Militants attacked two school facilities in Pakistan Oct. 20; a girls’ high school near Peshawar and Islamabad’s Islamic International University. The attacks may indicate a shift in militants’ target sets toward softer targets.

Analysis

Two school facilities were targeted Oct. 20 in what appears to be coordinate attacks. While police thwarted the first attack, the second attack at a university in Islamabad killed seven people, including the two suicide bombers. Attacks last week focused on police targets and these recent attacks against softer, more vulnerable targets, indicate that militants could be shifting to a softer target set (although not a wholesale shift).

The first target was a girls’ high school in Peshawar. Earlier this morning, two suspicious devices were discovered and later confirmed to be bombs, but authorities disabled them before they detonated. The two devices were 14 and 5 kilograms and were contained in a pressure cooker and a tin box, respectively.

The second target was the Islamic International University in Islamabad. Two suicide bombers attacked two separate campuses in a near-simultaneous attack. One bomber detonated outside a girls’ cafeteria and another detonated outside the law school for men. The attack was not particularly effective given the density of people in the area, but was still a clear example of how much more effective suicide bombings are compared to concealed devices. No one has claimed responsibility for the two successful attacks in Islamabad, nor for the failed attempt in Peshawar. The vice chancellor of the university, Anwar Siddiqui, claimed that a university guard prevented one of the bombers from entering a building, possibly reducing the effectiveness of the attack, which would explain the low casualty rate. On Oct. 19, Islamabad closed many universities upon receiving intelligence of an imminent attack against schools — intelligence that proved to be accurate.

The attacks and the attempted attack come as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has increased assaults in Punjab province in the past 10 days, starting with the attack on the military headquarters in Rawalpindi Oct. 10 and the string of attacks against police targets in Lahore and Peshawar Oct. 15. Universities are not common targets for militants in Pakistan — so the specific target in this case is slightly unusual — but the TTP and their Afghan counterparts frequently target girls’ schools as education for women does not conform to their conservative ideology. The tactic of using suicide bombers to kill female students fits very closely with past TTP attacks; however, their responsibility for the attacks has not been confirmed.

Last week, militants were focused on attacking police facilities, so (if indeed the TTP was responsible for these attacks) the attention to schools today would show a slight shift. Schools are an even softer target than police facilities — the biggest difference is that the victims are almost exclusively civilians rather than government security forces. Even though the police targets attacked last week were fairly soft targets (they were either open buildings or easily approachable, which allowed militants to detonate vehicle-borne improvised explosives devices and suicide vests right outside the buildings), universities are even more open, accessible and are not full of cadets training to deal with militant attacks.

The advantage of attacking soft targets for the TTP (or any militant group) is that there are so many of them that militants are given plenty of options. It is impossible for security forces to guard everything; in fact, attempting to guard all the potential soft targets actually decreases overall security, as forces are spread out thinly. The other option, closing off soft targets (such as schools) is a concession to the militants, effectively implementing a policy desired by the hard-line Islamists (the kind that the government is battling in South Waziristan). However, going after soft targets and especially youths in Pakistan will likely further alienate the population, and strengthen resolve and consensus to pursue and neutralize these militants. It also demonstrates that the militants are not able to successfully attack hard targets, which would be tactically more advantageous for them in their defense of their strongholds in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas.

It is unclear whether militants will stick with schools for a bit or shift to other targets, but what is clear is that they are focusing on soft targets. As the offensive continues in South Waziristan, more attacks against soft targets are inevitable — what will require close watching though is the shift in specific targets as militants search for the most efficient ways to exploit insecurity in Pakistan’s heartland.

This article is published at Lebanonwire by agreement with www.stratfor.com, the world's leading private intelligence provider.

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