KARACHI: A security analyst on Friday cast doubt on a government claim that a ‘foreign hand’ is involved in various acts of terrorism in the country and observed that, if true, it puts a question mark over the efficiency of our intelligence agencies.

Mohammad Nafees, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad, told a programme organised by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan here that during the ongoing military operation, militants of Tajik, Arab and Chinese origins were found in the country, but no one else.

About involvement of a ‘foreign hand’, he went on to say that if there was such a case then what were our agencies doing about it; and if there wasn’t then who’s responsible for all of that.

In his presentation on ‘The security situation in Pakistan’, he said that if it was not our war then who’s attacking us from across the border and why there was so much violence in urban centres.

He said ever since the military operation against terrorists has been launched, terrorist groups have been hitting soft targets, killing children, women and religious minorities.

Mr Nafees delineated the importance of data collection at the outset, suggesting that ‘data is to research what surgical instruments are to a surgeon’. Dividing his research on the causes of the security situation into political and ideological forms of violence, he said his presentation would include data from the previous years (2013 and 2014) and the ongoing year.

Giving a comparative account of regional violence, Mr Nafees said Sindh was the most affected province in 2013 but with the passage of time incidence of violence increased in Punjab and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. But ever since the operation against terrorists has been launched, fatalities went up by 300 per cent, according to him. Civilian and security officials’ fatalities went down from 81 per cent (2013) to 49 per cent (2014), but the killing of militants increased from 19 per cent (2013) to 51 per cent (2014), he said.

He told the attendees that district-wise, Karachi had the highest number of fatalities in 2014.

Speaking on the nature and method of violence, Mr Nafees mentioned they were of three types: militants’ attacks, terrorism and targeted killings.

In the first category, he gave the example of the June 15 attack on Karachi airport after which the military operation against extremist groups had been launched. In 2014, there were 30 cases of suicide bombing taking 196 lives. In the case of terrorism (land mines, bomb explosions, etc), the nature of violence varied from region to region making Fata, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan the most affected areas. And targeted killings claimed lives of people belonging to as varied fields as politics, religious groups and criminals, he said.

Of the security personnel, he said there were 303 deaths of policemen, followed by soldiers, Frontier Constabulary and others. In terms of fatalities caused by violence in provinces, Balochistan was the most hurt but it also increased in Punjab after the Wagah explosion, he added.

With reference to infrastructure sabotage, Mr Nafees said 42 schools, three colleges and one university were damaged in the last couple of years, accruing a loss of millions of rupees.

He said that with the military operation against extremist groups in full swing, terrorist had changed their strategy — they were now hitting soft targets. In 2014, 47 women and 195 children lost their lives while this year 32 women and 18 children have been killed so far, according to him.

Mr Nafees then spoke on the issue of desecration of holy places. In 2014, he said, 34 holy places were damaged, and this year six of them had already been affected but no one was protesting against it or invoking any law.

With regard to sectarian violence, he said that 223 people, including 35 Hazara, belonging to the Shia community lost their lives in 2014. Sectarian violence had lately enveloped the Shia Ismaili community as well, he said, adding religious minorities were the weakest segment of society.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2015

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