What Goes Around Comes Around

"Panic spread among the worshippers when the firing started. I ran to save my life."

"Suddenly a man came in and started firing... He shot many people [and] then closed his eyes and blew himself up."

"After that, I have no idea what happened."

Hospitalized Pakistani worshipper at Shi'ite Peshawar mosque

Soldiers inspect the mosque after Friday's bomb blast in Peshawar. (Abdul Majeed/AFP/Getty Images)

 

The death toll of 58 Shi'ite worshippers last Friday at a Peshawar mosque is likely to rise, according to police, given that among the 194 that had been wounded in the attack, many were in critical condition. The suicidal attacker is among the dead. It had not immediately been confirmed who was responsible for the attack. The Pakistani Taliban claim they were not involved, and initially no other group had come forward to boast of the attack.

Pakistan's Shi'ites have long been under threat by the Sunni majority, targeted by Muslim Islamist militants; Islamic State and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. In a sense, this deadly sectarian conflict can be laid at the responsibility of Saudi Arabia whose Wahhabist sect of puritanical Islam, dating back centuries and more recently renewed, was spread, courtesy of Saudi oil money that enabled the building of madrasas built everywhere in the Muslim world and beyond.

Students attending such schools are taught the fundamentals of 'pure' Islam, in which the concept of violent jihad is considered one of the pillars of Islam, an obligation of all true faithful of Islam to engage. One of the better-known, modern day illuminati of the Wahhabist school of Islamism none other than Osama bin Laden. The targeted mosque was the sole place of worship for Pakistani Shi'ites in the old city of Peshawar.

"We are in a state of emergency and the injured are being shifted to the hospital", disclosed police officer Mohammad Sajjan Khan. Wahhabist Islam considers Shi'ism to be false Islam and those who practise it, no more and no less practising apostasy. Jihad is directed to destroy their lives since they are regarded as opponents not supporters of Islam. 

 

An armed assassin arrived at the mosque on a motorcycle. He fired at police when he was stopped, then forced his way into the mosque hall crowded with the faithful, began firing, and finally detonated his suicide vest. Prior to entering the mosque the attacker shot at police guards standing at the entrance to the mosque, killing one. Police had the impression there were two men involved, initially. 

 

An injured man sits on a stretcher in Peshawar, after a bomb blast in a mosque during Friday prayers. (Khuram Parvez/Reuters)

There is deadly irony in this situation in Pakistan. While ostensibly a partner in the global war against terrorism, Pakistan's Inter-Intelligence Agency trained and armed the Afghan Taliban which found haven inside Pakistan's mountainous regions bordering Afghanistan following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan to roust Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda whom the Taliban were sheltering in Afghanistan. 

 

Bin Laden himself was eventually domiciled in Abbottabad, Pakistan, his compound located near a Pakistani military garrison, where US special forces eventually caught up with him.

And while surreptitiously Pakistan, through its military was aiding and abetting the Afghan Taliban, in their own Islamist mountain tribal communities their own Taliban sprang up. The Pakistani Taliban became a threat the government of Pakistan had to reckon with, and still attempts to clamp down on. Although a unit of Islamic State eventually claimed it was involved in the suicide attack, it is entirely likely it was indeed the work of the Pakistani Taliban.

With the ascension to power in Afghanistan, the Afghan Taliban have emboldened the activities of the Pakistani Taliban. And they have launched attacks into Pakistan from the safe haven that Afghanistan has now become for them, despite that the Afghan Taliban had publicly vowed that the country they once again govern will never become a launching pad for terrorist attacks against their neighbours. 

 

Which was precisely what Pakistan had been from 2001 forward. Now, is is the government of Pakistan that has appealed to the governing Afghan Taliban to hand over any Pakistani Taliban on their soil who launch attacks into Pakistan. So far, none have been.

Rescue workers and volunteers gather at the site of bomb explosion in Peshawar, Pakistan, Friday, March 4, 2022. A powerful bomb exploded inside a Shiite Muslim mosque in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar on Friday, killing more than 30 worshippers and wounding dozens more, many of them critically, police said. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)