From the summer of 2007 to late 2008, more than 1,500 people were killed in suicide and other attacks on civilians. The attacks has been attributed to a number of sources: sectarian violence - mainly between Sunni and Shia Muslims - the origin of which is blamed by some on initiated from 1977 to 1988; the easy availability of guns and explosives of a "kalishnikov culture" and influx of ideologically driven "Afghan Arabs" based in or near Pakistan, originating from and the subsequent war against the Afghan communist in the 1980s which blew back into Pakistan; Islamist insurgent groups and forces such as the Taliban and lasker -e- Taiba; Pakistan's thousands of fundamentalist madrassas which are thought by some to provide training for little except jihad; secessionists movements - the most significant of which is the Balochistan liberation movement - blamed on regionalism problematic in a country with Pakistan's diverse cultures, languages, traditions and customs.
