On March 8, 2011, over 30 people were killed in a car bomb attack at the office of the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the town of Faisalabad. Following the attack, a spokesman for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack in revenge for the killing of a militant in the custody of Pakistani intelligence.
Ehsanullah Ehsan, a deputy spokesman for the TTP, called the offices of Pakistani newspapers after the blast from an undisclosed location and claimed that the ISI had arrested one of their senior colleagues, Dr. Omar Kundi aka Maaz last year, and then killed him in custody. According to a report in the Urdu-language daily Roznama Aaj, the TTP spokesman said that they had been planning to avenge the killing of Dr. Omar Kundi for a long time.
Now a report carried by a leading Pakistani website reveals that Al Tawhid Wal Jihad (ATWJ), a militant religious organization that advocates jihad, is responsible for the March 8 car bombing. According to the report, Dr. Kundi belonged to the ATWJ. The TTP and ATWJ, like many other Sunni militant religious organizations based in Pakistan's Punjab province, work in cooperation. This is perhaps the first time that the ATWJ is reported to be keeping active its relationship with the Taliban.
