The year 2022 ended with December being the deadliest month (thus far) for Pakistan’s security personnel over a decade. The Center for Research & Security Studies’ (CRSS) annual security report for 2022 states that Pakistan faces a grave threat from “the emergence of a new terror triad” comprising banned groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP).
According to the report, Pakistani security forces lost at least 282 personnel during 2022 – with 40 fatalities just in December alone, making it being the deadliest month of 2022 – in attacks that included IED ambushes, suicide bombings, and raids on security posts. These incidents were concentrated mostly in the Pak-Afghan border regions.
The country suffered as many as 376 terror attacks this year; though banned terror outfits such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), ISKP, and Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for at least 57 of these strikes.
As a whole, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province experienced an exponential rise in violence: where the fatalities increased by a whopping 108%. Total fatalities from terrorist violence were estimated at 973 – a 14.47% spike compared to 2021.
The highest victims of terrorist attacks were civilians, government officials, and security personnel (62% of the total fatalities) while the militants, insurgents and other outlaws accounted for the remaining 38% of all fatalities in 2022. The civilian fatalities includes foreigners as well: 4 Chinese citizens and a former commander of the Afghan National Police.
The emerging scenario depicts an extremely precarious security situation that Afghan-based TTP and its proxies have created in Pakistan. The militants are using violence to keep pressurizing Pakistani government for a settlement which can ensure an autonomous frontier region where they can rebuild their sanctuaries and pursue their plan of unleashing a larger scale terror in the country. This would be in pursuit of their goal of establishing a Sharia-complaint “Emirate” in Pakistan after having established one in Afghanistan.
Casualties of counter-terror operations or “intelligence-based operations” (IBOs) by security agencies were 378 (372 dead and 6 wounded) while casualties of terror attacks were 1,341 (601 dead and 740 wounded), raising questions about the effectiveness of security operations as well as the reported number of casualties.
Were the operations carried out by the security agencies so precise and targeted that no person – other than the targeted ones – were eliminated? Of course, there are always a few exceptions.
The militants, on the other hand, maintained their focus on spreading terror without caring as to who or how many their victims will be.
January 04, 2023
Source: https://www.thefridaytimes.com/2023/01/04/pakistan-faces-new-terror-triad/