Our hostile western neighbour, Pakistan, has become a butt of jokes for the manner in which its cricket team fared during the ongoing Champions Trophy. Down, down and out were the three steps boys of Rizwan & Babar took in the tournament. They lost the opening match against New Zealand, their second against India and got their sole (1) point from the third abandoned match with Bangladesh. Their final score read 1/6 as they could have possibly scored 6 by winning three matches. Instead of them, it was India which kept its slate clean and emerged on top.
In another arena, however, Pakistan is way ahead, we can say miles ahead of India and that is in the field of terrorism. In the Global Terrorism Index (GTI), it has come close to top, being just one notch down below Burkina Faso which has been the topper. From 2024 to 2025, Pakistan became the second-most affected country by terrorism as an alarming surge in casualties in terror incidents has pushed it upwards, according to a Global Terrorism Index 2024 report.
The 84-page GTI report has been compiled by the Institute of Economics and Peace and measures the impact of terrorism globally.
A year earlier, Pakistan was in the fourth position but climbed two notches rapidly in a year to be placed at the second spot presently. This has happened due to a sharp 45% increase in terrorism-related deaths with the total rising from 748 in 2023 to 1,081 in 2024, one of the steepest upward surges globally. India is at least a dozen notches lower at ranking number 14. If Pakistan were not fomenting terror attacks in Jammu & Kashmir, India’s ranking could easily be many notches lower. The pathological hatred for all things pertaining to India was responsible for India’s rank on this index, according to an expert.
Israel is at number eight (08) in this index, mainly due to Islamists Hamas, Hezbollah and other such groups launching attacks on its citizens. In Europe, Germany seen a steep rise in its rankings, due mainly to attacks carried out by Muslim refugees who thronged to it because of its open border policies regarding migrants. The US figures at 34, France at 40 and UK at 41, and alarm bells are ringing in some European capitals.
The total number of terror attacks recorded in Pakistan also more than doubled from 517 in 2023 to 1,099 in 2024. Since the inception of the Index, this figure of 1,000+ was touched by it for the first time last year.
According to the GTI report, there has been a significant increase in terrorism in Pakistan after the rise of Afghan Taliban to power in Kabul in August 2021. The Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has emerged as the most potent rebel group operating on the soil of Pakistan, particularly Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Of late, it has been responsible for most attacks carried out against the Pakistani security forces, be it the Army, the Frontier Corps (FC) men, the police or the Levies.
The report said that the TTP has remained the deadliest terrorist group operating in the country, accounting for 52% of all terrorism-related deaths. The outlawed outfit carried out 482 attacks in 2024, which led to 558 deaths. The attacks carried out by the groups doubled in the previous year coupled with a 90 per cent increase in deaths. It may be mentioned here that the Federal government now does not call TTP by its real name and prefers to call it Fitna e Khwarij.
Interestingly, then Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had welcomed the overthrow of the Afghan government of the day by the Taliban. In a rather jubilant mood celebrating the Taliban victory in Afghanistan, Imran had said that the Taliban had “thrown away the shackles of slavery’’. This and some of his earlier remarks earned him the sobriquet of “Taliban Khan’’ in some circles.
For over two decades, Pakistan followed a policy of strict dichotomy classifying TTP men as “bad Taliban’’ and the Afghan Taliban as “good Taliban’’. These lines have got blurred, if not obliterated, during the past few years and Pakistan is now concerned about the alleged backing of the Afghan Taliban to the TTP men. In fact, General Asim Munir, Chief of Pakistan Army, said on Thursday that the Bannu Cantonment attack by TTP cadres was planned in Afghanistan. In the wake of the attack, he was constrained to visit the injured Army personnel to boost their sagging morale.
In some newspaper reports, it has been said that some Afghan citizens too have been found complicit in attacks on Pakistani forces.
In 2024, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa together remained the most heavily affected provinces and accounted for over 96% of terrorist attacks and deaths in Pakistan. It may be mentioned here that both these provinces are contiguous to Afghanistan and some of their areas resemble liberated zones with little authority of the Federal or provincial government being recognised. The local warlords call the shots and virtually rule over these swathes attacking schools for girls, enforcing their own codes and collecting taxes as ransom money or for offering protection to businesses.
The GTI report also mentions that the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has emerged as a deadly rebel force. It was responsible deadliest terror attack of 2024 on the Pakistani soil when a suicide bomber killed at least 26 people, most of them soldiers, at Quetta railway station in the month of November. The Pakistani security forces also claimed that they foiled planned attacks by some rebel Baloch man as also woman who could have acted as suicide bombers.
Attacks by BLA and other similar outfits, the report adds, increased significantly from 116 in 2023 to 504 in 2024 with fatalities increasing fourfold to 388, from 88 in 2023.
