It must be mentioned that a splinter group of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), has claimed responsibility for the suicide attack. The JuA spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan, after claiming responsibility for the Lahore blast, declared the start of a new campaign, “Sound of Thunder” while also releasing a photo of the bomber on social media and identified him as Salahuddin Khurasani. The spokesman further said that the video message of the suicide bomber, which was recorded prior to the blast, will also be released soon. “We carried out the Lahore attack,” Ehansullah Ehsan, spokesman for the banned Jamaat-ul-Ahrar faction of the Taliban, told media by telephone after the attack. The JuA is led by a former commander of the TTP, Omar Khalid Khurasani, based in the Mohmand tribal district of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
The immediate reason behind the Lahore attack seems to be for the JuA to increase its militant and terrorist standing and profile as well to create fear and terror in the heart of Pakistan. The JuA has been carrying out terrorist attacks in different parts of the Mohmand agency and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, especially the provincial capital, Peshawar. However, these attacks have not created much stir as the KPK and Peshawar have been the target of such attacks for years, with Peshawar becoming the most targeted city by terrorists attacks in the entire South Asia.
But the valour of residents of Peshawar has forced the terrorists to rethink their strategy and the futility of targeting the city, as the people have had refused to be cowed by these consistent attacks. In other words, the terrorist have failed to damage the morale of the people of Peshawar despite hundreds of attacks on the city, including the most loathsome on the Army Public School, claiming more than 150 lives mostly of schoolchildren, the Meena Bazaar attack claiming more than 100 lives, the attack on a church claiming more than 50 lives and so on.
In this situation some of the newly emerged militant groups, while remaining connected to the umbrella organization, the TTP, decided to attack universities, by launching a huge attack on the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda. The group led by ferocious former TTP commander Umar Mansour, has vowed to launch more such attacks on universities and colleges, calling them the nurseries which produce professionals for the existing political, judicial and state structure of Pakistan, which they aim to bring down. While this group, or other militant groups, have so far failed to target any other university or educational institution in the KPK, primarily due to the very elaborate security arrangements of the provincial government, they have revisited their strategy by targeting the Punjab. In other words, the terrorists after failing to break the nerve of the dwellers of Peshawar, the heart of the KPK and FATA, are now going for the jugular of the Punjab, its capital, Lahore.
By attacking Lahore and the Punjab the terrorists want to create uncertainty and terror among the residents of the province and the city, and test the nerve of the government and its security apparatus. In the KPK dozens of security officials, most policemen lost their lives by challenging the terrorists, including such incidents in which policemen hugged the suicide bombers to save the lives of others, by sacrificing their own.
In such circumstances, the terrorists did not have an easy time; therefore, they now want to test the Punjab’s security apparatus. It is likely that groups like the JuA would be able to launch more such attacks in Lahore and the rest of the Punjab, to rattle the government and its departments as well as the people. This is very evident from the threat of the JuA spokesman, Ehsan, mentioned above.
Another very important reason due to which the Punjab and Lahore have not been on the target list of the TTP and its affiliated or splinter groups is because of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government, which has had a soft corner for the militant groups. It was Punjab’s Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who on March 09, 2010, had said that the Taliban and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz both opposed former military dictator Pervez Musharraf and, therefore, he was surprised that this common stance had failed to stop the Taliban from carrying out terror attacks in Punjab.
“General Musharraf planned a bloodbath of innocent Muslims at the behest of others only to prolong his rule, but we in the PML-N opposed his policies and rejected dictation from abroad and if the Taliban are also fighting for the same cause then they should not carry out acts of terror in Punjab (where the PML-N is ruling),” he had said at a seminar held in Lahore to commemorate the services of the late Mufti Muhammad Hussain Naeemi.
Then the PML-N did not have its government at the centre and the PPP, along with the ANP ruled in Islamabad. Now, when the PML-N has its government at the centre also and it has now taken the two important steps of letting General Musharraf go and executing Mumtaz Qadri, the killer of former PPP governor of the Punjab, Salman Taseer, who was blamed for helping an alleged blasphemer against the Prophet Muhammad (SAW), the Taliban now feel no compunction in attacking the Punjab, where the PML-N rules.
Thirdly, the attack on Lahore claimed by JuA is significant as the group had earlier pledged allegiance to the Middle Eastern terrorist group, the Islamic State. (IS or Da’ish)
It must be remembered that a couple of months back the IB Director General Aftab Sultan, had informed the Senate’s Standing Committee on the Interior and Narcotics Control: “There is an emerging trend that the terrorist groups are reorganizing while Da’ish is an emerging threat to the country.” Sultan had further testified that some banned outfits –LeJ (Lashkar-i-Jhangvi) and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan — were reorganizing themselves while the presence of Da’ish was getting more prominent than before. The IB chief said all local militant groups, including the LeJ and the SSP had a soft corner for Da’ish. Therefore, it may not be ruled out that IS could be the mastermind behind the Lahore attack.
On the other hand, chief military spokesman Director General of Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), Lt. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa, two days after the IB’s DG testimony in February, before the Senate, had revealed during a news conference that the law enforcement agencies had successfully broken the nexus between al Qaeda (subcontinent chapter) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Briefing media persons, the army spokesman had said security forces have achieved a major success during the ongoing Karachi operation by arresting over 97 hardcore terrorists, including three high-value targets (HVTs). “We have broken the overall network and nexus of terrorists belonging to al Qaeda subcontinent chapter and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. They were backed by Tehreek-e-Taliban… This is a major achievement, but we have much more to do.”
We had forecast in these lines, in these words: The Al Qaeda and the TTP have been relying on the LeJ to provide them sanctuaries, finances and recruits in Karachi and the Punjab because of the historical presence and strength of the last mentioned terrorist network in these areas. So, after the breaking of their nexus in Karachi, the activities of the Al Qaeda and the TTP would further coalesce around the country.
However, given the strong network of the LeJ in the Punjab as well as Balochistan, there is more likelihood that the rest of the leadership of the LeJ would relocate to these provinces. In order to survive and regroup, the LeJ would try to join hands with IS in the Punjab, which reportedly does have significant support in the province as well as with Jundullah another terror group in Balochistan. This is what seems to be happening now. In this situation, the only option for the government is to launch a full-blown operation against Punjab-based militant and terrorist groups with no mercy for any.
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