The Lyari violence highlights the complicated relationship between crime and politics in Karachi.

ECONOMIST: Violence in Karachi

Lyari's dominant gangsters, the People's Aman Committee (PAC), have traditionally lent their support to the country's ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP).

ECONOMIST: Violence in Karachi

Yet police appear to have launched the Lyari operation because some members of the ruling party had developed a rivalry with elements of the PAC.

ECONOMIST: Violence in Karachi

Imran Ayub, a journalist on the Karachi beat, thinks the PAC and the government will strike a bargain that preserves the PPP's Lyari constituency despite this disastrous operation.

ECONOMIST: Violence in Karachi

But perhaps what makes the Lyari operation typical of Karachi was how, just as it was escalating into a policing and humanitarian disaster, it suddenly came to a halt.

ECONOMIST: Violence in Karachi