Pakistan always had the seeds of a Sunni-Shia schism but the confl ict was suppressed until the 1980s; it came out into the open under the Islamising dictatorship of General Zia when the state became involved in sectarianism. The violence is now open with many observers arguing that Pakistan will need the Shia-killing non-state actors for the Afghan civil war expected to start after the US and NATO forces leave Afghanistan in 2014.
