The Punjabi Taliban have struck again in Lahore, using two suicide bombers to target worshippers at a renowned Sufi shrine. This represents a further incursion of extremism in the formerly quiescent province.
Even with the evident problems of a military mutilating its own country and an elite that has proven unable to muster a strategic interest, Pakistanis perfer the conspiracy to the truth:
Investigators said they had recovered the heads of both suicide bombers, but there was no claim of responsibility. The Lahore commissioner, Khusro Pervaiz, blamed the attack on a "conspiracy in which locals are being used" – a euphemism often used to point the finger at neighbouring India. Some Lahore residents blamed the attacks on the US, saying its drone attacks in the frontier were provoking militants, while others suggested the Ahmadi community – which has no history of organised violence – was taking revenge.The most likely culprits, however, come from within Punjab. A network of hardline madrasas scattered across the province, mostly in the southern belt, is home to thousands of religious extremists.
There is plenty of work on how the rush to modernity has created a culture of extremism in Pakistan, prone to believe that an enemy is undermining the state and placing the purity of Islam above other values. This is a spiral, ominously quiet for a while, that is coming to the fore and strengthened by the war-weariness of the West's defeat.