Terrorism-related fatalities surged by 106pc in January 2020: PIPS monthly security review of Pakistan

Islamabad (PR) – Posting an increase of 50 percent from the month before, 21 terrorist attacks took place in Pakistan during the first month of 2020. The number of people killed in these attacks also surged by over 106 percent, from 16 in December 2019 to 33 during the month under review; another 60 people were also injured in these acts of terrorism, most of which concentrated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

These statistics were revealed in Pak Institute for Peace Studies’ (PIPS) monthly security review of Pakistan for January 2020.

The report further noted that most among those 33 people killed in terrorist attacks included civilians (24) while 7 personnel of security and law enforcement agencies also lost their lives in these attacks including six policemen and one Levies official; 2 militants were also killed including one suicide bomber.

About 62 percent of the total reported attacks in Pakistan concentrated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), where 13 reported attacks killed 10 people.

However the highest number of terrorism-related casualties for any one region of the country happened in Balochistan (19 killed; 36 injured). A single attack in a mosque in Quetta caused 16 deaths including of a police officer.

Meanwhile three attacks took place in Punjab and one attack was recorded in Karachi.

Most of the reported terrorist attacks in January (or 18 out of the total 21) were perpetrated by religiously inspired militants groups including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Hizbul Ahrar, Jamaatul Ahrar, local Taliban, and the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, among others, which killed 31 people and injured 60 others. Baloch insurgent groups carried out 2 low intensity attacks, which caused one casualty. Another attack was sectarian-related that was perpetrated by a Shia violent sectarian group in Karachi.