Pakistan sowed the Taliban. It reaps the harvest
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s brazen attack on Jinnah International Airport shows how the Karachi Project is finally unravelling. Designed in 2003 by Pakistan’s spy agency, the ISI, to nurture militant groups against India, the Project resulted in the 2008 Mumbai carnage, among others, and has been directly responsible for the deaths of over 500 Indians since 2005. Now, with those same militant groups training their guns, and literally so, on Pakistani targets, the Project seems to have come full circle. It is hardly a coincidence that as militants laid siege to Karachi Airport, the scenes that flashed across television screens in India inevitably brought back memories of 26/11. In this context, 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed's accusation that the new Government in India had engineered the attack on Karachi marked the height of both irony and stupidity. The reverse process has been in the works for some time now, beginning with the birth of the TTP in 2007. Identified as the ‘bad Taliban', as opposed to the ‘good Taliban’ which carries out Pakistan's proxy war in Afghanistan, and its sister outfit, the lashkar-e-Tayyeba, which implements the anti-India campaign, this group's stated aim is the dismantling of the Pakistani state and the establishment of Sharia’h rule. It has routinely attacked Pakistani institutions, citizens and assets. From the assassination of Benazir Bhutto to the attack on Malala Yousafzai, the group has especially targeted Pakistani soldiers and religious minorities. In fact, on the day the TTP attacked Karachi airport, a lesser known faction of the militant network, Jaish-e-Islam, killed 23 Shias returning from a pilgrimage in Iran.
A weak-kneed Pakistani Government has sought to contain the TTP by negotiating with the terrorists. But the peace talks initiated in February have all but collapsed. This was expected. It was assumed that the failed negotiations would eventually pave the way for a major military operation against the terror group. But, while there have been some airstrikes in TTP strongholds in recent months, the Government is still resisting a full-throated campaign. Will Sunday’s assault change its mindIJ