Pakistan: Islamabad Capital Catastrophe – Analysis
By Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
On February 6, 2025, at least 36 Shia worshippers were killed and more than 169 sustained injuries when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the Khadijah al-Kubra Imambargah (Shia place of worship) in the Tarlai Kalan area on the outskirts of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). The explosion went off just as worshippers were offering Friday prayers. Initial investigation reveals the suicide bomber approached the mosque during Friday prayers and opened fire at the entrance after being confronted by Security guards, and then detonated his explosive load while running towards the congregation area, causing mass casualties. The Islamic State Pakistan Province (ISPP) claimed responsibility for the attack, adding that Saifullah Ansari carried out the suicide bombing.
This was the deadliest attack in the history of Islamabad, over the past 18 years. The previous record of deadliest had been established just three months earlier, on November 11, 2025, at Islamabad's G-11 Court Complex, in which 12 people were killed and 36 sustained injuries. While briefing the media outside the Court, Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi disclosed: "He (the terrorist) first attempted to go inside the Court, but then targeted the Police vehicle after he was unable to do so." The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a sub-group of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had claimed responsibility for that attack.
Before the Islamabad Court Complex attack, the capital city had faced a TTP-orchestrated suicide bombing in 2022, as a vehicle with a man and a woman aboard detonated when the Police stopped them at the I-10/4 Sector, on December 23, 2022. A Policeman was killed and at least six people - including four Police officers and two civilians - were injured in this incident. A TTP statement claimed responsibility for the attack, but shortly after, Sarbakaf Mohmand, a commander from the group, sent a WhatsApp messages insisting the group had not made any such claim.
Before this, on March 3, 2014, at least 11 people, including Additional District and Sessions Judge Rafaqat Awan, a woman lawyer, and a Policeman, were killed and 25 were injured, when militants attacked the Court Complex in Sector F-8. Spraying bullets and hurling hand grenades, the terrorists later exploded their suicide vests. TTP 'spokesman' Shahidullah Shahid, while distancing the group from the attack, stated, "We have already declared a ceasefire and we strictly adhere to our deal with the Government. Our colleagues in the organisation also cannot violate this agreement". Meanwhile, Asad Mansoor, the 'spokesman' of Ahrar-ul-Hind (AuH), a TTP splinter group, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Occasional incidents of terrorism have persisted in Islamabad, though no year has seen fatalities cross double digits. Of the four terrorism-related incidents in 2025, apart from November 11-sucide blast, the only one to inflict fatalities was on November 29, when one Police Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI), Akbar Khan, was shot dead by unidentified assailants in the jurisdiction of the Sabzi Mandi Police Station. ASI Khan, a resident of the Karak District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), was deployed at the Supreme Court of Pakistan, when unidentified assailants opened fire on him. The other two terrorism-related incidents of the year were:
On May 31, an official of the Frontier Corps (FC) was injured in a shooting by unidentified assailants in the Chatha Bakhtawar area under the Shahzad Town Police Station in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). According to the Police, the FC official was sitting outside his house when the attackers opened fire on him, and then fled.
On January 3, a Police Station was targeted in a 'rocket' attack, subsequently claimed by TTP, in the I-9 area of ICT. Police later discovered a 'mini-rocket' on the station's outer walls.
Year 2024 recorded just one terrorism-related fatality in Islamabad. On January 5, 2024, the central deputy secretary general of the Sunni Ulema Council of Pakistan, and spokesman of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jama'at (ASWJ), Allama Masood-u-Rehman Usmani, was shot dead by unidentified assailants in the Ghori Town area of Islamabad. Another four incidents of terrorism - one each of recovery, extortion, arrest and abduction - were reported through the year.
However, two incidents in 2024 had created a sensation within security agencies, prompting heightened security measures in the national capital. On April 3, a newly emerged terrorist group, the Tehreek Tahaffuz Namoos-i-Pakistan (TTNP) sent threat letters to five judges of the Supreme Court. Then, on April 5, another five judges of the Supreme Court received threatening letters. All the letters had traces of arsenic powder on the envelopes addressed to Supreme Court justices.
The identification of both the suicide bombers in the recent Imambargah attack as well as the November 11 Islamabad Court Complex attack as Afghans or having Afghan linkages, once again underlines the vulnerability of the National Capital, from Afghans residing in Islamabad. According to a 2025 UNHCR report, approximately 41,520 Afghan refugees reside in Islamabad, most of them in the outer periphery areas. Pakistan has been accusing the Afghan refugee population of involvement in logistics, financing, and facilitation for militant groups.
Addressing the media after the February 6 Imambargah attack, Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and Minister of State Talal Chaudhry said the suicide bomber was identified, adding, "He is not an Afghan citizen, but the information about how many times he travelled to Afghanistan has reached us after forensic examination of the rest of his body." The suicide bomber has been identified as Yasir Khan who stayed in Afghanistan for approximately five months before returning to Pakistan. Khan is alleged to have received militant training during his stay in the Mansoor Istashhadi training centre in the Northeastern Afghan province of Kunar, and travelled to and from Afghanistan multiple times.
On February 7, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi disclosed that four facilitators of the suicide attack on the Imambargah, including the "main mastermind", had been arrested. An Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police had been killed and others were injured during raids in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). Naqvi added, "All those people linked to this, and the mastermind, at around 3 am, all of them were apprehended… After the blast, raids were carried out in Nowshera and Peshawar, in which four facilitators were caught. And their mastermind, who is an Afghan, was also caught… the main mastermind is linked to Daesh and is in our custody."
Two major attacks in a gap of just three months demonstrate the terrorist penetration into even high security urban areas in the Federal Capital, which has so far remained relatively peaceful, particularly compared to Pakistan's conflict-riddled tribal areas. The relative calm may have resulted in lowered vigilance, allowing militant networks to exploit a less hardened environment.
The suicide attack exposes vulnerabilities in Islamabad's layered security architecture, particularly outside the heavily protected Red Zone, which is guarded by multiple checkpoints, paramilitary deployments, surveillance networks, and strict access control. Following the suicide blast at Islamabad's G-11 court complex, the security in the Federal capital - the highly sensitive Red Zone (Government, Diplomatic and Judicial District) - has been significantly strengthened. The tightening reflected fears that militant groups were expanding their operational reach into the capital and targeting state institutions. However, the terrorists exploits the structural security flaws in Islamabad's security arrangements. In contrast to the Red Zone, peripheral localities such as Tarlai Kalan - where the targeted Imambargah is located - do not receive comparable security coverage. The Imambargah attack demonstrated how this uneven security distribution can be exploited.
Pakistan has a long history of targeted violence against Shia Muslims, driven largely by sectarian militant outfits such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP, later Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat), TTP and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). According to data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least 5,983 persons have been killed and another 6,374 injured in 1,032 incidents of sectarian violence since 2000. Though there has been a decreasing trend in the number of incidents in recent years, sectarian clashes between tribes in the Kurram District of KP, escalated significantly in 2024, reaching a peak in the months of November and December, with over 130 deaths reported. The conflict primarily involves the Shia and Sunni tribes of the region, specifically the Shia Turi and Sunni Bangash. Apart from sectarian tribal clashes, one of the major targeted sectarian attack of recent years was on March 4, 2022, when a suicide bomber detonated his charge inside a Shia Mosque in the Koocha Risaldar area of Peshawar, the provincial capital of KP, killing 57 worshippers and injuring 194. ISKP claimed responsibility for the attack.
Since the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan in August 15, 2021, Pakistan has also experienced a resurgence of terrorist violence, particularly in urban and semi-urban centres, largely attributed to the TTP, ISKP, and Baloch insurgent groups. Terrorism, no longer confined to the tribal areas of KP or Balochistan, spills over into urban and semi-urban centres of Pakistan. Some of the major terrorist attacks (each involving three or more fatalities) in Pakistan's urban centres since the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan include:
March 2, 2022: Three people, including a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), were killed while 24 were injured in a blast near a Police van at Fatima Jinnah Road, Quetta.
March 4, 2022: At least 57 worshippers lost their lives and 194 were injured when a suicide attacker detonated his charge inside a Shia Mosque in the Koocha Risaldar area of Peshawar.
January 30, 2023: At least 93 persons, including 27 Policemen, were killed and 221 injured, in a suicide blast inside a mosque in the Police Lines area of Peshawar. TTP claimed responsibility for the attack.
July 30, 2023: At least 54 people, including a Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) local leader, were killed and more than 100 sustained injuries in a suicide blast at the JUI-F workers' convention at Shanday Morr near the NADRA office in the Khar town of Bajaur District in KP.
September 29, 2023: At least 54 people, including a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), were killed while 100 were injured, in a suicide blast near a 12th Rabiul Awwal procession near Madina Masjid at Alfalah Road in the Mastung Town of Balochistan.
November 9, 2024: At least 26 persons were killed and more than 50 sustained injuries, when a suicide bomber blew himself up near the ticket counter of the Quetta Railway Station. The Majeed Brigade of BLA claimed responsibility for the attack.
March 4, 2025: At least 15 civilians, including four children and two women, were killed and 25 sustained injuries, in a suicide blast, while six terrorists were killed as SFs foiled a major terrorist attack on the Cantonment in the Bannu Town of KP. Jaish Al-Fursan, an affiliate of the Hafiz Gul Bahadar faction of TTP, claimed responsibility for the attack.
September 2, 2025: At least 13 people were killed and 35 were injured in a suicide bombing near Shahwani Stadium in the Sariab area of Quetta, shortly after the conclusion of a public meeting of the Balochistan National Party (BNP-Mengal), held to mark the death anniversary of the late Sardar Attaullah Mengal.
September 2, 2025: Six soldiers and five TTP terrorists were killed as SFs thwarted a suicide attack on the Federal Constabulary (FC) Headquarters in Bannu Town, KP.
September 30, 2025: At least 10 people, including three Frontier Corps (FC) personnel, were killed while 32 sustained injuries, when a vehicle borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) ripped through a street near the FC headquarters in the Model Town area of Quetta. TTP claimed responsibility for the attack.
Targeting Shia place of worship during Friday prayers ensures maximum casualties but choosing the national capital carries symbolic value for militant groups, as it undermines public confidence in the State's ability to ensure safety even in its most secure administrative zone. Conducting suicide attacks in Islamabad, the capital city, guarantees high media attention and a psychological impact that attacks in more remote border regions do not achieve. The recent surge in terrorist attacks targeting major urban centres in Pakistan, including the capital Islamabad and provincial capitals like Quetta, indicate a significant, ongoing penetration of militant networks into densely populated areas. Despite heightened security measures, militant outfits such as the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), TTP, and ISKP/ISPP are demonstrating increased capability to execute audacious, coordinated, and fatal assaults within the heart of city centres.
- Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management