DPA/Islamabad

Pakistan police have thwarted an Al Qaeda plan to kill country’s leading film stars, drama artists and fashion designers for promoting Western culture, three years after a Taliban bid to assassinate education activist Malala Yousafzai.
The terror network established a special cell in the southern city of Karachi to target showbiz celebrities and top fashion icons popular among the country’s elite, local police chief Mushtaq Mahar said.
But police last week arrested an unspecified number of suspected militants and recovered a “hit list” of targets from them, Mahar said.
Al Qaeda wanted to target these personalities because of their liberal way of thinking and living, said Jamil Ahmed, another police official who interrogated the militants.
“The artists are the symbols of liberal, Western culture,” Ahmed said. “The militants believe by killing them they can eliminate a source of liberal inspiration for people.”
Taliban gunmen attacked girls’ education activist Malala Yousafzai in October 2012 in her hometown of Swat in north-western Pakistan for promoting Western culture.
The botched assassination attempt helped the young activist grow in stature, and she ended up winning several prestigious global awards including the Noble Peace Prize in 2014.
From Western food chains like McDonald’s to jeans, Islamist militants in Pakistan have been attacking everything they think is associated with Western culture.
Movies and dramas in Pakistan usually depict modern life and its problems in a bold, open manner that does not go down well with some people in the conservative Islamic society.
Once a formidable force, Al Qaeda and its allied Taliban are on the run in Pakistan after years of military offensive against them, but they still have the capabilities to launch surprise attacks.