Karachi blasts

Within 24 hours of the deadly suicide-bombing attack in the nation's capital, the country's commercial hub, Karachi, was rocked by a string of blasts on Monday evening. While the Islamabad bombing took some 20 lives, mostly of police personnel, the Karachi blasts were of low intensity and caused relatively fewer human losses.
But beyond this dissimilarity the two incidents have served the same purpose - they spawned panic, triggered fears of tensions and added to the political uncertainty that is already taking a heavy toll on the country's declining economy. Senior government officials say the attacks seem to be part of a plot to destabilise Pakistan.
Whether they be able to uncover the plot and bring the culprits to book, only time will tell. The Karachi blasts, numbering seven, have left behind some telltale signs, which the investigators will surely look into.
For instance, these blasts took place within one hour, 10 minutes apart from one another - something that suggests a meticulous planning behind it. Then, all these blasts were of low intensity - something that suggests they were not aimed at killing people but to spread panic. And, most importantly, these took place in Pushtun-majority neighbourhoods - something that suggests these were targeted at triggering ethnic tensions in Karachi.
Naturally, in Karachi where mobs give vent to their anger over anything that goes wrong by pelting the traffic with stones, the residents of the affected areas blocked vehicular traffic and burnt used tyres, but mercifully things did not go out of control.
The fact that in the Islamabad incident the plotter/plotters employed a suicide-bomber and had the security force as the target, in Karachi they used low-intensity time bombs and grenades to stir ethnic tensions.
That is using the tinder that is easily available in igniting fires of chaos and uncertainty. While in the north and north-west of Pakistan religious extremism permeates and provides the nursery for suicide-bombers, in the south, particularly in Karachi, the multi-cultural demographic texture is there to be exploited for such acts of barbaric terrorism.
Of course, Karachi has had spells of ethnic strife in the 60s and 80s but in recent years the city has developed an effective ethnic harmony in line with anywhere in the world where mega cities produce a mosaic of positive multi-cultural harmony.
While each ethnic segment jealously protects its identity, they also join hands in promoting multiculturalism which helps their mobility along the wider spectrum of their economic interests. The credit for the current phase of ethnic harmony in Karachi primarily goes to the principal political stakeholders - MQM, PPP and ANP.
Rising above ethnic pride and prejudice, their leaders have shown statesmanship by coalescing into a working political arrangement without which a city of Karachi's proportions cannot be managed.
So, one of the most effective weapons the enemy can use against Pakistan is to disturb its main city's ethnic balance. One would not exclude these bomb blasts from the definition of weaponry the enemy appears intent on using against Pakistan.
Exploiting ethnic strife of your rival power is surely going to be an effective strategy of warring nations in the 21st century. Pakistan has to guard against such chinks in its armour by increasing the intensity of interaction between various segments of its population.
At the same time, the government must look at the growing menace of terrorism in its broader perspective, by injecting flexibility dictated by the emerging realities and by modernising its anti-terrorism tactics and strategy.
Though Pakistan has turned out to be one of the world's most fertile grounds for terrorism, there does not seem to be much in terms of learning from this ghastly experience.
Only in very exceptional cases have the law enforcing agencies nabbed the culprits, though hardly an event of terrorism passes without instant official declarations of having found credible leads.
The area requiring much attention, perhaps a thorough overhaul, is intelligence gathering. The follow-up in courts is yet another area that needs to be looked into by putting on ground an efficient prosecution system.
Of course the blasts have dealt a serious blow to peace in Karachi, but the game is certainly not lost; the government and the citizenry have the required potential and should use it to fight back the plotters that are sowing these seeds of chaos and uncertainty.