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When a suicide bombing rocked a political gathering in northwest Pakistan over the weekend, suspicion instantly fell upon the Pakistani Taliban group, whose rising footprint and mounting assaults have alarmed safety officers within the nation.
However on Monday, it was the smaller Islamic State group often known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, or ISKP, that claimed duty for the assault, which killed at the least 46 individuals at a political conference within the northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The assault underscored the rival safety challenges that Pakistan is dealing with and the fears that the 2 rival militant teams could also be engaged in a cycle of violence as they compete for consideration and followers.
There’s a rising concern that Pakistan’s “terrorism risk has fallen underneath the radar and that it has not been prioritized by the federal government,” mentioned Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute on the Wilson Middle.
“For Pakistani policymakers, the sobering actuality is that they face not solely an intensifying terrorist risk” but additionally one “that’s multifaceted,” he mentioned. He added that Pakistan has to determine not solely “methods to beat again” the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP — a militant group that endorses the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan however operates individually — but additionally methods to confront the rising risk posed by ISKP.
At the very least 40 killed in blast at Pakistan political conference
Whereas Pakistani officers say they’re nonetheless investigating who was behind Sunday’s blast, analysts mentioned the goal of the assault — Pakistan’s Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam occasion, or JUI, which is linked to the Afghan Taliban — makes the Islamic State group the most certainly perpetrator.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban management has just lately publicized raids towards alleged Islamic State hideouts, and in April, U.S. officers mentioned the Taliban coordinated the killing of the suspected ISKP mastermind behind a suicide bombing throughout america’ pullout from Afghanistan in 2021. However U.S. intelligence findings leaked on the Discord messaging platform and obtained by The Washington Put up earlier this 12 months recommend that Afghanistan has change into a big coordination website for the Islamic State because the U.S. pullout.
After the withdrawal, ISKP could have obtained weapons left behind by Western militaries. The group may have been not directly galvanized by the Taliban raids on their Afghan hideouts and the rising competitors with the TTP in Pakistan, analysts mentioned.
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The Islamic State group is “being undermined by the Taliban authorities, however on the similar time there’s an added competitors,” mentioned Asfandyar Mir, a Pakistan-focused researcher on the U.S. Institute of Peace, cautioning that “optimism about ISIS shedding momentum is fake.”
Regional Islamic State retailers now usually declare that their group is the true face of Islamist militancy, arguing that the Taliban has betrayed its supporters by putting offers with america within the lead-up to the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Islamic State has up to now centered totally on putting Taliban targets in Afghanistan, together with the Taliban-run Overseas Ministry in Kabul. However ISKP is more and more aiming at Taliban allies and supporters overseas, together with the JUI occasion and the Pakistani Taliban.
Over the previous decade, a harsh navy crackdown had routed the Pakistani Taliban’s fighters and quashed its affect. However the Taliban takeover in neighboring Afghanistan gave a lift to the Pakistani motion, offering political help and — in line with officers in Islamabad — essential protected haven.
After peace talks between the Pakistani authorities and the Pakistani Taliban collapsed in November, the militant group made substantial inroads into Pakistani tribal areas this 12 months by following the mannequin of the Afghan Taliban, which named shadow governors and produced high-quality propaganda materials earlier than the 2021 takeover.
The Pakistani Taliban has vowed to chorus from attacking civilians, arguing that it’s at conflict with the Pakistani authorities and never its individuals, however the smaller Islamic State group has proven no such reluctance. Sunday’s bombing focusing on the JUI occasion, a right-wing political and non secular occasion led by hard-line cleric Maulana Fazlur Rehman, got here after the Islamic State group had already killed a number of clerics related to the JUI, mentioned Ashraf Ali, a Pakistani safety analyst.
However the scale and timing of Sunday’s blast shocked the Pakistani institution. Pakistan’s governing coalition just lately agreed to dissolve Parliament within the coming weeks, which might set off a common election earlier than the top of the 12 months. The JUI is a part of the ruling coalition, and JUI volunteers and occasion officers had been within the midst of preparations for the election when the blast struck their conference on Sunday.
Analysts fear that an election marketing campaign might gas rival efforts by the TTP, the native Islamic State department and different teams to disrupt the upcoming vote, as every of them makes an attempt to attract consideration and improve its footprint.
“If ISIS decides to pursue this logic on this upcoming election season in Pakistan, then issues can get very ugly,” Mir mentioned.
Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad and Haq Nawaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
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