The Islamic State group said it carried out a brazen suicide attack on a Pakistani lawmaker in southwest Baluchistan province on Friday that killed 25 people despite a protracted crackdown on the assortment of militant groups operating in Pakistan.
Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, deputy leader of Pakistan’s Senate or Upper House of Parliament, was slightly wounded in the attack that occurred as his convoy left a Islamic seminary, where he had attended a graduation ceremony.
“There was a big bang and we couldn’t understand what had happened,” said Haji Abdul Hadi, a witness who was hit with flying debris.
The attack by ISIS may have been a warning to Haideri’s hardline Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam against participating in the country’s democratically elected government, said Zahid Hussain, an expert on militancy in Pakistan. JUI is a partner in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government.
“It is a message to them that anyone who goes with the government will be targeted,” he said, adding that it could also be that the ISIS targeted Haideri because of his party’s close alliance with Afghanistan’s Taliban.
Many of Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders studied at Islamic seminaries operated by JUI and in Afghanistan ISIS is battling the Taliban, who have warned followers against joining the group.