Terror groups in FATA dismantled, says report

Violence in tribal areas falls but country still vulnerable to attacks

ISLAMABAD: Nearly 20 months after the military launched an operation in the tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan, terrorist groups have been dismantled and or purged from the region but the country still remains vulnerable to groups such as the Islamic State, a report said on Wednesday.

“Military operations have dismantled the militant networks in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata),” said Mansur Khan Mehsud, director of the Fata Research Centre (FRC) in Islamabad on Wednesday as the centre launched a new report.





“Militant groups like Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Mehsud Taliban in South Waziristan, Lashkar-e-Islam, Jamaatul-Ahrar, al Qaida, East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) etc., have now shifted to safe havens in Khost, Paktika, Paktiya and Nangarhar provinces of Afghanistan.”

In its Annual Security Report, the FRC noted that attacks in the tribal areas fell by 40 per cent in 2015 as compared to 2014. Despite the fall in the number of attacks, it still presented a grim picture for the region which saw a total of 293 militancy-related incidents which left as many as 1,679 people dead and 561 injured.

According to the report, there were 13 target killings, 43 attacks on civilians, 60 ambushes on the military and 17 attacks on members of peace committees. Further, there were 13 cross-border attacks, four kidnappings and three clashes between various militant outfits.

Most of the casualties, 65 per cent, were militants at 1,463. Civilians came in second at 14 per cent with 313 casualties including 108 deaths and 205 injured. Security forces suffered nine per cent of all casualties with 78 deaths, 122 injuries. Peace committees lost 30 members and 17 suffered injuries.



Of the seven agencies in Fata, the report said that militant infested North Waziristan and Khyber saw the most violence owing to the security operations. On the other hand, Kurram agency had witnessed an extraordinary rise in violence with both security forces and civilians suffering casualties.

Bajaur agency, which straddles the border with Afghanistan had seen a number of cross-border attacks and violent militant activity but had the lowest casualty count with 49 people killed and 30 injured. It was followed by Mohmand and Orakzai as the least turbulent of the agencies.

The report also noted a shift in militant’s tactics from deploying suicide bombers (down by 50 per cent) to deploying target killers.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 28^th,  2016.