Afghanistan: In midwinter attacks, a brutal Pakistani reply to Trump

Why, in the dead of winter, two months before the traditional start of Afghanistan’s fighting season, has the country been rocked by four attacks that killed more than 150 people?

The trigger was not a change in the Taliban’s fighting calendar, analysts say, nor was it necessarily evidence of intensified competition between Taliban and the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) to lead the insurgency against the Western-backed government.

Rather, they say, it was a violent Pakistani response – using its Islamist insurgent clients – to President Trump’s recent pressure on Pakistan to rein in militant sanctuaries, or else.

A Western official in Kabul who asked not to be further identified dismisses the competition theory, and warns that continued pressure on Pakistan is likely to produce an even more violent reaction.

He points out that the explosive power of suicide car bombs – as used in two of the most recent strikes, one claimed by the Taliban, the other by ISIS

Afghan officials take harder lineRare deviation from the scriptOptions for both US and Pakistan