K-P terrorism trending downwards

That there has been a decline in the number of terrorist incidents nationwide in the last two years is undeniable. This year so far the decline in terrorist incidents in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is dramatic. In 2016, there were 258 reported cases and in 2017, there was a 51 per cent drop so far down to 126 — that may change. Alongside that must be added in the 71 cases of extortion, down from 91 of last year that are linked to extremist activity. Police comment that the number of extortion cases is under-reported as many pay up without calling in law-enforcement agencies.

Numbers can be deceptive. Although there is a clear and substantial decline, the type of incident and their severity is of note. The attack on Agricultural Training Institute, the loss of senior military and police officers, attacks on FC vehicles — down the numbers may be but terrorism in K-P is far from being defeated, and despite some unwise statements by political figures that are premature to say the least, it is not going to be defeated in the near or even far future. What is not available in a consolidated form is the number of terrorist attacks that have been foiled in the province and it would be useful to have that data in the public domain, even if only aggregated from open sources such as the various media platforms. Then at least the public could see that the police forces are doing their job in countering terrorist activity. As a general observation law-enforcement agencies are poor at projecting their own successes.

Terrorism is a national problem and countering it a national responsibility at both federal and provincial levels. The National Action Plan (NAP) is dead in the water with much of it unfulfilled, in particular the development of a national counter-terrorism strategy. There is no effective developed narrative that works against the mindset, now deeply embedded, that is the midwife to extremism and terrorism. The drift towards support for extremism continues, as evidenced by recent political developments. Terrorism is going to be with us far into our collective futures.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2017.

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