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Pakistan Conflict Tracker Monthly Report – December 2012
The raging wave of violence surged significantly during December across Pakistan. Ethno-political violence in Karachi, religio-terrorism in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), and nationalist-separatist violence in Balochistan meanwhile continued unabated. The deadly wave of target killing in Karachi, started in the last week of March, continue to mount death toll during December. The deadly wave left almost 121 persons dead (due to target killing) during the current month. In total, 139 persons perished in Karachi during December in different circumstances. The data collected throughten newspapers, that CRSS uses as the source, suggests that some 441 people lost their lives in 231 incidents of violence across the country (for details see data sheet). The violent clashes also left 506 people injured in December. Concise look into the casualty figures underlines that the civilians remained the major target of violent actors, with the civilians accounting major loss of lives as a result of various acts of violence and terror in Pakistan. As noted in pie chart I below, civilians were 60 percent of the total dead in December. The share of the civilian deaths is lower than the previous month, wherein 74 percent of the dead were innocent civilians. As a whole, 272 civilians were killed in different circumstances during the month. Moreover, the data suggests that the militants fighting against the state remained the second major target i.e. 27 percent (114) of the total dead. Clashes also left 55 security forces– personnel (13 percent of total deaths) dead and these were mostly recorded in insurgency infested areas of FATA, Karachi and Balochistan. Furthermore, during December (from 30 November to 03 January), six CIA operated drone strike were reported in different areas of North Waziristan Agency (FATA), leaving as many as 24 suspected militants dead. Between March 2012 and January 03, 2013, 42 drone attacks have killed almost...
The Bara Tragedy
The inhumane killing of 18 tribesmen on January 15, 2013 in Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency of Federally Administered Tribal Areas, should serve as a wakeup call for all the parties in the on-going war against terrorism in Pakistan. The recovery of these mutilated dead bodies underline the scale and level of utter disregard for human lives by the actors involved in this conflict. The residents of the area, enraged by the indiscriminate violence and atrocity committed with their loved ones; took all the corpses of these 18 dead people to Peshawar and finally lay them outside the Governor House of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) to mark a protest. They claimed that security forces were involved in the incident while the security forces forcefully denied the accusations and alleged that militants committed these atrocities to defame the security forces. In the recent years Khyber Agency has become a center of malicious activities led by various militant outfits and armed militias funded by unknown sources. The name of the infamous killer, Mengal Bagh (the head of Lashkar-i-Islam, a pro-Taliban militant group) is not unfamiliar to the people of the locality who introduced his own version and interpretation of highly reactionary and regressive form of religion and also devised his own way in which areas like Bara, and adjoining regions under his control, would be administered and governed. A classical example of non-state funded militias working within the boundaries of the state though not conforming to the state laws. Therefore, the security forces have been highly engaged in battling this lethal militant outfit in these areas including the Valley of Tirah (Khyber Agency) for quite some time, where it is assumed that all these rogue elements have gone into hiding due to the favorability of the terrain, a highly rugged mountainous area with dense greenery. If one has to inquire about the evidence of security forces' activity in the region, the best people to ask would be those...
Weekly Data Sheet – December 28, 2012-January 03, 2013
Pakistan Conflict Tracker Weekly Report – December 28, 2012 – January 03, 2013
The wave of violence further escalated across Pakistan during the current week. Meanwhile, the spate of ethno-political violence in the largest metropolis, Karachi, continued unabated during the week, wherein 40 persons (32 were in the last week) were perished. Also, the wave of bomb blasts across the country, spree of target killings and the recovery of mutilated dead bodies continued to mount death toll during the week. The data collected through10 newspapers that CRSS uses as the source indicates that as many as 130 persons lost their lives as a result of 57 violent incidents across the country during the reported week (for detailssee data sheet).The violent incidents also left 189 people injured. Like in case of preceding weeks, civilians bore the major brunt of the ongoing spate of violence across Pakistan during the current week, as civilians accounted formore than 60 percent of the total death toll across Pakistan. Numerically, 85 civilians lost their lives and 147 others were wounded in violent clashes of various kinds across the country. The second highest number of fatalities was ofmilitants, wherein 31 militants got killed under different circumstances. Furthermore, one CIA operated drone strike was also reported during the week, killing five suspected militants in Mana Gurbaz area of North Waziristan Agency (FATA). Meanwhile thesabotage campaign by the militants continued to demolish state infrastructure and undermine stability as militants blew up a portion of Gas pipeline in Dear Bugti (Balochistan) and Charsadda (KP) provinces respectively, two power pylons in Dadu (Sindh),two houses and five government schools in KP were also blown up. Meanwhile, five sectarian attacksleft 23 people, including 22 Shia and one Sunni, dead in different parts of the country this week. Moreover, the loss of lives due to target killings decreased by 12 percent, (36 percent of the total dead against last week 48 percent) during the current week. Overall, 39 percent of...
The Threat Lies Within
In its newly published warfare doctrine manual ¿Green Book– Pakistani military has added a new chapter titled ¿sub-conventional warfare–. The new addition suggests, that the military has finally acknowledged 'internal dynamics' as the real security threat to the country. According to this new warfare doctrine, military will focus on threats lying within the state like religious radicalization, fundamentalism, extremism and terrorism. The new position contrasts with pronouncements, particularly by the military establishment until recently, which blamed 'external factors' for the country internal troubles. The new thinking, as spelt out in the ¿Green Book–, also came through a recent speech the Army Chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani gave to Pakistan Navy officers. "Today, we are pitched against an amorphous enemy when the conventional threat has also grown manifold," army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani said during an address at the naval academy on December 29, 2012. "The increasingly complex external environment and our rather precarious internal dynamics have created a myriad of security challenges" he underscored. The scale of threat was clearly manifest in the daring two-pronged storming of the Peshawar airbase on December 15, the assassination of anti-Taliban, Awami National Party leader Bashir Bilour in Peshawar (capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) on December 22, the cold-blooded execution of 22 Levies ´ a semi-official tribal police - near the city on December 29, and the killing of about 20 Shia pilgrims near Mastung in north-western Balochistan underscore the intensity of the war on the state and people of Pakistan. During 2012, Pakistan lost slightly over 6,000 people falling to various forms of violence. But the change in doctrine hardly befits the widespread perceptions that centre on the military establishment's broader geo-political agendas in Afghanistan and vis-à-vis India. Most people still believe that the establishment is hamstrung by its view on...
Pakistan Security – 2012 Dance of death and destruction continues
The overall level of violence declined by almost 15 percent during 2012[1] across Pakistan.[2] Meanwhile, ethno-political violence in Karachi (Sindh), religio-political terrorism in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), and nationalist-separatist violence in Balochistan continued unabated. The deadly wave of target killings in Karachi, presumably triggered by the rivalry between Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Awami National Party (ANP) in March, has continued to date, claiming almost 991 persons, as a result of 791 violent attacks in the course of 2012. Among these 917 were civilians and 74 security forces– men. The data collected throughten newspapers that CRSS uses as the source, underlines that as a whole, 6059 persons perished during 2012, as a result of 2536 incidents of violence (for details see data sheet below). A concise look into the casualty figures underlines that the civilians remained the major target of violent acts, with the civilians accounting for almost 52 percent of the total deaths off various forms of violence and terror across Pakistan. As noted in pie chart I below, 3041 civilians were dead in 2012. Moreover, the data suggests that the militants fighting against the state remained the second major target of violence i.e. 37 percent of the total dead. Clashes between militants and security forces also left 699 security forces– personnel (11 percent of total deaths) dead and these were mostly recorded in insurgency infested areas of FATA, Karachi and Balochistan. Furthermore, during 2012, 49 CIA operated drone strikes were reported in different areas of Pak-Afghan bordering areas, mostly in North and South Waziristan agencies (FATA), leaving as many as 345 suspected militants dead. Meanwhile, continuing their sabotage campaign to demolish state infrastructure, militants blew up 116 private and state-run schools in different parts of FATA and KP during the course of current year. Also 108 sabotage attacks...
Weekly Data Sheet – December 21-27, 2012
Pakistan Conflict Tracker Weekly Report – December 21-27, 2012
The wave of violence further escalated across Pakistan during the current week. Meanwhile, the spate of ethno-political violence in the largest metropolis, Karachi, also continued unabated during the week, wherein 32 persons perished. Also, the wave of bomb blasts across the country, spree of target killings and the recovery of mutilated dead bodies continued to pile up death toll during the week. The data collected through10 newspapers that CRSS uses as the source, indicates that as many as 92 persons lost their lives as a result of 41 violent incidents across the country during the reported week (for detailssee data sheet).The violent incidents also left 27 people injured. Civilians bore the major brunt of the ongoing spate of violence across Pakistan during the current week, as civilians accounted for50 percent of the total death toll across Pakistan. Numerically, 46 civilians lost their lives and 10 others were wounded in violent clashes of various kinds across the country. The second highest number of fatalities was ofmilitants, wherein 32 militants got killed under different circumstances. Furthermore, one CIA operated drone strike was also reported during the week, killing four suspected militants in Hasukhel village of North Waziristan Agency (FATA). Meanwhile thesabotage campaign by the militants continued to demolish state infrastructure and undermine stability as militants blew up a portion of railway trackand four government schools in Balochistan and KP provinces respectively. Meanwhile, five sectarian attacksleft 15 people, including seven Shia and eight Sunni, dead in Karachi city (Sindh) this week. Moreover, the loss of lives due to target killings surged by nine percent, (48 percent of the total dead against last week 39 percent) during the current week. Overall, 63 percent of the total violent attacks wereoftarget killingin nature(seethe pie chart below). Furthermore, data underlines that of the total 26 incidents of target killings; a staggering...
Terror vs. Terror: Drones fighting a war of ambiguity
With the war on terror stretching on to the next decade, the spate of drone strikes in FATA seems to see no end. The strikes continue with the implicit support of the Pakistani government and army, who find themselves in a double bind: they acquiesce as allies in the war on terror, and yet protest against the challenge to sovereignty over violence inside state boundaries. When drones strike, the state fails as a guarantor of its citizens– rights. But in this war of ambiguity, do these citizens count? They are ambiguous targets, shifting between civilian and terrorist, and in the fuzzy legal space of de-territorialised warfare, they unfortunately have ambiguous rights. The Obama administration favours drones for their surgical nature and impersonal combat: they are argued to be instruments of precision that take out significant targets without exposing soldiers to any danger. For a country that presents itself as a beacon of democracy and transparency, there is a paradoxical silence surrounding the analytical mistakes and operational errors that cause innocent deaths. The Obama administration has claimed that civilian casualties are only in single digits.[i] In fact, the death toll resulting from strikes so far is grossly understated especially that of civilians killed in cross-fire. According the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), between 2004-sept 2012, drone strikes caused 2562-3325 casualties, of which at least 474-881 people were civilians. Of these, 176 were children. Approximately 1228-1362 people were also left injured.[ii] Even for these numbers, there is a doubt of accuracy, and the real numbers of innocent deaths are thought to be much higher. The numbers of people suffering psychological trauma as survivors, or close of kin to the deceased is also extremely high.[iii] As with every intangible injury, these are mostly undocumented and unreported in mainstream statistics that are only interested in counting deaths and injuries. Not surprisingly,...
Audit 2012: Perspectives on Economy, Energy, Rule of Law and Democratization
Islamabad (December 28, 2012): Bad governance, mismanagement, deficit legal framework and lack of financial discipline are plunging the state deeper into the abyss. Present government has failed to check the decline in almost every sphere of governance. This was consensus among different experts, academicians and participants at a seminar ¿Audit 2012: Perspectives on Economy, Energy, Rule of Law and Democratization– organized by the Center for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad at Marriott Hotel on December 28, 2012. People from media, legal background academics, civil society, and students participated in the event, which was arranged to look back the progress and setbacks in 2012. Addressing the seminar, Dr Ishfaq Hassan Khan, Principal and Dean of NUST School of Business said that Pakistani economy has never been in such a bad shape as it is today. He falsified present government stance that it inherited a shattered economy through facts and figures compiled by the government itself, and world financial institutions. 'Total GDP increased from $60 billion in 2000-01 to $170 billion in 2007. The real GDP growth was seven percent with low inflation during the same period. The government policies contributed in reduction of poverty and improvement of social indicators' he underlined. The macroeconomic progress, according to Dr Khan, resulted from the implementation of a series of structural reforms during last government era. He observed that with these figures, when a government starts with deception that it inherited ruined economy then we end up 2012 like economic situation. He said that present government replaced four finance ministers, six finance secretaries, four governors of State Bank of Pakistan, and six chairman of Federal Bureau of Revenue in its tenure so far. 'So when there is no stability in economic management team then how can we have stable economy', he questioned. Dr Khan narrated that though there were challenges during the tenure of...
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I am also a member of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting. Recently, we held a meeting with the Director General of Radio Pakistan and we told them to initiate such local programs (like Constituency Hour) in regional languages to educate and inform people. Even Indian Radio can be heard in FATA which is being used for propaganda purposes and must be closed. Therefore, we should launch some standard and quality programs like CRSS that will change the taste of the listeners.