Pakistani Taliban Bombing Kills Secular Politician

On Wednesday, July 11th, the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a Awami National Party (ANP) rally that killed 21 people and wounded another 65. Among the dead was Haroon Ahmed Bilour, a secular political candidate running for a seat in the provincial legislature. The Bilour family has many ties to ANP. Haroon Bilour has been targeted numerous times, with one attempt in 2012 resulting in the death of his father, Bashir Bilour.    The attack has been condemned by the government and other political parties. The bombing comes two weeks before nation-wide elections for parliament.

The TTP has been attacking politicians and supporters of the secular ANP for over a decade. The ANP holds many political and social positions the TTP finds abhorrent ranging from fighting child marriage practices to empowering women to get an education and enter the work-force. As such, the TTP wants to shut down the ANP and discourage its supporters from attending rallies and from voting.

The Pakistani Taliban has experienced severe hardship in recent years. Drone strikes from the United States, a ground offensive led by the Pakistani government to gain control of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and a loss in recruiting numbers due to the rise of ISIS in Afghanistan, have all sapped the TTP’s strength and ability to occupy large swaths of the country like it once did. While these losses have degraded their ability to rule over territory, it has not eliminated their ability to conduct deadly attacks.

The United States has assisted Pakistan in destroying the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda within its territory. These efforts have included drone strikes, intelligence sharing, and using Pakistani troops within Pakistan to complete missions. However, these cooperative efforts began to fail, and the U.S. ceased intelligence sharing and coordinating on the ground missions with the Pakistani army.  At this juncture, the Pakistani army and government began to protest the drone strikes. Since then, relations between the two nations have been frosty with only occasional periods of cooperation between the two nations.

Despite high levels of mistrust among the two parties, neither of them wants to completely sever ties with the other as of now. The U.S. would like to continue to run supplies into land locked Afghanistan from the port of Karachi while the Pakistani government would like to continue to receive money, nearly a billion dollars on security alone, from the U.S. annually. The United States will continue to seek support from the Pakistani government but how Pakistan will handle itself in the future is currently unknown.