Pakistan is no stranger to suicide terrorism. However, suicide attacks witnessed in 2021 and the first quarter of 2022 point to its revival and expansion from jihadist to Baluch ethno-separatist militants. Alongside representing the resilience of Pakistan’s asymmetric conflicts, the re-emergence of suicide attacks also signals a new phase in terrorism in the country. The April 26 suicide attack by a female member of the Baluch Liberation Army (BLA)’s Majeed Brigade targeting a van carrying Chinese nationals in Karachi further adds a gendered dimension to the rebirth of suicide terrorism in Pakistan (Express Tribune, April 26).
In this new phase, the underlying factors of suicide terrorism in Pakistan are qualitatively different from what they experienced during the U.S invasion of Afghanistan (Express Tribune, February 7). The Pakistani Army’s counter-terrorism partnership with the U.S. in Afghanistan, domestic counter-insurgency operations, and drone strikes in the ex-Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) region and Baluchistan accounted for suicide terrorism before the U.S withdrawal from Afghanistan. However, as the security situation has evolved with the U.S exit from Afghanistan, the driving factors for suicide terrorism have transformed from external to primarily internal causes. [1]
After a two-year lull from 2019 to 2020, as many as nine suicide attacks were reported in Pakistan from 2021 to April 2022.[2] Alarmingly, it is not just jihadist groups like Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP) that is using suicide terrorism, but also the Majeed Brigade of BLA (Dawn, March 20, 2022; Express Tribune, July 27, 2019). Against this backdrop, this article will examine the evolution of suicide terrorism in Pakistan in the context of the U.S withdrawal from Afghanistan and highlight the factors accounting for its revival and expansion.
Suicide Terrorism: An Intractable Feature of Pakistan’s Asymmetric Conflicts..............To Read More....
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