Terms and variables

[Attack] Tactics: This head takes a comprehensive account of various tactics used in terrorist attacks by militants, insurgents and sectarian groups including suicide attacks, missile attacks, hand grenade attacks, kidnappings, rocket attacks, beheadings, landmine blasts, firing, sabotage, target killings, and bomb and improvised explosive devices blasts etc.

Casualties: Casualties include both the number of people killed and injured. Casualties among civilians, militants and security forces are treated as another indicator to measure the levels and trends of security in the country.

Clashes between Security Forces and Militants: Armed clashes between security forces and militants, triggered by militants’ attack on security check posts/ convoys and confrontation during search operations.

Ethno-political Violence: The threat or use of violence, often against the civilian population, to achieve political or social ends, to intimidate opponents, or to publicize grievances.

Inter-tribal Clash: Clashes or feuds reported between tribes, mainly in FATA, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, rural areas of Punjab and parts of interior Sindh.

Military Operation: Large-scale operations launched by military and paramilitary forces against Islamist militants and separatist insurgents in Malakand Division, FATA and Balochistan to preserve law and order and the writ of the state.

Operational Attack: Pre-emptive attacks launched by military and paramilitary troops to purge an area of militants.

Overall Number of Attacks:  The sum of militant and counter-militant attacks by the security forces, besides drone attacks, incidents of ethno-political violence, and attacks with sectarian motives or by nationalist insurgents.

Search and Hunt Operation: Launched by law enforcement agencies on intelligence to capture militants or to purge a particular locality of suspected militants and their hideouts.

Sectarian Clashes: Violent clashes between armed factions of banned sectarian outfits or between followers of rival sects such as Sunni-Shia, Deobandi-Barelvi strife. Sectarian clashes also include tribal feuds between followers of Sunni and Shia schools of thought as in Kurram Agency, where the Sunni Turi tribesmen frequently clash with members of the Shia Bangash tribe.

Terrorist Attacks include incidents of indiscriminate use of violence by militants, nationalist insurgents and sectarian groups.

Terrorist Attacks by Militants: Indiscriminate use of violence by militant outfits such as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Lashkar-e-Islam etc., manifested through suicide attacks, beheadings and destruction of educational institutions, CD/video shops, etc.
Terrorist Attacks by Nationalist Insurgents: Attacks by separatists/nationalist insurgents mainly in Balochistan.

Terrorist Attacks by Sectarian Groups, or Sectarian-related Terrorist Attacks: Indiscriminate use of violence rooted in differences among various Islamic schools of thought over interpretation of religious commands. Incidents involving indiscriminate use of violence perpetrated by banned sectarian outfits such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Tehrik-e-Jafria, Imamia Student Organization (ISO), Sipah-e-Muhammad, etc., against rival schools of religious thought.