ISAS Insights

Pakistan has been hit by a new wave of terrorism. A series of attacks were carried out in February 2017, mostly in the tribal belt along the country's border with Afghanistan. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and some groups associated with that organization claimed responsibility for most of these incidents. These were followed by a suicide attack in Lahore in front of the Punjab Assembly building and one in rural Sindh. The latter killed almost 100 people who had gone to the popular shrine of Hazrat Shahbaz Qalandar. The Pakistan authorities responded by carrying out a number of operations inside the country in which 100 terrorists were reported to have been killed. On 22 February, the military was called in to help the civilian authorities with the return of large-scale terrorism. This paper examines the portents of these attacks for Pakistan and its political development and its relations with neighbouring Afghanistan