Thursday October 15 was a black day for Pakistan. Deadly staccato series of attacks left at least 30 dead and scores injured in the country’s cultural capital, Lahore and at Kohat. The attacks have raised fresh doubts about Pakistan’s ability to curb rising Islamist insurgency as only last weekend, Pakistan army’s general headquarters, GHQ was seized briefly by militants.
The first target was the Federal Investigation Agency, a law enforcement branch. Next, gunmen — some strapped with explosives — attacked a police training school. A third group stormed a police commando training center, where some militants fired shots and tossed grenades from a roof and others took trainees’ families hostage in a residential area of the vast campus.
Almost simultaneously, a suicide car bombing killed three police officers and seven civilians at a police station in Kohat, a northwestern city surrounded by insurgent-heavy areas. As dusk fell, a fifth blast rocked government workers’ residences in Peshawar, the Northwest’s main city.
Both the FIA and the police training school were targeted about two years ago.
The Pakistan Taliban, which had carried out the attack on GHQ, has claimed responsibility for the Thursday attacks.
Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister, called these attacks a "guerrilla war." Others portrayed the attacks as evidence of the links between various militant factions, including those within the restive tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan and those in the interior.
Observers said the Thursday bloodbath was an attempt to push Pak army and civilian establishment to the back foot and make them have a rethink on the planned offensive in South Waziristan.
