After years of watching the slow deterioration of the Pakistani state at the hands of the Taliban, al Qaeda, and allied jihadi groups, I’ve come to one conclusion: just when you think things in Pakistan can’t get any worse, they probably will. Just two weeks after the government essentially ceded one-third of the Northwest Frontier Province to the Taliban, terrorists attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team as they visited in the eastern city of Lahore. Seven members of the team were wounded in the attack, two seriously. Five Pakistani police were killed and 11 were wounded fending off the assault by all accounts was conducted by 12 well-armed, well-trained attackers. The International Cricket Council has suspended international games in Pakistan until the security situation “changes dramatically.” With political instability and unrest in the legal system, large swaths of territory under Taliban control, and the Taliban insurgency and accompanying lawlessness creeping closer to Islamabad, one has to ask if we are witnessing the final act in the unraveling of the Pakistani state.
