Abdullah Malik
Islamabad: The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) emerged as major actors of instability in Pakistan in 2019 by perpetrating 82 and 27 terrorist attacks, respectively, including some high-impact. However the incidence of terrorist violence by the Islamic State (IS) group declined significantly.
On the while, marking a 13 percent decrease from the year before, 229 terrorist attacks took place in Pakistan, including four suicide attacks. These attacks claimed in all 357 lives – a decline of 40 percent from those killed in such attacks in 2018 – and injured another 729 people. So-called religiously inspired militant groups such as the TTP, its splinter group Hizbul Ahrar and others with similar objectives perpetrated 158 terrorist attacks killing 239 people. Nationalist insurgent groups, mainly Baloch insurgent groups BLA and BLF, carried out 57 attacks, which claimed 80 lives. Meanwhile, 14 of the reported terrorist attacks in 2019 were sectarian-related which caused 38 deaths.
These statistics were provided in Pak Institute for Peace Studies’ (PIP) annual security review of Pakistan for 2019. The report further noted that those 357 killed in terrorist attacks included 164 civilians, 163 personnel of security and law enforcement agencies as well as 30 militants. Personnel of security and law enforcement agencies suffered significant casualties because they were targeted in 118 attacks, or about 52 percent of the total terrorist attacks recorded across Pakistan.
Over 91pc of the total recorded attacks in Pakistan in 2019 concentrated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. In KP,125 terrorist attacks claimed 145 lives and injured 249 others. North Waziristan remerged as a major hotspot of militant violence, which was the only district of the country with over 50 attacks in the year.
In terms of terrorism-related casualties, Balochistan was the most affected region of the country in 2019. As many as 171 people were killed – about 48 percent of the total 357 people killed in terrorist attacks across Pakistan – and 436 others were injured in 84 reported attacks from the province. Fourteen terrorist attacks happened in Sindh province – 10 in Karachi alone and 4 in interior Sindh – which killed a total of 18 people and injured two (2) others. Five (5) terrorist attacks took place in Punjab and one in the federal capital Islamabad. Security forces and law enforcement agencies killed as many as 113 militants in 2019 in military/security operations as well as their armed clashes and encounters with the militants – compared to 105 militants killed in such actions in 2018. Theyalso apprehended a total of 231 suspected terrorists and members of militant groups in 99 search and combing operations conducted all over the country.
With a slight decline of over 2 percent from the year before, 128 cross-border attacks were reported from Pakistan’s borders with Afghanistan (4 attacks), India (123) and Iran (one attack). These attacks claimed the lives of 91 Pakistani citizens including 61 civilians, 29 army officials, and one Rangers personnel.
The report also identified some critical security challenges and provided several recommendations, with some of them summarized below:
Despite all the efforts by the government of Pakistan, curbing terrorism financing stood out as one of the most critical security challenges facing Pakistan. Instead overflying on a tactical approach of merely responding to the FATF queries, Pakistan needs to develop some institutional responses to curb the terror financing. Pakistan’s counter terrorism challenge has many folds and deradicalization of the members of the banned religious organizations is becoming critical too. Such initiative is also needed in the context of the increasing frustration among the members and workers of the banned militant organizations and their charities, especially after law enforcement agencies have launched a renewed campaign against them.
The problem of a lax state response to the security challenges of KP was partly linked to continuing slow transition of implementation of erstwhile FATA’s merger in KP, mainly due to multiple bureaucratic, political and legal hurdles, which need to be addressed immediately. To deal with the Baloch insurgency, the government has to immediately evolve a proper plan for the reintegration and mainstreaming of insurgents. A realization among the Baloch youth is increasing that through violence nothing can be achieved and the state has to reciprocate in a similar way. A fast-track mechanism on missing persons in the province can prove a major confidence-building measure. The phenomenon of religious intolerance has its own dynamics but in recent years it has grown through its connectivity with larger extremist discourses fanned in cyberspaces. The government has to respond through inclusive education, as well as through supporting moderate and progressive narratives in cyberspaces, media and on education campuses.
The National Action Plan (NAP) should be made into a proper plan, with clear goals, a comprehensive monitoring mechanism, and periodic reviewing. The NAP should adjust with the changing nature of the threats and it should have been a dynamic and effective policy tool.
The government has recently taken some steps to regularize madrassas. These however may not prove an alternative of a regulatory authority on madrassas to look into their financial affairs, pedagogy, hate speech, sectarian narratives and activities of radical groups in madrassas. Such regulatory authorities can be established on the level of districts or provinces, which should have the representation of the educational departments, religious scholars, civil society and parents.
