Schools, lawyers and parks are new “soft” targets for Pakistan’s insurgents

Monday’s attack on a hospital in the western city of Quetta that left 72 dead has made it clear that the war on terrorism in Pakistan is not over yet and terrorists have adopted a new strategy involving “soft” targets, which receive intense media coverage and put pressure on the government.

This week’s bombing followed the pattern of other recent highimpact attacks in Pakistan a vulnerable target, shock waves across the media and the involvement of groups with the power to put pressure on authorities in a bid to cast doubts on the state’s ability to protect the public.

The hospital massacre was highly sophisticated, involving the assassination of a respected lawyer, followed by a suicide bombing at the hospital his body was taken to, targeting the hundreds of lawyers and reporters who had gathered at the facility.

The explosion killed 72 people, including 55 lawyers, and wounded 128 others, making it the secondworst terrorist attack this year after the suicide bombing at a Lahore Park in March that killed 73 people.

Jamaat ul Ahrar, or JuA, a splinter faction of Pakistan’s main militant organization, the TehrikeTaliban Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack, and the Islamic State also said it played a role.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said terrorists were using “innovative” methods and going after soft targets out of desperation over their failure to attack stronger institutions, a view that is shared by analysts.

“Attacks against students and lawyers are aimed at destabilizing the state, triggering a loss of faith in the government and spreading fear,” Mansur Khan Mahsud, a researcher at the FATA Research Center, told EFE.

Lawyers are an extremely important and organized group with a voice in the country, so that an attack against them has significant repercussions and puts immense pressure on the administration, the analyst said.

“The aim is to get public attention. They are sending out the message that insurgency in the country has not ended, as the government says and many believe,” the expert said.

Following a decade of violence, Pakistanis have regained some optimism after attacks dipped markedly during the past two years, with the government and army attributing the change to the ongoing military operation in tribal areas.

The military offensive, which started in June 2014, has killed 3,400 suspected rebels.

While 332 civilians were killed in terrorist attacks in the first seven months of 2016, the figure for the corresponding period last year stood at 584 and a whopping 1,083 in 2014, the South Asia Terrorism Portal said.

Although soft targets, such as markets, were always on terrorists’ radar, in addition to “hard” police and military targets, they seem to have shifted their focus to schools, mass celebrations and the judiciary since the counterinsurgency operation began.

The December 2014 massacre at a school in Peshawar that killed 125 children and several staff members marked a fresh terror milestone in Pakistan and was soon followed by the killings of 55 people at a popular daily ceremony in Wagah, on the border with India.

In January, 25 people were killed at Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, an area where a suicide attack on a court claimed 17 more lives two months later.

Renowned journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai acknowledges the shift by terrorists to soft targets, which require rebel groups to commit fewer resources, make simpler preparations and use fewer men.

“The operation has hit different insurgent groups and now they find it difficult to attack targets such as the armed forces,” the journalist told EFE.