terrorism in pakistan essay in english with outline

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Essay On Terrorism In Pakistan With Outline In Easy Words

Essay On Terrorism In Pakistan With Outline In Easy Words:   A major hitch in Pakistan that is overcoming the peace and prosperity of this Islamic country is Terrorism. It has been fenced the independence of our lives and we are always in a fright that can never be let us live freely and happily. So this problem must be uprooted with fits and starts and we have to be aware of the causes and preventions of this social issue. Terrorism means the use of aggression to fright the noble nation. Those who are spreading the terrorism are called a terrorist. Terrorist are everywhere and these are those peoples who are not a patriot and they have no mercy in their hearts for others. There are many ways of brutality that are causing terrorism like bomb blasting, target killing, use of hush money and much more. All these ways enhance the fright in our hearts and deadly disturb our lives and when in any country these things raise their heads the peace is gone and the fear makes it place with firm steps. So it can be stated that terrorism is the mother of all the social evils and we should take up the call against this giant who will destroy the abilities of the upcoming generation.

In this page we are written the Terrorism In Pakistan Essay In Simple Words With Outlines For Matric, Intermediate, and Even and Graduation Students Can Also Prepare This Essay For Their Exams. You Can Also Add Your Content In It Because There Are Different Online Readers Can Copy It. Related Articles 14 August Speech in English for Pakistan Independence Day August 18, 2023 The Potential of Social Media Marketing for Business Growth in Islamabad July 12, 2023 AIOU Tutor Search By Roll No 2024 June 4, 2023 Biotechnology Scope In Pakistan April 6, 2023

Reasons of  Terrorism in Pakistan Essay:

There are many reasons which are causing terrorism but the main reasons are written below

• Illiteracy is always the main reason for all the social evils as well as terrorism because one who is educated can never be acclaim for killing others
• Poverty is also another reason for it because when the new generation will find it hard to meet the expenses of daily lives he will choose the wrong way and will become a terrorist
• There are many outer agencies which are also working in Pakistan to high up the terrorism
• The condition of Peoples are pathetic and they are not fully aware of the seriousness of terrorism and they are not coordinating with the government in order to prevent the terrorism
• The role of concerned authorities is also not up to the mark

Prevention Of Terrorism In Pakistan Essay:

We can prevent the terrorism in Pakistan by taking some special steps against this evil with the great coordination of our Government

• People should admission their child to school for education instead of job anywhere in the age of their school and government should make the education free for such peoples who cannot afford for it
• Pakistan Army has taken special steps with the collaboration of the Government of Pakistan with the name of National Action Plan of Pakistan against terrorism
• Peoples and government should join hands together and make a master plan that can be fade away terrorists from Pakistan
• The special investigation departments and our rangers should be honest with their work and government should give them special training to caught such agencies which are spreading the terrorism in Pakistan

Impact Of Terrorism In Pakistan:

The impacts of terrorism in Pakistan is affecting the different phases of life. It impacts on society, economy, agriculture, and there are lots of international impacts leaving their impact on life on a national basis. Whenever, any terrorist attack held in bomb blasting, hijacking a school, or any other type of terrorism it left a big impact for a long time even the upcoming generation is in getting involved in a big issue that is overcoming their happiness, peace, and of course the ways of success.

While if we talk about the psychological impacts then there are no words to elaborate it because of the terrorist attack in Army Public school Peshawar on 14th December 2014 is yet alive in our minds and of course the child studying there. But we should show the unity so that we can overcome all these evils from our society.

So here I have written the essay on terrorism in Pakistan with outline in easy words where I have written the reasons and causes along with the impact of Terrorism on society, economy, and education as well as the psychological effects of this evil on the land of Pakistan and all over the world.

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Terrorism in Pakistan: the psychosocial context and why it matters

Asad tamizuddin nizami.

1 Assistant Professor, Institute of Psychiatry, World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, Benazir Bhutto Hospital, Rawalpindi Medical College, Rawalpindi, Pakistan; email moc.liamg@imazindasard

Tariq Mahmood Hassan

2 Assistant Professor, Providence Care Mental Health Services, Kingston, Canada

Sadia Yasir

3 Consultant Psychiatrist, Shifa International Hospital, Shifa College of Medicine, Islamabad, Pakistan

Mowaddat Hussain Rana

4 Director General, Centre for Trauma Research and Psychosocial Interventions, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan

Fareed Aslam Minhas

5 Head Institute of Psychiatry, World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, Benazir Bhutto Hospital, Rawalpindi Medical College, Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Terrorism is often construed as a well-thought-out, extreme form of violence to perceived injustices. The after effects of terrorism are usually reported without understanding the underlying psychological and social determinants of the terrorist act. Since ‘9/11’ Pakistan has been at the epicentre of both terrorism and the war against it. This special paper helps to explain the psychosocial perspective of terrorism in Pakistan that leads to violent radicalisation. It identifies the terrorist acts in the background of Pakistan's history, current geopolitical and social scenario. The findings may also act as a guide on addressing this core issue.

Most nations are unable to reach a consensus on a legally binding definition of ‘terrorism.’ The term seems emotionally charged and, as such, governments have been devising their own definitions. So far the United Nations has been unable to devise an internationally agreed-upon definition of terrorism. Terrorism is suggested to be ‘the use of intimidation or fear for advancement of political objectives’ (Kruglanski & Fishman, 2006 ). Since the ‘9/11’ incident, Muslim countries in particular feel emotionally threatened with the word terrorism and perceive it as synonymous with the acts of terror carried out by so-called Muslim extremist groups. This is further complemented in the media by the unjust linking of such horrendous terror attacks to Islamic Jihad.

Terrorism has brought an enormous burden on South Asian countries through the adverse impacts on their social, economic, political and physical infrastructure. Pakistan has suffered particularly excessively from the social, economic and human costs due to terrorism (Daraz et al , 2012 ). Surprisingly, Pakistan is portrayed as being on the front line in the international war against terrorism and at the same time has been wrongly labelled as a sponsor of international terrorism. Terrorism in Pakistan is a multidimensional phenomenon and, among many precipitating factors, the psychosocial factors play an important role. This paper attempts to address what we believe are significant psychosocial determinants to terrorism in Pakistan.

Historical developments

Pakistan is a Muslim majority nation in South East Asia with India to its east, Iran and Afghanistan to its west, China and the landlocked Asian countries to its north and the Arabian Sea to its south. Pakistan gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947 and is the only Muslim country with nuclear weapons – a nuclear device was detonated in 1998 – and is thus part of the informally named ‘nuclear club.’ Pakistan is a federation of four provinces (Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Balochistan), a capital territory (Islamabad) and a group of federally administered tribal areas in the north west, along with the disputed area of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan is the world's sixth most populous country with an average population density of 229 people per km 2 (World Bank indicators; http://www.tradingeconomics.com/pakistan/urban-population-growth-annual-percent-wb-data.html ). Since independence in 1947, Pakistan has been challenged not only by the trauma inflicted by its colonial occupiers but also by the mass murder of people migrating to the ‘new’ country. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, looted, raped or burnt alive. At the same time, the stability of this fledgling country was significantly hampered by the lack of resources. Just a few years later, due to political instability and separatist movements and terrorism, the east wing of the country was separated from Pakistan; this paved the way to the creation of a new country, Bangladesh, in 1971 (Wadhwani, 2011 ).

The Soviet–Afghan war, which began in 1979, provided a breeding ground for terrorism in the region. A fundamental change was witnessed that altered the very character of the existing Pakistani society. Withdrawal of the Soviets revealed a Pakistani society that had been forced into one of violence and weaponisation, plaguing Pakistan with so-called ‘Kalashnikov culture’ and ‘Talibanisation’ (Wadhwani, 2011 ).

Pakistan's social landscape has for the most part been plagued with illiteracy, disease, insecurity and injustice. Since the 9/11 incident, Pakistan has been intricately linked with the many facets of the ‘war on terrorism.’ Some argue that Pakistan is a breeding ground for terrorist outfits, but it is certain that all of this havoc has resulted in the significant loss of innocent lives as well as loss of economic revenue. These fragile conditions provide a fertile ground for terrorism to grow.

Psychological influence

The act of carrying out terrorist activity does not come from a single moment of inspiration but rather from a complex process of cognitive accommodation and assimilation over accumulating steps. It is wrongly reductionist to label the terrorists as mad or psychopaths (Atran, 2003 ; Horgan, 2008 ). Terrorists’ motivation may involve a deep, underlying quest for personal meaning and significance. Several analyses of such motives have appeared in recent years. There are differences in these analyses regarding the type and variety of motivational factors identified as critical to terrorism. Some authors identified a singular motivation as crucial; others listed a ‘cocktail’ of motives (Sageman, 2004 ; Bloom, 2005 ).

The socioeconomic adversity combined with political challenges were bound to have a detrimental impact on the psyche of the average Pakistani. A terrorist adopts a dichotomous way of identifying their victims, the black-and-white thought that ‘I am good’ and ‘you are evil,’ with no intermediary shades of grey. This thinking leaves no doubt in their minds and they find it easier to kill their opponents with little or no sense of remorse or guilt.

The unmanned army drone strikes killed and maimed thousands of innocent civilians in poor and difficult to access regions of Pakistan. This infuriated people, leading them to take up arms against the perceived aggressors. This triggering of the relatives of the deceased to engage in such activity is the culture of revenge in Pakistan, which unfortunately can last for generations.

Self-sacrifice and martyrdom has been explicitly used in almost all religions and is aggressively exploited by terrorist outfits who groom suicide bombers using the ideology of Islamist martyrdom (Atran, 2003 ). Some have argued that suicide bombers may actually be clinically suicidal and attempting to escape personal impasse (Lankford, 2013 ). In grooming young impressionable adolescents, extremist organisations brainwash these adolescents into believing that the ultimate self-sacrifice by suicide bombing will elevate their stature in the eyes of God and send them straight to heaven. This is associated with massive financial compensations to the deceased family. Terrorist organisations in Pakistan, through this process of brainwashing, have been able to convert young impressionable Muslim adolescents into a ‘suicide bomber in six weeks’ (Nizami et al , 2014 ). In the current scenario of the existing war on terror, this complex process of recruiting young adolescents as suicide bombers seems irreversible.

The contribution of the religious schools

In the West, Madrassas (Islamic religious schools) have gained a reputation of being a sinister influence on young impressionable Muslims. These institutions are not completely regulated and can vary from a single room to large institutions offering schooling and boarding to hundreds of students at a time. A survey of just over 50 000 households in Pakistan found that children in Urdu-medium government schools and madrassas were from poorer households than those in English-medium private schools. The primary reason for parents to send their children to madrassas as opposed to mainstream schools was that these institutions provided a good Islamic education. The second most common reason was that the madrassa provided education that is low in cost along with the provision of food and clothing (Cockcroft et al , 2009 ).

Another survey indicated that in Pakistan only a minority of the religious schools promoted an extremist view of Islam (Bano, 2007 ). An interrogation of 79 terrorists involved in anti-Western attacks found that very few had attended a madrassa. This suggests that terrorist groups may selectively recruit better qualified people for technically demanding tasks (Bergen & Pandey, 2006 ). However, the religious seminaries have been implicated as playing the role of recruitment centres for the suicide bombers (Nizami et al , 2014 ).

In an effort to break this incorrect perception the Darul Uloom Deoband, the largest Islamic seminary in the world, hosted an anti-terrorist conference in 2008. This was attended by 6000 Imams declaring that ‘Islam is a religion of mercy for all humanity. Islam sternly condemns all kinds of oppression, violence and terrorism. It has regarded oppression, mischief, rioting and murder among sins and crimes’ (Press Trust of India, 2008 ). However, it is yet to be ascertained how many religious schools in Pakistan adopted this school of thought. With the revolution in the world of information technology, experts agree that the internet played an important role in the radicalisation and self-recruitment process into terrorist groups. Messages and videos on jihadi websites target the ‘soft spots’ of potential recruits and inflame their imagination (Kruglanski & Fishman, 2009 ).

The link between terrorism and mental disorder

With both mental disorder and terrorism in Pakistan being highly prevalent, it would be a fair assumption that the two may have a causal relationship. Walter Laqueur wrote that ‘all terrorists believe in conspiracies by the powerful, hostile forces and suffer from some form of delusion and persecution mania… The element of… madness plays an important role in terrorism’ (Silke, 2003 ).

However, apart from certain pathological cases, a causal connection between an individual's mental disorder and engagement in terrorist activity could not be established (Daraz et al , 2012 ). However, there can be a connection between an individual engaging in terrorist activity and developing a mental disorder as mental disorders worsen in stress, anxiety and depression.

The adverse impacts of terrorism lead the masses towards anomie and create the tendency towards suicide and mental illnesses (Daraz et al , 2012 ). Poor health, depressive symptoms, risky behaviours in young adults, personality variables, social inequalities, criminality, social networks and international foreign policy have all been proposed to be influential drivers for grievances that lead to radicalisation and terrorism (La Free & Ackerman, 2009 ).

It may well be that individuals with mild depression would be a better target for gradual psychological moulding. Female suicide bombers who are predominantly motivated by revenge as opposed to their male counterparts may have some degree of clinical depression (Jacques & Taylor, 2008 ). Personality traits are useless as predictors for understanding why people become terrorists. However, personality traits and environmental conditions are the contributing factors for terrorism (Horgan, 2008 ). There are protective and modifiable risk factors early on the path towards radicalisation. The benefits of early intervention have far reaching implications for preventing significant depressive symptoms, promoting wellbeing and perhaps social capital (Bhui et al , 2014 ).

By understanding, appreciating and addressing the psychosocial factors contributing to terrorism in Pakistan, one may find long-lasting solutions to the fall out on Pakistan's war against terror. This war has led to a loss of innocent human lives, compounded by the deep psychological scars for survivors which will undoubtedly persist for generations to come. An ongoing, concerted effort to gain peace and security in the region is essential and is the only way to counteract the revenge attacks and further brainwashing of young impressionable youths. These psychological determinants, however, are markedly different than terrorist activities in Western countries, where it seems that a different set of psychological rules apply.

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Terrorism in Pakistan: Causes, Impacts, and Way Forwards

• Usama Nawaz Dothar
• December 17, 2022
• CSS , CSS Essays , CSS Solved Essays , PMS , PMS Essays
• 41315 Views

What are the causes, impacts, and way forwards of Terrorism in Pakistan? | Terrorism in Pakistan: Causes, Impacts, and Way Forwards | CSS Essays | PMS Essays | Essays by Sir Syed Kazim Ali

Usama Nawaz Dothar has attempted this essay on the given pattern, which Sir  Syed Kazim Ali  teaches his students, who have consistently been qualifying their CSS and PMS essays. The essay is uploaded to help other competitive aspirants learn and practice how to write a comprehensive outline; how to write bullets in an outline; how to write the introductory paragraph; how to connect sentences and paragraphs; how to write a topic sentence; how to put evidence within the paragraphs.

1- INTRODUCTION

• ✓  Terrorism, a global evil threatening the world’s peace
• ✓  Wreaking havoc in Pakistan
• ✓  Affecting the socio-political and economic fabric of the country
• ✓  Raising a diverse range of issues for the country
• ✓  The miserable state of affairs urging for a viable solution

2- CURRENT SITUATION

• ✓  At present, Pakistan, along with other problems, is still struggling with the issue. 
• ✓  According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, Pakistan witnessed 319 terrorism-related incidents in 2022 and 169 associated deaths of civilians.
• ✓  After the withdrawal of the USA, the new Taliban regime in Afghanistan further escalated the situation along the Pak-Afghan border.
• ✓  According to the Pak Institute of Peace Studies, a local think tank, as many as 433 people were killed and 179 injured in 250 attacks in Pakistan between August 15, 2021, and August 14, 2022 

3- WHAT ARE THE MAJOR CAUSES BEHIND THE MENACE?

• ✓  Burgeoning national-provincial and provincial-provincial rift
• ✓  Halting socioeconomic growth that leads to a lack of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)
• ✓  Overpowering all other concerns state resources under constant pressure, as a significant chunk of the budget goes for security buildup
• ✓  An increasing number of unemployed youngsters is an impetus for radicalization.
• ✓  Governing and relocating problems of Internally displaced persons, issues of refugees, and infrastructure rebuilding
• ✓  Sparking a concern to move to a safe place in the country or abroad 

5- HOW SOME PRAGMATIC MEASURES CAN HELP PAKISTAN TO OVERCOME THE MENACE

• ✓  To educate and register madarises
• ✓  To create jobs and a business-friendly environment
• ✓  To eradicate religious and ethnic differences.  
• ✓  To develop consensus among all stakeholders.
• ✓  To provide awareness to the masses through campaigns and the media’s active role.
• ✓  To expand state writ.

6- CRITICAL ANALYSIS 7- CONCLUSION

Terrorism is a global evil, threatening the world’s peace that humankind has struggled to achieve for centuries. Terrorism, the calculated use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population, is an organized warfare to achieve a diverse range of goals, particularly political objectives. In pursuance, terrorists, in particular, target innocent citizens and infrastructure worth millions to put immense pressure on the state authorities to kneel before their irrational demands. This heinous crime against humanity has halted many countries’ progress and jeopardized their peace, prosperity, and stability. For instance, events like the Twin Towers 2001, Mumbai Attacks 2008, and Army Public School 2016 jolted states’ security apparatus and psychologically made the public suffer. Unfortunately, the world has witnessed the brunt of terrorism, and Pakistan is the only country still reeling to combat the menace. As a result, the country has seen unprecedented bloodshed in the past two decades. According to Inter-Services Press Release (ISPR), more than 75000 lives have been claimed by terrorism, of which 65000 were civilians and 10000 were armed personnel. Undoubtedly, it has affected every socio-political and economic fabric of the country; however, the root of the problems lies in the state and society: lousy governance, racial and ethnic disparities, religious schism and intolerance. In fact, the ongoing dismal affairs have ignited a diverse range of issues, such as widening engulf among masses, convulsing conducive business environment, increasing unemployment and, above all, the issue of Afghan refugees. In fact, despite its complex nature, it is not impossible to be eradicated. A sincere and ambitious effort to root out terrorism is a need of the hour. Without any second thought, there is a need to review the education system as a whole, introduce structural changes, and make a compatible parallel system of madaris and private schools with the public sector. Further, accommodating youth, easing the doing of business for locals and foreigners, working to ensure parity among masses, developing a micro to macro-level consensus, and empowering state machinery to ensure state reach further are some immediate measures to curb the menace.

At present, terrorism is again around the corner. Despite a crackdown previously by security agencies, the terrorists who flee to Afghan soil are once again started pursuing their anti-state agenda in Pakistan. With empathy, the country has been up against several issues, such as political turmoil, economic slope, and the resurging terrorist activities tearing the country apart.  According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, Pakistan witnessed 319 terrorism-related incidents in 2022 and 169 associated deaths of civilians. Undoubtedly, except for 2020, the average attacks in the country scored 160. Further, a holistic look at the year 2022 provides a speedy rise in terrorist attacks.  In fact, the much-celebrated victory of the Taliban government in its western neighbour, Afghanistan, proved more lethal for Pakistan, evident from recent cross-border firing incidents. Furthermore, after the US withdrawal, the Afghan front’s situation has worsened, and terrorists manoeuvre along the border more freely; as a result, the country has started facing another blow of terrorism.  According to the Pak Institute of Peace Studies, a local think tank, as many as 433 people were killed and 179 injured in 250 attacks in Pakistan between August 15, 2021, and August 14, 2022. Meticulously, the burgeoning bulk of the crisis might engulf Pakistan.  The country has been fighting on many fronts, including environmental, security, and socio-political issues. Every problem has its solution; the state can nip it in the bud by mobilizing its resources, as it did after the Army Public School attack in 2016. But, keeping in mind that the previous mistakes would not repeat. 

The genesis of the problem lies in socio-political and economic fault lines, which widen the aperture. There are a number of causes. In Pakistan, since its inception, the unequal distribution of wealth, racial discrimination, and unequal opportunities has widened the gap between rich and poor. Due to such inadequate treatment, poverty has multiplied tens of times after independence.  In a recent report published by the World Bank, the country, for the fiscal year 2020-21, is 78.4%, using an upper-middle poverty rate of US$ 5.5 per day.  Poverty deeply affects a person’s thinking capability, and he becomes unidirectional. In addition, the growing bomb population has started putting pressure on state resources. As a result, more than half of the youth are unemployed, and these demoralized young souls are more prone to terrorist ideologies. Next, the evil political and religious leaders corrupt practices are also one of the main factors behind increasing poverty and lack of jobs.  As Nelson Mandela rightly said: “Poverty is not an accident, like slavery and apartheid. It is manufactured and can be removed by the actions of human beings.”  In short, poverty knows no religion or humanity, so the poor and unemployed become more radicalized and know no right and wrong to earn their livelihood. For them, the only good is how to have a meal, so they start spreading terror to fulfil their wishes.

Preceding one of the appealing causes behind terrorism is a misinterpretation of religion. Not just a misunderstanding but also a rigid interpretation that has marred the universality of Islam. They are provoking inter-religion and intra-religion divides, which gives an impetus for terrorism. This makes society more vulnerable, and terrorists find it favourable. Indeed, they easily manipulate people by offering different perks to a person’s family and ensuring him of Paradise hereafter by reminding God’s promise. Nevertheless, with fewer ulemas and more mullahs, Mullah’s emphasis on struggle with the sword nurtures violent behaviour; also, they connote the sole reason behind Muslims’ miserable condition of the American People. After brainwashing, an individual’s tolerance level and sense of perceiving things drastically change. As a result, he considers people other than in-group enemies to him, society, and Islam. Therefore, he does not hesitate to kill himself, such as in suicide bombings. To understand fully, the Sunni-Shia riots in Pakistan are good to consider; in the 1980s, there was a norm to kill one another. In a critical diagnosis, the Muslim nations have waged war against each other based on religious differences and Saudi-Iran rivalry. On the contrary, Islam talks about universality and pluralist society. Conclusively, one of the strides behind terrorists’ sways is rigid and misinterpreting religion.

Going down the ladder, one of the striking causes behind terrorism is sectarian and ethnic differences. The divide between Balochi, Punjabi, Sindhi, and Mohajir has further aggravated the situation, and stunted the country’s growth. In short, minority and majority anathema and these differences ultimately provide ground for terrorism nurturing.  For instance, the Mutahida Quami Movement activities in Karachi, terrorist groups in Swat, and the Federal Administrative Tribal Area (FATA0, now part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), are pertinent to mention here . Indeed, ethnically motivated terrorism has its reasons. On the contrary, the sectarian division also unwelcomed dissent opinions, imbibing feelings of hate. Nonetheless, the ethnic and sectarian splits have radicalized society and started nurturing terrorist ideology. As of this, terrorist groups are growing in size and quantity. 

Further, to talk about any issue in South Asia and the Middle East, the role of international and regional players is of great concern. In devoid of it, one cannot fully comprehend the reasons behind the problem.  The United States (US) and its ally’s invasion of Iraq to carry its nefarious attacks resulted in Muslim hatred towards the West.  Geographical compulsion was the reason Pakistan became a forefront ally of the US War on Terror after 9/11. Reluctantly, the country’s leadership found itself helpless in front of the United States’ immense pressure. Moreover, the war in the western neighbour provided momentum for different proxies. Rationally, the terrorism was a reaction against western proxies, which cost Pakistan more than the devil itself. Despite bearing many losses, the populous opinion in the US always censures the country’s efforts. The role of international players is not confined to the US role only but also the role of India, Israel, and other Eurasian Nations, which tried to destabilize Pakistan internally and isolate it internationally. In fact, the state and non-state actors started funding internal insurgent groups, eroding statehood sinews. One of the prime objects behind these fundings and proxies was Pakistan’s nuclear disarmament. In furtherance of their prime object, India and Israel started campaigning to stigmatize, prohibit, and eliminate nuclear weapons in Pakistan by creating propaganda they might end up in the hands of non-state actors, terrorists or Islamic radicals. Hence, the countries having vested interest promote terrorism in the country.

Last but not least, the other culprits behind terrorism are the executive’s role and Afghan refugees. The executive has failed to maintain the law. In comparison, the judicial system also has near to collapse. The erroneous irregularities in procedure and corruption have allowed law-breakers to flee, bypassing the system. The criminals know how to manage the police or judiciary.  As Adam Smith rightly said, “The mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”  Therefore, when people lost hope, they decided to take the law into their hands. On the contrary, the state has failed to accommodate Afghan refugees. The burden of internally displaced persons (IDPs) was not enough that the government opened its borders to Afghan refugees on humanitarian grounds. The IDPs left their homes, business, and belongings but are now at the state’s mercy. The drone attacks were counter-productive and killed many civilians. The relatives of those families stand against the state, and some join terrorists. Injudicious and unpopular decisions of the government have raised some issues. In short, the above causes contributed to fanning the flames of terrorism, raising some challenges for Pakistan.

First, the rising rift between national-provincial and provincial-provincial is of great concern. The burgeoning issue has waged a war of mudslinging on one another.  For instance, the Karabagh dam issue, a much-advocated project to meet water and energy viability, is a result of the split . The national-provincial dissent on a number of losses and inadequate compensation has divided the house so that separation voices are now heard from different sections and parts of the country. However, Pakistan has not forgotten the secession of East Pakistan. Indeed, a house divided against itself cannot stand. Therefore, the country must develop a consensus by putting aside its trivial issue to eliminate terrorism from its soil. Otherwise, the dingy state of affairs annihilates the country. Nevertheless, the gap between person to person has started widening. Political polarization is also an outcome of growing differences. Second, a death blow to the economy.  According to official estimates, Pakistan has lost precious lives and infrastructure and suffered a loss of around $ 35-40 billion since 2001. Due to the ongoing war on terror, the country’s economy still suffers $6 billion in export losses annually.  The clouds of fear and uncertainty have devastated the country’s business outlook. Owing to such far reaching impacts and future implications, the business sector is on the verge of collapse, and foreign direct investment has touched a record low, thus, further breaking the back of the poor and deprived masses. If the division and fear kept increasing, it would be more feasible for terrorists to carry on their agenda.                        

                 Third, the issue of security has overpowered all other concerns of the state. The major chunk of the budget goes for security build-up, which has made Pakistan lag behind other nations in terms of social indicators. Specifically,  the country has repaired particular walls of official buildings and installed fences around them. Further, the government has increased security in different public places.  In short, the government has to spend public money on bullets and tanks, which, thus, shifted the state’s focus from other works of public welfare, such as human capital development. Conclusively, security-related issues have overshadowed the country’s other concerns today. On similar lines, fourth, the unfettered growth of the population has further aggrandized the state’s agony. In particular, the youth, forming the majority of the population, is left on its own.  As a World Bank report suggests, Pakistan’s youth unemployment rate for 2021 was 9.42%, a 0.2% increase from the preceding year.  As a result, the demoralized youth without any purpose has become prey to terrorist ideals. Further, if the state would not accommodate youth and streamline their potential, they might become a weapon of terrorism, such as suicide bombers. Critically, if Pakistan wants to cherish its dream of becoming the tiger of South Asia, it needs to employ more than half the population, which is constituted by its youth. In short, these issues have hampered the state’s socio-economic growth and provided a stimulus for terrorism.

                Next to it, fifth is the issue of relocating Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and Afghan refugees. Retrospectively, many people vacated their homes to facilitate law enforcement agencies.  In this regard, Pakistan’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) report unveils the number of total displaced persons. IDMC’s report shows around 70,000 displacements were recorded in 2021, mainly triggered by terrorism and disasters. Ostensibly, the government has sat on the fence to seek the issue, and people who came as frontline solider to sacrifice their hard-earned money, in particular homes, are struck by thunder that government is unable to alleviate their miseries. Certainly, the issue calls for an early solution. Otherwise, like terrorists, these people may follow the path of insurgents. Similarly, the issue of Afghan refugees, a looming sword of threat on our necks, has always stabbed in our back. In a joint report, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Government of Pakistan verified that 1.3 million Afghan refugees live today in Pakistan.  Morally, giving them a piece of land to reside on humanitarian grounds was idealistic, without thinking of future liability. However, they have become such a liability that the state wants to drive them out. On the contrary, the refugees blame Pakistani that they are the sole reason behind the turmoil. Therefore, due to international pressure, the country has tried to alleviate IDPs and Afghan refugees to achieve perpetual peace for generations. Indeed, both issues have stunted the country’s socio-political and economic growth.

          Last but not least, the people started moving towards safe places and even started residing abroad in quest of peace. When people’s basic rights, such as life, liberty, and property, are under constant attack, no one finds the country a place to abode. So, Pakistan’s intellectual and skillful labor has left the country, further distancing the country’s dream of achieving prosperity. Brain drain has become a grave issue for Pakistan.  In a recent Gallop Survey, 7,50,000 people left the country for better life and opportunities abroad.  Brain drain harms sending regions, such as reduced human capital, limited capacity to innovate, reduced economic growth, demographic shifts, and a higher cost of public goods. The issues, mainly, are knitted with terrorism. Precisely, terrorism has penetrated fear in all sectors of the country, instigated significant unrest, hampered social mobility, and robbed the future of million. Pakistan is up to several challenges because of terrorism. 

           After the diagnosis, one calls for an effective treatment. The cancerous disease of terrorism has jeopardized the state’s health, but, for sure, it is a curable disease. To cure, the state needs to adopt some pragmatic measures in the right direction at the right time. Some of the measures are following, which can eradicate the disease. First, improvement in the education sector can root out the problem of terrorism. The government should mitigate the gap between private-public schools, missionary schools, and madrassas.  As per assertions of a recent report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Pakistan has the world’s second-highest number of out-of-school children, counting 22.8 million children between the ages of 5 and 16, representing 44 per cent of children not attending schools.  For sure, it is a dreadful situation. Illiterate ones can easily be exploited. Hence, an outdated syllabus and effective policy to enroll the maximum number of kids in school should be the state’s priority. Then, an ambitious effort, teachers must pursue to teach tolerance, patience, and hate against violence to root out the problem permanently.

           Second, there is a need to create a conducive business environment. A much-needed effort to uplift local industry by introducing structural adjustments via a public-private partnership. Meanwhile, measures should be adopted to gain foreign enterprises’ confidence so that they can pour FDI. By creating such a feasible environment, the unemployed millions can have jobs and help eradicate poverty. If the measures are taken judiciously, it will help the country to portray itself as an emerging economy. Next to it fourth, the country needs to galvanize society and weave it into a single entity by rooting out all ethnic and sectarian conflicts. To do so, the country must ban hate material, register religious and local bodies, enact new laws, and provide equal opportunities to all, ensuring their growth and popularity. Anti-Terrorism in this regard was also a great achievement, but the vague interpretation of it further fueled the fire of sectarian conflicts. So, a commitment by state, province, local bodies, and religious schools to adopt tolerance and accept dissent can help eradicate the monster of terrorism, as a myopic mindset often promotes violence.

            On the same footing, five pragmatic and far-sighted policies by the government can extirpate terrorism from Pakistan. First, Pakistan is bleeding because of ill-advised policies. Therefore, a road map adopted with the consent of all stakeholders can be a step forward to combat the menace. Further, a campaign to reach people regarding the evils of terrorism and take them in confidence can help implement policies and provide public support as the state has not had enough resources, so public involvement is a need of the hour. In this regard, Media can help promote anti-terrorist agenda to vitiate them from our soil. Media can highlight the dangers of terrorism and provide public pain-relieving news in time without sensitizing other propaganda. Meticulously, these steps help counter terrorist ideologies prevailing in society. Finally, the state needs to implement rule of law and other anti-terrorism laws, so culprits should be punished within due time. Even the speedy trials and separate courts for terrorists help root out terrorism. The Anti-Terrorism Courts (ATC) was a great development. However, the lack of security to judge derailed the process. So, the state needs to enforce its writ to far-flung areas and provide security to the functionaries, which helps punish criminals in time, resulting in deterrence. Conclusively, deterrence can help people fear the wrath of the state and a strong state writ. After that, terrorists find no place to hide and no mercy. As a result, peace will be ensured.

             In a critical diagnosis, the issue of terrorism has overshadowed all other concerns Pakistan faces today. The devil has engulfed the country’s peace and prosperity, leaving it in a swamp of destruction. However, the state has the potential to close the devil in the bottle. Terrorism has created innumerable losses and fright that people still fear taking a breath in the fresh air. Indeed, things take time to settle; the state has once achieved victory against the devil. But, lack of farsightedness and too early celebrations have brought it back. Now, it is time to learn from past mistakes and monitor the cross-border flow of people. Moreover, Pakistan has neglected the costs of its porous borders on both the eastern and western borders. If the state needs to immune itself from terrorism, the state and global leaders must take a hard stance against the countries providing a safe haven to terrorists. Otherwise, the elusive dream of the world to achieve perpetual peace and peaceful co-existence with diverse nations can never be achieved. 

            To encapsulate the whole debate, terrorism has wreaked havoc in every sphere of life. The right to freely move, live and have a family is under constant threat because of terrorism. Pakistan has paid the price and still paying for it. Many factors have promoted terrorism in Pakistan, such as poverty, unemployment, racial and religious split, and misinterpretation of Islam. The far-reaching impacts are visible in the country’s social, political, and economic domains. According to official estimates, Pakistan has lost precious lives and infrastructure and suffered a loss of around $ 35-40 billion since 2001. Due to the ongoing war on terror, the country’s economy still suffers $6 billion in export losses annually. In addition, the figures, painting a gloomy picture of the state outlook, are appealing in every sphere, such as social indicators have touched the lowest of all time. Nevertheless, if taken timely, pragmatic measures can help Pakistan not only expatriate terrorism but also achieve unsurpassable growth. Judicious and prudent analysis highlights that Pakistan alone cannot combat the global menace single-handedly. A much-contested and collective effort is needed at regional and global levels to get rid of the devil for now and for times to come. 

About the essay writer

Usama Nawaz  is a student of Sir  Syed Kazim Ali . He is a young writer and legal advisor. He writes on a diverse range of issues: contemporary social, political, economic, and environmental, with which the world has struggled. Further, he has done Llb (Hons) from the University of Punjab, Pakistan. Moreover, he has worked as an Associate in different firms such as Asma Jahangir Law Firm. Moreover, he writes to raise his voice against human rights abuses and pens his thoughts on various topics: opinions, blogs, and issues. Besides, he has done different internships, volunteered in different organisations, and unconditionally helped others. Now, he is learning writing communication skills to give his thoughts words under Mr Kazim’s mentorship. Lastly, he is a thorough gentleman preparing for competitive exams to pursue his dream of serving the Nation.

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Extremism and Terrorism Trends in Pakistan: Changing Dynamics and New Challenges

February 2021, volume 14, issue 2.

Hassan Abbas

Categories:

• Afghanistan
• Cooperation, Competition, & Fissures
• Counterterrorism
• Strategy, History, & Goals
• Islamic State Khorasan
• Jaish-e-Muhammad
• Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
• Tehrik-i-Taliban

Abstract: Even as Pakistan has made progress in reducing the threat from terrorist sanctuaries in the Pakistan-Afghanistan tribal areas, an increased crime-terror nexus in urban centers and a new terrorist recruitment drive by Islamic State Khorasan province, or ISK, in Baluchistan has raised alarms. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is trying to stage a comeback, and sectarianism is also rising, creating a congenial environment for terrorist and extremist organizations, including some Kashmir-focused groups that have evaded counterterrorism scrutiny. Pakistan’s poor investment in developing a much-needed countering violent extremism strategy makes it ill-equipped to respond to these challenges.

Terrorism in Pakistan is down, but by no means out. The number of terror attacks and the number of resulting fatalities have started to tick up again; sectarianism is growing and the causes feeding into radicalization of the population not only continue to exist but, in some instances, are aggravating the problem. The revival of the Afghan Taliban since its nadir in the fall of 2001 coupled with the striking emergence and resilient footprint of the Islamic State Khorasan province, or ISK, in adjacent Afghanistan, in parallel with the rise of Hindu nationalism in neighboring India, indicate worsening extremism trends in South Asia overall. The fact that various groups continue to enjoy immunity from state clampdowns adds a further layer of complexity to the challenge. South Asia has recorded more deaths from terrorism than any other region of the world for two consecutive years now—2018 and 2019. 1 Granted, this is partly due to a noteworthy decline in fatalities in the Syria and Iraq conflict theaters, yet it shows that terrorism in South Asia remains a very serious challenge. In terms of measuring the impact of terrorism, the 2020 Global Terrorism Index prepared by Australia’s Institute for Economics and Peace ranks Pakistan seventh (for greatest impact), right after Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen (in that order) and followed by India, Congo, and the Philippines. To have Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan continue to hold a position in the top 10 in this category is not an encouraging sign for regional counterterrorism efforts. 2 The complicated relationships between these three countries are also factors at play.

In comparative terms, according to data from the Global Terrorism Index, terrorism attacks have declined since 2018 in Pakistan, as the total number of terrorist incidents dropped from 369 (causing 543 deaths) in 2018 to 279 (causing 300 deaths) in 2019, bringing the number of deaths from terrorism in Pakistan to its lowest annual number since 2006. 3 The Global Terrorism Index has not made data available yet for Pakistan in 2020. According to the South Asia Terrorism portal (SATP), there were 319 terrorism related incidents in Pakistan in 2020. 4 According to Pakistan’s National Counterterrorism Authority (NACTA), terrorism attacks caused 357 deaths in Pakistan in 2020 (through December 21), a clear increase in the number of victims of terrorism from the previous year. 5

While terrorism incident data reflects a generally positive counterterrorism trend, the underlying radicalization trends and lack of evidence that elements active in terrorist organizations (such as Kashmir-focused Jaish-e-Mohammad) have been brought to justice in some shape or form continue to raise legitimate concerns. Measuring extremism is harder as it requires a broader set of data ranging from hate crimes, health of minorities’ rights, youth radicalization trends, and sectarian tendencies. Local security analysts, independent Pakistan watchers, and those with access to relevant data are mostly worried about Pakistan’s direction. The survival of ISK in Afghanistan and Pakistan, despite enhanced counterterrorism operations, is one example of the persistence of the terrorism problem in the region. As Amira Jadoon and Andrew Mines insightfully conclude, this is a result of ISK’s “wide network of operational alliances in directly enhancing its lethality and geographical reach” as well as “access to a steady supply of experienced militants on both sides of the border.” 6 A new generation of extremist recruits today is enhancing this capacity.

This article looks specifically at terrorism and extremism trends in Pakistan with a focus on relatively new developments that are deemed worthy of deeper analysis and attention. This article examines five dimensions of the terrorism threat faced by Pakistan. It first look at TTP’s efforts to stage a comeback in Pakistan. It then looks at ISK’s new recruitment strategy. Then it examines the upsurge in targeted killings in Karachi. The next section focuses on the evolving threat posed by Kashmiri-focused militant groups. The final section outlines the challenges posed by rising violent sectarianism inside Pakistan. This study benefits from interviews and conversations the author conducted in October-December 2020 with many security and law enforcement officials in Karachi, Kabul, Lahore, and Peshawar.

Pakistani Taliban Regaining Foothold in the Pakistan-Afghanistan Border Areas First, credit is due to Pakistan’s security forces for terminating the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) reign of terror (roughly 2007-2015) through its effective Operation Zarb-e-Azb launched in June 2014. The U.S. drone campaign’s success in decapitating TTP leadership facilitated it in no small way. 7 TTP splintered thereafter, and its surviving leaders escaped to Afghanistan. 8 Some of its splinter factions either merged into ISK or pledged allegiance to it. 9 The TTP’s most lethal splinter Jamaat ul Ahrar (JuA), in collaboration with TTP’s Tariq Gidar Group, was responsible for major terrorist attacks, including on Army Public School in Peshawar in December 2014. a It survived energized Pakistani counterterrorism operations and has continued its terror operations from its new base in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar area. 10

Many of these splinter groups, including JuA and Hizb ul- Ahrar (HuA), decided to come together again in August 2020 and renewed their pledge of allegiance to current TTP leader Noor Wali Mehsud, alias Abu Mansour Asim. 11 HuA, especially, has an agile terror network in and around the Peshawar region. 12 The return of a Mehsud as the TTP leader also persuaded many disgruntled Mehsud tribesmen (such as members of the Hakimullah Mehsud group, led by Mukhlis Yar) to return to the TTP fold. 13 Even Punjabi Taliban’s Amjad Farouqi group, closely aligned with al-Qa`ida, and the Usman Saifullah group, a Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) splinter, also returned to the TTP platform. 14 The latest to rejoin this notorious gang of terrorists in late November 2020 was influential Ustad Aleem Khan (from the Gul Bahadur TTP faction) and Umar Azzam. 15 TTP is proudly marketing the video of this allegiance through its media outlet Umar Media. 16

According to a May 2020 UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team report, the number of Pakistani militants of all stripes operating in Afghanistan may be as high as 6,000 to 6,500. 17 A great majority of them will likely drift back into Pakistan if TTP regains control in parts of the Pashtun tribal belt sandwiched between Pakistan and Afghanistan. This area was known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan (FATA), but has been legally incorporated into Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KPK) province since 2018. A U.N. report published in February 2021 maintains that TTP was responsible for more than 100 cross-border attacks from Afghanistan into Pakistan between July and October 2020. 18

A significant increase in targeted killings in the Pakistani tribal areas during 2020 carried out by terrorist groups indicates that something is amiss. Those targeted lately are tribal elders (senior leaders), reminiscent of times when TTP emerged in 2007 and eliminated hundreds of them. 19 Analyst Daud Khattak maintains that increased targeted killings in Waziristan and Bajaur tribal districts are caused by TTP’s “involvement in resolving local disputes, forcing people to pay protection money, and targeting those believed to be their opponents.” 20 This was how they gained space in the tribal belt more than a decade ago. 21 Al-Qa`ida in Iraq (AQI) did the same in Iraq over a decade and a half ago, showing how terrorist organizations may be learning from each other and why timely comparative analysis of such campaigns can help counterterrorism efforts. According to Pakistani security analyst Amir Rana, by mid-December 2020, about 11 splinter groups had joined this reconfigured TTP, and attacks on security forces in South and North Waziristan, and in Bajaur and Mohmand areas—an old stronghold of TTP—have increased. 22 Pakistan’s speedy effort to complete fencing work on the border with Afghanistan, with a goal to discourage militant movement, smuggling, and illegal crossings, has possibly convinced some TTP elements to return to Pakistan from Afghanistan while they can. 23 Rustam Shah Mohmand argues that prospects of a negotiated deal in Afghanistan between Kabul and the Afghan Taliban may mean restricted space for TTP types in Afghanistan, and hence, they have started returning to Pakistan. 24

One of the major reasons behind TTP’s resurgence as a serious threat, however, is Islamabad’s lackluster effort toward bringing the FATA into the mainstream as envisioned by the 2018 FATA Reforms Bill, a major constitutional initiative. 25 The FATA was merged into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province through this belated but commendable legal initiative, on paper abolishing the draconian colonial-era regulations governing the frontier area. The legal, administrative, and financial measures needed to facilitate this process, however, are absent, or seriously lacking, in turn provoking a rise in public frustrations. 26 A pertinent example is the recent rise of the Pashtun Tahafuz (Protection) Movement (PTM) led by Manzoor Pashteen, a revolutionary but non-violent protest movement demanding an end to extrajudicial killings in the area by security forces and the elimination of military check posts that restrict the free movement of people. PTM pleads for Pashtun rights, maintaining that the lives of ordinary Pashtuns have been disrupted over the last two decades on a massive scale and that they are victims of both the Taliban and the security forces. 27 TTP also used similar criticism of security forces to gain public sympathy, but PTM emphasizes a non-violent approach, distinguishing it from militant organizations.

PTM’s genuine but provocative slogans condemning the role of the Pakistan Army, however, resulted in Pakistani governing authorities publicly presenting it as a threat. To the contrary, it could be argued that PTM should have been welcomed by Islamabad as an ally against the extremist and radical ideologies propagated in the tribal areas, but short-sightedness served as an obstacle to such an understanding. PTM’s popularity across Pashtun communities from Peshawar to Karachi appears to be rising despite the military’s effort to contain the group’s reach. 28 A few of the PTM’s leading lights made it into the parliament but that did not prevent them from being depicted as ‘Indian agents’ or ‘enemies of the state,’ charges that are unfortunate and unfounded. 29 In fact, Pakistani security forces hired criminal elements and extremist elements to confront PTM on the ground, as explained by Ali Wazir, currently an elected member of Pakistan’s National Assembly and one of the co-founders of the movement:

It is ironic that the institutions responsible for protecting Pakistan’s territorial integrity and protecting it from dangerous threats are bankrolling thugs to launch a Pakistan Zindabad Movement (Urdu for Long Live Pakistan Movement) … It is telling that former Taliban commanders have addressed their gatherings. We also have indications that efforts are underway to mobilize sectarian terrorists and other fanatics to ‘counter’ our peaceful campaign. 30

Popular Pakistani columnist Nadeem Paracha calls PTM “a contemporary version of classical Pashtun nationalism” that was “overshadowed by the rise of political Islam and then militancy among various Pashtun tribes.” 31 There are indeed elements of nationalist fervor in PTM’s narrative, but its primary focus is on human rights and rule of law and their leaders insist: “We have created a golden opportunity for Islamabad to shun its past as a security state and function as a normal country concerned with the welfare of its citizens.” 32 But arrests, kidnapping, and intimidation of PTM supporters and followers at the hands of state agencies continue. 33 TTP and other extremists in tribal areas must be relieved to see intelligence services and their proxies getting embroiled into confrontation with PTM rather than confronting TTP ideology and activities.

ISK Expanded Recruitment Drive Targeting Baluchistan’s Brahui Ethnic Group ISK, which had emerged around 2015 in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region as an extension of the Iraq- and Syria-based Islamic State, in its early days had greatly benefitted from a stream of defections from many regional militant organizations. 34 That process has run its course, it appears. Today, ISK is under stress due to regular elimination of its top leadership at the hands of Afghan and U.S. forces, and it is now experimenting with a model that includes a broader recruitment focus as well as the appointment of a foreigner, Shahab al-Muhajir, as its top leader. 35 b Some changes in this direction were visible in early 2020, as evident by the recruitment of militants from the Indian state of Kerala who were then used to target a Sikh place of worship in Kabul. 36 The more terrorist groups are able to recruit from a particular area, the easier it becomes for them to recruit there because of their deepening local ties, but expanding recruitment to different ethnicities requires wider network and training needs (given linguistic and cultural factors).

As part of its broader recruitment focus, ISK is now likely looking to expand its recruitment efforts in the Brahui (or Brohi) ethnic community in the Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. 37 While only a small fraction of Brahuis have any sympathy for ISK, a number have been recruited into its terror campaign. For instance, the masterminds of terrorist attacks targeting a popular Sufi Shrine in Sehwan, Sindh province (2017), a police training center in Quetta, Baluchistan, and many Islamic centers associated with Shi`a communities in the Sindh province turned out to be Brahui militants by the name of Hafeez Pandrani Brohi and Abdullah Brohi, both killed in police encounters in 2019. 38 In the case of the Sehwan attack, one of the two suicide bombers was also from Brahui background, namely Barar Brohi. 39

Pakistani officials believe that ISK cells are “predominantly present in the border areas of Baluchistan,” and the group keeps the size of these cells small as a strategy for securing their communications and target planning. 40

The primary local partner of ISK in Pakistan remains Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami (LeJA), an offshoot of the terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) known widely for its targeting of Shi`a communities across the country. 41 While LeJ terrorist operations have been focused internally in Pakistan, the LeJA has aspired to operate regionally as its extended title al-Alami, meaning ‘international,’ suggests. More specifically, LeJA has attracted the most notorious of the LeJ cadre who were also more aggressive in their approach. Their parent ideological organization, defunct Sipah-e-Sahaba—now operating as Ahle Sunnat Wal Jammat (ASWJ)—is also operating in Baluchistan, and there are strong allegations of its involvement in terrorist attacks targeting the Shi`a Hazara community in Quetta. Ramzan Mengal (ethnically Brahui), the top leader of ASWJ in Baluchistan, openly campaigned for the killing of Shi`a in the past but remains free and was even permitted to contest national elections in 2018. 42

The Brahui factor needs further explanation to get across some important nuances. c The Brahui are distinct from Baluch in the anthropological sense, but they mutually share Baluch political identity and also support the cause of Baluch nationalism. 43 Brahui tribes, however, are more conservative and tribal in terms of their network and outlook as compared to other ethnicities and are generally lagging behind in the economic and educational domains. 44 They are in the majority in Khuzdar, Kalat, and Mastung districts but also have a significant presence in the Quetta, Noshki, and Kharan districts of Baluchistan as well as in some Sindh districts including Shikarpur, Jacobabad, and Qambar Shahdatkot. An important distinguishing feature of Brahui identity is their religious inclinations. Brahui areas host most of the madrassas (Islamic seminaries), and most prayer leaders in the province consequently are from Brahui background. That in itself is not worthy of security concern, but the fact remains that extremist groups have had opportunities to recruit through madrassas in this area.

Since its inception in 2010, 45 LeJA has made strategic inroads into Brahui-dominant areas in Baluchistan as well as Sindh province. One leading indicator of this was the trajectory of the terrorist leader Hafeez Pandrani Brohi (mentioned above), hailing originally from Baluchistan’s Mastung district and trained initially by LeJ. 46 Pakistani intelligence services, or some sectarian elements within it, possibly facilitated LeJ’s move to Baluchistan to confront the Baluch nationalists, especially Baluch Liberation Army (BLA), around the 2007-2010 timeframe. Scholar Stephen Tankel in his 2013 paper on militant infrastructure in Pakistan maintained that, “Rumors persist about Pakistani military support for LeJ militants in Balochistan to degrade the separatist insurgency in that province. There is no evidence of an institutionalized policy, however, and the military has denied these charges vociferously. It is possible some officers overlook or abet LeJ activities because they are seen as targeting enemies of the state.” 47

Rahimullah Yusufzai, a Pakistani journalist known for his in-depth stories about the Taliban and other extremist groups, aptly argues, “Call it infiltration, or what you will, but the LeJ has succeeded in recruiting Baloch, once considered quite secular.” 48 According to reliable media accounts in Pakistan, LeJ training camps were run in the second half of the 2000s from Mastung and Khuzdar in Pakistan. 49

The fact that many LeJ (and LeJA) militants have been able to escape from police and even military custody in Baluchistan has reinforced the view that there is an ongoing LeJ-security forces linkage. 50 The recurrence of such escapes (and from high security zone detention facilities) has further entrenched the view that official support was involved.

Shafiq Mengal (ethnically Brahui), an LeJ militant known as a “pawn set by the intelligence agencies to counter Baloch militants in the province,” is an example of a religious extremist turned national asset of Pakistani intelligence. 51 Tariq Khosa, former Inspector General of Police of Baluchistan and a brave writer, laments state backing for private militias and aptly argues that “the decision to use Shafiq as a proxy against certain Baloch separatist organizations allowed proscribed sectarian groups to regroup in and around Quetta.” 52 Rafique Mengal, another LeJ terrorist who was found involved in many killings of Hazara Shi`a in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, received state protection, at least in the early 2010s, for his political work against Baluch nationalists. 53 Such state blunders continue to empower groups that widen sectarian rifts and open the doors for groups such as ISK to expand their terror networks in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s law enforcement agencies are very concerned about the recruitment drive of ISK-LeJA targeting the Brahui-dominated areas, and as discussed, this trend is also visible from publicly available data. 54 This indicates at the least that the ISK-LeJA tandem is looking for opportunities to exploit. LeJ used to get most of its recruits from south Punjab—a critical hub for many extremist organizations in Pakistan—so its move via its LeJA offshoot to Baluchistan (in alliance with ISK) is a development worth taking note of and probing further.

A likely motivating factor for ISK’s enhanced recruitment drive in Baluchistan is the high number of clashes between the Afghan Taliban (mostly Pashtun) and ISK occurring in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nangahar provinces bordering Pakistan. This area is important for ISK as it hosts its central operational base. Given Pakistan’s past practice and presumed support for the Afghan Taliban in these campaigns, ISK’s retaliation through terror acts in Pakistan is highly probable. To pull off such a terror campaign, it is possible ISK will seek to step up the deployment of Brahui violent extremists as one way to both leverage and aggravate Baluch-Brahui versus Pashtun rivalries in the area.

The evolving nature of the Afghan Taliban-ISK war is evident from the October 27, 2020, ISK terror attack in Peshawar targeting a seminary led by Shaikh Rahim ullah Haqqani, a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who had publicly declared followers of ISK as enemies of Islam. 55 Haqqani’s lecture was being livestreamed when the attack occurred, leading to the death of eight students while 136 were wounded. 56 Another Afghan Taliban commander, Abdul Samad Mullah Toor, was assassinated by unknown assailants in the outskirts of Peshawar, on January 24, 2021. 57

Targeted Killings in Karachi Pakistani security experts believe that a new generation of religious militants is coming of age in Pakistan, and these tech-savvy individuals are mostly based in urban centers such as Karachi and Lahore. 58 In ideological terms, this pool of individuals harbors salafi-takfiri leanings, ever ready to excommunicate Muslims who are different from them, and they have relatively little baggage in terms of inter-group rivalries as was the case with those who participated in the ‘Afghan Jihad’ of the 1980s. 59 These individuals are more global in their outlook and ambitions, and are largely radicalized through online sources. 60 d

A rise in targeted killings by extremists in Karachi during 2020 raised serious concerns within Pakistani security agencies about the increased activities of some local extremist groups, some with transnational connections, that they were not tracking closely. 61 A senior counterterrorism department officer in Islamabad shared with the author that based on data from Karachi police, they have concluded that four terrorist groups allied with local criminal gangs are quite active in Karachi and Sindh province lately: ‘Lyari gang,’ a Karachi-based criminal network; 62 elements of Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA), a designated terrorist outfit with its base in Baluchistan province; 63 Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army, a relatively new, shadowy group; 64 and criminal elements from the Altaf-led faction Muttihada Qaumi Movement (MQM-A), a political party that has splintered into many factions since its London-based leadership were declared personae non gratae by many leaders of the party as well as Pakistani security agencies for their involvement in criminal activities and alleged ties with Indian intelligence. 65 Many criminal elements from MQM-A escaped Pakistan and now reportedly hide in South Africa. 66 It is important to clarify that some of the four Karachi groups specified above have been in existence for many years, but lately they have been more active than usual according to local police assessments. The author’s conversations with police officials in Karachi indicate that many of the underground jihadis are found involved in narcotics smuggling activity and Sindh and Punjab police forces are closely monitoring this trend. 67

Cracking down on these Karachi groups will in some cases need to be an international endeavor. The United Arab Emirates remains a destination for many criminals from the Karachi area and other parts of Pakistan. 68 For instance, the prime suspect in the attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi in November 2018, named Rashid Brohi and belonging to BLA, was arrested in July 2019 in UAE by Interpol. 69

The Evolving Threat Posed by Kashmiri-focused Groups The activities of Kashmir-focused militant groups and other organizations that aspire to be active in Indian-controlled Kashmir remain a concern. There are no indications that groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) led by the notorious Masood Azhar have been decommissioned. 70

In early 2020, a Urdu-language magazine managed by al-Qa`ida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), titled Nawa-e-Ghazwa-e-Hind (roughly Voice of the Battlefield of India), started campaigning for focus on Kashmir, raising alarm bells in India. 71 The latest edition (January 2021) of this magazine not only carries articles on Kashmir but its language and content clearly indicates that it is published by ‘battle hardened’ militants with experience in Kashmir and Afghanistan. e

While Kashmir-focused militant groups are generally keeping a low profile within Pakistan (likely due to the hanging sword of ‘Financial Action Task Force’ on Islamabad’s head), f there is a real danger that some elements that differ with this quietism strategy may join AQIS. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan warned his countrymen against any effort to “wage Jihad in Kashmir” and cautioned them by saying: “Anyone, who thinks that he will cross the border to join the Kashmiris, is a big enemy of them and Pakistan.” 72 This indicates resolve on the part of political leadership at least. There is no credible evidence that AQIS is operating in Kashmir at this time, but its publications clearly show intent and motivation to do so.

Many of these Kashmir-focused Pakistani militants, as is known from their track record, jump between groups depending on geopolitics and security vulnerabilities. The mood of intelligence agencies is also kept in view.

Deepening Sectarianism Sunni-Shi`a sectarianism, mostly anti-Shi`a platforms, has long been exploited by violent extremist groups in Pakistan, and as outlined below, it is once again on the rise. Lately, Pakistan’s Ahmadi community has also been on the receiving end as there has been a recent spike in targeted killing against them. 73 The intra-Sunni Barelvi-Deobandi rivalry also continues to simmer hazardously in the background, as Tehrike-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a radical Barelvi group, has energized its base by insisting on the strict implementation of Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws. In the process, it is regaining the political ground it had lost to the Deobandis “since the rise of jihadism in the 1980s.” 74

Disturbingly, recent months have seen heightened anti-Shi`a rhetoric expressed through major street protests, involving ultra conservative political forces, in Karachi and Islamabad. 75 Sectarian and extremist ASWJ played an active role in this campaign. 76 These street protests could lead to even more sectarianism, which has proved in the past to have empowered terrorists of all stripes in Pakistan besides widening the door for Saudi-versus-Iran games to be played in the country. 77 Islamic State-like organizations also thrive where sectarian tensions are high. An editorial of Pakistan’s leading newspaper Dawn captured the gist of this development well:

The embers of hate are once again being stoked. To prevent history from being repeated and innocent blood spilled in the name of religion, the government must act urgently and decisively. The state’s silence is indeed inexplicable. It appears to have willfully chosen to close its eyes to this sinister development. 78

Pakistan’s Shi`a Hazara, located mostly in Quetta, continue to pay a heavy price. 2021 began for them with the brutal murder of 11 Hazara coal miners who were kidnapped and their throats slit. Gruesome images of the victims were distributed through the Islamic State’s Amaq news service. 79 The Pakistani security analyst Amir Rana, in making security projections for Pakistan for 2021, aptly observes that “incidents of communal violence and religious and sectarian hatred have become a regular feature of Pakistan’s security and political landscape” and “sectarian discord and the groups promoting it continue to persist.” 80

Conclusion As this article has outlined, Pakistan’s counterterrorism challenges are evolving. While there is relative stability in the Pakistan-Afghanistan tribal belt and the overall violence levels have dropped since 2018, the TTP in particular are assertively trying to regroup and stage a comeback. While their infrastructure has been degraded earlier, nothing tangible was done to challenge the extremists’ ideology of hate. Countering violent extremism efforts have remained limited in focus and poorly resourced. 81 Economic failings and disparities in Pakistan have also offered opportunities for ISK terrorists to target vulnerable communities for recruitment, such as the Brahui in Baluchistan. ISK is a serious danger for South Asia, and its potential to grow further should not be underestimated. ISK’s creation of two subdivisions, namely Islamic State-Hind and Islamic State-Pakistan, in 2019 reflect its ambitions in the region. 82 Islamabad’s policy of looking for proxies to fight insurgents and extremists has backfired. 83 And the Kashmir-focused militants, though quieter and keeping a low profile since 2017, could also come out of their hibernation—on the state’s behalf or possibly on their own out of frustration—redirecting their energies toward India, which could lead to India-Pakistan military conflict. Heightened sectarianism also complicates Pakistan’s security scene. As Tariq Parvez, a seasoned Pakistani counterterrorism expert and former head of NACTA, argues:

The current resurgence of violent sectarianism in Pakistan is much more dangerous than the sectarianism in earlier decades, due to 3 factors, i.e. Barelvis joining them, Shia/Sunni returnees from Syria, and TTP/ISK/LeJ combo to attack each other. Government must react promptly and firmly. 84

The economic burden of dealing with COVID-19 is only going to make Pakistan’s counterterrorism challenges harder. While threats of suicide bombings in urban centers and terrorist attacks targeting progressive political leaders have receded relatively speaking, religious intolerance and threats to minority groups continue as serious problems. In the author’s assessment based on his field research, Pakistan’s criminal justice system, and especially its police, lacks the capacity and resources to serve as the first line of defense against terrorism. 85 The present government of Pakistan under Prime Minister Imran Khan, despite its promises, 86 has failed to introduce police reforms. Afzal Shigri, a former inspector general of the police and an advocate for rule of law, warns that this will have “horrendous impact on the future governance and politics of Pakistan.” 87 The five dimensions to the terrorist threat discussed in this article will only grow in magnitude and lethality if they remain untreated.

Pakistani officials appear to be more prone to dismissing these challenges as externally induced efforts g to disrupt the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). h While regional rivalries and tensions are a reality, the hard truth is that the state of Pakistan has invested very little in its countering violent extremism campaigns and deradicalization programs. One potentially beneficial initiative recently introduced pertains to intelligence coordination, bringing all civilian and military intelligence agencies under one umbrella. 88 However, equally crucial is coordination—and in some cases, mutual trust—between the country’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and that remains a weak link in Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts. 89

Terrorists with a regional and global mission are constantly looking for opportunities to exploit, and Pakistan, having paid dearly in the past for its mistakes, needs to take these challenges very seriously. The infrastructure development projects under CPEC, as well as economic growth prospects, are at stake. Pakistan simply cannot afford to return to the old days when terrorism bogged it down almost completely, arresting its potential and progress.      CTC

Hassan Abbas is Distinguished Professor of International Relations at Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. He is the author of the forthcoming The Prophet’s Heir: The Life of Ali ibn Abi Talib (Yale University Press, March 2021). Twitter: @watandost

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Defense University or the Department of Defense.

® 2021 Hassan Abbas

Substantive Notes [a] According to the ISIL and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee of the United Nations Security Council, the attack was conducted by Tariq Gidar Group (TGG) in association with al-Qa`ida and in conjunction with or on behalf of JuA, TTP, and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). See “Tariq Gidar Group (TGG),” United Nations Security Council.

[b] There is still some speculation that Shahab al-Muhajir is a Pakistani, Afghan, or even a Tajik per some sources and that the name (with the addition of al-Muhajir, meaning immigrant/refugee) is an attempt to hide his local roots. See “Andrabi claims new Daesh leader is a Haqqani member,” Ariana News, August 4, 2020.

[c] The author is grateful to Baluch-American journalist Siraj Akbar for helping him understand these nuances. The framing, however, is the author’s. Author interview, Siraj Akbar, December 2020.

[d] It is important to note, however, that many established and older extremist groups continue to recruit and expand their network through physical contact and through extremist religious gatherings and printed publications.

[e] The magazine Nawa-e-Ghazwa-e-Hind was earlier titled Nawai Afghan Jihad (The Voice of Afghan Jihad) and has been printed continuously for the last 14 years, as claimed on its contents page.

[f] The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog. FATF added Pakistan to its grey list in June 2018, indicating “strategic weaknesses” in Pakistan’s countering money laundering and terror financing efforts. To avoid moving onto the FATF black list, Pakistan was asked to take a series of measures (27 actions to be specific). By October 2020, Pakistan was deemed to have taken action on 21 out of 27 specified areas, and its progress is still being reviewed by FATF. For details, see “Explained: FATF, Pakistan and the ‘Grey List,’” WIRE, October 24, 2020. For Pakistan’s progress, see “Mutual Evaluation of Pakistan,” Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering, September 2020.

[g] In November 2020, Pakistan claimed it had “irrefutable evidence” that India was behind some terrorist activity in Pakistan. India has refuted this claim. Naveed Siddiqui, “Irrefutable evidence: Dossier on India’s sponsorship of state terrorism in Pakistan presented,” Dawn , November 14, 2020; Avinash Paliwal, “The strategic value of a dead dossier,” Observer Research Foundation, November 27, 2020.

[h] The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, benefiting from a multi-billion dollar Chinese investment, extends the land and maritime routes that connect the two countries through Gwadar port and a network of approximately 2,000 miles of railways, roads, and pipelines. For original plan details, see Khurram Husain, “Exclusive: CPEC master plan revealed,” Dawn , June 21, 2017; Andrew Small, “Returning to the Shadows: China. Pakistan and the Fate of CPEC,” German Marshall Fund of the United States, September 23, 2020.

Citations [1] “Global Terrorism Index 2020: Measuring the Impact of Terrorism,” Institute for Economics and Peace, Sydney, November 2020, p. 2.

[2] Ibid., p. 8.

[3] Ibid., p. 50.

[4] “Number of Terrorism Related Incidents Year Wise, Datasheet – Pakistan,” South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), accessed February 11, 2021.

[5] Amir Wasim, “Fazl among 20 politicians facing ‘serious threats to life’: minister,” Dawn , December 22, 2020.

[6] Amira Jadoon and Andrew Mines, Broken but Not defeated: An Examination of State-led Operations against Islamic State Khorasan in Afghanistan and Pakistan (2015-2018) (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2020), p. VI.

[7] For a discussion about the broader impact of the U.S. drone campaign, see Hassan Abbas, “Are Drone Strikes Killing Terrorists or Creating Them?” Atlantic , March 31, 2013.

[8] Asad Hashim “Exclusive: Pakistani Taliban down but not out, says ex-spokesman,” Al Jazeera, April 3, 2020. See also Umair Jamal, “Are US Forces Striking Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Members in Afghanistan for Islamabad?” Diplomat, February 14, 2020.

[9] For details, see Amira Jadoon, Allied and Lethal: Islamic State Khorasan’s Network and Organizational Capacity in Afghanistan and Pakistan (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2018), pp. 35-36, 54-58.

[10] See “Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA),” United Nations Security Council.

[11] Daud Khattak, “Whither the Pakistani Taliban: An Assessment of Recent Trends,” New America, August 31, 2020.

[12] Author interview, senior police officer in Peshawar, October 2020.

[13] Khattak.

[14] “Twenty-fifth report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team submitted pursuant to resolution 2368 (2017) concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals and entities,” United Nations, January 20, 2020.

[15] “Shamali Waziristan se Taaluk rakhne wale do Taliban groupon ka TTP se Ittehad Ka Elaan,” Tribal News , November 28, 2020.

[16] “Allegiance of two popular North Waziristan’s Jihadi organizations’ leaders, Maulvi Aleem Khan and Commander Ghazi Omar Azzam, to TTP leader Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud,” Umar Media video, November 27, 2020. For a detailed assessment of this development, see Abdul Sayed, “Waziristan Militant Leader Aleem Khan Ustad Joins Tehreek-e-Taliban,” Militant Leadership Monitor 11:12 (2021).

[17] “Eleventh report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team submitted pursuant to resolution 2501 (2019) concerning the Taliban and other associated individuals and entities constituting a threat to the peace, stability and security of Afghanistan,” United Nations Security Council, May 19, 2020, p. 20.

[18] “Twenty-fifth report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring.”

[19] “Four tribal elders shot dead in North Waziristan,” The News , December 1, 2020. See also “Two More Tribal Elders Shot Dead In Northwestern Pakistan; Six Total Killed This Week,” Gandhara, December 2, 2020.

[20] Khattak.

[21] For background, see Hassan Abbas, “A Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan,” CTC Sentinel 1:2 (2008) and Hassan Abbas, “From FATA to the NWFP,” CTC Sentinel 1:10 (2008).

[22] “Kya Qabaeli Azlaa main dahshatgard phir saar Utha rahee hain [Are terrorists again raising their heads in Tribal districts],” Urdu interview with Amir Rana, Rifatullah Orakzai YouTube Channel, December 15, 2020.

[23] For details about border fencing, see Ayaz Gul, “Pakistan says Afghan Border Fence Nearly Complete,” Voice of America, December 4, 2020.

[24] Rustam Shah Mohmand, “Why attacks surge in northwest Pakistan,” Arab News , September 24, 2020.

[25] For details, see “Shaping a New Peace in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas,” ICG Report No. 150 , August 20, 2018.

[26] Author interview, Imtiaz Ali, December 2020. For detail about change in FATA legal status in merger into KPK province, see Imtiaz Ali, “Mainstreaming Pakistan’s Federally Administrative Tribal Areas: Reform Initiatives and Roadblocks,” USIP Special Report 421 , March 2018, and Wajeeha Malik and Shakeeb Asrar, “Post-Merger Inaction in FATA: Expectations Vs. Reality,” South Asian Voices, July 10, 2019.

[27] For instance, see Abubakar Siddiqui, “Leader’s Arrest Galvanizes Pashtun Rights Movement in Pakistan,” Gandhara, January 30, 2020.

[28] See Madiha Afzal, “Why is Pakistan’s military repressing a huge, non-violent Pashtun protest movement?” Brookings, February 7, 2020.

[29] “Radio Pak claims MNAs Dawar, Wazir ‘fulfilling vested Indian agenda through Afghanistan,’” Dawn , March 10, 2020. See also Hasib Danish Alikozai, “Pakistani Activist Rejects Charges Foreign Spying Agencies Funding His Group,” Voice of America, May 7, 2019.

[30] Quoted in Ali Wazir, “What Does the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement Want?” Diplomat, April 27, 2018.

[31] Nadeem F. Paracha, “Smoker’s Corner: How Should the State Deal with PTM?” Dawn , February 3, 2020.

[32] Ibid. See also Mohsin Dawar, “Opinion: We are peacefully demanding change in Pakistan. The military says we’re ‘traitors,’” Washington Post , February 14, 2020.

[33] For instance, see “Peshawar police arrest MNA Ali Wazir,” The News , December 16, 2020. See also Mohsin Dawar, “Pashtuns’ struggle for rights cannot be silenced through violence,” Al Jazeera, June 20, 2020.

[34] For details, see Amira Jadoon, Nakissa Jahanbani, and Charmaine Willis, “Challenging the ISK Brand in Afghanistan-Pakistan: Rivalries and Divided Loyalties,” CTC Sentinel 11:4 (2018).

[35] Abdul Sayed, “Who is the New Leader of Islamic State – Khorasan Province?” Lawfare, September 2, 2020.

[36] For details, see Animesh Roul, “Islamic State-Khorasan Remains Potent Force in Afghan Jihad,” Terrorism Monitor 8:11 (2020).

[37] Assessment based on multiple author interviews with security (counterterrorism) officials serving in Quetta and Karachi, October 2020.

[38] “Mastermind of several major terror attacks killed in encounter,” Dawn , March 1, 2019. See also Hafeez Tunio, “Two high-profile Daesh terrorists killed in encounter,” Express Tribune , March 1, 2019.

[39] Naeem Sahoutara, “Two ‘IS militants’ get death on 70 counts in Qalandar shrine suicide blast case,” Dawn , May 19, 2020.

[40] Kunwar Khuldune Shahid, “ISIS schemes with jihadist groups in Pakistan,” Asia Times , November 27, 2019.

[41] For background, see Farhan Zahid, “Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami: A Pakistani partner for Islamic State,” Terrorism Monitor 15:2 (2017). See also Jadoon, Allied and Lethal , pp. 40-41, 50-51.

[42] Gul Yousafzai, “Minority Hazaras in Pakistan protest for third day after Quetta attack,” Reuters, April 14, 2019; See also Asad Hashim, “Quetta Hazaras despair as religious supremacists contest elections,” Al Jazeera, July 15, 2018.

[43] See Haris Gazdar, Sobia Ahmad Kaker, and Irfan Khan, “Buffer Zone, Colonial Enclave or Urban Hub? Quetta: Between Four Regions and Two Wars,” Working Paper no. 69, Development Studies Institute, London School of Economics, February 2010.

[44] Author interview, Malik Siraj Akbar, December 2020.

[45] See “Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al Alami,” Mapping Militant Organizations, Stanford University. For a detailed profile of LeJ, see “Lashkar-e-Jhangvi,” Mapping Militant Organizations, Stanford University.

[46] See Syed Arfeen, “The Hunt for Hafeez Brohi,” Friday Times , February 24, 2017. See also Zia Ur Rehman, “Militant North of the Country’s South,” News on Sunday , December 9, 2018.

[47] Stephen Tankel, “Domestic Barriers to Dismantling the Militant Infrastructure in Pakistan,” United States Institute of Peace, September 2013.

[48] Zofeen T. Ebrahim, “Hazara Killers – supported from Punjab to the Middle East,” Dawn , February 13, 2013.

[50] For instance, see “Usman Kurd, the man who caused fall of Raisani govt,” The News , January 15, 2013.

[51] Saher Baloch, “Herald Exclusive: Mangled Facts,” Herald , March 20, 2014.

[52] Quoted in Maqbool Ahmed, “How death stalks policemen in Quetta,” Herald , April 25, 2018.

[53] Author interview, police officer in Quetta, January 2021. For Rafique Men­gal’s LeJ connection, see Arif Rafiq, “How Pakistan Protects Itself from Regional Sectarian War,” National Interest , September 15, 2015. See also Mohammad Taqi, “Murder and Mayhem in Balochistan,” Daily Times , June 10, 2015.

[54] Author interviews, police officers in Karachi and Quetta, November 2020.

[55] See Shaikh Rahimullah Haqqani declaring ISIS/ISK followers as  khawarij , meaning rejectionists, who left the fold of Islam, in “Who are Khawarij here: Full Details,” YouTube video, February 4, 2020. See also “IS ‘prime suspect’ for Peshawar seminary bombing,” Dawn , October 30, 2020.

[56] For details, see Riaz Khan, “Bomb at seminary in Pakistan kills 8 students, wounds 136,” Associated Press, October 27, 2020.

[57] See Tahir Khan, “Senior Afghan Taliban commander shot dead near Peshawar,” Daily Times , January 25, 2021.

[58] Abdul Basit, “Threat of Urban Jihadism in South Asia,” Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses 10:3 (2018): pp. 3-4. See also Huma Yusuf, “University Radicalization: Pakistan’s Next Counterterrorism Challenge,” CTC Sentinel 9:2 (2016).

[59] On a new generation of salafi-thinking radicals in Pakistan, see Jasmin Lorch, “Trajectories of Political Salafism: Insights from the Ahle Hadith Movement in Pakistan and Bangladesh,” Middle East Institute, October 30, 2018.

[60] Author interview, police officers in Karachi and Lahore, December 2019.

[61] For instance, see Zia Ur Rahman, “Recent attacks show resurgence of Sindhi separatists and TTP in Karachi: CRSS report,” The News , October 8, 2020.

[62] See Imtiaz Ali, “Police see new underground group behind recent targeted killings in Karachi,” Dawn , January 31, 2019.

[63] See Animesh Roul, “Pakistan Confronts Resurgent Baluch Ethno-Separatist Militancy,” Terrorism Monitor 18:15 (2020).

[64] See Syed Raza Hassan, “Coordinated blasts kill four in Pakistan, including soldiers,” Reuters, June 19, 2020.

[65] For background, see Owen Bennet-Jones, “Altaf Hussain, the notorious MQM leader who swapped Pakistan for London,” Guardian , July 29, 2013. See also S. Akbar Zaidi, “The rise and fall of Altaf Hussain,” The Hindu , September 8, 2016.

[66] See “Rangers arrest MQM-South Africa activists, recover ‘biggest ever cache of weapons,” The News , December 12, 2018. See also “Shehla Raza, Saeed Ghani receive life threats from MQM-South Africa,” ARY News, May 4, 2019.

[67] Author interviews, police officers in Lahore and Karachi, November 2020.

[68] Author interview, police officer in Karachi, November 2020. See also “Pakistanis pose a threat to Gulf communities, says Dubai security chief,” Dawn , January 2, 2020. UAE is also used as a transit point for human trafficking from Pakistan. For details, see “Recent trends of human trafficking and migrant smuggling to and from Pakistan,” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, July 2013. For sex trafficking in and through UAE, see “Trafficking in Persons Report 2019,” U.S. Department of State, June 2019.

[69] Aamir Latif, “Pakistan: ‘Mastermind’ of Chinese consulate attack held,” AA Agency News, July 3, 2019.

[70] For a profile of Masood Azhar, see Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, “The Terrorist Who Got Away,” New York Times , March 19, 2020.

[71] See Rezaul H Laskar and Aadil Mir, “Al-Qaeda’s India affiliate hints at shifting focus to Kashmir,” Hindustan Times , March 22, 2020.

[72] Shahid Hamid, “PM Imran warns against crossing LoC for Kashmir Jihad,” Express Tribune , September 19, 2019.

[73] “Pakistan: Surge in Targeted Killings of Ahmedis,” Human Rights Watch, November 26, 2020.

[74] For background, see Mohammad Taqi, “What Does the Death of Barelvi Firebrand Khadim Rizvi Mean for Sectarian Politics,” WIRE, November 28, 2020.

[75] For details, see Shah Meer Baloch and Hannah Ellis-Petersen, “Pakistani Shias live in terror as sectarian violence increases,” Guardian , October 21, 2020.

[76] Jaffer A. Mirza, “The Changing Landscape of Anti-Shia Politics in Pakistan,” Diplomat, September 28, 2020.

[77] For background and details, see Hassan Abbas, Shiism and Sectarian Conflict in Pakistan: Identity Politics, Iranian Influence and Tit-for-Tat Violence, Occasional Paper Series (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2010).

[78] “Sectarian Tensions,” Dawn Editorial , September 21, 2020.

[79] See Asad Hashim and Saadullah Akhter, “Pakistani Hazara families refuse to bury dead after attack,” Al Jazeera, January 4, 2021.

[80] Muhammad Amir Rana, “Security projections for 2021,” Dawn , January 24, 2021.

[81] For details, see Rashad Bukhari and Qamar-ul Huda, “A Critique of Countering Violent Extremism Programs in Pakistan,” Center for Global Policy, July 2020.

[82] For details, see Ayaz Gul, “Islamic State Announces ‘Pakistan Province,’” Voice of America, May 15, 2019.

[83] For comparable examples, see Hassan Abbas and Nadia Gerspacher, “The Irregulars,” Foreign Policy , March 30, 2015.

[84] See Tariq Parvez, “TTP militancy was by one sunni sub sect ie deobandies and was anti state as …,” Twitter, September 19, 2020. Parvez reiterated what he stated in his tweet in a phone communication with the author in December 2020.

[85] For details, see Hassan Abbas ed., Stabilizing Pakistan Through Police Reforms (New York: Asia Society, 2012). See also Robert Perito and Tariq Pervez, “A Counterterrorism Role for Pakistan’s Police Stations,” USIP Special Report 351 , August 2014.

[86] See Ansar Abbasi, “Police reforms – the govt’s forgotten agenda,” The News , July 17, 2019.

[87] Afzal Shigri, “Politics of Police Reform,” Dawn , December 19, 2020.

[88] Baqir Sajjad Syed, “PM okays creation of liaison body for spy agencies,” Dawn , November 24, 2020.

[89] Author interview, Tariq Khosa, former Inspector General of Police in Baluchistan, Dubai, UAE, December 2019.

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Essay on Terrorism in Pakistan Causes Effects and Solution

Terrorism is in the broadest sense the use of intentionally indiscriminate violence as a means to create terror among masses of people or fear to achieve a religious or political aim. It is used in this regard primarily to refer to violence during peacetime or in context of war against non-combatants. The terms “terrorist” and “terrorism” originated during the French Revolution of the late 18th century but gained mainstream popularity in the 1970s in news reports and books covering the conflicts in Northern Ireland, the Basque Country and Palestine. In this page we discuss Terrorism in Pakistan its causes and salutation. Essay on Terrorism in Pakistan Causes Effects and Solution. Read complete article and improve your knowledge about terrorism in Pakistan.

Terrorism is one of the biggest problems in Pakistan due to which we are not saved. Terrorists always attack the schools, colleges, universities, hospital and many more and killing the students and small kids marble heartedly. We could observer that in this month, we have faced many attacks where we have lost precious lives.We face the war as a situation against terrorism. There are many dimensions in this situation due to many factors. These factors include social injustice, economic disadvantages, political instability, religious inconvenience, as well as foreign hands or international conspiracies.

Those people who had forced to meet the interests of their evil, they did not kill innumerable lives, but by the tyranny, the real image of Islam destroyed the face of the world on the face of the world. . Terrorist actions, such as suicide bombs, have become today’s laws. Due to these attacks, Pakistan has economically uncertainly damaged the citizens. People have become digital data, since time has increased. Terrorists have left no place like Market, mosques, educational institutions, offices, hotels, no safe place.

Religious Causes:

• Role Of Madrassahs.
• Religious Intolerance.

External Causes

• Afghan War: 1979
• Iranian Revolution:
• War On Terrorism: 9/11

Factors Boosting Terrorism:

• Anti-Terrorism Campaign And Drone Strikes:
• Negligence Of Government:
• Persecution Of Innocent Muslims In Kashmir And Palestine:

Steps Taken By Pakistan:

• Ban On Terrorist Organisation
• Operation Rah-E-Nijat
• Operation Rah-E-Rast

Once a convicted “terrorist” Nelson Mandela wrote in his autobiography “the hard facts were that 50 years of nonviolence had brought my people nothing but more repressive legislation and fewer rights.

Causes of Terrorism in Pakistan.

The sectarian anti shite militant groups like Sipah I Sahaba Pakistan were preaching hatred against the Shiite Muslims and employing some terrorist activities. The extremist sectarian intolerance came to Pakistan only after 1979 revolution in Iran.

Terrorism in Pakistan originated with supporting the Soviet–Afghan War, and the subsequent civil war erupted in Afghanistan that continued for at least a decade. The conflict brought numerous fighters from all over the world to South Asia in the name of jihad. The mujahideen fighters were trained by Pakistan’s military, American CIA and other western intelligence agencies who carried out insurgent activities inside Afghanistan well after the war officially ended.

Pakistan has done its level best to rid terrorism and terrorists from its soil. In first step, many terrorist organisations were banned by the Musharraf government. After those successful military operations namely Rah-e-Nijat and Rah-e-Rast have been conducted. Pakistan army has fought bravely against terrorist and has destroyed their safe dens. It has broken the backbone of the terrorists and has forced them to flee. These operations still keep ongoing in some tribal areas. In this context, it is worth-mentioning that public support to military operations is very essential, and without people’s backing no army can win this ‘different war’ against terrorism.

For Pakistan the consequences of being the epicentre of the war on terror have been disastrous physically, psychologically and economically. Nobody understands terrorism better than us (Pakistanis). We have been victims of various manifestations of it since the Soviet Afghan war. Since 9/11, the wave of suicide bombing has so far killed scores of innocent Pakistani civilians and muffled the already slow pace of our economic growth. The financial cost of the ongoing global war on terror in the last two years alone has been $35 billion. This has badly affected in particular, the socio-economic development of Pakistan. Lest we forget, we even lost our prominent political leader Benazir Bhutto to an act of terror.

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Executive Summary

• Persian, Farsi

Revisiting Counter-terrorism Strategies in Pakistan: Opportunities and Pitfalls

Pakistan’s six-month-old counter-terrorism strategy has failed to end the operations of violent jihadi groups, while military-led measures continue to undermine the civilian government. A winning strategy will have to include structural and governance reform, both to stop jihadis exploiting the absence of rule of law and to address the root causes of extremist violence.

• "> Download PDF Full Report (en)

The 16 December 2014 attack on an army-run school in Peshawar, which killed 150, mainly children, claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Taliban Movement of Pakistan-TTP), was ostensibly a game changer. A week later, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N) government unveiled a new counter-terrorism strategy, the twenty-point National Action Plan (NAP), with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army Chief Raheel Sharif vowing to target all terror groups without distinction. Six months later, amid continued terror attacks, the NAP looks far more like a hastily-conceived wish-list devised for public consumption during a moment of crisis than a coherent strategy. Reliance on blunt instruments and lethal force to counter terrorism risks doing more harm than good when they undermine constitutionalism, democratic governance and the rule of law and provide grist to the jihadis’ propaganda mill. A reformed and strengthened criminal justice system is pivotal to countering terror threats and containing violent extremism.

The militarisation of counter-terrorism policy puts at risk Pakistan’s evolution toward greater civilian rule, which is itself a necessary but not sufficient condition to stabilise the democratic transition. While the report addresses the coercive side of a counter-terrorism policy and how to make it more efficient, without structural and governance reform, the root causes of terrorism and extremism will remain unaddressed, and violent jihadis will continue to exploit the absence of rule of law. The military’s continual undermining of civilian authority since democracy’s restoration in 2008 will remain a major challenge to meaningful and sustained reform. Yet, the political leadership also bears responsibility for failing to push back and, as a result, undermining its credibility and authority.

After inaugurating the NAP on 24 December, the Sharif government implemented two major demands of the military without delay: lifting the predecessor government’s 2008 moratorium on the death penalty; and passing on 6 January 2015 the 21st constitutional amendment, empowering special military courts to try all terrorism suspects, including civilians. Yet, the vast majority of the 176 executions since late December have been for crimes unrelated to terrorism, and the military courts weaken constitutional protections and due process. Other newly-created parallel structures, including provincial “apex committees”, enable the military to bypass representative institutions and play a more direct role in governance. Armed with new legal tools, the military has further marginalised civilian institutions in devising and implementing counter-terrorism policy.

Despite claims to the contrary, the military, which has almost complete control over national security and counter-terrorism policy, also still distinguishes between “bad” jihadi groups, those targeting the security forces, and “good” jihadi groups, those perceived to promote its strategic objectives in India and Afghanistan. Anti-India outfits such as Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JD), the renamed version of the banned Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), have even expanded their activities through so-called charity fronts. Military-backed Afghan insurgents, such as the Haqqani Network, have not been targeted in ongoing operations in the North Waziristan agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Instead, the Haqqanis, like the LeT/JD, have been kept off Pakistan’s list of terrorist groups.

Unsurprisingly, there is little evidence of progress on many NAP targets. Groups and individuals banned in Pakistan and also blacklisted under UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1267, continue to operate freely. Efforts to regulate the madrasa sector, curb hate speech and literature and block terrorist financing have been haphazard at best.

A reformed and strengthened criminal justice system could have helped to achieve NAP’s objectives. The Sharif government still has an opportunity, albeit fast shrinking, to reverse course and meaningfully overhaul counter-terrorism strategy, but this necessitates revoking major policy concessions to the military. The government should take on that challenge in order to replace an overly militarised response with a revamped, intelligence-guided counter-terrorism strategy, led by civilian law enforcement agencies, particularly the police. Dismantling terror networks, detaining and trying jihadi leaders and foot soldiers, disrupting terror financing and ending radicalisation through hate speech and literature will require reallocating limited resources in order to strengthen the capacity of the provincial police forces. While the three basic bodies of law, the Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Code and Evidence Act, need to be modernised, it is even more urgent to build police capacity to enforce them. That capacity has been gravely eroded due to the inadequacy of resources, training, internal accountability and autonomy.

An empowered, resourced police force remains the most credible tool for enforcing a sustained and successful counter-terrorism strategy. The current emphasis on revenge and retribution and the emasculation of fundamental rights and rule of law are undermining citizen confidence in the state to deliver justice, a flawed approach that also fuels grievances that benefit the violent extremists the NAP is aimed at combatting.

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War Against Terrorism Essay

Table of Contents

The systematic approach adopts here while writing War Against Terrorism Essay. We have the idea that it is the need of those students who want higher studies rooted in violence and perceived injustices. The lead goes with the psychological determinants of the terrorist act. The Western media put light on terrorism and war specifically after 9/11. Violent radicalization is the result of such a mindset. Terror thinking finds a way to search Pakistan’s history, even the current geopolitical situation, and social scenario. It is the core issue reflected in the best way.

Every government has its own interpretation and struggle to define terrorism. There is no standard definition indeed. United Nations did not ponder to articulate a full-fledged definition that can make the standard for all countries. The event of 9/11 has impacted the Muslim community specifically.

Essay On Corruption

Event of 9/11:

The incident directly creates the feeling In Muslims that terrorism has a direct impact on the so-called Muslim extremist groups. In simple words, it can say that terrorism is what these groups are doing. The same mindset makes the wrong interpretation of Islamic Jihad as well. Social, economic, and human costs due to terrorism heavily affect the Pakistani stand at an international level. The purpose of the narrative is to show the same in this War Against Terrorism Essay. Pakistan is the first country made with the name of Islam on the world map and obviously, it faces the same mindset on the frontline.

Soviet-Afghan War 1979:

The Western media never missed a chance to mention the first step of Pakistan toward terrorism in the region. A fundamental change was witnessed that altered the very character of the existing Pakistani society. The withdrawal of the Soviets revealed a Pakistani society that had been forced into havoc. There are many direct and indirect events in terrorism linked to the War Against Terrorism Essay. It assures that how every event including the event of 9/11 and the first step of the Soviet-Afghan War in 1979 are some facets of the Essay On War Against Terrorism.

Pakistan Stock Exchange Attack

In 2020, some terrorists attacked the Pakistan Stock Exchange which is located in Karachi. When work hours started then some of the people who are completely loaded with the latest guns and bombs attacked the main branch then some of the Pakistan arm forces soldiers were taken action against them and shot all the terrorists.

Now, you can get the War Against Terrorism Essay in English because some people do not understand Urdu literature so all information about terrorism is mentioned on this page. Students can read the War Against Terrorism Essay with Quotes.

Moin akhtar

I am committed to helping Pakistani students craft successful career paths by merging their individual passions with market trends. As a career counselor, we'll explore both well-established fields and modern industries to find the best fit for you. With personalized counseling and strategic planning, we aim to transform your educational journey into a thriving professional future.

63 Comments

this essay iz better for grade8

Nice essay for standard class8

is this essay is not good for grade 9 please reply me i m waiting for your answer

This essay is very best eassy

Niceee essssssay i like this essssssay. …..

A veryyy good eassy

This essay is very nice and I really like this essay

It is short essay for getting 13 marks out of 15…..

Extremely good !

Really nice essay man

Nice essay.

its a good essay for geting good marks

i like it. its ok.

Good effort

nice essay 🙂

eassy bht acha ha

Nice essay Keep it up! God bless you!

Nice but useless for me

good job !! very well done

perfect essay bro (Y)

i like this essay this is really a great search

easy sassy & very nice words

very nice beautiful wording

Very helpful essay …

good essay points are beautiful

goooooooooooood effort

this is arrgant essey

its not what i wanted….:(

very helpful essay on terrorism on pakistan

fantastic essay

it helps me in my intermediate exams 2013

nice essayssss

very good essayyy thanks…..

Very go0d c0llecti0n 0f p0ints… 🙂

marvellous essay and also dabang

Very go0d c0llecti0n 0f p0ints ….. 🙂

I HAVE TO WRITE AN ESSAY UPONE “WAR AGAINST TERRORISOM” AND I FOUND IT “THANKS”……..

good essay..!!!:)

yah essay bilkul thek hai pakostan ke lihayas se vveeeeerrrrrryyyyyyyy goooooooooood

good essay..!!!

really good essay..!!!

it’s very good eassy on terrorim in pakistan

niceee nd good eassy i think the date of incident of lal masid on may be 2005 in musharafs period

Nice’essay.

really a gooood essay.,,.,!!

Lal masjid incident happened in July-2007 while the suicide attacks start from Airstricke on a Madrassa at Bajaur Agency, the tribal area of Pakistan. It results 82 Madrassa students.

this is really nice essay

i dont think the incident of lal masjid brings terrorism in pakistan

i wanna say that incident of lal masjid was not in late 1999s

hey plz if u know than reply me the actual date of this incident………

@batool right

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Terrorism Essay Paragraph in Pakistan Cause Solutions Terrorism Essay Paragraph in Pakistan Highlights of Terrorism Essay

Related Papers

Khurram Ahmad

European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS)

Pakistan has been known for it perennial support of the Taliban in Afghanistan and other terrorist organizations in Indian Administered Jammu & Kashmir. The country has become a victim of its own holy war as a consequence of the ‘unholy alliance’ between the Inter Intelligence Services (ISI), Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency, military and self-styled religious scholars. This historic alliance has resulted in colossal rise of radical Islam being a factor in the country’s proclivity to Islamic fundamentalism. There is urgent need that the people of Pakistan, its politicians, and the powerful Army stand on the same side in the fight against terrorism and set clear priorities.

Vivek Chadha

The emerging trends of terrorism in Asia have in the recent past challenged the conventional wisdom that dictated and defined violence by non-state actors. This, as the chapters in this volume suggest, is illustrated by its distinct characteristics, forcing the world at large to grapple with these threats, including volunteers from countries that had remained isolated from the contagion until now. Various facets of the challenge from the Islamic State (IS) and the unfolding contours of terrorism in Asia, have been analysed and written about in the past. Most of the perspectives have, however, been Western, with a sprinkling of Asian views. The present volume is a modest attempt to join the discourse on Asian terrorism from an Indian perspective. It is hoped that these essays will enliven and enrich the debate on the challenge of terrorism in Asia that is increasingly threatening peace and stability as well as values and ideals. The volume has been organised in four sections. The first deals with the ideological and technological aspects as well as the , funding, communication and weapons of the IS and other terror groupings. The remaining three sections focus on West and Central Asia, South Asia, as well as China and Southeast Asia.

Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis

ROHAN GUNARATNA

A series of developments — some new but mostly the legacy of more than a decade of terrorism and extremism and the fight against the same — warrants a re-write of the nature of the threat that the world faces today. These developments include the withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition forces from Iraq in 2011 and drawdown from Afghanistan in 2014, the Arab Spring fallout in the Middle East, and the flow of fighters in thousands from all over the world to Iraq and Syria, among others. At the heart of these developments is the declaration of the establishment of a so-called Islamic Caliphate by the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) (known as Ad Dawlah al Islamiyya fil Iraq wa ash Sham/Daesh in Arabic). More specifically, post-Arab Spring political chaos and instability in the Middle East have enabled fledging, mostly marginalised, groups to reorganise and pose threats to the security and stability of the world. While old actors such as Al Qaeda (‘The Base’) and its affiliates, including the Jabhat al Nusra (JN or ‘Support Front for the People’, also known as Al Nusra Front) are struggling to retain their prominence, new players, like ISIS, are competing for supremacy and legitimacy in the global jihadist arena. This has polarised radical and violent Muslim groups and individuals worldwide — particularly in Asia, Africa, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. While some have pledged allegiance to ISIS, others remain loyal to Al Qaeda. At the same time, the sectarian divide within the Muslim world has hardened significantly, leading to increasing levels of violence in many countries.

Counter Terrorism Trends and Analysis

In the first half of 2016, the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) dominated the global threat landscape by mounting attacks in North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus and Asia. At the forefront was IS’ spokesperson, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, who directed and inspired attacks worldwide, including those which took place during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. On 24 July 2016, a suicide bombing attack took place in the south German town of Ansbach. The attacker was a 27-year-old Syrian man who faced deportation to Bulgaria and who had detonated the device after being refused entry to a music festival. Investigations revealed that the suicide attacker had pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a video found on his mobile phone. IS has since claimed responsibility for the attack. In May 2016, in an audio message purportedly from al-Adnani, the spokesman declared Ramadan a "month of conquest and jihad." He announced: "Make it, with God's permission, a month of pain for infidels everywhere" (Mowat 2016). The “Ramadan jihad” of IS killed at least 800, mostly Muslims, across five different continents (Drury 2016). Some of the attacks included those in Orlando (US), Nice (France), Bavaria (Germany), Istanbul (Turkey), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Kabul (Afghanistan), Mindanao (Philippines), Puchong (Malaysia), Solo (Indonesia), Medina (Saudi Arabia), Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. The spate of IS attacks were most intense during the last week of Ramadan when IS carried out an attack on Istanbul Airport, killing 45 people, detonated a truck bomb in Karrada, in Baghdad, killing 290 people, and carried out a suicide bomb attack in the vicinity of the Prophet’s mosque in the Saudi Arabian city of Medina, the second holiest site in Islam, after Makkah.

Asian Social Science

Muhammad Umais

The main argument of this paper is that desperate efforts by Afghan government and the international community to bring peace to Afghanistan through talks with Taliban are destined to fail mainly because of the complex nature of the war. It proposes state-building, long-term vision for military campaign against insurgents as well as more robust diplomatic, economic and limited military actions against state-sponsors of terrorists as alternatives to desperate efforts for peace talks.

Saroj K Rath

On independence days, India’s citizens lose their freedom, as streets and marketplaces convert into highly restricted areas because of the threat of terrorism. No place in Pakistan is out of a terrorist’s reach and in Afghanistan, an assassin can kill his target anywhere anytime. By the turn of 2016, when global debate, action, and reflection about violence and counter-terrorism had shifted comprehensively to the Arab world – the old ghost of India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan – terrorism is becoming ever stronger. South Asia, especially India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, is the original homeland of a great game between superpowers, the cradle of prolonged terrorist violence, safe sanctuary and a storehouse of global terrorism. A nuclear flashpoint and nursery for countless terrorist organizations, this region has defied global might and wisdom to sustain violence and terrorist groups with surprising ease. In today’s world, international security threats are no more linked with rival nation states but originate from rogue non-state entities. While inter-state conflict and the threat of war is reducing, the threat of terrorism perpetrated by extremist groups, aided and abetted by state agencies, is increasing. During the decade and a half long history of the 21st century, no two nations go to war against each other. The theatres of war in the 21st century, like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, are a product of extremist groups and individual’s excesses. A coalition of leading nations, the mightiest militaries across all divides, in a rare show of unity, are directing their finest weapons towards their common enemy — no more than a motley crew of fighters, with no air force or navy. Pakistan, unlike Afghanistan, is not the theatre of war, but it is precisely the region from where warriors, ideologies, and supporters are supplied to Afghanistan and elsewhere. India is at the forefront of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and home-grown insurgencies.

Prologue The ideological imprudence and political short-sightedness of Indian leadership has never allowed it to win the hearts and minds of Kashmiris. Treating the Kashmiris with an iron fist would never complement Indian grand strategy in the region and beyond. The human sufferings in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) would also continue to jeopardize India's self-proclaimed world shining image. The Kashmir conflict has long begun to cease as a 'mere territorial dispute' between India and Pakistan given the strategic pattern of regional and international politics in the last few decades, large-scale western influence in the region, proxy wars, dynamics of alliances and coalitions within and beyond the region, and most importantly, the rise and spread of dissident elements in IHK with strong linkages elsewhere. Becoming well aware of these socio-political dynamics, New Delhi has lately realized the futility of any solution of Kashmir issue without taking into account the diverse political aspirations of Kashmiris living in the region. What is still missing in New Delhi's policy vision, however, is her stiffness over not allowing a trilateral dialogue to break the impasse of political negotiations and finding a win-win solution on all three fronts, i.e., India, Pakistan, and Kashmir. The nature of India-Pakistan peace parleys and the strategic issues involved in them often fail to complement whatever New Delhi and Kashmiri leadership arrives at and vice versa. The peace process on Kashmir is a broad subject to be dealt with in a single study. This paper, therefore, limits itself to socio-political and military dynamics through which IHK has been passing during the past six decades, making it vulnerable to communal wrangling just like the rest of India.

Umbreen Javaid

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Essay on Terrorism with Outlines and Quotes

Essay on terrorism with outline and quotations for students of class 12, 2nd year, b.a and bsc.

Hereunder is the Essay on Terrorism with Outline and Quotations for the students of different classes. This Terrorism Essay with Quotes is very important with the point of view of Exams. Students can write the same essay under the title Terrorism Essay, Essay on Terrorism in Pakistan and Essay on How to Combat Terrorism . This essay is taken from local educational notes. You can visit English Essays Category for more English Essays.

Terrorism Essay with Quotes and Outline

• Terrorism has become one of the most dangerous forms of crime.
• The main causes of terrorism.
• Islam is the most misunderstood religion in the west.
• The Muslim concept of Islamic Fundamentalism.
• Terrorism is different from political or liberation movement.
• It must be fought against at all levels.

Terrorism has become one of the most dangerous forms of international crime. Terrorism means the threat or uses of force against civilians or armed forces for political or personal interest. Terrorists attack the civilian population to create terror or general harassment in society. They resort to bombing, killing, hijacking and large scale of destruction of property. A large number of innocent civilians have been killed in these savage attacks. A wave of terror and insecurity has traveled around the globe. People are wonder-struck and terrified at the cruel activities of terrorists in spite of great measures of security and defense.

Narrow-mindedness, fanaticism, fundamentalism, intolerance and religious extremism are considered the main cause of terrorism. Political and religious extremists do not tolerate their opponents and try to eliminate them. Some culprits do it for temptations of money. They are blind agents of other forces. It is also a fact that some intelligence agencies cause terrorism in enemy countries to destabilize them.

“Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity. “

Recent of the hijacking of American passenger airlines and crashing them against the towers of the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington is probably the worst incident of terrorism in the world. Americal wants to punish some individuals and countries whom they blame for terrorist activities in various parts of the world. Usama bin Ladin and some Muslim countries are their specific targets.

Islam is the most misunderstood and misinterpreted religion in the West. A religion that stands for peace and justice has been misrepresented as a religion of war and fanaticism. The Muslims are depicted by the western media as extremists, fanatics, terrorists, backward and devoid of disciplines, On religious issues, They are emotional and intolerance. Fundamentalists believe that they are the right people and all the rest are heretics.

“It is better to understand a little

Than to misunderstand a lot.”

On the other hand, there is no organized Muslim media anywhere in the Muslim World that can refute this western disinformation and give an accurate picture of what is really going on. The west, in fact, is under the psychological pressure of the glorious past of the Muslims. Soon after the demise of communism in the Soviet Union, Islam was perceived as the ideological force to overcome the whole world.

The Muslim concept of Islamic fundamentalism is strict adherence to the age of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). It is an effort to implement the Islamic principles of the Golden age of the world of today for the revival of Islam. Jihad is a totally different act from terrorism. Jihad means the exertion, striving and endeavor for the cause of God. Its object is to bring an end to oppression and aggression against Islam. Its object is not to propagate Islam by use of the sword. It is not anti-wast bigotry and the revival of the ancient Islamic concept of expansionism.

The Quran has emphasized Jihad for a noble cause: “Fight against those who treat helpless men, women and children cruelly”. Jihad stands for noble deeds for elevating the moral character and for seeking refinement to attain nearness to Allah.

“Religion is nothing else but love to God and man.”

Terrorism is also different from political or liberation movement. The Kashmir liberation movement against India, the Palestine movement against Israel and Chechen liberation movement against Russia cannot be regarded as the terrorist movement. They are engaged in an armed struggle to get freedom from cruel rules. They are fighting against aggression.

“If we like them, they’re freedom fighters,

If we don’t like them, they’re terrorists” (Carl Sagan)

Terrorism is evil. It must be fought against at all levels. Governments and nations must join hands to crush this evil and its agents. At the same time, the United Nations must take steps to remove the germs of dissatisfaction, deprivation, and injustice from various religions of the world.

“Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method

Which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation?

The foundation of such a method is love.” (Martin Luther King)

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Terrorism Essay for Students and Teacher

500+ words essay on terrorism essay.

Terrorism is an act, which aims to create fear among ordinary people by illegal means. It is a threat to humanity. It includes person or group spreading violence, riots, burglaries, rapes, kidnappings, fighting, bombings, etc. Terrorism is an act of cowardice. Also, terrorism has nothing to do with religion. A terrorist is only a terrorist, not a Hindu or a Muslim.

Types of Terrorism

Terrorism is of two kinds, one is political terrorism which creates panic on a large scale and another one is criminal terrorism which deals in kidnapping to take ransom money. Political terrorism is much more crucial than criminal terrorism because it is done by well-trained persons. It thus becomes difficult for law enforcing agencies to arrest them in time.

Terrorism spread at the national level as well as at international level.  Regional terrorism is the most violent among all. Because the terrorists think that dying as a terrorist is sacred and holy, and thus they are willing to do anything. All these terrorist groups are made with different purposes.

Causes of Terrorism

There are some main causes of terrorism development  or production of large quantities of machine guns, atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, nuclear weapons, missiles, etc. rapid population growth,  Politics, Social, Economic  problems, dissatisfaction of people with the country’s system, lack of education, corruption, racism, economic inequality, linguistic differences, all these are the major  elements of terrorism, and terrorism flourishes after them. People use terrorism as a weapon to prove and justify their point of view.  The riots among Hindus and Muslims are the most famous but there is a difference between caste and terrorism.

The Effects Of Terrorism

Terrorism spreads fear in people, people living in the country feel insecure because of terrorism. Due to terrorist attacks, millions of goods are destroyed, the lives of thousands of innocent people are lost, animals are also killed. Disbelief in humanity raises after seeing a terrorist activity, this gives birth to another terrorist. There exist different types of terrorism in different parts of the country and abroad.

Today, terrorism is not only the problem of India, but in our neighboring country also, and governments across the world are making a lot of effort to deal with it. Attack on world trade center on September 11, 2001, is considered the largest terrorist attack in the world. Osama bin Laden attacked the tallest building in the world’s most powerful country, causing millions of casualties and death of thousands of people.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Terrorist Attacks in India

India has suffered several terrorist attacks which created fear among the public and caused huge destruction. Here are some of the major terrorist attacks that hit India in the last few years: 1991 – Punjab Killings, 1993 – Bombay Bomb Blasts, RSS Bombing in Chennai, 2000 – Church Bombing, Red Fort Terrorist Attack,2001- Indian Parliament Attack, 2002 – Mumbai Bus Bombing, Attack on Akshardham Temple, 2003 – Mumbai Bombing, 2004 – Dhemaji School Bombing in Assam,2005 – Delhi Bombings, Indian Institute of Science Shooting, 2006 – Varanasi Bombings, Mumbai Train Bombings, Malegaon Bombings, 2007 – Samjhauta Express Bombings, Mecca Masjid Bombing, Hyderabad Bombing, Ajmer Dargah Bombing, 2008 – Jaipur Bombings, Bangalore Serial Blasts, Ahmedabad Bombings, Delhi Bombings, Mumbai Attacks, 2010 – Pune Bombing, Varanasi Bombing.

The recent ones include 2011 – Mumbai Bombing, Delhi Bombing, 2012 – Pune Bombing, 2013 – Hyderabad Blasts, Srinagar Attack, Bodh Gaya Bombings, Patna Bombings, 2014 – Chhattisgarh Attack, Jharkhand Blast, Chennai Train Bombing, Assam Violence, Church Street Bomb Blast, Bangalore, 2015 –  Jammu Attack, Gurdaspur Attack, Pathankot Attack, 2016 – Uri Attack, Baramulla Attack, 2017 – Bhopal Ujjain Passenger Train Bombing, Amarnath Yatra Attack, 2018 Sukma Attack, 2019- Pulwama attack.

Agencies fighting Terrorism in India

Many police, intelligence and military organizations in India have formed special agencies to fight terrorism in the country. Major agencies which fight against terrorism in India are Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Terrorism has become a global threat which needs to be controlled from the initial level. Terrorism cannot be controlled by the law enforcing agencies alone. The people in the world will also have to unite in order to face this growing threat of terrorism.

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Essay on “Terrorism” for CSS, PMS, and All Judiciary Examinations

• July 29, 2021
• Essay for CSS PMS and Judiciary Exam

This is an essay on “Terrorism” for CSS, PMS, and All Judiciary examinations. Terrorism is called the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. in this essay you will learn about Terrorism, its types, terrorist incidents, and the causes of terrorism. In this essay, you will learn about terrorism, its types, and the causes of terrorism. So here is a complete essay on the topic of Terrorism for CSS, PMS, and All other Judiciary Examinations.

Essay on “Terrorism”

Terrorism is the willful destruction of people or property by people not acting on behalf of an established government to redress a real or imaginary injustice attributed to an established government. Terrorism has become a part of modern life. Hijackings, bombings, and assassinations on different continents of the world may seem like isolated attacks, but they reflect an easy reliance on violence as a way to promote social , political , and religious change. They are elements of a pervasive end that justify the means philosophy being followed to its most perverse conclusions.

International terrorism has become the scourge of all democratic governments . This democratic government is accustomed to dealing within a legal structure, often finds it difficult to deal with criminals and terrorists that routinely operate outside of the law. However, deterrence is just as much a part of justice as proper enforcement of the laws.

Democratic governments that do not deter criminals inevitably spawn vigilantism as normally law-abiding citizens who have lost confidence in the criminal justice system take the law into their own hands.

A similar backlash is beginning to emerge as a result of the inability of western democracies to defend themselves against terrorists. However, a lack of governmental resolve is only part of the problem.

Terrorism is not new, and even though it has been used since the beginning of recorded history it can be relatively hard to define. Terrorism has been described variously as both a tactic and strategy; a crime and a holy duty; a justified reaction to oppression and an inexcusable abomination. Obviously, a lot depends on whose point of view is being represented. Terrorism has often been an effective tactic for the weaker side in a conflict.

As an asymmetric form of conflict, it confers coercive power with many of the advantages of military force at a fraction of the cost. Due to the secretive nature and small size of terrorist organizations, they often offer opponents no clear organization to defend against or to deter.

That is why preemption is being considered to be so important. In some cases, terrorism has been a means to carry on a conflict without the adversary realizing the nature of the threat, mistaking terrorism for criminal activity. Because of these characteristics, terrorism has become increasingly common among those pursuing extreme goals throughout the world. But despite its popularity, terrorism can be a nebulous concept. Even within the U.S. Government, agencies responsible for different functions in the ongoing fight against terrorism use different definitions.

Terrorism is a criminal act that influences an audience beyond· the immediate victim. The strategy of terrorists is to commit acts of violence that .draws the attention of the local populace, the government, and the world to their cause. The terrorists plan their attack to obtain the greatest publicity, choosing targets that symbolize what they oppose. The effectiveness of the terrorist act lies not in the act itself, but in the public’s or government’s reaction to the act.

There are three perspectives of terrorism: the terrorists, the victims, and the general public. The phrase “one man’s terrorist is another. man’s freedom fighter” is a view terrorists themselves would accept. Terrorists do not see themselves as evil. They believe they are legitimate combatants, fighting for what they believe in, by whatever means possible. A victim of a terrorist act .sees the terrorist as a criminal with no regard for human life . The general public’s view is the most unstable.

The terrorists take great pains to foster a “Robin Hood” image in hope of swaying the general public’s point of view toward their cause. This sympathetic view of terrorism has become· an integral part of their psychological warfare and needs to be countered vigorously.

Terrorist acts or the threat of such action have been in existence for millennia. Despite having a history longer than the modern nation-state, the use of terror by governments and those that contest their power remains poorly understood. While the meaning of the word terror itself is clear, when it is applied to acts and actors in the real world it becomes confused. Part of this is due to the use of terror tactics by actors at all levels in the social and political environment. Is the Unabomber, with his solo campaign of terror, a criminal, terrorist, or revolutionary?

Differences between Terrorism and Insurgency

If no single definition of terrorism produces a precise. unambiguous description. we can approach the question by eliminating similar activities that are not terrorism, but that appear to overlap. For the U.S. military, two such related concepts probably lead to more confusion than others. Guerilla warfare and insurgencies are often assumed to be synonymous with terrorism. One reason for this is that insurgencies and terrorism often have similar goals.

However, if we examine insurgency and guerilla warfare, specific differences emerge. A key difference is that an insurgency is a movement – a political effort with a specific aim. This sets it apart from both guerilla warfare and terrorism, as they are both methods available to pursue the goals of the political movement.

Goals and Motivations of Terrorists

Ideology and motivation will influence the objectives of terrorist operations, especially regarding the casualty rate. Groups with secular ideologies and non-religious goals will often attempt highly selective and discriminate acts of violence to achieve a specific political aim.

This often requires them to keep casualties at the minimum amount necessary to attain the objective. This is both to avoid a backlash that might severely damage the organization, and also maintain the appearance of a rational group that has legitimate grievances. By limiting their attacks they reduce the risk of undermining external political and economic support . Groups that comprise a “wing” of an insurgency, or are affiliated with aboveground, sometimes legitimate, political organizations often operate under these constraints.

The tensions caused by balancing these considerations are often a prime factor in the development of splinter groups and internal factions within these organizations.

In contrast, religiously oriented and millenarian groups typically attempt to inflict as many casualties as possible. Because of the apocalyptic frame f reference they use, loss of life is irrelevant, and fore casualties are better. Losses among their co-religionists are of little account because such casualties will reap the benefits of the afterlife. Likewise,· non-believers, Whether they are the intended target or collateral damage, deserve death, and killing them may be considered a moral duty.

The type of target selected will often reflect motivations and ideologies. For groups professing secular political or social motivations, their targets are highly symbolic of authority; government offices, banks, national airlines, and multinational corporations with direct relation to the established order.

Likewise, they conduct attacks on representative individuals whom they associate with economic exploitation , social injustice , or political repression. While religious groups also use much of this symbolism, there is a trend to connect it to greater physical devastation. There also is. a tendency to add religiously affiliated individuals, such as missionaries, and religious activities, such as worship services, to the targeting equation.

Types of Terrorist Incidents

The most common types of terrorist incidents include:

Bombings are the most common type of terrorist act. Typically, improvised explosive devices are inexpensive and easy to make. Modern devices are smaller and are harder to detect.

Kidnappings and Hostage-Takings

Terrorists use kidnapping and hostage-taking to establish a bargaining position and to elicit publicity. Kidnapping is one of the most difficult acts fr a terrorist group to accomplish, but, if a kidnapping is successful, it can gain terrorists money, the release of jailed comrades, and publicity for an extended period. Hostage-taking involves the seizure of a facility or location and the taking of hostages. Unlike a kidnapping, hostage-taking provokes a confrontation with authorities. It forces authorities to either make dramatic decisions or comply with the terrorist’s demands.

Armed Attacks and Assassinations

Armed attacks include raids and ambushes. Assassinations are the killing of a selected victim, usually by bombings or small arms. Drive-by shootings are a common technique employed by unsophisticated or loosely organized terrorist groups. Historically, terrorists have assassinated specific individuals for psychological effects.

Arsons and Firebombings

Incendiary devices are cheap and easy to hide. Arson and firebombings are easily conducted by terrorist groups that may not be as well-organized, equipped, or trained as a major terrorist organization. An arson or firebombing against a utility, hotel, government building, or industrial center portrays an image that the ruling government is incapable of maintaining order.

Other Types of Terrorist Incidents

In addition to the acts of violence discussed above, there are also numerous other types of violence that can exist under the framework of terrorism. Terrorist groups conduct maimings against their own people as a form of punishment for security violations, defections, or informing.

Terrorist organizations also conduct robberies and extortion when they need to finance their acts and they don’t have sponsorship from sympathetic nations. Cyber terrorism is a new form of terrorism that is ever-increasing as we rely on computer networks to relay information and provide connectivity to today’s modern and fast-paced world. Cyber terrorism allows terrorists to conduct their operations with little or no risk to themselves.

It also provides terrorists an opportunity to disrupt or destroy networks and computers. The result is interruption of key government or business-related activities. This type of terrorism isn’t as high profile as other types of terrorist attacks, but its impact is just as destructive.

Historically, terrorist attacks using nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons have been rare. Due to the extremely high number of casualties that NBC weapons produce, they are also referred to as weapons of mass destruction (WMO). However, a number of nations are involved in arms races with neighboring countries because they” view the development of WMD as a key deterrent of attack by hostile neighbors.

The increased development of WMD also increases the potential for terrorist groups to gain .access to WMD. It is believed that in the future terrorists will have greater access to WMD because unstable nations or states may fail to safeguard their stockpiles of WMD from accidental losses, illicit sales, or outright theft or seizure. Determined terrorist groups can also gain access to WMD through covert independent research effors or by hiring technically skilled professionals to construct the WMD.

Terrorism is continually changing. While at the surface it remains “the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear…” it is rapidly becoming the predominant strategic tool of our adversaries. As terrorism evolves into the principal irregular warfare strategy of the 21st century, it is adapting to changes in the world’s socio-political environment.

Some of these changes facilitate the abilities of terrorists to operate, procure funding, and develop new capabilities. Other changes are gradually moving terrorism into a different relationship with the world at large.

Types of Terrorism

The Task Force classified terrorism into six categories.

Civil Disorders

A form of collective violence interfering with the peace, security, and normal functioning of the community.

Political Terrorism

Violent criminal behavior is designed primarily to generate fear in the community, or a substantial segment of it, for political purposes.

 Non-Political Terrorism

Terrorism that is not aimed at political purposes but which exhibits “conscious design to create and maintain a high degree of fear for coercive purposes but the  end is individual or collective gain rather fan the achievement of a political objective.”

Quasi-Terrorism

The activities incidental to the commission of crimes of violence that are similar in form and method to genuine terrorism but which nevertheless lack its essential ingredient. It is not the main purpose of the quasi-terrorists to induce terror in the immediate victim as in the case of genuine terrorism, but the quasi-terrorist uses the modalities and techniques of the genuine terrorist and produces similar consequences and reactions.

For example, the fleeing felon who takes hostages is a quasi-terrorist, whose methods are similar to those of the genuine terrorist but whose purposes are quite different.

Limited Political Terrorism

Genuine political terrorism is characterized by a revolutionary approach; limited political terrorism refers to “acts of terrorism which are committed for ideological or political motives but which are not part of a concerted campaign to capture control of the State.

Official or State Terrorism

Referring to nations whose rule is based upon fear and oppression that reach similar to terrorism or such proportions.

The context in which terrorist tactics are used is often a large-scale, unresolved political conflict.

The type of conflict varies widely historical examples include:

• the secession of a territory to form a new sovereign state
• The dominance of territory or resources by various ethnic groups
•  Imposition of a particular form of government, such as democracy, theocracy, or anarchy
• Economic deprivation of a population
• Opposition to a domestic government or occupying army

Terrorism is a form of asymmetric warfare. and is more. common when direct conventional warfare either cannot be (due to differentials in available forces) or is not being used to resolve the underlying conflict.

Responses to terrorism

Responses to terrorism are broad in scope. They can include re-alignments of the political spectrum and reassessments of fundamental values. The term counterterrorism has a narrower connotation, implying that it is directed at terrorist actors.

Specific types of responses include

• Targeted laws, criminal procedures, deportations, and enhanced police powers
• Target hardening, such as locking doors or adding traffic barriers
• Preemptive or reactive military action
• Increased intelligence and surveillance activities
• Preemptive humanitarian activities
• More permissive interrogation and detention policies
• Official acceptance of torture as a valid tool

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NPR editor resigns after accusing US outlet of liberal bias

Uri Berliner quits broadcaster days after being suspended over essay accusing network of lacking viewpoint diversity.

A senior editor at a public broadcaster in the United States who accused his employer of liberal bias, igniting heated debate about standards in journalism, has resigned.

Uri Berliner, an editor with National Public Radio (NPR), announced his resignation on Wednesday just over a week after he published an essay accusing the outlet of being fixated on race and identity and lacking “viewpoint diversity”.

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“I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years. I don’t support calls to defund NPR. I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism,” Berliner said in a resignation letter posted on X.

“But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay.”

My resignation letter to NPR CEO @krmaher pic.twitter.com/0hafVbcZAK — Uri Berliner (@uberliner) April 17, 2024

NPR did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Berliner’s resignation came after NPR on Friday slapped the editor with a five-day suspension without pay in response to his essay calling out the network.

In the essay published in The Free Press, Berliner argued that the outlet had lost the public’s trust by putting a progressive slant on coverage of major news stories, including the COVID-19 pandemic and claims that Donald Trump colluded with Russia.

“There’s an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed,” Berliner wrote.

“It’s frictionless – one story after another about instances of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad and the dire threat of Republican policies. It’s almost like an assembly line.”

Berlinera also cited voter registration data that he said showed there were 87 Democrats and no Republicans on staff at the outlet’s Washington, DC, headquarters.

Berliner’s essay promoted public pushback from NPR employees, including recently-appointed CEO Katherine Maher, whose own views came under scrutiny after conservatives surfaced old tweets expressing progressive views.

“Asking a question about whether we’re living up to our mission should always be fair game: after all, journalism is nothing if not hard questions,” Maher said in a memo to staff that was also published online.

“Questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.”

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An ISIS Terror Group Draws Half Its Recruits From Tiny Tajikistan

Young migrants from the former Soviet republic were accused of an attack on a concert hall in Moscow that killed 145 people.

By Neil MacFarquhar and Eric Schmitt

The mother of one of the suspects in the bloody attack on a concert hall near Moscow last month wept as she talked about her son.

How, she wondered, did he go from the bumpy, dirt roads of their village in Tajikistan, in Central Asia, to sitting, bruised and battered, in a Russian courtroom accused of terrorism? Even though he spent five years in Tajik prisons as a teenager, she said he never exhibited signs of violent extremism.

“We need to understand — who is recruiting young Tajiks, why do they want to highlight us as a nation of terrorists?” said the mother, Muyassar Zargarova.

Many governments and terrorism experts are asking the same question.

Tajik adherents of the Islamic State — especially within its affiliate in Afghanistan known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province (I.S.K.P.), or ISIS-K — have taken increasingly high-profile roles in a string of recent terrorist attacks. Over the last year alone, Tajiks have been involved in assaults in Russia, Iran and Turkey , as well as foiled plots in Europe. ISIS-K is believed to have several thousand soldiers, with Tajiks constituting more than half, experts said.

“They have become key to I.S.K.P.’s externally focused campaign as it seeks to gain attention and more recruits,” said Edward Lemon, an international relations professor at Texas A&M University who specializes in Russia, Tajikistan and terrorism.

Analysts say a kind of double whammy leaves Tajiks vulnerable to recruitment. An increasingly authoritarian former Soviet republic, Tajikistan ranks among the world’s poorest countries, which fuels discontent and drives millions of migrant laborers to seek better lives abroad. In a country of 10 million people, a majority of working men, estimated at more than two million, seek employment abroad at any given time.

And most migrants end up in Russia , where rampant discrimination, low wages, poor prospects and isolation make some susceptible to jihadist recruiters. Officially, about 1.3 million Tajik laborers are in Russia, although experts believe hundreds of thousands of others work there illegally.

“The new Tajik generation has lost all belief in the future,” said Muhiddin Kabiri, the exiled leader of the country’s Islamic Renaissance Party, a moderate opposition group that was abruptly outlawed as “extremist” in 2015. “There are only two choices: a secular dictatorship and, as an alternative, the Islamic State or other radical Islamic groups.”

As many as 2,000 Tajiks flocked to the physical caliphate established by the Islamic State in parts of Syria and Iraq from 2014 to 2019. With the caliphate dismantled but not eradicated — and with branches from Africa through the Middle East to Central Asia — ISIS-K has revived some of the would-be state’s global ambitions.

Recruitment of foot soldiers is focused online, where ISIS-K maintains an extensive media operation in Arabic, English, Russian and other languages. Russia is a frequent target. Many online testimonials from Tajiks imply that Muslim men who avoid fighting with ISIS are not really men.

Asfandyar Mir, a senior counterterrorism specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, highlighted the kind of video post intended to incite Tajik migrant workers in Russia. A commander who has since been killed, using the nom de guerre Furkan Falistini, speaks directly to laborers there: “When the Russian police see you on the streets, Tajiks hide their eyes, hoping the police do not see them,” he says in the video. “You should look at them so that they are scared of you. You start killing them, and God will remedy your fears.”

Days after Russia charged four migrant laborers from Tajikistan with the concert hall attack that killed 145 people, ISIS-K launched an online Tajik-language magazine, the Voice of Khorasan . Its rollout, days after the first Turkish edition, appeared to underscore the group’s widening aspirations, noted Lucas Webber, a researcher who tracks the Islamic State’s presence online.

While the magazine mentioned the Islamic State’s longstanding hostility toward Russia, the main story lambasted the 30-year, iron-fisted rule of Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon.

“Rahmonov the Devil was the first to start eradicating Islam under the guise of being a Muslim,” the article said. The president changed his surname to the more Tajik-sounding Rahmon in 2007, but the Islamic State uses the old one, not least to highlight his close ties with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin.

After the Tajik suspects in the concert hall attack appeared in a Russian courtroom bearing wounds from an apparent torture , one online poster said, “Broadcasting videos of prisoners being tortured by you has increased the thirst of thousands of brothers for your blood.”

Another post showed what appeared to be a man in military fatigues staring at television screens that showed London, Paris, Rome and Madrid. “After Moscow … Who is the next?!” the English text read.

There is no single formula for radicalization, experts say, but for some young Tajik migrants, personal grievances outweigh geopolitical considerations.

Tajikistan’s problems are rooted in a vicious civil war that raged for five years, starting in 1992, after it won independence from the Soviet Union. Mr. Rahmon, the former head of a collective farm who became president in 1994, signed a peace agreement with the opposition that guaranteed representation.

Initially, some criticism of government corruption and nepotism was allowed, and the Islamic Renaissance Party held a couple of Parliament seats. But when the party was declared a terrorist organization, opposition figures were killed, jailed or driven into exile. Tajikistan holds at least 1,000 political prisoners, according to Mr. Kabiri, the party’s exiled head.

Mr. Rahmon, 71, was born in the Soviet Union two days before Mr. Putin, and they share autocratic impulses. The Kremlin has long shored up Mr. Rahmon’s rule by stationing an estimated 7,000 troops in Tajikistan, a rare large deployment outside Russia.

The more ISIS ties Rahmon to Putin, “the more it looks like he is hitching his wagon to Russia, the less legitimate his regime seems and the more likely they are to increase their popularity among Tajiks,” said Steve Swerdlow, a professor of international relations at the University of Southern California and a veteran human rights researcher in Central Asia.

Mr. Rahmon pushed through a constitutional referendum in 2016 allowing him to remain president for life. News releases on the presidential website refer to him as “the Founder of Peace and National Unity.” His oldest son, Rustam Emomali, 36, chairman of the National Assembly and the mayor of Dushanbe, the capital, is expected to succeed his father.

Mr. Rahmon wages a rigorous campaign against public signs of piety. People with beards or hijabs are subject to random harassment, with beards sometimes forcibly shaved in public or hijabs torn off. A powerful Committee on Religion, Regulation of Traditions, Celebrations and Ceremonies oversees every facet of worship, including building mosques and printing books.

“They have this very tight control over official Islam, and anything that exists beyond that is deemed extremist, dangerous,” said Mr. Lemon, the professor at Texas A&M.

Given the violence fomented by jihadists globally, Tajikistan’s government has reasons for concern, Mr. Swerdlow noted. But harsh measures can feed the very extremism that they are intended to curtail.

Echoing Soviet positions, Mr. Rahmon blames extremism solely on outside influences. In a speech last month, he said Tajiks enjoyed freedom of religion, while radical ideas originated from “dubious” religious schools abroad or foreign intelligence services.

“These actions were plotted by malicious groups and special services of some countries, and they take advantage of the lack of education, inexperience and ignorance of some of our youth,” the president said. More than 1,000 Tajik militants had died in foreign armed conflicts, he said, with thousands more missing.

In terms of religious freedom, the United States has repeatedly designated Tajikistan a “country of particular concern.” Officials at the Defense and State Departments declined requests for interviews about extremism linked to Tajikistan.

The State Department issued a brief statement saying it worked with Tajikistan and other Central Asian countries to strengthen law enforcement and degrade terrorist groups. One former senior Tajik police officer, trained in counterextremism in the United States, famously became the overall military commander for the Islamic State’s caliphate around 2016 before he died.

After the terrorist attack outside Moscow, Russia inaugurated sweeping expulsions .

In Tajikistan, the mothers of three suspects listed the problems their sons typically faced in Russia: Salaries too low to pay rent or to afford the permits needed to drive a taxi, for example.

“Let them answer who bought the weapons, who gave them their equipment,” Ms. Zargarova said. “My son didn’t have money for a gun.”

Milana Mazaeva contributed reporting.

Neil MacFarquhar has been a Times reporter since 1995, writing about a range of topics from war to politics to the arts, both internationally and in the United States. More about Neil MacFarquhar

Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times, focusing on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism issues overseas, topics he has reported on for more than three decades. More about Eric Schmitt

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