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| Children easy, special targets of terrorism | | 
By Farooq Ganderbali
Children, especially school children, have always been special targets of Islamist militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan, as part of their political campaign, as blackmail and as response to the government.
The perpetrators, by and large, have been Sunni Muslim extremists belonging to various groups owing allegiance, but not exclusive to, the Afghan Taliban and Tehrik Taliban Afghanistan.
The trend has been steeply rising since 9/11.
Malala Yusufzai, who was attacked by the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP) attackers, lucky enough to survive and receive the Nobel peace prize only a few days ago is the best example. But she is certainly not the last one.
Pakistan’s top spy agencies told the country’s Supreme Court on March 27 last year that that 1,030 schools and colleges were destroyed by Taliban insurgents in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province alone from 2009 to 2013.
They said that Pakistan has lost 49,000 lives since the apocalyptic attacks on World Trade Center and Pentagon in the United States on September 11, 2001.
According to Express Tribune newspaper of that day, more than 24,000 people – both civilians and troops – were killed in terrorist attacks during the period between 2001 and 2008. The last five years have proved costlier, in human terms. Another 25,000-plus people died during military offensives against Taliban insurgents in the restive tribal regions since 2008, the attorney for the intelligence agencies told the court in a report.
A global report compiled by William Robert Johnston, an American researcher, titled “Terrorist and criminal attacks targeting children” last updated on April 20, 2013, is incomplete--under construction.
Johnston in a note says: “Terrorism, as a general rule, targets non-combatants--including men, women, and children. However, terrorist attacks specifically targeting children over other non-combatants are uncommon. Most terrorists have also traditionally avoided mass casualty terrorism. In either case, the shock value is so great that such attacks erode support for the terrorists' political objectives. The 9/11 attacks represent an increasing trend in mass casualty terrorism.
At the same time policymakers are examing this evolving threat, they must increasingly consider the threat of terrorist attacks targeting children. In particular, the 2004 school attack in Beslan, Russia, has heightened awareness of a potentially developing threat. More recently, Afghanistan has seen 20 poison gas attacks on girls' schools in 2009-2010, and 16 poison attacks at (mostly) girls' school in 2012, resulting in a total of 2,055 injuries--although it has been suggested that some of these "attacks" may be mass hysteria.
His report identifies the following types of incidents:-
• terrorist attacks in which the targets were preferentially children,
• attempted terrorist attacks preferentially targeting children,
• terrorist attacks which produced very high casualties among children, and
• non-terrorist criminal acts which are relevant in terms of methodology and child victims.
The report records numerous terror attacks and attack with gas and acid on schools, targeting girl students in particular.
According to “Changing US Security Strategy: The Search for Stability and the "Non-War ...” By Anthony H. Cordesman, Attacks on school children were 108 percent more than the global average in Pakistan in 2012. There were 102 attacks on boys’ and girls’ primary, secondary and higher secondary schools in 2012.
The South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), its Pakistan Assessment 2014, records:-
“Terrorism in Pakistan has already resulted in at least 460 fatalities, including 241 civilians, 86 Security Force (SF) personnel and 133 militants in just the first month of 2014, according to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP). 38 major incidents (each resulting in three or more fatalities) have inflicted at least 309 fatalities, and 70 explosions have also been recorded, accounting for 167 deaths.
“In one of the worst attacks of 2014 targeting civilians, at least 24 Shia pilgrims returning from Iran were killed and another 40 were injured in a bomb attack targeting their bus in the Khusak area of Kanak in the Mastung District of Balochistan Province, on January 21, 2014. The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) claimed responsibility for the attack.
“Clearly, the ‘terror industry’ that was established by Islamabad decades ago with the primary intention of exporting mujahideen into neighbouring countries, including India and Afghanistan, to secure Pakistan's perceived 'strategic interests', continues to thrive. This vast misadventure, however, turned progressively against its very creators, and, since 9/11, Pakistan has itself become the increasing target of several formerly state sponsored terrorist formations that have 'gone rogue', even as international pressure has forced Islamabad to undertake visibly reluctant operations against some of these groups. The process escalated after the creation of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the aftermath of the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) operations in 2007, causing a spiral of violence that now threatens the very existence of the country. Pakistan’s undiminished tolerance for religious extremists has not just destroyed lives and alienated entire communities; it is destroying Pakistani society and the very idea and edifice of the nation.
Despite continuing terrorist depredations, according to a survey by the British Council published in April 2013, a majority of respondents - 38 per cent - expressed the opinion that Islamic Sharia was the best system for Pakistan, and another 32 per cent backed military rule. The smallest proportion, just 29 per cent, favoured democracy. The survey covered over 5,200 youth across the country. Ironically, more than 90 per cent of the youth surveyed also believed that the country was heading in the wrong direction.
“That direction is dramatically illustrated by trends in terrorist violence, including one of the most glaring among its various parameters - the suicide attack. Before 9/11, Pakistan had witnessed just one suicide attack, when a suicide bomber rammed a pickup truck packed with explosives into the gate of the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, killing 15 and wounding 59, on November 20, 1995.
“Since 9/11, however, the country has recorded at least 387 suicide attacks, resulting in 5,964 fatalities and 12,379 injuries. Five such attacks have already been executed in 2014, killing 28 and injuring 71. Indeed, the number and lethality of such attacks appears to be increasing again, with 43 such incidents resulting in 751 fatalities and 1,411 injuries, recorded through 2013, as against 39 such attacks resulting in 365 deaths and 607 injuries in 2012. A very dramatic decline had been recorded in 2011, with 628 killed in 41 incidents, after the peak of 2010, with 1,167 killed in 49 incidents. In one of these attacks, the Superintendent of Police, Crime Investigation Department, Karachi Police, Chaudhry Aslam Khan, was killed, along with another two Policemen, when a suicide cadre of the TTP rammed his explosive-laden car into Khan's convoy near Essa Nagri on the Lyari Expressway in Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh, on January 9, 2014.
“Though total terrorism related-fatalities have shown some decline over the past years, current levels remain alarming, and much of the decline is accounted for by the diminution of terrorist fatalities, the result of operational paralysis among state Forces. According to SATP's partial data, at least 5,379 terrorism-related fatalities were recorded across Pakistan in 2013, as compared to 6,211 fatalities in the preceding year, a decline of 13.39 percent [since media access is heavily restricted in the most disturbed areas of Pakistan, and there is only fitful release of information by Government agencies, the actual figures could be much higher]. Much of the decline was accounted for by the 31.14 per cent drop in terrorist fatalities, from 2,472 terrorists killed in 2012, to 1,702 killed in 2013. Confirming the reluctance of state Forces to confront the terrorists is a significant drop in SF fatalities as well, with 676 SF personnel killed in 2013, as against 732 in 2012, a decline of 7.67 per cent. Civilians, however, continue to pay the price for state inaction, with 3,001 killed in 2013, almost the same as the 3,007 killed in 2012. Crucially, the number of civilian fatalities in Pakistan now exceeds the number of civilian fatalities in neighbouring 'war torn' Afghanistan (an estimated 2744 in 2013), widely regarded as the most volatile and unstable country in South Asia.
Pakistan recorded 355 major incidents (each involving three or more fatalities) resulting in 3,268 fatalities, through 2013; as compared to 451 such incidents, resulting in 3,396 deaths, in 2012. While the total number of incidents and total fatalities declined, the lethality of these attacks has risen from an average of 7.53 fatalities per attack in 2012, to 9.21 fatalities per attack in 2013. Similarly, the number of explosions and resultant fatalities stood at 574 and 1624, respectively, in 2013, as against 652 explosions resulting in 1,007 fatalities in 2012, indicating a dramatic rise in lethality, from an average of 1.55 to 2.83 fatalities per incident. At least 128 sectarian attacks, resulting in 525 deaths, were also recorded in Pakistan through 2013, as compared to 173 such attacks and 507 killed in 2012, once again demonstrating a substantial rise in lethality, from 2.93 to 4.11 fatalities per attack, though the overall incidence declined.
“The worst attack targeting civilians in 2013 occurred on January 10, when at least 105 persons were killed and over 169 were injured in two separate bomb blasts on Alamdar Road in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan. The worst attack targeting SFs in 2013 was on August 8, when 38 persons, including 21 Police officials, were killed, and another 40 were injured in a suicide blast at a funeral at the Police Lines in Quetta. January 19, 2014, has already recorded a massive attack targeting SFs, with at least 20 soldiers killed and another 30 injured when a bomb ripped through a military convoy in Bannu Town, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
“Pakistan maintained its ‘status’ as the most dangerous country for journalists in South Asia, with a total of 10 journalists killed in 2013, according to the South Asia Media Commission’s Media Monitor Report. 13 journalists were killed in the country in 2012.
“The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) remain the worst affected region in Pakistan recording at least 1,716 fatalities, followed by Sindh (1,668 fatalities), Balochistan (960 fatalities) and KP (936 fatalities). The Punjab Province remains the least afflicted region of the country with 81 fatalites. In terms of civilian fatalities, however, Sindh maintains primacy, accounting for 1,285 deaths. Further, the volatile region of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) recorded 18 killings, including 12 civilians, through 2013.
(Opinions expressed in write-ups/articles/Letters are the sole responsibility of the authors and they may not represent the scoopnews.in)
Editor, Scoop News
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