Pakistan has been witness to four acts of terrorism in just four days, including three suicide bombings and one mortar attack.

Last Friday, a suicide bomber also struck Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel killing a security guard who stopped the terrorist from entering the hotel.  The security guard should be remember posthumously for his valor.

On Saturday, a suicide bomber attacked Pakistani police, killing 13 and wounding six police officials. Today, a suicide bomber struck a police checkpoint in Dera Ismail Khan, killing two, and a mortar attack against a Shia mosque in NW Waziristan wounded 13.

What is going on in Pakistan and why are these attacks happening all of the sudden?  Terrorist attacks are hardly rare in Pakistan, but they do not normally come in such waves.  Could the first suicide bomber’s failure to cause mass casualties have resulted in the other three attacks?  And what about suspected Sunni on Shia violence that, for whatever reason, we are repeatedly told by Muslim leaders never happens outside of Iraq and is because of the so-called American occupation of Iraq?

In response to the mortar attack on the Shia mosque, the Pakistani government has imposed a curfew in the north-western Pakistani town of Hangu, but the attacks demonstrate what might be a political vacuum left between the Pakistani military’s control of the government and the opposition parties, “allowing militants to take over under the umbrella of the Muslim religious hardcore in the over 13,000 Islamic seminaries or madrassas in the country.”

That is not all that complicates the issue.  There is the situation with the Taliban and Al Qaida who have taken refuge in the Waziristan region and the Taliban who has declared their intent to avenge the Pakistani government’s attack on a Taliban training camp.

But tensions are also high because of threats by militants to carry out revenge attacks following recent Pakistan army operations in the tribal area. The local pro-Taliban militants had warned of revenge attacks and the retaliation has followed quickly.

The threat by Pakistani Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, to take on the government of Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf everywhere appears to be real. Baitullah Mehsud had said that the government of Pakistan faced dire consequences after the military carried out an air strike in South Waziristan on 16 January in which many people were killed and injured . . .

The recent arrest of activist and former official with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) retired air force squadron leader Khalid Khawaja and threats to crackdown on the ideologues of the Pakistani Taliban, clerics Maulana Abdul Aziz and Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, has only added to the tensions between the Pakistani establishment and the religious hardcore of the country in the various Islamic seminaries.

Then there’s the following rather idiotic statement by a member of the Pakistani Muslim League.

“These trends are all the result of political oppression,” said Syed Hafizuddin, the former provincial minister and senior vice president of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) – the party loyal to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif – in an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI).

“When everything is controlled by the military apparatus whether it is the ruling coalition or the opposition parties, public is deprived of a just representation and the frustration comes out in the shape of suicide attacks which is certainly a very negative and damaging trend for the national cause,” said Hafizuddin.

“Think for a moment. Had the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia allowed a political process, people like Osama Bin Laden would have participated in politics and there would have been no need to pursue their agenda by guns,” he said.

Show me when Muhammad was receptive to the idea of a representative government elected by the people he conquered.  Explain to me why Osama bin Laden and other Islamists repeatedly show their intention for a global Caliphate made in the image of Muhammad where even agreeing voices can be heard and  would be congruent with elections.

People like Osama bin Laden would have been discouraged by the political process to elect representatives, thus lashing out because he feels he knows what is best and what is in the image of the old Caliphate.

I’ve written repeatedly how the rule of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf essentially resides on the thin line between absolute power and complete appeasement to Islamists within Pakistan.  Could these attacks outside the normal area demonstrate that line will be challenged?

“The militants are only interested in their particular territory for instance, South Waziristan and North Waziristan or Bajaur [tribal areas which lie on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan],” said Hameed Haroon, chief executive officer of Pakistan’s Dawn group of newspapers. “If the government would affect their interests over there, certainly they would react otherwise generally they don’t react on general political or religious issues,” he maintained.

The militants do tend to avoid meddling in the general political environment in Pakistan. However it would appear that this is changing. The recent attack by the army on a suspected militant camp in South Waziristan and the demolition of mosques by the Capital Development Authority in Islamabad appears to have change that precedent. It is believed that in the coming days the Pakistani Taliban are ready to join forces with a particular segment of Pakistani society desperate to take on the government of President Musharraf government. These segments include political parties like the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Tehrik-i-Insaf led by cricketeer-turned-politician Imran Khan and last but not least, the over 13,000 Islamic seminaries in the country.

The West cannot afford to allow Musharraf to fall to Islamists in Pakistan.  Pakistan remains the key ally in the GWOT, and for that reason we should be thankful Jimmy Carter is not in the White House.  Here’s to hoping George W. Bush is no Carter.