ISLAMABAD: Militant attacks in Pakistan killed nearly 2,500 people in 2013, up 20 percent from the year before, according to a think-tank which said the government’s “appeasement approach” had let the Taleban make a comeback.
The rise ended a three-year fall in casualties that began in 2010, as insurgents carried out scores of attacks in the run-up to the May 2013 general election and sustained the level of violence until the end of the year.
A total of 2,451 people were killed in acts of terror, said the annual security report from the Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), up from 2,050 in 2012.
PIPS director Muhammad Amir Rana said the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which won power in last year’s polls promising to restart dialogue with the Pakistani Taleban, had taken a softer line on militancy.
“There was a major focus on talks which has created ambiguity on part of law enforcement agencies,” he said, adding the same was true of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s party, which won power in the worst-hit province, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the northwest.
In the general election, Rana said, militants targeted major secular parties but not Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N. This gave Sharif’s subsequent government confidence it would not be targeted, he said.
“They tried to expand the appeasement approach on the federal level,” he added.
The government has not yet been able to bring Pakistani Taleban leaders to the negotiating table, with the militant group taking a harder stance following the killing of their leader Hakimullah Mehsud by a US drone strike in November.
Sectarian attacks saw a 22 percent rise in fatalities to 687.
But casualty levels dropped 33 percent in the country’s lawless tribal districts, which border Afghanistan, according to the report, with Rana crediting US drone strikes on key militant targets for the fall.
The report made several recommendations including the formation of a national security policy and strengthening the criminal justice system. But Rana said he was not optimistic in the short term.
“The government’s whole focus is on the peace talks — they still believe they can deliver on that front and this will help reduce overall insecurity. We do not believe this is the case,” he said.
PIPS, an independent think tank, compiled the data for the report from officials and media reports.
Blast kills 10
At least 10 people were killed and another nine wounded Monday in an explosion at the home of a tribal leader in a restive area of northwest Pakistan, officials said.
The blast came in a remote village in Khyber tribal district, close to the Afghan border in Tirah Valley, which last year saw fierce fighting between the Pakistani military and Taleban militants.
“The initial information suggests that the blast triggered by explosives killed at least 10 people including three children and wounded nine others,” a senior local administration official, Nasir Khan, said.
He said the explosion occurred in the reception area of the home of a local tribal elder identified as Hakim Khan.
“We are trying to ascertain the exact nature of the blast,” Khan said but added that it appeared to be triggered accidentally, as most homes in the tribal belt store arms and explosives inside.
“There were explosives and mortars in Hakim Khan’s house which exploded and caused the damage and casualties and it is not clear if he had any affiliation with any militant group,” Khan said.
“Three children were also among the dead, but we do not know their ages yet and two seriously wounded men are being moved to Peshawar for treatment,” he added.
Another local administration official confirmed the incident and casualties.
In another incident, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a government school in northwest Pakistan on Monday, killing a teenage boy, officials said.
The incident happened in the Shiite-dominated Ibrahimzai area of Hangu district and has not yet been claimed by any group.
“A suicide bomber blew himself up near the main gate of a government boys school, killing a young student aged 14,” district police chief Iftikhar Ahmad said He said the boy sustained serious injuries and was rushed to hospital where he died. A local intelligence official also confirmed the incident.
Pakistan terror casualties up 20 percent
Pakistan terror casualties up 20 percent
Starvation fears as flood toll passes 900 in Indonesia
- More than 1,790 people have been killed in natural disasters unfolding across Southeast Asia over the past week
- Floods have swept away roads, smothered houses in silt, and cut off supplies in Indonesia's provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia: Ruinous floods and landslides have killed more than 900 people on Indonesia’s island of Sumatra, the country’s disaster management agency said Saturday, with fears that starvation could send the toll even higher.
A chain of tropical storms and monsoonal rains has pummelled Southeast and South Asia, triggering landslides and flash floods from the Sumatran rainforest to the highland plantations of Sri Lanka.
More than 1,790 people have been killed in natural disasters unfolding across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam over the past week.
In Indonesia’s provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra, floods have swept away roads, smothered houses in silt, and cut off supplies.
Aceh governor Muzakir Manaf said response teams were still searching for bodies in “waist-deep” mud.
However, starvation was one of the gravest threats now hanging over remote and inaccessible villages.
“Many people need basic necessities. Many areas remain untouched in the remote areas of Aceh,” he told reporters.
“People are not dying from the flood, but from starvation. That’s how it is.”
Entire villages had been washed away in the rainforest-cloaked Aceh Tamiang region, Muzakir said.
“The Aceh Tamiang region is completely destroyed, from the top to the bottom, down to the roads and down to the sea.
“Many villages and sub-districts are now just names,” he said.
Aceh Tamiang flood victim Fachrul Rozi said he had spent the past week crammed into an old shop building with others who had fled the rising waters.
“We ate whatever was available, helping each other with the little supplies each resident had brought,” he told AFP. “We slept crammed together.”
Aceh resident Munawar Liza Zainal said he felt “betrayed” by the Indonesian government, which has so far shrugged off pressure to declare a national disaster.
“This is an extraordinary disaster that must be faced with extraordinary measures,” he told AFP, echoing frustrations voiced by other flood victims.
“If national disaster status is only declared later, what’s the point?“
Declaring a national disaster would free up resources and help government agencies coordinate their response.
Analysts have suggested Indonesia could be reluctant to declare a disaster — and seek additional foreign aid — because it would show it was not up to the task.
Indonesia’s government this week insisted it could handle the fallout.
Climate calamity
The scale of devastation has only just become clear in other parts of Sumatra as engorged rivers shrink and floodwaters recede.
AFP photos showed muddy villagers salvaging silt-encrusted furniture from flooded houses in Aek Ngadol, North Sumatra.
Humanitarian groups worry that the scale of the calamity could be unprecedented, even for a nation prone to natural disasters.
Indonesia’s death toll rose to 908 on Saturday, according to the disaster management agency, with 410 people missing.
Sri Lanka’s death toll jumped on Friday to 607, as the government warned that fresh rains raised the risk of new landslides.
Thailand has reported 276 deaths and Malaysia two, while at least two people were killed in Vietnam after heavy rains triggered a series of landslides.
Seasonal monsoon rains are a feature of life in Southeast Asia, flooding rice fields and nourishing the growth of other key crops.
However, climate change is making the phenomenon more erratic, unpredictable and deadly throughout the region.
Environmentalists and Indonesia’s government have also suggested that logging and deforestation exacerbated landslides and flooding in Sumatra.
