Pakistan recorded a significant decline in violence in the year 2016, continuing a two-year trend. Terrorism began losing its sway soon after the launch of Operation Zarb-e-Azb in the tribal areas. The results of the kinetic operations are now quite evident and manifest in the improved security situation. However the root cause threats of extremism still linger.
The militants, facing the onslaught of the military operations and the tightening of the law enforcement noose around their necks, began fleeing the country and evolved new strategies. They targeted geographical areas and population centers that were softer, least protected, and unprecedented. In addition, they deployed a wider array of improvised explosive weapons and suicide bombers despite strong resistance by the security personnel.
Another major change observed was the escalation of fatalities from violence in those provinces that earlier experienced a decline while an inversely opposite trend was observed in other provinces. Violence in Balochistan spiked, while in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Sindh, it declined significantly.
A large number of high profile Pakistani militants hiding in the bordering areas of Afghanistan were killed in US drone attacks during 2016. Some Pakistani as well as foreign-born descendants of Pakistani nationals, under the influence of the Islamic State (IS), took up arms in foreign countries, as a result of which they were either eliminated or arrested during security operations in their adopted countries.
The assessment and reviews of all these incidents of violence are discussed in detail in this report based on the data CRSS has collected during the year from open sources, i.e., national print and electronic media. CRSS endeavors to ensure that the data is as accurate as possible within the available sources. However, it does not rule out errors and omissions, which are always a possibility in handling and working on statistics. Such mistakes, nevertheless, do not grossly affect the overall outcome and conclusions of this report.
Readers can approach CRSS for information related to this report. Alternately, you may want send your queries to mail@crss.pk, directly to Mohammad Nafees, Senior Research Fellow, CRSS, who authored this report (mohammad.nafees@yahoo.com) or Zeeshan Salahuddin, Senior Research Fellow (zeeshan@crss.pk), the editor.