rescuers were killed. The city has seen enough terrorism to recognise the message. The target is no longer merely the man behind the barricade. It is also the state's ability to respond, recover and carry on afterwards.

Aman Mela sits near Darazinda on the DI Khan-Quetta road, close to the KP-Balochistan boundary. Barely a week earlier, a vehicle bomb and armed assault at Kohat Police Lines left 23 people dead, including 17 pol...