Experts fear the return of a vicious and bloody cycle of militancy as two terrorist assaults within weeks claimed more than 100 lives in a country grappling with economic meltdown.
On Friday, Pakistan's Taliban attacked a police headquarters in Karachi in an hours-long armed assault that shocked the nation.Visuals released by Pakistan's security agencies showed three armed men entering the police headquarters with apparent ease.They killed two police officers, a ranger and a civilian, and injured 19 others, according to the police. None of the attackers survived.The incident came after more than 100 people, mostly police officers, were killed in an attack late last month described by the authorities as a suicide bombing inside a mosque.
A militant offshoot of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Jamat-ul-Ahrar, claimed responsibility for the attack inside a highly guarded enclave in Peshawar city, capital of the north-western Khyber Pakthunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s 'Frankenstein’s monster'
The TTP ended a ceasefire agreement with the Pakistani authorities last year despite multiple rounds of talks mediated by the Afghan Taliban.Sydney-based Ayesha Jehangir, a media, war and conflict researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, described the TTP as "Pakistan's Frankenstein's monster".
"Only this time, Pakistan – who has had an influence over the Taliban since the militant organisation was created in the 1990s – appears to be losing control, and the Karachi attack is evidence of the fact that the TTP problem is once more growing and is not confined to the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province only," she said.
The attack on the police headquarters in Karachi should not be looked at as an isolated event, she said. "Terrorism-related security problems in Pakistan run deeper than the recent terrorist attacks on police officials in both Peshawar or Karachi," she said.
Kabul has denied claims from Pakistani officials the TTP have been planning terrorist attacks from across the border in Afghanistan.Many analysts have blamed the resurgence of militancy inside Pakistan on Islamabad's alleged long-standing support for the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.
"What do you expect will happen when the state supports militant organisations in the region, and make religion a determinant of Pakistani political identity?" Dr Jehangir said."The result is that militants such as the TTP are now claiming their share in the country's politics, as did their comrades in Afghanistan."
Pakistani geopolitical analyst Malik Ayub Sumbal said the recent attacks showed Pakistan's mammoth spending on the army was having little benefit to the country. "The army's self-proclaimed success stories [against militants] and the recent rise of militancy is a clear contradiction," he said.
Successive Pakistani governments have denied supporting the Taliban.
Who are Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan?
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan was formed in 2007 as an umbrella organisation of various hardline Sunni Islamist groups operating individually in Pakistan.Also known as the Pakistani Taliban, the group pledges allegiance to, and gets its name from, the Afghan Taliban, but is not directly a part of the group that now rules neighbouring Afghanistan.Its stated aim is to impose Islamic religious law in Pakistan, as the Taliban have done in Afghanistan.TTP was headquartered in Pakistan's erstwhile tribal areas, that were long a hotbed for militant groups, including al Qaeda, whose members fled Afghanistan after the US-led invasion in 2001.
The TTP is responsible for some of the bloodiest attacks in Pakistan, including on churches, schools and the shooting of Malala Yousafzai, who survived the 2012 attack after she was targeted for her campaign against the Taliban's efforts to deny women education.Between 2008 and 2014, thousands were killed each year in bomb blasts and terrorist attacks.Pakistani forces were able to effectively dismantle the TTP and kill most of its top leadership in a string of military operations from 2014 onwards in the tribal areas, driving most of the fighters into Afghanistan, where they regrouped.
Economic situation 'unimaginable'
The surge in terrorist activity comes as Pakistan's economy appears to be buckling, following widespread floods last year that left a third of the country under water.Earlier this month, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif called the economic situation "unimaginable".Under pressure from global lenders, Islamabad has put in place severe austerity measures resulting in widespread poverty and disparity.
Latest figures suggest the central bank reserves in the country stand at $US3.09 billion ($4.47 billion), the lowest in more than two decades.Meanwhile, Pakistan's rupee has dropped 16.5 per cent in value against the US dollar in weeks.
Pakistan's 'climate catastrophe'
Pakistan's floods bear the hallmarks of climate change, and the disaster has also been exacerbated by political and economic issues.
Islamabad is negotiating with the International Monetary Fund on a $US2.5 billion lifeline which would provide temporary relief, but also add to the already soaring volume of debt the country owes. Karachi-based author and security analyst Zia Rehman told the ABC the Doha Agreement between the Afghan Taliban and Washington for US forces to leave the country had given new life to the Pakistani Taliban.
"After the deal between the US and the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban who was weak and divided got a renewed confidence to strive for the same in Pakistan," he said.Mr Zia said Pakistan was now in unfamiliar territory tackling the resurgence in militancy."The US is no longer involved in this once-called 'war on terror' and Pakistan's economic and the political situation is also very bleak," he said.
The desperate situation in Pakistan has prompted the head of the Australian Peace Organisation, Rubina Shahid, to leave Melbourne and head back to her hometown Karachi next week."People, especially women and children are starving to death in remote corners of the county, and in cities the rising fuel prices and terrorist attacks have forced investors to leave the country and shut down the little avenues for jobs and income," she said.
"There is already enough insecurity and poverty, I just wonder how would the people survive if the attacks [like the one in Karachi] began occurring again and again."
