Why did the attackers target the marketplace Meena Bazaar?
It’s indiscriminate. It’s the purest essence of terrorism. It is to absolutely instill fear and terror into the general populace. Whether that works effectively and advantageously for them in the longer run, I don’t think so. Because ultimately it will be the local community who will be feeding intelligence back to Pakistani intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence. If you alienate that community by targeting them then you’re not winning the support of people who are potentially going to hide you out or not disclose your whereabouts, your location or your operations. It is a risky tactic. It is showing the arrogance of the Taliban. They don’t care who they target — they just want to terrorize the whole nation.
