Pakistan hunts for the enemy within
ISLAMABAD A brutal attack on a beloved Sufi Muslim shrine that killed 88 people has raised fears that Islamic State has become emboldened in Pakistan, aided by an army of homegrown militants benefiting from hideouts in neighbouring Afghanistan, analysts and officials say.
Pakistani security forces have carried out sweeping countrywide raids following Friday’s bombing of the shrine in the southern province of Sindh, which also wounded 343 people. The military’s public relations wing reported on its official Twitter account that more than 100 suspected ‘‘terrorists’’ were killed in the raids.
Government officials lashed out at Kabul, accusing the Afghan government of ignoring earlier pleas to crackdown on militant hideouts.
Zahid Hussain, an expert on militants in the region, said a toxic mix of violent Sunni militant groups, many belonging to banned groups that were flourishing under new names, had wrapped themselves in the banner of the Islamic State group.
‘‘The Islamic State might not have a strong organisational structure in Pakistan, but we have thousands of members of banned groups sympathetic to [their] ideology,’’ Hussain said.
The shrine attack – Pakistan’s deadliest in years – stunned the nation and has raised questions about the authorities’ ability to rein in militant groups, despite several military offensives targeting militant hideouts.
It also threatens to drive a deeper wedge between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Islamabad said the bombing was masterminded in militant sanctuaries across the border in Afghanistan, whose own security forces have been assaulted by Isis fighters.
Underscoring tensions between the two neighbours, Pakistan fired artillery shells into Afghan territory yesterday and shut down the Torkham border crossing, a key commercial artery. Pakistan said the barrage was in response to a militant attack on one of its border posts in its Khyber tribal region.
Pakistan TV, quoting unnamed military sources, said Pakistan targeted camps belonging to Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistan blames Jammat-ul-Ahrar for the shrine attack, although Isis claimed responsibility.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has claimed to have carried out a number of attacks, including the February 13 suicide assault in Lahore that killed 13 people, including three senior police officials.
In a phone call yesterday to Afghanistan’s national security adviser, Pakistan’s senior foreign ministry official, Sartj Aziz, accused Afghan President Ashraf Ghani of ignoring Islamabad’s earlier request to put an end to the militant sanctuaries in its territory.
Pakistan also handed over a list of 76 militants it says are hiding in Afghanistan, demanding that they be arrested and extradited to Pakistan.
Pakistan’s military did not specify who was on the list, but it has long claimed that the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Mullah Fazlullah, and other militants are hiding on Afghan soil with the purpose of fomenting violence inside Pakistan.
Hussain said the government’s counterterrorism strategy had been inept, allowing groups that had been banned to remerge, individuals on international terrorist lists to operate freely, and ignoring funding of these groups from radical Sunni Muslim charities in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states. AP