LONDON — At least 72 people were killed and 300 injured by the suicide blast that shook the crowded Gulshan-i-Iqbal Park in Lahore, Pakistan, on the evening of Easter Sunday. Many of the victims were children. A Taliban splinter group called Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has claimed responsibility for the attack that targeted Pakistani Christians without warning. The group is believed to have carried out previous attacks, including the beheading of 23 paramilitary soldiers in February 2014. A spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said his group wanted to send a message that it has “entered Lahore.” He then threatened further atrocities.

Yesterday’s heartbreaking blasts made this the third time this month alone that Pakistan has been attacked by jihadists. All this just in Pakistan, just in March. And this needs to be understood in the context of the global jihadist insurgency that is upon us: unprecedented in its scale, pluralistic in its leadership, fractured in its strategy, nevertheless inspiring in its central message, and popular enough in its appeal that it is able to move masses.

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