IN November last Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan, in a statement, said that they had decided to attack the MQM. In Pakistan any extremists with a gun can go out and commit an act of terrorism. On Jan 17 gunmen had shot dead four people, including the MQM’s provincial lawmaker Manzar Imam, in Karachi’s Orangi Town.

Once again, the TTP has claimed responsibility for the killing of an MQM provincial lawmaker. It is the second shooting of an MQM provincial lawmaker in just over two years in Karachi. The death of MQM lawmaker Raza Haider in an ambush in August 2010 sparked a fierce wave of ethnic and politically-linked violence that killed scores of people.

On Jan 1 the Taliban bombing in Karachi, near a political rally, cost at least four lives and injured several others. Just one month ago the Taliban murdered a number of women polio health workers in a series of attacks in Pakistan. The four women aid workers were gunned down in Karachi.

The roots of the TTP as an organisation began in 2002 when the Pakistan military conducted incursions into the tribal areas to originally combat foreign (Afghan, Arab and Central Asian) militants fleeing from war in Afghanistan into the neighbouring tribal areas of Pakistan.

The Pakistani Taliban are an umbrella organisation of various Islamist militant groups based in the northwestern federally-administrated tribal areas along the Afghan border in Pakistan. Most, but not all, Pakistani Taliban groups coalesce under the TTP. In December 2007 about 13 groups united under the leadership of Baitullah Mehsud to form the TTP.

Among the TTP’s stated objectives are resistance against the Pakistani state, enforcement of their interpretation of Sharia, and a plan to unite against liberal or moderate political or religious parties.

Karachi last year saw its deadliest year in two decades, with around 2,000 people killed in violence linked to ethnic and political tensions, raising fears for elections due this year.The Taliban and their backers bear the responsibility for the consequences of these outrageous acts. Terrorism is a big danger for Pakistan’s independence. There is an urgent need to fight this danger for the sake of independence of Pakistan.

DAWAR NAQVI California