Terror never sleeps

Since the beginning of the year there has been a steady increase in low-level attacks in Karachi

The people of Karachi were beginning to get used to a security environment that was at least improved if still far from perfect. The incidence of terrorist and criminal attacks has dropped significantly in the last year, probably due to an assertive operation by the Rangers aimed at clearing the city of some of its worst elements. It is remarkably easy to engender a false sense of security, and the relative calm was shattered on February 12 with three separate bombings in dispersed locations. The blasts were of relatively low intensity and targeted a police station and two schools. Nobody was killed but one student was injured. The delivery of the devices was the same in each instance — men on motorbikes who delivered the package and sped away. The devices were locally made.

The targets might be deemed ‘soft’ and with a low casualty list and no fatalities, it might be assumed that these incidents were minor, unworthy of concern — but that would be seriously wrong. Law-enforcement agencies appear to have been wrong-footed. They were no less working under a false sense of security than were the rest of the populace, and what is evident is that the terrorist groups that had Karachi by the throat for so long are alive and in excellent operational health. No organisation has thus far claimed responsibility.

What is troubling is that since the beginning of the year there has been a steady increase in low-level attacks such as this, particularly in District Central. The targets have been Rangers check posts and police vehicles and there have been no arrests. The operation to clean up Karachi on this evidence still has some way to go, as reality acknowledged by DG ISPR Lt General Asim Bajwa at a press conference. He gave details of a major terrorist operation that had been foiled, with hundreds of kilogrammes of explosives and a variety of weapons seized. He spoke of terrorist groups cooperating, and not only in Karachi. Terrorism has a great facilitator in the extremist mindset that today permeates the national paradigm, and until that changes, the fight against it will not be won.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 14^th, 2016.

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