Pakistani Taliban take aim at
vote By Syed Fazl-e-Haider
KARACHI, Pakistan - As this year's
election calendar unfolds in Pakistan, Taliban
militants have stepped up terror attacks in the
country's northwest and intensified a struggle
against authorities to take hold of the southern
port city of Karachi.
The
Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has accepted
responsibility for two armed assaults last week in
northwestern Pakhtoonkhwa province.
While
21 were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a
Shi'ite mosque in Hangu on Friday, 13 soldiers and
12 militants were killed when Taliban militants
stormed a military camp in Lakki Marwat on
Saturday.
The TTP has said the Lakki
Marwat attack was in response to a
US drone strike in North
Waziristan last month in which two of its
commanders were killed.
"Pakistan has been
cooperating with the US in its drone strikes that
killed our two senior commanders, Faisal Khan and
Toofani, and the attack on military camp was in
revenge for their killing," Reuters reported a TTP
spokesman as saying.
Hangu lies close to
the country's northwestern tribal belt, branded by
the US as a headquarters of the Taliban and al
Qaeda-linked militants. It has emerged as a
flashpoint for growing sectarian violence against
Shi'ites.
A recent editorial in the Daily
Times said attacks against Shi'ites had become
"all-out genocide", with the paper demanding that
intelligence agencies coordinate better to prevent
deadly terror attacks and suicide missions
"We are witnessing a genocide, and if we
do not halt it, it will not be long before it
proves a curtain raiser for further
destabilization of the state and society," wrote
the newspaper.
The violence is
intensifying as Pakistan's government faces
political pressure from the judiciary and as the
country prepares for its first general election in
five years.
The 13th National Assembly is
expected to complete its constitutional term on or
before March 18, with a national vote needed
within 60 days. However, the Supreme Court in
mid-January ordered the arrest of Prime Minister
Raja Pervez Ashraf and 15 others over corruption
allegations.
Tensions were already rising
over key problems like graft, the country's energy
crisis, poverty and high inflation, and the
growing religious extremism and violence are no
less of an issue. While some parties and their
supporters take a pro-Taliban and anti-America
line, others are on the opposite side of the
fence.
The Taliban have also threatened to
target political gatherings of the country's
secular and liberal political parties,
particularly the Awami National Party (ANP) and
the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).
The
TTP has claimed responsibility for the killing of
ANP leader, Bashir Ahmed Bilour, on December 22 in
a suicide bombing during an ANP meeting in
Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa.
MQM is the largest political party in
Karachi and urban areas of Sindh province. It has
been a vocal critic of the Taliban and of
Talibanization in the country. TTP vowed to target
the MQM after it announced last year that it
intended to hold a public referendum throughout
the country urging people to vote on whether they
want a Pakistan run by the Taliban or the one
envisioned by the nation's founding father,
Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
Self-exiled MQM chief Altaf Hussain, who
resides in London, has strongly opposed dialogue
with the Taliban and supports a full-fledged
military operation against the militants. MQM was
the only political party in 2009 that voted
against holding peace talks with militants in the
Taliban's former stronghold of Swat, in Khyber
Pakhtoonkhwa.
Last month, MQM provincial
lawmaker Manzar Imam was shot dead in Karachi's
Orangi town area. The TTP has claimed
responsibility for the killing.
City on
fire Violence in Karachi, the country's
financial and industrial hub, has seen the city
descend into a state of political anarchy. The
Taliban want control of the city as it believes
Karachi can serve as a strategically important
base against international counter-terrorism
forces. Karachi port is used by the US-led North
Atlantic Treaty Organization forces to ship the
bulk of its supplies to troops fighting in
neighboring Afghanistan.
Karachi is home
to 18 million people. There are many ethnically
Pashtun-dominated areas including Frontier colony,
Nusrat Bhutto colony, Mangho Pir, Toori-Bangash
colony, Banaras, Suhrab Goth, Al-Asif Square,
Ittihad town, Sherpao colony, Qaidabad and many
slum areas of Karachi where the Taliban's
influence is rapidly growing.
Banned
extremist organizations and sectarian outfits have
also joined hands with the Taliban in Karachi. The
Taliban have an ideological affinity with
Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Sipa-e-Sehaba, Jaish-e-Muhammed
and other sectarian outfits, which are helping to
increase the Taliban's presence and influence in
the city.
Thousands of people moved to
Karachi from the Swat Valley when Pakistan's armed
forces launched a military operation there in
2009. Many Taliban militants were among the
refugees.
Signs of a Talibanization of the
city are seen in reports about ban on cable TV in
certain areas, while women are forced to observe
the diktats of purdah (a complex set of
rules that demands a veiling or covering of the
entire body or of parts of the head and face).
Many police stations, including in Suhrab
Goth and Mangho Pir, have been repeatedly attacked
by the extremists. Previously, Pashtoon areas of
Karachi were dominated by ANP, which has now shut
its offices in many areas, with several workers
either killed or forced to leave the area by
Taliban.
There is a growing sense of
lawlessness in the country's largest city. Law
enforcers are spectators as terrorists brazenly
kill in broad daylight. Last year, over 3,000
people lost their lives due to violence in
Karachi. In just January this year over 230 people
fell prey to targeted killings, mostly in
sectarian clashes
Dawn newspaper recently
commented,
With so many factors behind
Karachi's violence - ethnic, political,
sectarian, criminal - no one, especially in
government, seems to have any idea about what's
going on, or how to stop it.
It seems
that the state does not have the intention or
motivation to lift the lid off Karachi's boiling
cauldron of violence and identify the problems.
Nor do the city's various political
actors.
Syed Fazl-e-Haider (
www.syedfazlehaider.com ) is a development analyst
in Pakistan. He is the author of many books,
including The Economic Development of
Balochistan (2004). He can be contacted at
sfazlehaider05@yahoo.com
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