The Death Of The Balochistan Bar Association, Bilal Anwar...

On August 8 2016, over 100 mourners gathered at the Quetta Civil Hospital in Pakistan following the shooting death of the president of the Balochistan Bar Association, Bilal Anwar Kasi. Nearby, an unknown member of the Taliban affiliated group, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), was strapping eight kilograms of explosives filled with ball bearings and shrapnel to his body. Soon, a sickening explosion ripped apart the emergency services ward of the hospital, killing 70 mourners and injuring over 120. On June 22 2016, Amhad Sabri, one of Pakistan’s most famous musicians, who sang devotional music from the Sufi tradition dating back 13th century, was shot dead by two men on motorcycles. The Taliban considered his music blasphemous. In the next month, in a church in Rouen, France, a priest’s throat was cut and four nuns were taken hostage before the two assailants were shot by police. They were later reported to have been â€Å"two soldiers of the Islamic State†. A satellite view sees the Earth rocked by Islamist attacks on almost a daily basis. These always involve a multitude of different motivations: local, political, ethnic, religious, sectarian and other, but they are held together by a common and identifiable thread - fundamentalist, literalist Islam. While suicide attacks usually happen a long way away, and the chance of being killed by a local attack is small, it’s not irrational to hold some concern over the growth of militant Islam. In a post 9/11 world, where frequent Islamist