Pakistan reaped harvest of blood post-9/11

A total of 18,365 terror incidents reported in 17 years

ISLAMABAD: The National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) has stated that the number of terrorist attacks have declined by 13 per cent in the country in 2017 as compared to 2016.

According to a report issued by the Nacta, the number of such incidents decreased by 104 to 681 cases in 2017.

Despite witnessing a steady decline in the number of such attacks, an average of 1.7 people a day (three persons in two days) were killed in Pakistan in 2017, stated the report.



Pakistan witnessed a total of 18,365 terrorism activities since 2001 when Pakistan joined the war against terrorism after 9/11, it added.

The report made a review of the implementation status of National Action Plan (NAP) from 2014 to 2017 in which figures of terrorist incidents in the country for the past 17 years have also been included.

According to the data released by the authority, 2010 proved to be the worst year in terms of terror attacks as the country suffered through a total of 2,061 terrorist incidents.

The NAP had a visible impact on these terrorist activities as in 2014, a total of 1,861 cases of terrorism were reported in Pakistan but since then the country has been witnessing a steady drop in the number of such cases. In 2015, 1,139 cases of terrorism occurred in Pakistan while this number dipped further in 2016 to a total of 785 cases.

Interestingly, Pakistan had been registering a massive rise in terror activities since joining the global fight against terrorism following 9/11.

In 2002, there were only 49 such cases which rose to 50 in 2003. The year 2004 witnessed 143 activities of terrorism, 2005 posted 240 incidents, but the next year – 2006 – saw a massive surge in attacks with 1,456 incidents.

In 2007, this tally increased to 1,820 terror incidents while 2008 witnessed a slight decline with 1,575 cases. However, the next year, 2009 witnessed 1,938 such cases, 2010 recorded 2,061 cases, 2011 witnessed 1,680 terror activities, 2012 recorded 1,316 terror activities, and 2013 again witnessed a surge in these activities with 1,571 cases.

Sectarian terrorism

According to the Nacta review, sectarian terrorism also recorded a decline since 2014. In 2014, 176 cases of sectarian terrorism were reported in the country which tapered off to 79 in 2015. Likewise, the year 2016 witnessed 37 such cases while this figure further dropped to only 23 cases in 2017. Since 2011 to 2017 a total of 700 cases of sectarian terrorism were reported in Pakistan.

Zero tolerance

The review also discussed ‘zero tolerance for militancy in Punjab’ under NAP. It revealed that a total of 3,384 intelligence based operations were conducted in Punjab. A total of 275 terrorists were killed in encounters with police and other law enforcement agencies while 1,238 terrorists were also arrested in the province.

The Nacta claims that there has been significant improvement on the ground with regard to Karachi operation which was launched in September 2013.



According to it, 97 per cent decline was witnessed in the number of targeted killings in Karachi since the launch of the operation while 87 per cent decrease was noted in the murder rate in the city. Cases of kidnapping for ransom have gone down by 62 per cent, bank robberies decreased by 72 per cent, the business extortions came down by 84 per cent while cases of car theft also hit a 14-year low in 2015 in Karachi, maintained the report of the authority.

Combing operations

Under NAP, a total of 213,501 combing operations were conducted across the country. Of these, most were conducted in Punjab with a tally of 108,668. In the same period, a total of 306,072 persons were arrested of whom most were arrested from K-P with the figure of 189,508.