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Pakistan has suffered from the killing of noncombatants by both state and non-state actors with the latter group often based both inside and outside the present-day country. There was massive loss of non-combatant life during partition of British India and creation of Pakistan.^[1] Strife between Shia and Sunni Muslims.^[2]

Currently however, the biggest threat to the state and citizens of Pakistan emanates killing civilians and policemen to achieve their political ends, origination of which can be attributed to General Zia ul-Haq's controversial "Islamization" policies, the president of the country in the 1980s. His tenure saw Pakistan's exceeding involvement in Soviet-Afghan War, which led to greater influx of ideologically driven Afghan Arabs in the tribal areas and the explosion of kalashnikov and drugs culture. The state and its intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence in alliance with the United States and Central Intelligence Agency encouraged the "mujahideen" to fight the proxy war against the Soviet Union, most of which were never disarmed after the war. Some of these groups were later activated under the behest of the state in the form of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and others were encouraged like Taliban to achieve state's agenda in Kashmir^[3] and Afghanistan^[4]. The same groups are now taking on the state itself.

From the summer of 2007 to late 2008, more than 1,500 people were killed in suicide and other attacks on civilians.^[5] The attacks have been attributed to a number of sources: sectarian violence - mainly between Sunni and Shia Muslims - the origin of which is blamed by some on initiated from 1911 to 1988; the easy availability of guns and explosives of a "kalishnikov culture" and influx of ideologically driven "Afghan Arabs" based in or near Pakistan, originating from and the subsequent war against the Afghan communists in the 1980s which blew back into Pakistan; Islamist insurgent groups and forces such as the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba; Pakistan's thousands of fundamentalist madrassas which are thought by some to provide training for little except jihad; secessionists movements - the most significant of which is the Balochistan liberation movement - blamed on regionalism problematic in a country with Pakistan's diverse cultures, languages, traditions and customs.

List of terrorist incidents in Pakistan

Causes

Two of the main causal factors contributing to terrorism in Pakistan are sectarian/religious violence, the active support of the Pakistani state in nurturing terrorist proxies for perceived strategic ends. After imposition of Martial Law in 1956 Pakistan's political situation suddenly changed and entered into dictator type of national behaviour at different levels either civil servants, the army (the most involved people), political forces and British Indian Land Lords. The British originally didn't consider Pakistan as an independent state. Other causes, such as political rivalry and business disputes, also take their toll. It is estimated that more than 4,000 people have died in Pakistan in the past 25 years due to sectarian strife.^[6]

Pre-1980

The onset of partition of British India, saw massive killing of non-combatants - "Sikhs slaughtering Muslims, Hindus butchering Muslims and Muslims burning Hindus and Sikhs alive" that included a massive migration of local population based on their religion.^[1]

Pakistan manifestation of Shia-Sunni antagonisms and antipathies, and the anti-Ahmediya sentiment and persecution by Sunni fundamentalists occurred as early as the 1950s.^[7]

In the late 1960s, With material support of India the agitation in the eastern wing of the country, its struggle with its western counter-part over resources and political power and the eventual liberation changed the dynamics of the country, and led the Pakistani state to "deal harshly with terrorists" in East Pakistan.^[8] Bangladeshi authorities controversially claim that three million people were killed,^[9]. A further eight to ten million people fled the country to seek safety in India.^[10]

Aid to Mujahideen and Arab Afghans

Terrorism in Pakistan since the 1980s began primarily with to the Soviet-Afghan War, and the subsequent war against Afghan communists that continued for at least a decade. The war brought numerous fighters from all over the world to South Asia in the name of jihad. These fighters, known as mujahideen, carried out insurgent activities inside the country well after the war officially ended.

The sectarian violence plaguing the country presently is also said to originate in the controversial Islamic policies of General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq initiated during his tenure from 1977 to 1988. These policies gave immense power to religious figures in the country, who in turn spread intolerant religious dogmas among the masses.

Post Afghan War

At the end of the Afghan War, between 1990 and 1996, the Pakistani establishment continued to organize, support and nurture the Mujahideen groups. The idea was to use these groups for proxy warfare in Indian Kashmir and to support the doctrine of "strategic depth" in Afghanistan through the use of the Taliban. ^[11][12] The 9/11 attacks brought this strategy of Pakistan under increased international scrutiny.

Militants groups in Pakistan

Lashkar-e-Omar

Lashkar-e-Omar (The Army of Omar) is a terrorist organisation which is believed to have its members derived from 3 organizations, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). The main terrorist activities for which it has been accused are:

• Attack on a church in Bahawalpur in Punjab on October 28, 2002, resulting in 18 deaths and 9 injuries.
• The group, was allegedly involved in the March 17, 2002 grenade attack on a church in the heavily guarded diplomatic enclave in Islamabad in which five persons, including a US diplomat's wife and daughter, were killed and 41 others injured.
• LeO was reportedly involved in the suicide bombing outside the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi on May 8, 2002 and the June 14 attack on the US consulate in Karachi, in which 10 persons, including five women, were killed and 51 others injured.

Lashkar-e-Taiba

Pakistan-based terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, has survived global sanctions and is poised to move into the political realm thereby strengthening the collective religious extremist groups' move to coalesce as a formidable opposition to the re-emergent civil democratic movement in Pakistan. This coalition of extremist and terrorist elements within Pakistan and the broad trajectory of the Taliban-Al Qaeda relationship in Afghanistan threatens the stability of Pakistan and the region, and risks fueling the export of terrorism across the world. See PSRU Brief 12. Lashkar-e-Taiba, Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU)Attacked Mumbai in three different sites.Hotel Taj,Nariman House and Hilton Tower(Oberio Hotel).

Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan

Previously known as Anjuman Sipah-e-Sahaba (ASS), this group is thought to be behind most of the attacks on Shiites.^[13] It came into prominence following the Iranian Revolution in 1980s. Incidents thought to be caused by this group are as follows:

• October 7, 2004 bomb blasts in Multan that killed 40 people;
• September 21, 2004: Suspected SSP members gunned down at least three members of a Shi'a family in a sectarian attack in Dera Ismail Khan;
• March 2, 2007 More than 45 people killed and over 100 wounded in an attack on Ahmadi's in Quetta; and
• It has also been involved in assassinating Iranian diplomats with the most severe being the killing of five Iranian Air Force cadets in Rawalpindi in 1997.

In fact, Sipah e Sahaba are overall found the most big cause of terrorism everywhere in Pakistan, just made for assassination of innocent Shia/ Ahmadi's nation. Haq nawaz jhangwi, Azam Tariq (Rehmatullah) and Riaz basra are few of them.

War on Terrorism in Pakistan

The post-9/11 War on Terrorism in Pakistan has had two principal elements: the government's battle with jihad groups banned after 9/11, and the U.S. pursuit of Al-Qaeda, usually (but not always) in coordination with Pakistani forces.

In 2004, the Pakistani army launched a pursuit of Al-Qaeda members in the mountainous area of Waziristan on the Afghan border. Clashes there erupted into a low-level conflict with Islamic militants and local tribesmen, sparking the Waziristan War. A short-lived truce known as the Waziristan accord was brokered in September 2006.

In Swat valley, government entered into war against the Taliban in May 2009.

See also

• Violence in Pakistan 2006-09, table and map providing overview of all violence in Pakistan between 2006 and 2009.
• Drone attacks in Pakistan
• Pakistan and state terrorism
• War on Terrorism in Pakistan
• War in North-West Pakistan
• Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir
• Sectarian violence in Pakistan

References

Bibliography

• Hassan Abbas. Pakistan's Drift Into Extremism: Allah, The Army, And America's War On Terror, M.E. Sharpe, 2004. ISBN 0-7656-1497-9
• Tariq Ali. Can Pakistan Survive? The Death of a State, Penguin Books Ltd, 1983. ISBN 0-14-022401-7
• Zahid Hussain. Frontline Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam, New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. ISBN 0-231-14224-2

External links

• Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS)
• A profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center
• Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU)
• Jamestown Foundation on Sipah-e-Sahaba
• Pakistan Information Security Association
• Inside a jihadi training camp in Azad Kashmir, interview, Radio France Internationale's English-language service
• Dossier on Pakistan, includes interview with ex-ISI chief Hamid Gul, report from Dar-ul Uloom-Haqqania madrassa, by Radio France Internationale's English-language service
• Re-socialising Pakistan by Dr. Hasan Askari Rizvi