Pakistan: Militants Attack ISI Building in Peshawar

Pakistani militants detonated a large suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) in front of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency's provincial headquarters building in the city of Peshawar, Pakistan Nov. 13. This VBIED attack is the first assault on a hardened target in the region in some time as many of the recent militant attacks have been directed toward softer targets such as schools and marketplaces. The success of this and other related operations indicates that some degree of pre-operational surveillance went undetected prior to the attacks. In such pre-operational surveillance, militants are able to identify a vulnerability in a check point and successfully exploit it. This kind of successful attack against a hard target in a time of heightened alert does not bode well for other potential targets in Peshawar.