WITH Ashura less than a week away, it is alarming that two sectarian attacks in Muharram have already taken place in the country. At least 10 people were killed when a suspected suicide bomber rammed a tractor-trolley full of hundreds of kilograms of explosives into the boundary wall of a hospital in Hangu on Friday. The blast followed close on the heels of an attack on a bus in Kohat's Tirah bazaar on Wednesday. A number of people were killed in that incident. That sectarian motives were behind the attacks is apparent as the Hangu hospital is run by a Shia trust, while many of the passengers killed in the Kohat attack also belonged to the Shia community. The Hangu attack has been claimed by the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi Al Almi while the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the Kohat blast. It is evident that militant groups are not resting easy during Muharram and security forces need to swing into overdrive.

Firstly, the nature of the beast must be clear. Lashkar-i-Jhangvi Al Almi has recently raised its profile, being one of the claimants to the attack on the Balochistan chief minister. Is this entity a mutated form of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, or a new outfit altogether? The intelligence apparatus needs to identify and dismantle this emerging threat to public safety before it turns into an uncontrollable ogre like so many before it. Kohat, Hangu and the surrounding regions have long suffered from the twin plague of militancy and sectarianism. Concrete action is required here before the nexus between jihadi and sectarian militants becomes too unwieldy to handle. The Kohat division commissioner has pointed towards Orakzai Agency — where the army is currently engaged with militants — saying it has consistently been the source of attacks on mourning processions. Hence there needs to be extra vigilance in the days to come. Increased troop deployment and better intelligence-gathering are required to secure the aforementioned areas as well as large cities, which have been hit hard in the past.

Concerning the ulema's promises about maintaining harmony during Muharram, clearly militants don't care about what traditional scholars have to say. Therefore the security forces need to deal with the militants as terrorists — not misguided religious foot soldiers. The ulema also need to unambiguously condemn suicide bombings. The mainstream religious parties have been very disappointing on this count, with some remaining conspicuously silent and others hiding behind the bogey that 'no Muslim can do this'. Indeed, it is a tough task to secure large Muharram gatherings. But complacency is not an option. All efforts need to be made to safeguard lives.