The suicide attack at a Shia mosque in Peshawar, killing at least 62 people, is a grave reminder of Pakistan’s growing security challenges after the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan and the continued persecution that the Shia minority is facing in the Af-Pak region. This was the deadliest attack in Pakistan since the 2018 bombing of Quetta, killing 149 people. The Islamic State terrorist organisation, which has carried out a number of suicide attacks in Afghanistan ever since the Taliban captured Kabul in August 2021, has claimed responsibility for the bombing. The IS’s sectarian animosity towards the Shias is well-known. In Iraq and Syria, the IS has carried out systematic attacks against the Shias, who they call “rejectionists” of Islam just because they belong to a different branch of the faith. In Afghanistan, the IS-Khorasan has targeted religious minorities such as Shias and Sikhs. They use sectarian attacks to drum up support for their murderous ideology among Sunni hardliners. Earlier in Afghanistan, the IS-K was confined to the eastern province of Nangarhar. But the complete breakdown of security in the last phase of the Taliban’s insurgency and the collapse of the Islamic Republic of President Ashraf Ghani last year appears to have given the IS a fresh lease of life. The Peshawar attack suggests that the IS threat is now spreading across the porous border to Pakistan.
Shias, who make up some 20% of Pakistan’s population, face growing sectarian violence by extremist groups and a state crackdown under the infamous blasphemy law. The Ahl-e-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat and Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, two hardline Sunni groups, have been at the forefront of an anti-Shia campaign in the country. In July 2020, the Punjab Assembly passed a Bill (Tahaffuz-e-Bunyad-e-Islam) which supported only Sunni interpretation of Islam. Terrorist organisations such the IS are trying to exploit these existing sectarian hostilities by carrying out attacks on Shia mosques. What they want in Pakistan and Afghanistan is the same as what they have wanted in Iraq and Syria — a Shia-Sunni sectarian civil war. What makes the threat dangerous this time is the political change in Afghanistan. As the Taliban became the rulers of Afghanistan, the IS emerged as the main armed opposition to the Taliban. The Taliban’s relationship with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, also called Pakistan Taliban) also makes the security situation complicated for Pakistan. Islamabad supported the Afghan Taliban to capture power in Kabul. The Afghan Taliban back the TTP, their ideological brethren, who are fighting Pakistani forces. As the security situation remains fragile in the Af-Pak region, groups such as the IS are swiftly pushing their terror agenda. The Peshawar attack should serve as a warning to Pakistan, which sees the wheel of jihadism returning. If it does not check the widespread anti-Shia narrative and find a way to tackle the security challenges posed by both the TTP and the IS-K, its borderlands could once again turn to anarchy and sectarian bloodletting.
