The >attack on a police academy in Quetta , the capital of Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, is the second major terrorist strike in the city in recent months. In August, >73 people were killed in a suicide attack at a hospital . This time, the attack was carried out in a more sophisticated manner. At least three militants entered the academy and started firing indiscriminately before two of them blew themselves up. These recurring attacks, particularly in the west and north-west, threaten to pull Pakistan back to another cycle of violence after a brief lull. After the 2014 Peshawar school massacre in which 148 people, mostly children, were killed by Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants, the army had launched a large-scale operation against the militant groups operating in the north-west. After the months-long military and financial crackdown, there was a sharp fall in the number of attacks last year. But as the attacks in Quetta and Lahore this year would suggest, the post-Peshawar operation never defeated the militant groups. They may have retreated in the wake of the military campaign and are now regrouping themselves.
This resurgence of terror has new security dimensions. First, the site of the violence this time is Quetta. In recent years, Balochistan has been the focus of Pakistan’s counter-terror operations as the province is expected to play a major role in the $46- billion economic corridor China is building, connecting Gwadar to Xinjiang. Second, if the only major terror group the Pakistan army had been fighting till a few years ago was the TTP, an increasing number of groups and offshoots have made the fight more complex. This week’s Quetta attack, for instance, has been claimed by three groups — a faction of the TTP; Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a sectarian militant group, and the Islamic State. The Lashkar claims it cooperated with the IS to carry out the assault. If true, this opens the possibility for the IS to operate in Pakistan, where it does not have a strong organisational presence, through coordination with other terror groups. Responsibility for the August attack in Quetta was claimed by the Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, a breakaway Taliban faction, and the IS. This means that the Pakistan establishment has to fight a many-headed monster if it wants to return order and security to its cities. Unfortunately, the country has a record of hobnobbing with terrorists for geopolitical leverage, providing cover to some terrorists to bleed India and gain influence in Afghanistan. In the absence of a full-fledged fight against all terrorists, violent groups looking for recruits will find easy pickings in parts of Pakistan.
