Suicide bombing in Pakistan | A “terrible blow for the police forces” rekindles insecurity

A suicide attack targeting a mosque located in the heart of a secure government compound in Peshawar, in northwestern Pakistan, killed nearly 61 people and injured 150 on Monday, testifying to the growing insecurity affecting the country.

A powerful explosion occurred in the early afternoon, causing the roof and an exterior wall of the building to collapse as hundreds of people, mostly police, gathered to pray.

The Pakistani Taliban Terheek-e-Taliban (TTP), which has been stepping up its attacks on law enforcement for the past few months, officially condemned the attack, arguing that its militants are not allowed to strike such a place of worship .

Activists linked to a particularly hardline faction of the organization, however, said online that it was an act of “revenge” for the death of a feared commander who was killed in early August, notes Asfandyar Mir, specialist of South Asia attached to the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).

Based in Washington, Mr. Mir said in an interview Monday that there is no doubt that the faction in question has the capabilities to carry out such an operation.

The Pakistani authorities have placed the country on high alert, going so far as to deploy snipers on buildings in the capital to prepare for any eventuality.

“The terrorists want to create panic by targeting those who fulfill their duty to defend Pakistan,” accused Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a statement reported by Agence France-Presse.

Modus operandi

The TTP, which has close ties with the Afghan Taliban, returned to the offensive against Islamabad in November after cutting short talks with the central government that lasted several months.

They have since carried out dozens of attacks that have allowed them to expand their influence, even if they do not currently control a significant territorial area, notes Mr. Mir.

The TTP, officially created in 2007, has the ultimate objective of overthrowing the government in place in Islamabad to establish a regime based on a very strict interpretation of Sharia.

After increasing attacks targeting civilians, the leaders of the organization changed their modus operandi in a manifesto in 2018, noting that they would only target the country’s security forces and intelligence services.

Although they have long been allies in Pakistan and have made common cause to overthrow the previous government in Kabul and secure the departure of American troops, the Afghan Taliban support the TTP, notes Mr. Mir.

After returning to power in the summer of 2021, they released dozens of ISIS activists and offered de facto asylum to high-level commanders to organize their forces and orchestrate operations in the neighboring country.

Islamabad Replica

The Pakistani government is now trying to convince the Afghan Taliban to intervene to control their Pakistani counterparts, a scenario deemed unrealistic by the USIP representative.

He does not exclude the possibility that the country seeks to launch a major military offensive to weaken the TTP, as it did in 2014 in the northwestern areas near the border with Afghanistan, or carries out targeted strikes in Afghan territory.

The economic difficulties of the government, also struggling with significant political instability, may however complicate the organization of a muscular response, he said.

sprawling network

The rise of the TTP is also likely to worry the United States, which had obtained assurances from the Afghan Taliban that no group likely to want to orchestrate attacks abroad would be hosted on their territory, once the American troops left.

Although they now insist that their goals are local, the Pakistani Taliban have long-standing ties to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State armed group, and have tried to strike on American soil before.

They had orchestrated an attack in New York in 2010, which led to their formal designation as a terrorist organization by Washington. A man then tried in vain to detonate a car bomb in Times Square.

“We must be wary of the narrative of the Afghan Taliban” wanting that they will not allow any organization dedicated to international jihad to develop on their territory, notes Asfandyar Mir.

Even more so since the discovery in the summer of 2022 of the presence in Kabul of the former number one of Al-Qaeda, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who was killed by an American drone strike.

President Joe Biden’s administration remains confident that it has sufficient counterterrorism tools to “control the threat,” but it still has good reason to be concerned about the rise of the TTP, notes the USIP analyst.