As the dramatic jihadi attack on Jinnah International Airport in Karachi unfolded last Sunday night, and many of us watched in dismay recalling the terrifying 26/11 assault on Mumbai by terrorists who went about their bloodletting with similar military precision, the question that kept on popping up was why did they choose this target. Airports and aircraft are no doubt high profile targets that are bound to fetch instant global publicity. And, as Mrs Margaret Thatcher famously pointed out, publicity is the oxygen that keeps terrorists and terrorism alive. Hijacking passenger planes or dramatically blowing them up were the opening acts of terrorism in modern times. Few people would remember it today but the world gasped in horror when the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine blew up three planes, one each of TWA, Swissair and BOAC (now British Air), in the Jordanian desert on September 12, 1970. Civil aviation since then has never been the same again.

While media reports suggest that the attack on Jinnah International was a demonstration of strength by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, better known as TTP, niggling doubts remain. During the attack, and the subsequent standoff between the 10 terrorists (were there more?) and Pakistani security forces, people present inside the airport and a passenger on board an Emirates flight that was about to take-off but found itself stranded on the tarmac, were tweeting about what was happening on the spot. Information from them suggested that the terrorists were trying to make their way to the Emirates aircraft and seize control of it. That would lead us to the conclusion that their purpose was to hijack a passenger plane.