On Sunday, a suicide bombing in northwestern Pakistan—likely carried out by an Islamic State affiliate—struck a convention of an Islamist party belonging to the country’s governing coalition. The attack killed more than 50 people and wounded almost 200. Husain Haqqani places the incident in the context of the surge of jihadist violence Islamabad now faces:

Terror attacks have surged in Pakistan since the Taliban’s return to power in neighboring Afghanistan; in the current year, at least 682 people have been killed in 232 attacks so far. . . . Pakistan has faced terror attacks from one group or another since the late 1990s, when local veterans of the U.S.-backed mujahideen fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s turned their attention to other issues and causes closer to home. The government’s approach has ever since then been to work with some jihadists but to spurn others.

As Hillary Clinton famously warned Pakistani leaders thirteen years ago, “You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors.” Even after ostensibly becoming an American ally in the Global War on Terror in the aftermath of 9/11, Pakistan never seriously disarmed all jihadist groups operating from its territory. The human toll of Pakistan’s approach has been immense. Some 16,225 terror attacks have been reported in Pakistan since 2000, resulting in 66,601 deaths, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, a website that tracks terror attacks across the region.

Groups such as the Afghan Taliban have enjoyed active Pakistani government support over the years, notwithstanding the militants’ longstanding ties with al-Qaeda. That’s because the country’s all-powerful military saw them as allies in ensuring that Pakistan maintained greater influence than India—which many Pakistanis see as their [primary] enemy and rival—in Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal.

Pakistani officials might make distinctions among various categories of jihadists, but the militants do not always see things through the same lens.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.