Pakistan has made little progress in its pledge to dismantle all terrorist organisations without delay or discrimination, stated the US Bureau of Counterterrorism.
Pakistan also experienced significant terrorist activity in 2021. The number of attacks and casualties was higher than in 2020, according to the US Bureau of Counterterrorism’s ‘Country Reports on Terrorism 2021: Pakistan’.
“Pakistan reviewed and revised its 2015 National Action Plan (NAP) to counter terrorism, reducing the NAP from a 20-point plan to 14 key points, but made meagre progress on the most difficult aspects – specifically its pledge to dismantle all terrorist organisations without delay or discrimination,” the report read.
Major terrorist groups that focused on conducting attacks in Pakistan included Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), and ISIS-K, the report pointed out.
It has been reported that terrorist attacks were conducted against varied targets in Pakistan’s Balochistan and Sindh provinces by separatist militant groups. The terrorists used various tactics to attack targets, including IEDs, VBIEDs, suicide bombings, and targeted assassinations.
In 2018, Pakistan was designated as a Country of Particular Concern under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. It was re-designated in the same category in 2019, 2020, and 2021.
In 2018, the FATF identified Pakistan as a jurisdiction with strategic deficiencies in its AML/CFT system. Pakistan remained on the FATF grey list in 2021.
In 2021, members of religious minorities in Pakistan faced significant threats from terrorist groups. On January 3, ISIS-K militants claimed responsibility for the murders of 11 Shia Hazara coalminers in the Kachi district of Balochistan.
On April 21, five persons were killed in a VBIED suicide attack in the parking lot of the Serena hotel in Quetta, Balochistan.
The TTP also claimed responsibility for the attack, also claiming the targets were police and law enforcement, according to the Bureau of Counter Terrorism’s report on terrorism in Pakistan.
A prominent journalist in Pakistan was on October 10, 2021, killed in an explosion in Hub, Balochistan.
On December 30, attackers ambushed security officials in North Waziristan. Four security personnel were killed in the ensuing exchange of fire. TTP claimed responsibility for the attack.
Some madrassas were teaching the extremist doctrine in Pakistan. While the Government continued efforts to increase madrassa regulation, some analysts and madrassa reform proponents observed that many madrassas failed to register with the Government, provide documentation of their funding sources, or comply with laws governing the acceptance of international students, according to the report.
It may be mentioned that after four years, Pakistan was recently removed from the grey list by the anti-terror body Financial Action Task Force (FATF). It was first put on the list in 2008, removed in 2009, and before adding it again in 2018, it remained under increased monitoring from 2012 to 2015.
India had protested Pakistan’s lack of action against cross-border terror groups responsible for attacks on India.
New Delhi has said that Pakistan must continue taking “credible, verifiable, irreversible and sustainable” action against terror groups from territories under its control.
