Two of the many recent attacks by militants suggest a change in their tactics. One of the twin suicide bombings at the International Islamic University in Islamabad was carried out outside the cafeteria of the women’s wing while the bombing at Meena Bazaar in Peshawar, which took over a hundred lives, was frequent mainly by lower- and middle-class women.

The attack on the Islamic University was the more surprising of the two since the institution has a history of involvement in the ‘jihad’ against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It has a reputation for conservatism and imparting education on topics like Shariah and Islamic finance (Newsline takes a closer look at the history of the International Islamic University in its November issue, due out late next week). That this institution was attacked would hint that Hakimullah Mehsud is no longer trying to build alliances or even spare groups that might be inclined to support the Taliban.

Girls’ education is a bugbear of the Taliban, which might explain the attack, but tactically it was a mistake. The girls who would be studying at the Islamic University are far more conservative than the population as a whole and could have been counted on, if not to support the Taliban, then to oppose military action against them. And if the Taliban is serious about establishing an Islamic society in Pakistan, rather than maximising short-term political violence, then these are precisely the sort of allies it needs.

The attack on Meena Baazar, too, targeted those very people one would expect the Taliban to win over. This, too indicates that the Taliban is no longer trying to expand the territory it controls. By going after soft civilian targets, the Taliban has eschewed its hearts-and-minds programme of providing speedy justice and welfare to those who support it.

Meanwhile, lower-income women are being disproportionately killed in what one hopes is the Taliban’s last, desperate stand, caught in a war in which these women never took sides.