Security force casualties in Pakistan hit eight-year high in battle against militancy since January — report

ISLAMABAD: In an alarming development, Pakistan’s security forces lost at least 386 personnel, including 137 army soldiers, in the first nine months of the ongoing year, marking an eight-year high as the country continues to battle militant violence, an Islamabad-based think tank said in its latest security report.
Pakistan witnessed a surge in extremist attacks, particularly in its two western provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, following the 2021 Taliban return to power in Kabul. The recent spike in violence also owed to the breakdown of a fragile truce between the government and the proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant conglomerate in November of last year.
Subsequently, there has been a trend of brutal attacks against religious congregations in the country, with more than 60 people losing their lives in two separate bombing incidents at a mosque and a gathering to mark the Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) birth anniversary on Friday.
“Pakistan’s security forces lost at least 386 personnel, 36 percent of all fatalities – including 137 army and 208 police personnel – in the first 9 months of 2023, marking an eight-year high as the country continues to battle proxy terrorism, largely in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan,” the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) said in its report released on Saturday.
“With 1087 violence-related fatalities recorded so far during the year, the outlaws suffered 368 (34 percent), followed by civilians with 333 (31 percent) fatalities,” it added.
The CRSS maintained there had been a consistent and alarming increase in violence in the two Pakistani western provinces over the past five years.
Experts attribute the recent increase in militant violence and security forces casualties in Pakistan to the change of government in neighboring Afghanistan, saying it emboldened militant groups in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and fueled separatist violence in Balochistan.
“One of the main reasons for the rise in terrorist incidents in Pakistan is that Afghanistan has, unfortunately, failed to meet its international security commitments, particularly toward Pakistan, by not denying space to BLA [Balochistan Liberation Army], BLF [Balochistan Liberation Front], TTP and Daesh,” Syed Muhammad Ali, strategic defense and security director, at the Center for Aerospace and Security Studies (CASS), told Arab News.
He said another factor was the reaction from militant groups to the new and comprehensive counterterrorism strategy implemented by Pakistan’s military leadership amid mounting attacks this year.
An Afghan affairs expert, Rustam Shah Mohmand, who also served as Pakistani envoy to Kabul, said the recent escalation in the attacks was a “last-ditch effort” to gain influence by TTP and Daesh, adding that both these groups were losing control in the neighboring state.
“There are two forces along the Pakistan-Afghanistan: TTP and Daesh,” he explained. “They are both causing much damage as they can since they will have to leave Afghanistan sooner or later.”
Mohmand pointed out the dynamics in Balochistan were different since certain elements were not happy about the fact that the security establishment was in charge of all the business over there.
He said the Afghan Taliban were well aware of these developments, though they lacked capacity to deal with all the militant factions.
“The Taliban have control over the whole of Afghanistan, but they rely on untrained volunteers, who are prone to making mistakes, in the absence of an organized army and police force,” he added.
Mohmand said Pakistan should take coordinated action against these militant groups in collaboration with the Taliban administration in Kabul.
“Pakistan should work with the Afghan Taliban and form a committee in each province to conduct surveillance and ensure coordination and intelligence sharing,” he continued, adding the administration in Islamabad was not doing that and was making the Taliban angry by blaming and pressurizing them.