Blood on Lahore’s streets: Unidentified hits rock Pakistan’s terror proxy network

Imagine this scene. A man walks out of a TV channel office in Lahore, one of Pakistan's biggest cities, after giving an interview. Within seconds, two motorbike riders zoom past and spray bullets at him. The victim is Amir Hamza, the co-founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) – the same banned outfit India holds responsible for the bloody 2008 Mumbai attacks that took 166 innocent lives. Hamza is critically injured. Shockingly, this is the second attempt on his life within just one year. A few days before this, in Sindh province, another senior LeT commander named Razaullah Nizamani was shot dead in an almost identical hit-and-run style. Same pattern – masked gunmen on bikes, no arrests, no clear claims. It feels straight out of a thriller film, but it is real life.

While this drama unfolds, common Pakistanis are already crying over fresh tragedies. In Haripur's industrial area, a gas pipeline blast killed eight people, including women and small children. In Balochistan, militants keep ambushing security forces almost every week. The country looks like it is bleeding from many wounds at once. But these targeted killings of LeT bosses stand out – they look planned, professional, almost surgical. So the natural question every aam aadmi is asking is: why now, and who is doing this?

Let us understand it like a chai-time chat. For decades, Pakistan played a very risky game. After the Afghan war of the 1980s and the Kashmir trouble, some powerful sections inside Pakistan's establishment quietly treated groups like LeT as "useful boys" against India. Officially, the government denied any link. Unofficially, these outfits ran training camps, collected donations openly, and pushed fighters across the border. The world, especially India and Western countries, kept shouting from rooftops that Pakistan was sheltering terrorists. Islamabad kept replying, "No, no, we are also victims."

But this double game has backfired very badly on Pakistan itself. Since 2001, tens of thousands of Pakistani citizens and soldiers have died in terror attacks. The Pakistani Taliban (TTP), once seen as cousins of these jihadi groups, turned their guns inward and started bombing schools, mosques and bazaars. The economy is in tatters. The IMF says give us reforms or no more loans. FATF, the global terror-financing watchdog, kept Pakistan on its grey list and made banks suspicious of every rupee moving in and out. On top of this, China is pumping billions into roads, ports and power projects under CPEC, but Chinese engineers keep getting killed in attacks. Beijing is openly angry now.

That is why the Pakistani state has slowly started squeezing these groups – sometimes through arrests and raids, sometimes through quieter, darker methods. The recent shootings fit a clear pattern. Many anti-India militants have been mysteriously killed inside Pakistan over the last two years. Three main theories are floating around. One, Indian intelligence is settling old scores – India never admits it, Pakistan loudly blames it. Two, it is plain infighting between militant factions over money, turf or old grudges. Three, Pakistan's own agencies are quietly removing people who have become too embarrassing or too uncontrollable to handle.

Whatever the truth, the message is loud: the old "good militants versus bad militants" thinking is finally becoming too costly. Pakistan is paying with blood, lost tourists, scared investors and daily fear. The Haripur pipeline blast reminds us that the problem is bigger than just guns – corruption, poor maintenance and weak safety rules turn even normal life into a gamble. Balochistan's anger over local resources and rights adds yet another fire to the kitchen.

Ordinary Pakistanis – shopkeepers, teachers, autowalas, mothers – do not care about grand strategy. They just want bijli that doesn't fail, jobs for their youth, and streets where children can play without fear. Peace will not arrive overnight. It needs honest politics, clean governance, and neighbours talking instead of fighting through proxies. Until then, these drive-by killings remain grim reminders – when a nation plays with fire too long, eventually its own house catches the flame.

The author is a Defence, Aerospace & Geopolitical Analyst.