[DAWN] THE devil’s disciples have descended on Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
with full force this year, their evil machinations on naked display in the gory games being played within the region’s strategic depths. While an emerging Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
(IS) Lion of Islam group has grabbed credit for the recent assault on a police academy in Quetta, security officials believe that Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ...
al-Alami (LJ-A) executed the carnage.
In a series of terror attacks -- including the targeting of Quetta’s Civil Hospital on Aug 9, which killed at least 70 lawyers -- there is increasing evidence that banned Lion of Islam outfits are not only emerging with new names, but are also expanding their scope of activities from sectarian attacks to targeting state institutions in a cross-border rage.
These are ominous developments. Balochistan finds itself caught between the terrorist devils unleashed by dark elements of deep states within the region, their tentacles spreading far and wide. Our intelligence sleuths are convinced that those responsible for Quetta’s mayhem were sponsored and steered by the hostile intelligence agencies of some neighbouring countries. According to security officials investigating these attacks, local Lion of Islam groups -- especially Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) and its offshoot LJ-A, along with Jamaatul Ahrar
...A Pak Taliban splinter group that split off from the Mullah Fazlullah faction because it wasn't violent enough...
-- have developed a nexus with IS criminal masterminds in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar
The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country..
province. Over the last five months, Uzbek, Tajik and Afghan nationals have been inducted as part of an orchestrated terror campaign.
Let us examine the resurgence of LJ under the new brand of LJ-A. One of the deadliest sectarian Lion of Islam outfits, it is affiliated with both the TTP and Al Qaeda. As part of a drive against banned outfits as stipulated in the National Action Plan, it was claimed that LJ stood completely eliminated following a police ’encounter’ in Punjab
1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots....
on July 29, 2015, in which chief of the defunct outfit, Malik Ishaq, was killed along with four other key leaders. However,
a clean conscience makes a soft pillow...
the lethal organization made its presence felt when it hit back just over two weeks later when a jacket wallah targeted and killed Punjab’s home minister, Shuja Khanzada.
The LJ-A came to notice soon after 9/11 by establishing a presence in Afghanistan with assistance from the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda. It was founded by Abid Mehsud, who hailed from South  Wazoo. However,
a clean conscience makes a soft pillow...
it retained contact with LJ; the distinction was that one exclusively targeted Shias while the other hit security agencies and government installations. Reportedly, it was LJ-A that was responsible for kidnapping and killing two Pak intelligence officers. That incident is said to have resulted in the killing of Abid Mehsud in October 2010 at the behest of the then emir of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain Hakeemullah Mehsud. His next in command, Yahya Afridi, was also killed with four companions in  Kurram Agency
...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora...
. Shaukat Mehsud became the new commander. However,
a clean conscience makes a soft pillow...
due to the military operation in South Waziristan, the group went underground and lay dormant for quite some time.
This year, LJ-A became active again under the runaway Syed Safdar (alias Yousaf Khorasani) from Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
. Suicide attacks on security forces have intensified. The Lion of Islam outfit was the prime suspect in the Karachi Nishtar Park attack. It has footprints all over the targeting of Quetta’s legal community, as was evident from its front man’s belligerent statements blaming security agencies for targeting their commander’s family in Karachi. There were clear signs that the group was planning for bigger, more lethal attacks -- and then the police academy attack occurred. Our state agencies were, yet again, caught napping.
While the devil’s disciples are known by our security agencies, it is the primary responsibility of all the state’s stakeholders to ensure that we are not mired in these games. We should instead address internal security fault lines. I agree with ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan when he asked the government to reconsider its internal and foreign policies so that similar attacks can "at least be reduced if not entirely eliminated". He also added that "a peaceful Pakistain is impossible without a peaceful Afghanistan". The Iranian Supreme National Security Council’s secretary also denounced the Quetta carnage as "a sign of unbridled growth of terrorism and extremism across the region".
The helplessness of Balochistan’s government is evident from the statement given by its home secretary before a parliamentary committee: "Balochistan has become a cocktail of insurgencies, religious extremism and other criminal activities. We cannot hide that the system has failed..."
However,
a clean conscience makes a soft pillow...
the remedy sought is through draconian administrative pre-1958 powers under the Frontier Crimes Regulation to combat terrorism and organised crime in the province. It would be yet another recipe for failure as the provincial administration laments its lack of legal powers in a ’war zone’.
It is unfortunate that a sound legislative framework established by Police Order, 2002 -- along with extending the writ of the state in the entire province by replacing ineffective levies with a well-trained, fully equipped police force, established in all 30 districts on Aug 14, 2007-- was frittered away at the altar of expediency by tribal political chiefs and a scheming, power-hungry bureaucracy. The resultant void in the absence of a well-oiled law-enforcement machinery has seen sectarian and Lion of Islam outfits proliferate in lawless regions of the vast province. Civil armed forces and military cannot be a substitute for a long-term and enduring law-enforcement framework.
Meanwhile,
...back at the laboratory, Igor and Oleg were discussing what the quickest way might be to deal with the monster...
the police is marginalised and demoralised, with restricted jurisdiction and lack of political will to enhance its effectiveness through professional capacity-building, and expansion and allocation of resources. Its vulnerability was further exposed on proving such a soft target for the terrorists.
Merely suspending the academy’s commandant and deputies cannot absolve the provincial police command and the government of criminal negligence for failure to protect a facility that had been attacked twice before. Who is responsible for the loss of 63 precious lives and over 160 injured in this morale-sapping atrocity? One expected the provincial police chief to accept responsibility for the glaring security lapse, and the insensitivity shown in not appropriately dispatching bodies of the fallen to their final resting places. Making scapegoats of junior minions clearly erodes the leader’s moral authority.
Pakistain has the dubious distinction of being one of the 10 most lawless countries according to the World Justice Project’s 2016 Rule of Law Index. Our companions are Venezuela, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Cameroon
...a long, narrow country that fills the space between Nigeria and Chad on the northeast, CAR to the southeast. Prior to incursions by Boko Haram nothing ever happened there...
, Zim-bob-we, Æthiopia, Uganda and Bolivia. Is this the hall of shame we are comfortable occupying?
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Maulana Fazlur Rehman
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Wazoo
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