More attacks on Pakistan civilian airports may follow, warns expert

Just as Karachi seemed to be coming to terms with the tragedy of Jinnah International Airport, yet another attack has made news. This afternoon, a firefight between militants and security forces is underway with attackers at airport security training facility.

The most worrying fact is that experts fear that more of such attacks may have been planned. According to new analysis by Omar Hamid, Head of Asia Analysis at IHS Country Risk, more of such attacks may happen in the future. IHS is global information company covering sectors including geopolitical risk, sustainability, energy, economics and supply chain management.

Hamid says the militants seem to have moved away from harming those in authority to the common man to create panic. “The attack on Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport was the largest operation carried out so far by the Pakistan Taliban this year and shows a major shift in the militant’s targeting pattern,” says Hamid.

In a warning of what could unfold, Hamid says that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is likely to increase sharply and target key strategic industrial assets and civilian airports, in addition to their established target set of security forces, government institutions and minority communities.

This strategy, he says, is to reassert TTP’s authority and to pressurise the government and the Pakistani army not to launch a major offensive in the tribal areas.

“Till now, the TTP had preferred to focus their attacks on security forces and minority communities.  While there have been several attacks on military airbases, notably at Mehran Naval Airbase in May 2011, Kamra airbase in Rawalpindi in August 2012 and Peshawar airbase in December 2012, so far civilian airports had not been targeted. The attack on Karachi airport indicates that the TTP is raising the ante and is thus now more likely to attack other airports as well as strategic industrial assets,” explains Hamid.

“In fact, the TTP has already claimed that the Karachi attack was also a response to increased military operations in the Mohmand and Bajaur Tribal Agencies in the past couple of weeks. The Karachi airport attack was the third major attack in a week, following on a suicide bombing in Attock, Punjab, in which five people, including an Army colonel, were killed last week, and another suicide bombing on a convoy of Shia pilgrims in Taftan, Baluchistan, which occurred a few hours before the attack on Karachi airport.”

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