(from the Monkey Cage, Washington Post, March 31)
This past Sunday, a suicide bomber exploded his vest, targeting an Easter picnic by a children’s playground in the popular Gulshan-i-Iqbal park in a middle-class neighborhood of Lahore. Flames reached to the treetops. The militant murdered 74 people and injured more than 300, turning a family holiday celebration into scenes involving pools of blood and scattered body parts.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan splinter group, Jamaat ul Ahrar, claimed responsibility for targeting Pakistan’s Christian minority celebrating Easter, even though both Muslims and Christians died in the attack. Pakistan’s law enforcement and security services say they have launched a dramatic military crackdown on militant extremists, in operations that span Punjab province.
To understand what happened and why, we need some background on Pakistan’s terrorist insurgency. Sunday’s attack reveals the sectarian, religious and, above all, class fractures that led members of one of Pakistan’s most marginal groups to be targeted so viciously and effectively...
Read the full article at its original site of publication, The Washington Post, HERE
