A SECOND attack on a cinema in Peshawar that left 13 dead on Tuesday was followed yesterday by an attack just outside the city on the house of a family associated with an anti-Taliban aman laskhar — an attack in which nine people were killed. That is the bloody backdrop to the government’s efforts to talk to the TTP. Alarmingly, the government seems unable to do anything more than suggest to the TTP that dialogue should not take place with violence in the background. Cleverly, the TTP continues to deny it has carried out specific attacks while not quite condemning the violence or the choice of target. Even if it is not elements within the TTP itself that have carried out the recent attacks, there is little doubt that the targets chosen on Tuesday and Wednesday fit the TTP’s definition of the enemy and are therefore deemed worthy of attack.

Meanwhile, the vulnerable in Peshawar and surrounding areas — in fact, most of KP and Fata presently — must surely be on higher alert than usual because the cyclical violence against practices deemed un-Islamic by the Taliban appears to be part of the latest scheme of things. Attacking cinemas is the quintessential soft target and may be part of the militants’ understanding that were the security forces to be attacked at the moment, there would be a price to pay. Where does that leave cinema operators and other usual targets like audio and video outlets and mobile phone sellers? In the past, knowing that there’s little the police or security forces can do to keep them safe, shops or locations that have drawn the Taliban’s ire have put up banners pledging that no activities would be conducted that would displease the militants. The attack on the cinemas in particular means that what the militants do not expect to win through talks, they will continue to pursue through other means. All sides must know this, and yet the pretence continues of peace through negotiations.