Adil Najam
Once again our eyes swell up, our hearts miss a beat, our body shakes in shock and anger, and the banality of mayhem hits us in the gut, as the enemies of Pakistan continue on their killing spree. 23 Pakistanis are dead in Lahore in today’s dastardly attack already. More remain in critical conditions.
We have been here before: here and here and here and here and here here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and it seems everwhere. One cannot bear to count any more. One shudders to think. Just how many Pakistanis will be slaughtered by the beasts who do this before their hatred is satisfied?
According to Dawn:
LAHORE: Gunmen detonated a car bomb near police and intelligence agency offices on Lahore’s Fatima Jinnah road Wednesday, killing 23 people and wounding more than 100, officials said. At least four men with rifles stepped out from the car and opened fire on the intelligence agency building, then set off a massive blast when security guards returned fire, officials said.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik suggested the attack could be retaliation for the government’s military offensive to rout Taliban militants from the northwestern Swat Valley. Wednesday’s attack was the third major strike in Lahore in recent months. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest bombing. Police said one suspect was detained.
… The explosion sheared the walls off buildings in a main business district. TV footage showed bleeding bystanders and emergency workers carrying the injured toward ambulances. ‘The moment the blast happened, everything went dark in front of my eyes,’ witness Muhammad Ali said. ‘The way the blast happened, then gunfire, it looked as if there was a battle going on.’ Sajjad Bhutta, a senior government official in Lahore, told reporters that a car carrying several gunmen pulled up in a street between offices of the emergency police and the Inter-Service Intelligence.
‘As some people came out from that vehicle and starting firing at the ISI office, the guards from inside that building returned fire,’ he said. As the firing continued, the car suddenly exploded, he said. The ISI and police buildings were both badly damaged. An AP reporter saw dozens of troops entering the ISI building to supervise the rescue work, while gunshots were heard from inside the building even one hour after the blast. Television footage showed officers dragging a black-shirted man from the scene.
Malik blamed the attack on militants that government forces are fighting in the Swat Valley and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas near Afghanistan. ‘These terrorists were defeated in FATA and Swat and now they have come here,’ he told reporters.
How much of this is related to teh operation going on in FATA and Swat and how much is a continuation of what has been happening month after month and week after week is unclear, but what is very clear is that, as always, Pakistanis die, Pakistanis cry.
@ arjun
hey, logic?
so wht do you call open statements by taliban that they will not rest until they conquer all pakistan
so u mean taliban has never used children for suicide bombing
in this time, people like you should be suspected as talibanees and put to jail. are you freaking kidding me, people like you are traitors and need to be met with most severe punishment
logically, my left toe
@readinglord, i agree, wht sufis taught was message of love, what mullahs taught (like imperial churches of medieval time) is politics of power, blood and hatred
@bluofled: my friend, why should we negotiate with criminals and barbarians, my friend, there grees has no end, they want to capture pakistan, my friend, its our duty to humanity to not to surrender these, cause these barabarians have risen from the god forsaken caves of afghan, and they are drowned and deluded by the drug of power, they are addicted to game of power now, cause they just cannt believe that they have baffled USA and have driven pakistan army to walls. they DONOT want to end, until they capture all , and destroy e one..so we cannt negotiaite with these power hungry, cannibilastic, blood sucking vampires
@Muaruan: sir or madam….i am impresses by your analysis..WELL SAID…BRAVO
AND NOW MY TWO CENTS.
I AGREE THAT WE ALSO NEED TO KEEP IN VIEW THE HISTIRIC BACKGROUND SO WE KNOW V WELL ALL THE ENEMIES AND BE WARE OF THEM, BUT THIS WILD BESTIAL WOLF OF TALIBAN, IS A PHENOMENON THAT IS HAPPENING, AN UNPRECEDENTED SAGA OF BRUTALITY, A NEW PARADIGM WHICH USES CHILDREN AS A FUEL, AND IS DISTROYING THEIR MINDS BY CHANGING THEM IN KILL MACHINES LIKE IN MOVIES…”BOURNE ULTIMATUM”…..I HOPE WE SURVIVE THIS BEAST, I HOPE WE SURVIVE THIS TORTURE…AND I BEGAN TO WONDER ARE THESE “QOOMAY YAJOOJ MAJOOJ” THAT WE WERE WARNED OF? I FEAR THAT
@Nfarrukh
True muslim is not a subjctive term. If you do understand the book, and pray 5 times and do good etc then you would also be wearing hijab at one point etc.
The problem is we are not tolerant, if we can only stop be judgemental at first sight maybe we would be in better place.
To some people who have suggested, pak army should be on a british system nothing to do with religion, or problems are due to religion and we should keep religion to ourselves etc i mean what rubbish!
Does it make any sense that the Taliban would bomb and kill the very people they want to win over? Think logically, people.
While these are very painful times, one should keep in mind that this was predictable. Many of the targets in Swat and other areas escaped, didn’t get killed, and were expected to cause mayhem elsewhere whereever they could.
Unfortunately our country’s leadership didn’t prepare us enough for this inevitable outcome. But as it is said “it’s never too late”. As someone suggested, we, as ordinary citizens, must be vigilant and report any suspicious activity immediately to the authorities to prevent more senseless bloodshed. The media would do well to emphasize this point.
To “Talib”, I’d say please don’t hurt the feelings of the people further. Under normal circumstances, we should debate whether our flawed policies led to this, but now is the time to mourn the senseless deaths of so many people and the loss of so much property and the terror spread among peace-loving civilians. Don’t get me wrong. I’m also sad that a violent path had to be taken to stop the terror, and I wish even your Taliban friends who got killed in the operation could have been controlled by a better way short of killing them, but at this time, sorry it appeared there wasn’t.
Also as “Roxio” indicated, we must not jump to conclusions, such as suggesting it was a suicide bomb, although there are indications pointing toward it, such as the claim of responsibility and the tapped phone conversation aired on TV over and over again. Talk to any analyst, and s/he would tell you that such times are often exploited by provocateurs, internal or external, in order to cause chaos in societies. The finger of blame would immediately and naturally point toward the current enemy (the Taliban in this case) and the actual provocateur would not even be suspected. Executing such complex terror attacks need time and resources, so outside help (NOT referring to our Eastern neighbor) can’t be ruled out.
Also agree with those who are cautioning againt bringing Islam into this equation. Let’s just call them terrorists and not Muslims.