Taliban See Airport Attack As Job Well Done
Updated: 11:46am UK, Tuesday 10 June 2014
By Sam Kiley, Foreign Affairs Editor
A protracted gun battle. Buildings ablaze. Three dozen dead. An international airport shut down. In the morbid calculus of the Taliban - a job well done.
The scenes recalled the humiliating attack on a Navy base, also in Karachi, three years ago in which 11 died.
On both occasions the Pakistani Taliban, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, claimed responsibility and that the blood letting was revenge.
This time the Taliban used Twitter to boast of worse to come.
"We have yet to take revenge for the deaths of hundreds of innocent tribal women and children in Pakistani air strikes. It's just the beginning, we have taken revenge for one, we have to take revenge for hundreds," the militant group said.
'The one' referred to is Hakimullah Mehsud, who was killed in a US drone strike last November.
His predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, died the same way.
Barack Obama said recently that in counter terror operations "we must not create more enemies than we take off the battlefield".
The campaign of extra-judicial killing by remote control in the ungoverned regions of Pakistan has left an estimated 500 dead, many of them civilians.
Mostly drawn from Pashto communities, survivors will inevitably see an obligation to attack the US or her allies in a blood feud.
This is the interpretation that the Taliban want commentators to reach.
It is also largely a statement of the obvious.
But the Taliban threats of yet more bloody retribution cannot be seen as entirely US-driven.
The radical Islamist movement has been trying to take over the country and impose it's own interpretation of Sharia law for decades.
Its weekend attack on Karachi's airport was followed with another on Tuesday in which two groups on motorcycles conducted a hit-and-run against the Airport Security Force Academy on the northern perimeter.
The gunmen escaped but not before they had, for a few hours, once again shut the airport, dealing another body blow to Pakistan's commercial capital.
The movement came close to the gates of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, a few years ago when it launched a ground offensive.
The failure of talks with the government, which collapsed earlier this year, meant that a spectacular "listen to us" attack was almost inevitable.
But Pakistan's military has also been planning an all out offensive against the Taliban for several months.
It had been held back to give talks a chance.
The generals will see the attack on Karachi's international airport as a signal for their campaign to begin.
This may give the Taliban the 'victory' of more 'martyrs' – but both sides know neither can truly win.
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