Pakistan was hit by a terrible attack on Sunday, July 30, during a political rally a few months before the elections. It is a suicide attack, which left many dead and injured. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for this tragedy, the toll of which continues to grow to reach at least 54 dead, including many minors. Some 400 supporters of the conservative religious party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F), a key ally of the governing coalition, were waiting for speeches to begin when the bomber blew himself up near the scene.
Senior Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) official Shaukat Abbas told AFP that 54 people had been killed, 23 of whom were under the age of 18. Over a hundred were injured. “I experienced terrible scenes: lifeless bodies scattered on the ground, while people were screaming for help,” Fazal Aman, who was near the scene of the explosion, told AFP. The attack occurred in the town of Khar, in the district of Bajaur (North-West), 45 kilometers from the Afghan border.
On Monday, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. “An Islamic State suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest in the middle of the crowd” in Khar, Amaq, the jihadist group’s news outlet, said in a statement. The local branch of the Islamic State group has previously targeted JUI-F rallies and leaders.
On Monday, bloodstained shoes and prayer caps still littered the floor, along with steel bolts and ball bearings from the jacket worn by the bomber. Chunks of human flesh remained visible, thirty meters from where the suicide bomber detonated his device. Thousands of people attended the first funeral on Monday, including those of two cousins, aged 16 and 17. “It was not easy for us to lift two coffins. This tragedy broke our family,” said Najib Ullah, brother of one of the boys.
The attack raises fears of a bloody electoral period in Pakistan, which has been experiencing a serious political crisis since the ousting of Prime Minister Imran Khan from his post in April 2022. The Pakistani government must be dissolved within the next two weeks and elections are scheduled for mid-November here. JUI-F leader Fazlur Rehman, an Islamist fundamentalist advocating the application of sharia law, has in recent years tried to be more moderate by forging alliances with secular rivals.
In the past, he facilitated talks between the government and the Pakistani Taliban of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a separate group from the Afghan Taliban but driven by the same Islamist ideology. Last year, IS said it was behind attacks on religious scholars affiliated with the party, which has a vast network of mosques and Koranic schools in the north and west of the country . IS accuses JUI-F of hypocrisy for supporting successive governments and the military.
Despite its ability to mobilize tens of thousands of religious students, the JUI-F has never garnered enough support to lead alone but is a key ally in forming any coalition. “It is important to ask why the activists of a religiously-leaning political party could have been subjected to such bestial violence,” the daily Dawn noted in an editorial on Monday. “Regardless of the ultra-conservative worldview of the JUI-F, the party chose to contest the elections and act within the parameters set by the Pakistani Constitution. “The state has not assumed its responsibilities. I think the state has failed no matter what government is in place,” Shams uz Zaman, a local JUI-F official, said after the attack.
The explosion is “an attempt to weaken democracy”, reacted a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. Attacks in Pakistan have increased since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 and then the end of the ceasefire between the Pakistani Taliban group Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Pakistani government in late November.
