Pakistan witnessed more than one terror attack every day in 2017 (370 terror attacks), which included 24 suicide attacks that claimed the life of 815 people while also leaving more than 1,700 people injured.
This data, which was published earlier this week by the Islamabad based independent think tank “Pak Institute for Peace Studies” (PIPS), stamps the apprehension of the world leaders who fear that the Islamic country is slowly slipping into the category of a failed state with its civilian government unable to uphold the rule and law.
As per PIPS, even this huge number (370 terrorist attacks) marks “a decline of 16 percent from the previous year, and the number of people killed in these attacks also fell by 10 percent; the number of those injured, however, increased by 7 percent, as compared to the year before”.
The report also states that the Daesh (ISIS), which is now in disarray following its defeat in Iraq and Syria, is now expanding its footprints in Pakistan. The ISIS carried at least six terrorist attacks in the country in which 153 people were killed.
The restive region of FATA and Balochistan, which are witnessing an armed independence struggle, saw the maximum killing, as per the report. As many as 288 people were killed in Balochistan and 253 in FATA in terrorism related incidents. The security forces and law enforcement agencies killed 524 militants in military operations. Without naming the terror group, the report also focused on Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, who is trying to gain a foothold in the political landscape of the country. The report has said: “New challenges raised their heads; these included emergence of self-radicalized individuals and small terrorist cells, growing incidence of religious extremism including on educational campuses” and goes on to say that “any ambiguity regarding mainstreaming of banned groups and individuals should be inclusive, led by parliament, which should lay down a criteria to the pre-conditions of mainstreaming such groups”.
The increase of ISIS’ influence in Pakistan has also been taken seriously by the Indian security agencies as they had for long been deliberating on the fall out that might happen when ISIS is driven out of Syria and Iraq and shifts its focus to Pakistan. “We have been keeping an eye on this development and the increase of ISIS’ influence in Pakistan was not unexpected once Syria and Iraq fell. These foreign terrorists are now looking at new sanctuaries which include Pakistan and Kashmir. The concerns that ISIS terrorists are now just than few hundred kilometres from the national capital is being taken very seriously,” a senior intelligence agency official, who has been tracking ISIS, said.