At the rally, more than 500 supportershad gathered ahead of elections expect-ed later this year, when the blast occurred. Analysts reckon that theattack was an attempt to remove JUI-Ffrom the contest before the parliamen-tary elections. Last year, IS said it wasbehind violent attacks against religious scholars affiliated with the party, whichhas a huge network of mosques and madrassas in the north and west of the country and is still considered to be aforce to reckon with,with huge follow-ing amongst the fundamentalists.The Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif,and President, Arif Alvi, condemned theattack and asked officials to provide all possible assistance to the wounded andthe bereaved families. It may be reca- pitulated that the JUI-F is headed by the Islamist cleric Fazlur Rehman, who ini-tiated his political career as a firebrand hardliner but who has also softened his political image in recent years to make alliances with secular parties purely for politi- cal convenience.Also, Bajaur is one of the several remote dis- tricts bordering Afghanistan in a region known in the past for militancy. The district was a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban – the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, known as TTP, and a close ally of Afghanistan’s Taliban gov- ernment – before the Pakistani army drove them out of the area.But the Afghan Taliban’s seizure of power in Afghanistan in August 2021 has emboldened the TTP and others. The TTP had unilaterally ended a ceasefire agree- ment with the Pakistani government in November, and has stepped up attacks across the country, largely targeting security setups and officials.It is also worth recalling that in January, a TTP
suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque inside a police compound in the north-western city of Peshawar, killing more than hundred.Then, the Taliban government in Afghanistan condemned the blast denying it’s complicity, in a statement by their spokesper- son, Zabihullah Mujahid, while the TTP said in a statement that the bombing was aimed at set- ting Islamists against each other. This theory looks plausible but suits the authorities. Pakistan’s military says militants are operating
from safe havens in Afghanistan.July 30’s bombing is one of the worst attacks in the north-westsince2014,when147 people, mostly schoolchildren, were killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar. It is evi- dent from the trend of terror attacks appearing as a pattern, that Pakistan is now seeing a resurgence of attacks by extremists since last year when a ceasefire between the Tehreek-e- Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Islamabad broke down. A report submitted to the UN Security Council recently mentioned that the TTP might be seeking a merger with Al Qaeda to create an umbrella organization that shelters all militant groups operating in South Asia. If true, that looks threatening.Pakistan has long blamed Afghanistan for not living up to its commit- ment to ensuring that its soil is not used for ter-
rorism in Pakistan. This said, what is disturb- ing is the fact that the IS and Al Qaeda are both present on the Pakistan soil assuming that the former has carried out the recent Bajaur suicide bombings. TTP is already a thorn in the flesh of Pakistan and has had involvement in the ear- lier suicide bombings in Peshawar and Karachi.It’s adversary, the IS, is now running its’ writ in Pakistan. The emerging pattern shows complete failure in the intelligence and security architecture of Pakistan. India being
it’s next door neigbhour, needs to alert it’s sen- tinels to heighten their vigil, should these ele- ments have a cascading effect impinging on the Indian security interests.Meanwhile, Pakistan Prime Minister, Shebhaz Sharif has very recently told the media about a strong possibility of ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s coming back to Islamabad and taking over the reins of Pakistan as it’s Prime Minister in the near future. It would be interesting to note if Nawaz’s long experience in handling governance will at all help containing the growing trend of terror in Pakistan.
