Pakistan raids target militants after attack

Bombing at shrine raises fears about bolder Islamic State.

ISLAMABAD — A brutal attack on a beloved Sufi shrine that killed 88 people and wounded 343 raised fears that the Islamic State has become emboldened in Pakistan, aided by an army of homegrown militants benefiting from hideouts in neighboring Afghanistan, analysts and officials said Friday.

Pakistani security forces have carried out sweeping nationwide raids following Thursday’s bombing of the shrine in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province. The military’s public relations wing reported on its official twitter account that more than 100 suspected terrorists were killed in the raids, while 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 are flourishing under new names, have wrapped themselves in the banner of the Islamic State.

“The Islamic State might not have a strong organizational structure in Pakistan but we have thousands of members of banned groups sympathetic to the (their) ideology,” Hussain said in an interview. “They subscribe to the Islamic State world view.”

Thursday’s terror attack — Pakistan’s deadliest in years — stunned the nation and raised questions about the authorities’ ability to rein in militant groups despite several military offensives targeting militant hideouts.

It also threatened to drive a deeper wedge between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Islamabad quickly lashed out at Kabul, saying the bombing was masterminded in militant sanctuaries across the border in Afghanistan, whose own security forces have been assaulted by Islamic State fighters. Overnight Thursday, Afghan authorities said 17 Afghan soldiers were killed by Islamic State insurgents.

Pakistan’s Army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa spoke by phone with U.S. Gen John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to protest militant sanctuaries on Afghan soil, according to a statement carried on the military’s official twitter account. Bajwa said the Afghan government was not taking action against the hideouts and warned that its “inaction” was testing “our current policy of cross border restraint,” without further elaborating.

Underscoring tensions between the two neighbors, Pakistan fired rounds of artillery shells into Afghan territory Friday and shut down the Torkham border crossing — a key commercial artery between the two neighbors. 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 the Islamic State claimed responsibility. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has claimed to have carried out a number of attacks, including the Feb. 13 suicide assault in Lahore that killed 13 people.

AP People protest against a recent attack on a shrine, in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Friday. A brutal attack on a beloved Sufi shrine raised fears that the Islamic State group has become emboldened in Pakistan.