Abdullah Malik
ISLAMABAD: The security arena after a volatile conflict continued to improve in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Tribal Districts (KPTDs) but North Waziristan district remained turbulent despite of powerful military offensive Operation Zarb-e-Azb these statistics reveled by the Annual Security Report issued by FATA Research Centre (FRC) Islamabad today for the year of 2019.
The security report added that a total of 160 violent incidents (106 terrorism and 54 counter-terrorism) incidents were recorded during the year 2019 compared to 264 (127 terrorism and 137 counter-terrorism attacks) incidents in 2018. The statistics shows a 16 percent decline in terrorism incidents and 82 percent in counter terrorism incidents in 2019 as compared to the preceding year.
The security report statistics further spotlighted that the total 106 terrorist incidents in 2019, 54 terrorist attacks (52%) targeted security forces while 48 attacks (46%) were targeted civilians. Four terrorist attacks (4%) targeted members of civil militia and peace committees volunteers.
The violent incidents of both terrorist and counter-terrorist, resulted in a total of 281 casualties, 110 killed and 171 injured, in all the KP Tribal districts, marking a significant decrease of 24 percent in overall casualties. Of the total casualties, 161 (54 Killed and 107 Injured) were that of security forces, accounting for 57 percent of the overall casualties. Comparatively, 12 percent increase in security forces casualties was observed in the reporting year as compared to 2018.Civilian stood at second with 87 casualties (35 killed and 52 injured) which make it 31 percent of the overall casualties. As compared to the previous year a significant decline of 55 percent was observed in civilian casualties in the reporting year. Eight casualties of Amn Lashkar personnel (Six killed and two injured) were also recorded during the year 2019.
The reports found that in terms of volatility, the North Waziristan tribal district remained the most turbulent one. 45 terrorism incidents were recorded in the district during the reporting year compared to 58 such incidents in the previous year. The South Waziristan tribal district stood second with 25 terrorist incidents which resulted in 44 casualties (17 Killed and 26 Injured) followed by Bajaur and Khyber, which reported 15 and 12 terrorist incidents respectively. Six terrorism related incidents were reported from Mohmand district while only one such incident was took place in Orakzai district. Although only one terrorism related incidents was reported from Kurram district; nevertheless the district is highly vulnerable to terrorist attacks due to its proximity to the Nangarhar, one of the volatile province of Afghanistan.
According to the report Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) factions of Hakeemullah and Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud remained the major actors of instability in the KP tribal districts during the year 2019.
Irfan U Din, Senior Security Analyst at FATA Research Centre explained that military operations against the militant groups in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Tribal districts have considerably weakened the operational capacity of militant organizations in KPTDs. “Instead of suicide attacks, militants are now largely relying on cross border attacks, target killing and IED attacks to remain in limelight in the KPTDs. It shows the significance of hardcore approaches adopted by the Pakistani government in debilitating the militant networks of both local and foreign militants operating in tribal areas of Pakistan.
