AKIPRESS.COM - The militant group behind the park massacre in Lahore, Pakistan this week on Tuesday threatened to unleash a wave of new attacks, as the government rounded up thousands of suspects, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The Easter Sunday bombing that killed 72 people was the latest in a series of bloody assaults by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar extremists over the past two years, which has established them as the most brutal and capable militant group in the country. The Pakistani Taliban affiliate’s network, officials say, reaches into the country’s heartland of Punjab province, whose capital Lahore is Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s hometown and political base.

“Let Nawaz Sharif know that this war has now reached the doorstep of his home,” Ehsanullah Ehsan, the militant group’s spokesman, said in a Twitter post on Tuesday, announcing a new campaign of violence. “God willing, the winners of this war will be the righteous holy warriors.”

The militant group also released a picture of the man it said “offered his life to Allah by carrying out a suicide attack,” identifying him as Salahuddin Khurasani.

Mr. Sharif has vowed to defeat the militant group. “I have appeared before you today to reiterate the promise that we are keeping track of every drop of our martyrs’ blood. This debt is being repaid, and we will not rest until the score is settled,” he said in a televised address on Monday.

The provincial government on Tuesday said it had detained and questioned more than 5,000 suspects for any links to the attack, although it released all but 216 who are being held for further investigation.

Punjab’s provincial government said militants would find no refuge. “There are no safe havens here, there are no no-go areas here,” the province’s Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said on Tuesday.