This is ridiculous but allow me to mention it anyway. These 4 guys are also talking about
political assassinations and then
religious confrontation issue in 2017.
In order for the even to be big enough, by definition, it must affect a very large segment within the country that has ability to create "swan effect".
Who can it be?
- Christians? Not in big numbers, they are also not a pressure group.
- Ahmadies? Not in big number. Have no direct influence within the country.
- Hindus or Sikhs? Not in big number - not a pressure group either.
- Shias - Significant in number, some 20% of country's population and scattered across the country. They could be the hit list.
- Sunnis - 80% population but they won't see sectarian angle unless attackers were open and known to be from the opposite scat.
In my analysis, Shias could be on the target list and the attackers could be from the banned Sunni organisations who now have new homes in Afghanistan.
What city?
- Big cities only
- Cities which are in the centre of Pakistan. I am ruling Karachi out as that is away from rest of the country and things which develop in Karachi stay there. In order for anything to be big enough, it would have to be in the middle of the country.
- Lahore - Less likely, it has never been centre of religious confrontations.
- Rawalpindi - a possible candidate. Has significant Shia population and it has history of religious confrontation. Also anything which happens there can affect Islamabad automatically.
- Multan - a possible candidate, has considerable Shia population but doesn't have a history of religious confrontation.
- Faisalabad - less likely as majority of population is workers, they are Punjabi and less aggressive.
- Peshawar - Army has significant presence in FATA. Because of their presence, any -ve situation would lose its momentum quickly.
So in my analysis,
Shias in Multan or Rawalpindi could be under attack.
All in my humble opinion only.