Suicide attacks in Pakistan

Suicide attacks began occurring in Pakistan from 2002 onward and their frequency went up significantly after 2007, the year when the military operation was carried out against Jamia Hafsa in Islamabad and the Chief Justice of Pakistan was sacked by the then military ruler. It’s commonly believed that this upsurge in suicide attacks was a direct result of the operation against Lal Masjid and there is some truth in this claim as well. Out of 49 suicide attacks took place after 4 July 2007 and Lal Masjid operation was started on July 3, 2007. Drone attacks are also quoted as one of the biggest contributors to the acceleration of suicide attacks in the country. I will discuss this factor in the later part of this article. In my opinion, the most factor we normally forget is the lawyers’ movement that began after the dictatorial actions of sacking the Chief Justice of Pakistan by the then military ruler General Pervez Musharraf. Coincidentally, two major events took place around the same period. The activism of Jama Hafsa students began on February 21, 2007 when they occupied the Islamabad Children’s Public Library in protest against the demolition of mosques in the capital by the CDA (capital development authority) due to their illegal construction and alleged security risk. While the movement of Jama Hafsa students was on, General Pervez Musharraf sacked the Chief Justice of Pakistan on 9 March 2007. It outraged the people and brought them on the street in support of the Chief Justice and resulted in weakening the writ of the military ruler. While the movement of the lawyers was on its peak, the baton-wielding students from Lal Masjid came out and took four Pakistani policemen as hostages in May 2007 demanding release of their ten associates arrested by the intelligence officers. On 3 July 2007, military action was taken against the Jama Hafsa students and on 20 July 2007 Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was restored as the Chief Justice of Pakistan and all charges against him were dismissed.

Was it a coincidence that lawyers’ movement and the activism of Jamia Hafsa students took place at the same time or there was any relationship between both the events?   Nothing can be said for sure but it’s quite obvious that a storm of multiple political upheavals hit the country in sequence and resultantly weakened the existing state apparatus to a point where non-state actors started playing their roles with such an ease and comfort that they could manage to assassinate the two times former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and even go out of their boundary and carry out terrorist activities in the neighbouring country as well. With the state machinery so weakened, it became easy for the non-state actors to use suicide attacks as a strategy to create scare among the people and the state machinery to such a level where they are left with no options other than to compromise or face the deadly consequences. Media started blaming the government more than the non-state actors for its inability to establish its writ, politicians became indifferent or apologetic in dealing with the menace of extremism, and the whole society became highly polarized while the struggle among the different pillars of the state went on uninterruptedly.

From 2002 to 2006, this country experienced 21 suicide attacks and in the year 2007 alone this figure jumped up to 54, nearly three times more than what was experienced in the last five years. The highest deaths as a result of suicide attacks in 2007 occurred in Karachi; Rawalpindi and Charsadda were the second and third in counting the dead bodies as a result of these attacks (Refer Table 1).

Table 1: Source:  http://www.satp.org/

However, the province Khyber Pukhtunkhwa had the highest number of deaths as a result of suicide attacks while the provinces of Punjab and Sindh experienced lesser number of deaths due to such attacks (Refer to Table 2).

Table 2: Source: http://www.satp.org/

This sharp rise in suicide attacks continued from 2007 onward and within next three years, we counted 184 suicide attacks in different parts of the country resulting in deaths of 3009 persons and injuries to nearly 6400 persons. Lahore had the highest number deaths during this period (420 persons) while Peshawar, Kohat, and Mohmand Agency witnessed slightly lesser number of deaths (291, 216, & 167 deaths respectively) from the suicide attacks(See table 3). Looking at the number of suicide attacks in different cities of the country, we find that Peshawar had the highest number suicide (27) attacks while Bannu and Lahore had 13 attacks each during this period (See table 4).

Table 3: Source: http://www.satp.org/

However, on provincial level, KPK counted 1499 dead bodies and Punjab experienced 834 deaths from suicide attacks. FATA had lower number of deaths compared to KPK and Punjab but keeping in mind the small size of its total population, the deaths of 526 people is the highest among all as a percentage of the population. (See table 4)

Table 4: Source: http://www.satp.org/

As I mentioned earlier, Drone attacks are also regarded as one of the causes for accelerating the frequency of suicide attacks in the country. To verify this statement, one needs to take a look at the factual data and see if this assumption holds any truth. According to the available data, drone attacks began in the year 2005 nearly three years after the suicide attacks began in 8 May 2002. In total , 171 drone attacks took place from May 2005 to 17 March 2011 killing 1752 persons and injuring little over 215 persons (See the Table 5). Compared to that, there were 273 suicide attacks in Pakistan from 2002 to 12 January 2011 that killed 4403 persons and injured 9543 – nearly five times more casualties in suicide attacks than the drone attacks although this numerical difference offers no justification to these killing activities (Refer to table 6). Both of them are causing human casualties and unending violent reactions. The quicker these killings are halted the better it would be for peace and prosperity of the people living in this part of the world. However, demanding stoppage to drone attacks only without making a similar demand for the stoppage of suicide and bomb attacks is nothing but to offer shelter to the instigators and collaborators of suicide and bomb attackers from deterrence that, as per Major General Ghayur Mehmud, has been killing the hardcore elements, a sizeable number of which are foreigners. What are we looking for – safety to our people or to the extremists?

Table 5: Source: http://www.satp.org/

Table 6: Source:  http://www.satp.org/