The Al Qaida and Taliban are stupid. Here is why.

Fact: Osama Bin Laden was killed by the Americans. Pakistan had nothing to do with that particular operation. This evident from the great soul-searching in Pakistan and chest-thumping in USA on this.

Yet, who is Al Qaida, Taliban and Co. “punishing” for Osama’s death? Pakistan and Pakistanis? Either they did not get the memo on what really happened in Abbottabad, or they just like killing Pakistanis and Muslims!

Here is a list of the attacks since Osama’s death:

May 13
Two suicide bombers attacked a Frontier Corps training academy in Charsadda, north-west Pakistan, killing 98 people, most of them cadets boarding buses for home. The Pakistani Taliban (TTP) claimed responsibility, saying it was to avenge the death of Bin Laden.

May 16
Gunmen on motorcycles shot and killed a Saudi diplomat in the southern city of Karachi. The shooting came days after unidentified attackers threw two hand grenades at the Saudi consulate in Pakistan’s commercial hub. No one was hurt in that attack.         Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but Al Qaeda has long waged a bloody campaign to topple the royal family and the government in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of its leader Bin Laden.

May 18
More than 70 militants armed with rockets and mortars attacked a security post on the outskirts of Peshawar, triggering a four-hour gun battle in which 17 people, 15 of them insurgents, were killed. Nobody claimed responsibility for that attack. The same day, suspected Sunni militants gunned down four Shi’ite Muslims in the southwestern city of Quetta which security officials said was aimed at whipping up sectarian conflict to further destabilise the country following the death of Bin Laden.

May 20
TTP attacked a U.S. consulate convoy in the volatile northwestern city of Peshawar, killing one Pakistani and wounding 12. Two U.S. nationals were among the wounded with minor injuries.

May 21
At least 16 people were killed in Pakistan’s Khyber tribal region after a bomb hit a truck carrying fuel for NATO forces in Afghanistan. The Taliban claimed the responsibility. Sixteen NATO fuel trucks were attacked and set on fire a day earlier in the same region.

May 22
A team of heavily armed insurgents stormed a Pakistani navy base in Karachi, setting off a 16-hour battle in which 10 military personnel were killed and two U.S.-supplied surveillance aircraft destroyed.      The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, the biggest on a military installation since a 2009 raid on the military headquarters in Rawalpindi when they held several senior and junior officers hostage.

May 25
Militants drove a car packed with explosives into a police station in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 11 people and wounding 39. The police station was razed to the ground.

P.S. Given that some 30,000 to 35,000 Pakistanis  have already died as a result of this cursed War on Terror, this may not be new, but being not new makes it no less heartbreaking!

Today: Suicide Blast in Adezai near Peshawar kills 37, injures 52.

Yesterday: A car bomb in Faisalabad kills 25, injures 125.

The Taliban, in both cases, take “credit” for murder and mayhem.

What is there is to add? Pakistanis cry. Pakistanis die.

Our tears have no value. Our pain has no standing. Our words have no meaning. The absurdity that we live has no limits. Jo marra woh bhi shaheed. Jiss nay maara woh bhi shaheed.

Tomorrow: More Pakistanis will die. Tomorrow more Pakistanis will cry. But, tomorrow is another day!

Meray Shehr jal rahey haiN, Meray Loug mar rahey haiN
Hum he Qatl ho rahey haiN, hum he Qatl kar rahey haiN

The enemy struck again. Killing Muslims in Lahore and then in Karachi.

In this blog our vocabulary has always been the vocabulary of Pakistan, of Pakistanis and of Pakistaniat. It shall remain so. Yet, today we deliberately choose to use the vocabulary of religion because those who were targeted were targeted because of their faith. The killers were targeting processions  mourning those killed at Karballa. There was nothing ambiguous about the horrific murders of Muslims in Lahore and Karachi. There should be nothing ambiguous about our reaction to it.

The intensity and the frequency of violent intolerance may have escalated, but there is nothing new about the scantimonius self-righteousness that has, for so long, and so consistently, made us our own worst and most enduring enemy: Hum he Qatl ho rahey haiN, hum he Qatl kar rahey haiN.

That both attacks were intended to be much bigger had police and security personnel not intercepted the attackers – one reportedly just 13 years old – is of little consolation to the loved ones of those who died. Including the loved ones of the lowly policemen who gave their lives intercepting these murderers. But it should be yet another moment of reflection for the rest of us. As we wrote in December 2009: “… the Pakistani policeman’s life – very literally – [has become] the only thing between a suicide bomber and his would-be victims.” The Pakistani policeman is not perfect. Nor are we. They represent the same violent schizophrenia that the rest of society does; the same violent schizophrenia that has made their job more violent than any job deserves to be.