Pakistan - Jundullah Claims Attack, Again

Terrorist group Jundullah has claimed responsibility for the attack in Quetta on Wednesday that killed four polio workers, including three Lady Health Workers. The group is notorious for claiming attacks carried out by other organisations such as the Wagah bombing on 2nd November, 2014. Jundullah is based in Karachi, and has reorganized itself four times since its inception in 2004, having its members arrested or killed by the police and other law enforcement agencies. Its track record suggests that the group’s primary focus has always been carrying out sectarian violence; be it targeting Shia scholars or bombing Ashura processions. In any case, the relevant authorities would do well to ascertain the authenticity of Jundullah’s claim and act against it irrespective of its involvement in the attack.
The militant group also claims to have met a delegation of Islamic State (IS) militants and has pledged allegiance to the ‘caliphate’. If true, it is a troubling development. IS has demonstrated its barbarity and sectarian hatred in Iraq and Syria, and cannot be allowed to form alliances with Pakistani groups that share its fundamentally evil ideology. Reports of wall chalking and distribution of pamphlets in support of IS cannot be taken lightly. Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan has clarified that there is no IS in Pakistan, not realising that people seldom find his assurances reassuring. The fact is that someone is carrying out a PR campaign on its behalf or impersonating it. Certain reports allege that sectarian organisations such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) are behind it. Surely, these publicists are very much present in Pakistan. What does the good minister plan to do about them? Hopefully, it is not the same plan he had proposed and attempted to implement for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP); tea and biscuits.
The government may also like to apprise the nation of the progress made so far in the investigations into the Wagah ceremony suicide bombing. TTP faction, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, that claimed responsibility shortly after the attack, has now also released information to support its claim. While the military is taking action in FATA, there is not much to witness in Pakistan’s rural and urban centers, especially in Punjab. Efforts aimed at improving the security apparatus remain critically missing. The police are inefficient and corrupt as ever. They are usually more interested in finding alcohol or hash on citizens to extract bribes while militants easily slip through. It would appear that the kind of reform that is the need of the hour has not even been conceived by the political leadership. How many attacks during the last ten years can be attributed to gross negligence instead of inevitability?