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WORLD NEWS Saturday 18 auguSt 2018

IS deadly new front in Pakistan's decades-old terror war

By KATHY GANNON brothers' father that Nawaz
Associated Press and Aziz packed up their
DHABEJI, Pakistan (AP) — three sisters and their moth-
Hafeez Nawaz was 20 years er and moved them to Af-
old when he left his religious ghanistan in 2016 to live
school in Karachi to join the among an Islamic State
Islamic State group in Af- affiliate there. Two of the
ghanistan. Three years later sisters have since married IS
he was back in Pakistan to operatives. Their youngest
carry out a deadly mission: brother, Shakoor, who was
With explosives strapped to sent by their father a year
his body, he blew himself later to plead with them to
up in the middle of an elec- return, remains in Afghani-
tion rally last month, killing stan, as does Aziz.
149 people and wounding Chandio suspects 19-year-
300 others. old Shakoor is now an IS op-
The attack in southwestern erative and could be the
Baluchistan province near next suicide bomber. He
the Afghan border just said Shakoor fits the crite-
days before Pakistan's July ria: a young man in his late
25 parliamentary elections In this Aug. 10, 2018, file photo, family members of suicide bomber Hafeez Nawaz, with their faces teens or early 20s, religious-
has cast an unwelcome covered, are presented before media for in Karachi, Pakistan. ly devout and susceptible
spotlight on Nawaz's tiny Associated Press to radicalization.
village of Dhabeji, where Hafeez Nawaz was just 23
the presence of an IS cell in said the Islamic State group was "entering a new phase, Chandio said. The origin of when he walked into the
their midst has brought the is the newest and deadliest with more focus on less vis- the money, whether from middle of the election rally
full weight of Pakistan's se- front in Pakistan's decades- ible networks of individuals the Saudi government or in Baluchistan's Mustang
curity apparatus down on old war on terror. and cells acting with a de- Saudi philanthropists, is not area and detonated the
its residents. "It is one of the most dan- gree of autonomy." clear but the teachings at suicide vest that sprayed
"Now we are all under sus- gerous threats facing Paki- Hafeez Nawaz was just these schools espouse a shrapnel throughout the
picion," said Nawaz's neigh- stan and we are ready to such a case. rigid interpretation of Islam tent packed with local
bor, who gave only his first fight this war," he said. Three years ago, he joined and the superiority of Sunni tribesmen.
name, Nadeem, for fear of It's the amorphous nature his older brother, Aziz, to Islam. Nawaz's father and his old-
the local police. "The secu- of IS that has counterter- study at Siddiquia Madras- It was at Siddiquia Mosque est brother, Haq Nawaz,
rity agencies now consider rorism officials like Chandio sa in Karachi's Shah Faisal that Nawaz's brother, are now in custody, caught
Dhabeji a security threat most worried. When one Colony neighborhood, an Aziz, fell in with a crowd trying to flee to Afghani-
area." cell is disrupted another area where the level of of would-be jihadis and stan, Chandio said.
Nawaz's trajectory from re- emerges, sometimes within sectarian violence at the was persuaded to travel Some analysts say the
ligiously devout student to weeks and often in an un- time was so brutal that to Afghanistan's Spinbol- threat posed by the Islamic
jihadi and suicide bomber related part of the country. even police could not en- dak region on the border State group in Pakistan is,
is an all too familiar one in "It's what they don't know ter. A crackdown by para- with Pakistan in 2014 to at least in part, the result of
Pakistan. that is the most worrying for military Rangers has since join the Taliban. But his al- the country's bewildering
Since battlefield successes counterterrorism depart- led to the arrest and killing legiance was short-lived as attitude toward the toxic
routed the Islamic State ments around the coun- of hundreds of militants commanders squabbled mix of militant groups that
group from its strongholds try," said Mohammad Amir and criminals. and Aziz returned to Paki- operate in the country.
in Syria and Iraq, hundreds Rana, executive director of Today, the religious school is stan. Once back home, Since 2004, the Pakistani
of Pakistanis who traveled the Islamabad-based Paki- among 94 madrassas under he inducted his younger military has killed or driven
to join the extremists' so- stan Institute of Peace Stud- surveillance in Karachi and brother, Hafeez, into the out thousands of militants
called "caliphate" are un- ies, which tracks militant elsewhere in southern Sindh jihadi circle but this time, from their mountain re-
accounted for and Paki- movements in the region. province, Chandio said. it was the Islamic State doubts in the tribal regions
stan's security personnel "Its hideouts, its structure, its They have been identified group that held sway, said that border Afghanistan,
worry that they, like Nawaz, strategy are all unknown. as breeding grounds for Chandio, who was part of suffering thousands of ca-
have gone underground They are an invisible ene- radicalism, schools where the counterterrorism squad sualties in those battles. Yet
waiting to strike. my who is defeated in one jihadis have emerged and that, using little more than Pakistan allows banned
Sitting in his office in a com- area, only to resurface in that perpetrators of at- body parts and grainy cell groups, some with a long
pound surrounded by high another." tacks attended. Many are phone pictures, identified history of sectarian vio-
walls and heavily armed A U.N. Security Council re- financed by oil-rich Saudi Hafeez Nawaz as the sui- lence, to re-emerge and
guards, Karachi's counter- port earlier this year warned Arabia to promote the cide bomber behind the operate under new names,
terrorism department chief, of the changing face of IS, rigid Wahabi sect of Islam July 13 election rally attack. and known militants to
Pervez Ahmed Chandio, saying the extremist group practiced in the kingdom, Chandio learned from the move about freely.q