The intersection
When the explosion happened on Sunday evening in the Kabal area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, hundreds of demonstrators had gathered at a nearby intersection. Their demand was plain: that the government act against the escalating violence in the region. The bomb went off right beside that crowd.[1]
Swat Deputy Inspector General Fida Hussain said at least 14 people were killed and 22 wounded. According to District Police Officer Umar Khan, the attacker was at the entrance of the police station and detonated as officers tried to search him. No group claimed responsibility.[1]
The province's own count
Why the crowd was there is told by the province's own figures. Researchers at the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies recorded 154 deaths in the province during July that they classify as terrorism-related, more than double the June figure.[1]
The institution the demand was addressed to and the institution the attack hit were the same one. The people at the intersection were asking the provincial security apparatus for protection, while that apparatus was struck as it searched a man at its own gate. Another explanation of the overlap is possible: the demonstrators' proximity may not have been the attacker's reason for choosing the spot, and the station itself may have been the whole aim.[1]
Whom the demand is addressed to
The condemnations came from President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, all three from the federal tier. The demand voiced at the intersection was addressed to the provincial one. Pakistan is one of the emerging powers whose security politics is settled in its provinces as much as in its capital, and in South Asia the distance between those two tiers is often the story itself.[1]
Whether the demand is met will be settled by a number rather than a statement. The indicator to watch is whether the province's monthly death toll falls back below the June level; in July that figure was 154.[1]