Pakistani Taliban Kills Dozens in Hospital Bombing

A suicide bomber attacked a Pakistani hospital on Monday, August 8th, managing to kill at least seventy and wounding well over one hundred.

The hospital, located in the southwestern city of Quetta, was at the time housing a prominent lawyer, Bilal Anwar Kasi, who had been shot and killed earlier in the day. Surrounding the entrance to the emergency department of the building were a number of lawyers and journalists protesting his death, as well as friends and family of Kasi, many of which died in the attack.

Witnesses described chaotic scenes following the bombardment in which bodies were scattered across the debris-laden floor and victims were crying for help. One witness from the New York Times, stated that the bomber was dressed in a traditional “lawyer’s uniform” – a black suit and black tie – and made his way to the center of the crowd before detonating himself.

Following the bombing on Monday, Jamaat-ut-Ahrar, a Pakistani terror group with ties to the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group also claimed to carry the attack out on Mr. Kasi, who was president of the Balochistan Bar Association and had been shot while on his way to the main court complex in Quetta.

There had been a string of assassination attempts on lawyers in Quetta earlier in the week that Mr. Kasi had strongly condemned in local media. Later, the prominent judicial figure announced a two-day boycott of court sessions as a means of protesting the killing of one of his colleagues.

Prior to their attack on Quetta, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar was known for their connection to al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. Yet, the group was oddly not listed by the U.S. State Department as a known terrorist organization until one week before the hospital attack, despite having conducted a number of deadly assaults during 2016.

In March, the group claimed responsibility for attacking the Gulshan-I-Iqbal park in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore. Seventy people were killed, mostly women and children, and another 300 were wounded.

In a statement following the attack, Ihsanullah Ihsan, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar’s official spokesperson, stated that the group targets Christians with the ultimate objective of sending a statement to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Since its split from the Taliban in 2014, the group has been operating in the Punjab province and has also taken credit for attacks on a polio vaccination team in April of 2016 the August of 2015 killing of lawyer Dr. Shakil Afridi, a man who helped the CIA locate Osama bin Laden.

Coinciding with the claim from Jamaat-ut-Ahrar on Monday, Islamic State in Pakistan also indicated responsibility for the attack via Amaq news agency. If confirmed, it would be the first attack in Pakistan conducted by Islamic State.

August’s terror attacks illuminates the growing blowback from Pakistan’s long-standing policy of harboring jihadists. The desires of Jamaat-ut-Ahrar to institute a full Islamic government in Pakistan and their determination to end the elements of the parliamentary-style system in favor of fully applying sharia law, ultimately puts both civilians and prominent officials at risk within the country.

The relationship between the government and these groups, regardless of their mutual antipathy to Pakistan’s neighbors,  ultimately  emboldens the expansion of Islamist terror networks, extends their operational range, and enhances their ability to recruit adherents eager to bring down democratic institutions, both in Pakistan, and worldwide.