Islamabad, Oct. 06, 2022: Killing of nine terrorists within four days in different parts of Pakistan represents a new challenge for Pakistan’s security forces. The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in Karachi, capital of the southern Sindh province, took down two wanted militants in a major operation on Saturday, while security forces in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province also killed seven militants in two different operations on Tuesday.
Speaking about the encounter in Karachi’s outskirts, the CTD Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Asif Aijaz Shaikh claimed that the militants killed – Syed Aimal Khan alias Hamza (resident of Pishin) and Qari Abdullah alias Mamum (from Quetta) – were affiliated with the outlawed militant Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) group and involved in major terrorism incidents in Balochistan.
Interestingly, the same day, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had already owned up the two terrorists through a press release dated October 02. “They embraced shahadat after valiantly participating in various activities during the jihade Pakistan”, said the TTP spokesperson while praising the two.
Open-source data, collected by the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) underlines a scary new trend that has continued since early this year; within first nine months of 2022, mostly Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) related terrorists carried out as many as 274 attacks resulting in at least 455 deaths. This comes to almost an attack every day. Security forces also continued their push against terrorists and their affiliates with nearly 100 operations which left about 262 dead, mostly terrorists.
In 2022, dozens of security personnel have also been killed in targeted attacks and operations, including as many as 82 policemen from KP province. In September alone, cumulatively, Pakistan army, para-military forces plus police suffered around 30 fatalities in various incidents and counter-terrorism missions. Beside the security forces, several tribal elders and members of peace missions in conflict-affected border regions have also fallen to terrorist attacks.
The data collected by the Center – as part of its security reports – speaks of why this deadly trend in the making just within first nine months of 2022 presents itself as a daunting security challenge ahead. With an increase of roughly 42% in 2021, Pakistan suffered 853 fatalities, compared to 600 in 2020, directly linked to violence-related incidents. It is worth mentioning that the violence related casualties in Pakistan declined at a steady rate since 2015, plateaued somewhat in the year prior but accelerated dramatically in 2021. However, in comparison with these previous years, the figures thus far into 2022 do not augur well for the country’s security situation, with still three more months to go before the year ends.
Much of the violence and targeted attacks on security forces this year can clearly be attributed to the religiously inspired militant groups such as the TTP, local Taliban, IS-K, and Baloch and Sindhi nationalist insurgent groups.
CRSS, as part of research for its Annual Security Report, is continuously monitoring this alarming new trend in the making, for comparative and independent analysis about Pakistan’s state of security, published each year.
