ISLAMABAD: Pakistan saw a 12 percent decline in overall violence in the second quarter of 2024 from April to June, a local think tank report said on Monday.The country’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and southwestern province of Balochistan remained the “epicenter of violence” during the period, it said.
Pakistani think tank Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) released the report on Monday. Founded in September 2007, CRSS says it is committed to advancing knowledge and understanding through its research activities and publications, ranging from in-depth analysis of regional and national trends to policy recommendations for sustainable development.
In a report titled “Security Situation Profile of Pakistan Q2 2024,” the CRSS said Pakistan suffered 380 violent deaths and 220 civilians, security force personnel and unarmed individuals in the second quarter of this year. These deaths occurred in 240 terrorist attacks and counter-terrorism operations, according to the report. Of the deaths, 236 included civilians and security force personnel.
“The second quarter of 2024 saw a steep decline in violence and casualty rates across the country,” the report states. “Overall violence in the country fell by 12 percent, with the number of deaths falling to 380 from 432 in the first quarter of 2024.”
The report said KP and Balochistan were the “epicenters of violence”, accounting for around 92 percent of the total deaths and 87 percent of attacks (including “terrorist” incidents and security force operations) in the second quarter.
The report revealed that KP province suffered 67 percent of the total deaths during the period, while Balochistan suffered 25 percent, but noted that the data reflected that other parts of the country were “relatively peaceful”, accounting for only 8 percent of the total deaths.
The report said Balochistan saw a “notable” improvement in violence rates, dropping by almost 50 percent in the second quarter. “The most notable improvement was in Balochistan, where violence fell by 46 percent and the number of deaths fell from 178 in the first quarter of 2024 to 96 in the second quarter,” it said.
It added that Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh had seen a 32 percent drop in violent incidents, with “similar downward trends” reported in the capital Islamabad and the semi-autonomous region of Gilgit-Baltistan.
The report noted that out of all deaths in the second quarter of 2024, unarmed individuals accounted for the majority (38 percent), followed by civilians (32 percent), while security and government personnel accounted for 30 percent of all deaths.
“Compared to the first quarter, civilian and security force deaths fell by 21 percent and 10 percent, respectively, while insurgent deaths increased by 29 percent,” the CRSS report said. “Notably, only two insurgents were killed in the second quarter, a significant decrease from 41 in the first quarter.”
However, the report also noted some worrying trends in the second quarter, most notably that civilians, government officials and members of the security forces accounted for 62 percent of all deaths, compared with 38 percent for unarmed individuals.
“Civilians suffered the greatest number of attacks by extremist and anti-government forces,” the report said.
Pakistan has been experiencing an increase in attacks in its western provinces that border Afghanistan. The South Asian country has blamed a recent surge in militant attacks in neighboring Afghanistan, alleging that Pakistani Taliban militants are setting up bases and training militants to carry out attacks inside Pakistan.
Kabul denies this. The Pakistani government has also launched an expulsion drive since November last year that has seen more than 600,000 Afghan nationals forced out of Pakistan.
Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif has warned of cross-border attacks to target militants inside Afghanistan, a remark that was criticised by the Taliban regime in Kabul, which warned that such actions would have “consequences”.
