It is hard to find the words to describe the enormity of the Lahore bombing. It is even harder to understand the suicide bomber who created such carnage. He walked into a park full of families and stopped by a playground where children were screaming and shouting with excitement as they played on the rides and chased each other around. What can have gone through the man's mind before he detonated his vest packed with explosives and nails? He was about to destroy himself for the sake of a lunatic cause. But he could also see that he was about to kill tiny children, who had done him no harm, who had their whole lives ahead of them. Did he hesitate for one moment? Did he wonder if what he was about to do was so inhuman, so brutally wrong that he should abort his mission of death? Even if he had such thoughts, it is clear he overcame them and went ahead with an atrocity which appalls and disgusts all decent people. Blind hatred and bigotry overcame any instincts of humanity he might have had. This was a man who had surely once taken joy in the company of innocent children, might even have had some of his own and yet he could commit such a truly appalling crime. The leaders who sent him on this mission of destruction later said that the park attack was a message to Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that their terror group, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, "had entered Lahore" and would be committing further acts of violence. It is quite breathtaking that anyone with a claim to be a member of the human race could admit to this monstrous deed, let alone glory in it. Yet there is an agenda here which extends beyond rabid detestation of other communities, in this case Pakistan's minority Christians. This bunch of killers has broken away from the Tehrik-e-Taliban. They are thus one of a score of terror outfits that are battling each other, as well as the Pakistani state, for power and influence. They all, of course, claim to be fighting jihad but in reality their shadowy leaders are after money by controlling the flows of drugs and weapons, imposing taxes on the populations of areas they control and from time to time being bought off from creating further mayhem. Yet the flow of foot soldiers prepared to protect the interests of the manipulative and self-interested terror group leaders does not seem to be lessening. The blasphemous teachings that are used to try and justify barbarous acts of terror drown out the true teachings of Islam, the teachings of tolerance and mercy. But to do what they are doing without compunction, the suicide bombers and terrorist gunmen have to be clinically insane, while the men who plan their attacks and give them their orders are cynical and evil beyond measure. The question has been asked before and must be asked again: What sort of a world do those loathsome creatures want to create, if it is built on the shattered bodies of children and stained with their innocent blood? They are beyond understanding and beyond contempt. The Pakistan government must make their ruthless extermination an absolute priority.
