Growing Uncertainty Looming For Pakistan

Karachi was rocked today by a series of blasts that have so far left one dead and at least thirty-five wounded. Pakistan’s state-run news agency, APP, have described the blasts as ‘low intensity’ with the objective ‘to create panic’. These explosions follow Sunday’s suicide bomb attack in the capital, Islamabad, that left 15 policemen and two others dead and at least 40 injured. These attacks happened shortly after the close of the ‘Lal Masjid Shuhada (martyrs) Conference’, the first anniversary to commemorate the victims of the government’s military operation against the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) and seminary. 103 people were killed as a result of the July 2007 military raid. Sunday’s attack targeted security personnel and is being viewed as a possible revenge attack. Pakistan is no stranger to instability but the past few days have witnessed an apparent heightened state of volatility.

In October 2007, following her return to Pakistan after years in exile, former Prime Minister and leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Benazir Bhutto became the target of a suicide bomb attack in Karachi. She was assassinated in a subsequent attack in Rawalpindi on 27 December 2007. With 30.6% of the vote, Bhutto’s PPP emerged as the largest party following the February 2008 elections and formed a coalition government with the other main opposition party, PML-N. The parties of the new coalition government are united by their common enmity towards President Musharraf but the coalition government is far from stable and rumours of divisions have already surfaced.

In recent months the increased levels of violence have affected major cities like Islamabad and Lahore. Karachi has witnessed a relative level of calm but today’s blasts could see a worrying return to insecurity in the Southern coastal city.

These type of attacks are not new to Pakistan but their increased frequency is a concern for a government still trying to define its relationship with President Musharraf, while at the same time grappling with the difficulty of policing its porous Northern border with Afghanistan. Despite its reluctant population, Pakistan is a key ally in the US ‘War on Terror’ and has been under increasingly open pressure from US officials to do more to prevent cross-border attacks by a resurgent Taliban. With virtually no government control in the North-West Frontier Province, there have been calls from certain quarters that attacks within Pakistan by US or Coalition forces against Al-Qaeda or Taliban targets are acceptable. However, the infringement of Pakistani sovereignty can only serve to increase the appetite amongst the Pakistani population for anti-government action and risks the further destabilisation of the country. Coupled with the attack on the Indian Embassy in neighbouring Afghanistan today that left at least 40 dead and over 140 injured it is a worrying time for the region and one hopes that a tipping point in the level and magnitude of violence has not been reached.