News Analysis: Twin bombings show Taliban's penchant to target defenceless religious minorities in Pakistan

The twin bombings of two crowded Christian churches in the Pakistani city of Lahore on Sunday has again exhibited the Taliban's predilection to target defenceless minorities in retaliation for the government's massive offensive to dismantle their sanctuaries in the country's tribal regions.

Two bombers blew themselves up as worshippers attended Sunday services, killing at least fifteen people and injuring scores of others. Nearly all those killed and injured were unarmed and innocent civilians who have nothing to do with the security forces operations against the militants.

A splinter Taliban group, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, was quick to claim responsibility for the brutal attack. The group's spokesman Ehsanulllah Ehsan defended the attack, saying that the Christians, which represent only two percent of Pakistan's estimated 180 million population, are enemies of the Taliban and are part of the war waged against the Taliban in Pakistan.

Senior Muslim leaders dismissed the Taliban's killing of religious minorities as against Islamic teachings because Islam does not allow the killing of minorities.

"We consider attacks on places of worship of non-Muslims as against Islam," Chairman of the Pakistan's religious scholars' council, Allama Tahir Ashrafi, said.

Ashrafi told Xinhua on Monday that the attacks on religious minorities are not doing any good to Islam or Pakistan because killing Christians would only inflame sectarian hatred in the country.

As the Taliban and other armed groups have lost ground in all their traditional strongholds, they have now resorted to hitting soft targets of civilians in major cities where they take advantage of densely populated areas as what they have done in Lahore's Christian churches.

The majority of people in Pakistan, including Islamic parties, do not endorse the Taliban's ideology of violent extremism and that is why the militant group is now isolated in society. They do not have any sympathy even from Islamic groups because of their years of attacks that have killed civilians, including Muslims.

All major Islamic parties threw their support to the government 's decision to take tough measures against terrorism after the Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar in December that had killed around 150 students, teachers and staff members.

In June Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif won political parties' support to send troops to North Waziristan tribal region to battle the Taliban and other groups that have been using the lawless region to prepare suicide bombers and send them across Pakistan.

The security forces have cleared about 90 percent of the area of armed groups as many militants have been killed and others have fled.

As the security forces have mounted pressure on all militant groups, the Taliban splinter groups and other banned outfits are now joining hands for their survival.

On March 12, the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) announced that the splinter TTP Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and another outlawed group "Lashkar-e-Islam have merged into the TTP.

Some senior Taliban leaders had parted ways with the TTP over serious differences and have launched the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar in August last year.

The group had been involved in series of deadly attacks including the suicide bombing near the Wahga border with India in November that killed 60 people and injured 100 others. It also claimed responsibility for the attack on a mosque of Shiite Muslims near Islamabad in January, killing at least five people.

Lashkar-e-Islam, based in Khyber tribal agency had once been the rival of the TTP in the region. Mangal Bagh, who is leading the group, is now on the run. The group is blamed for attacks on the security forces, the NATO containers and tribal elders. Endi