Terror Attacks And Targetted Killings Rock Pakistan – OpEd
This has been a bloody March for Pakistan.
It began with the assasination of Mufti Shah Mir, a religious scholar close to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence ( ISI), who had helped them trap and nab Indian agent Kulbhusan Jadhav now in Pakistani custody .
Armed men riding motorcycles opened fire on Mufti Shah Mir on 6 March at Turbat in the restive Balochistan province and he succumbed to his injuries in a local hospital.
Mufti Shah Mir, close to the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F (JUI-F), had survived two previous attempts on his life. The attack came days after two leaders of JUI-F were shot dead in Khuzdar.
Then came the daring holdup of the Quetta-Peshwar Jaffar Express by the rebels of the Balochistan Liberation Army. The BLA claims it killed 214 Pakistani military personnel taken hostage in the holdup after their demands for release of Baloch political prisoners was turned down and Islamabad launched a commando raid to rescue the hostages. Pakistan claimed rescuing more than 300 hostages while the BLA says their fighters released many Baloch civilians and women, children and old people from other provinces. This was by far the most daring attack launched by the Baloch rebels who have now threatened they will target Islamabad next if Pakistan Army does not stop repression in Balochistan. Islamabad has blamed India for involvement in this attack, claiming the BLA attackers were in constant touch with their Indian handlers in Afghanistan.
If true, a renewed Indian intelligence presence in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan should add to Pakistan’s worries. Not the least because the Tekreek-e- Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has close links to the Afghan Taliban. Islamabad now blames the Afghan Taliban, which was created and bolstered by Pakistani intelligence, for backing the TTP, which have also attacked atleast three police outposts in March in the restive Northwest Frontier Province.
Immediately after the Jaffar Express holdup, unidentified assailants killed the “chief operations commander” of the Lashksr-e-Tayyaba (LET) , Ziaur Rehman alias Abu Qatal Sindhi. Not only was Qatal the right hand man of his uncle and LET supremo Hafiz Saeed, but he was also responsible for a spate of terror attacks in Indian Kashmir. Qatal was shot, again by unidentified assailants on motorcycles.
Then at the weekend, the BLA claimed killing 90 Pakistani soldiers when its fighters rammed an explosive laden vehicle into a military convoy at Noshik in Balochistan. While the first vehicle was blown up and completely destroyed, the soldiers in the second were mowed down by the BLA rushing down from elevated positions alongside the hilly road. Again, Pakistan blamed Indian agencies for orchestrating the attack.
Islamabad alleges Indian support for Baloch rebel groups in training and arming as well as providing tactical guidance. It cites an open threat by India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, the video of whose speech in an Indian academy, has gone viral. Doval is heard saying “next time Pakistan launches another Bombay style terror attack, it should be prepared to loose Balochistan.” Doval was referring to the attack on Bombay on 26th November 2008 by Pakistani terrorists that left nearly 200 dead. Even Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has raised the Balochistan issue in his speech to the nation on Indian independence day.
India has long claimed to be a victim over terror attacks launched by Pakistan-trained terrorists in Kashmir and Punjab. But since Doval took charge as National Security Advisor in 2014 under Prime Minister Modi, India has threatened to hit back . While it launched some counterstrikes on terror bases inside Pakistan using special forces, it has been forced to look for a more deniable covert strike option which does not risk escalation into an all out war as the direct attacks could.
Indian agencies have also been accused of using contract killers in Western countries to neutralize separatist elements from Kashmir a d Punjab. Several Indian intelligence officials have been named for an alleged murder plot targeting Sikh separatist leader G.P.S Pannun in the USA.
Interestingly, the spate in attacks in Pakistan follows the downfall of the pro-Indian regime of Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh. The interim government of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, under pressure from Islamist groups supporting him, has tried building strong relations with Pakistan. High-level military delegations from Bangladesh have visited Pakistan and vice versa.
