Brilio.net/en - Over the last ten years, Pakistan has regularly been the target of many terrorists attacks. Maybe because the country is politically unstable, quite unknown on the international scene or maybe because of the repetition of those attacks that became kind of a dramatic routine, the international community remains relatively indifferent to Pakistans faith and repetitive massive killing.
Last Sunday, a new attack claimed by the Talibans movement Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (major representatives of the Islamic state in Pakistan) hit the country. In Lahore, the second biggest city, an assailant blew himself up with a belt full of explosives in the middle of an amusement park. It is the deadliest attack in Pakistan since the one against Peshawar School in December 2014, which killed 132 children.
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As the capital city of the Pendjab province, Lahore counts over ten million inhabitants and is an important Christian minority, regularly martyred and stigmatized in a strictly Islamic republic. The amusement park Gulshan-e-Iqbal is one of the most popular in the city, highly frequented by children and teenagers. The park was crowded on Sunday when the terrorists belt exploded, releasing dozens of steel bullets, aims at hurting as many people as possible. Despite ISs wish of targeting Christians, most of those that lost their lives were Muslims. The date was indeed strategically picked because it was Easter Sunday, an important date in the Christian calendar.
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However, children were actually the main target: the terrorist triggered his belt right next to the swing area, a favourite spot for young children. In total, 72 persons were killed (among which 29 children) and at least 340 injured. Last week, the attack occurred in a suburb of Bagdad in Iraq and killed 32 people, mostly teenagers celebrating the victory of their local football club.
Because youth represents the future, change, evolution by raising new ideas and new ideologies, it is ISs main target and the movement Jamaat-ul-Ahrar in Pakistan already announced that schools and universities will be the next to be hit.