IN a country plagued by terrorist attacks that have claimed the lives of leaders, ordinary people and the more vulnerable citizens, each tragedy is painful and emotionally draining.

But every new attack proves that the emotional exhaustion is finite while the anger and outrage is not.

Sunday was no different.

The reaction to the attack on innocent worshippers and especially those from the Christian community was intense and quick and continued all throughout Monday. Protests, statements of condemnation and anger — it was all there.

But in the midst of this anger, it was still possible to note how unusual the target of the violence was.

The Christian community has a number of crosses to bear as it tries to live and breathe in Pakistan — the attack on Joseph Colony and the minor girl in Islamabad who was accused of blasphemy are recent reminders of the harshness of their lives.

But since 2002, they have generally been spared the wrath of the Taliban who have focused their righteousness on ordinary Pakistanis (regardless of sect and religion), state installations and the Shia community in particular in recent years.

But that first year that Pakistan witnessed suicide attacks it was this very community that was under attack.

The first was a church in Islamabad’s Diplomatic Enclave, which was then followed by the shooting at a school in Murree and a chapel in Taxila. A detailed report in Herald later said that the attacks were the work of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) veterans under the banner of Jamaat-ul-Furqan. The Jamaat was said to be a splinter group of the Jaish led by former Haraktul Ansar and JeM commander, Abdul Jabbar.

It was argued back then that the attacks were a reaction to the invasion of Afghanistan — the aim was to punish the West.

The Christian community perhaps was just ‘collateral damage’ — the word ‘perhaps’ is used because in those days, the militants’ groups were not savvy enough to designate media spokesmen and the attacks were not succeeded by statements providing explanations and neither did enthusiastic members of the Taliban write public letters to their targets pointing out the error of their (the survivor’s) ways.

And now 11 years later, a church has been targeted again and with horrendous results. It seems inexplicable.

But studied against the general expansion of terrorist attacks in Pakistan and the general progression of militant groups, there is some method to the madness.

The targets of the militants in Pakistan have widened with the passage of time.

After the ‘Western’ targets, it was retired Gen Pervez Musharraf who was attacked — he was seen as the villain who had caused Pakistan’s U-turn on Afghanistan and forcibly aligned Pakistan with the West.

But within months, other military officials began to be targeted. In 2004, the Karachi corps commander escaped an attack that was also carried out by Jundullah. Its activists, as pointed out in news reports and investigations, were once associated with Harkatul Mujahideen (a decade ago most of the notorious militant groups were either sectarian ones or those who were involved in Kashmir).

The militants were realising that their enemy was not limited to an individual or an institution. They had expanded the list of those they saw as enemies and hence were taking their ‘war’ to all of them.

By the next year, even civilian cronies of the regime were no longer safe — while campaigning for his election to parliament, prime minister apparent Shaukat Aziz also had a close brush with a suicide attacker.

The reasons for this expansion are two-fold.

One is the diffusion of power in the polity the militants see as their ‘enemy’. This is of course based on the assumption that the attacks are carried out by people who aim to influence the government’s policies and/or attitudes. And this stands true even of religious militants who see the war as one between good and evil where their job is to destroy the ‘evil’.

And if government policy is not being decided by an individual, then the attacks too will be carried out against more than one man. In a democracy, the targets become multiple while ordinary people are attacked and killed to pressure the government and spread the perception of the state’s inefficacy.

But the second, perhaps more important, reason from the Pakistani perspective is splinter groups. Historically splinter groups have always led to further violence as the younger and more extreme members tend to break away from their more cautious leadership.

In Pakistan this splintering has been part and parcel of militancy since the beginning — regardless of the militant groups’ relationship with the state. JeM, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and many others were formed by men who disagreed with their leadership.

The conflict with the state has only hastened and intensified this process.

Many of those who have written on the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have pointed out that Hakeemullah Mehsud who took over once Baitullah Mehsud was killed was far more ruthless. A similar phenomenon was witnessed in other countries where a state crackdown eliminated the senior leadership of militant groups who were then replaced by their younger, less experienced and more reckless colleagues. The Algerian civil war is a classic example.

In the short term this leads to more violence. This is partly what Pakistan is experiencing.

Like the initial suicide attacks in 2002 and some in 2004, this attack on a church too has been claimed by a relatively unknown organisation. On the other hand, some journalists in Peshawar are saying that the TTP spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid has said that the TTP was not aware of who had carried out the attack while others are saying that these reports are not credible. But the fact that a relatively unknown spokesman has claimed the attack reflects the loose structure of the organisation.

Nonetheless, this attack is a loud and clear foreboding of more, indiscriminate violence. War or talks, whatever we decide on, the end will not come quickly or quietly.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Islamabad.