ISLAMABAD: Despite the decline in violence over the last year, Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Jamaatul Ahrar are major actors in causing instability, the annual Pak Institute of Peace Studies (PIPS) report has found.

Released on Sunday, the report also stated that Islamist militants were a more grave threat than Baloch insurgents, and a mechanism for parliamentary oversight of the criminal justice system was needed.

PIPS head, defence analyst Amir Rana, told Dawn that while the state had taken action against militant groups such as the TTP, groups such as the Jamaatul Ahrar and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) were getting stronger.

He said the state must ensure while taking action against the TTP that new groups did not emerge.

Annual report finds decline in violence in 2016, TTP, Jamaatul Ahrar major causes of instability

“Whenever one group becomes weak, it tries to make a new group and gather all the power,” he said.

Mr Rana also noted that the so-called Islamic State (IS) had claimed responsibility for some incidents, and though that has yet to be confirmed, it “shows that IS also wants to emerge in the region.”

He added: “I believe there are more internal security issues, compared to external issues.”

Mr Rana called for a counter-extremism policy and the implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP), saying it was now time to focus on a soft approach as opposed to the focus on a hard approach so far.

“Although the armed forces have shown their commitment to eradicating extremists, and we have achieved good results, the hard approach is not going to work long term. We need a backup strategy to continue the pressure on extremists.”

According to the report, militant attacks declined in 2016 but groups continued to pose a potent threat with many widening their scope, narrowing their ideologies and evolving in new spaces.

The report suggests these threats will linger unless the state moves beyond the hard approach. As in previous years, the TPP remained a major cause of instability in 2016 and carried out 106 attacks.

The year also saw the rise of Jamaatul Ahrar, which carried out 66 attacks.

The report attributed Jamaatul Ahrar’s relative rise partly to the weakening of the TTP’s operational capability, and said this reality of how militant dynamics evolve should not be lost on policymakers.

The report found a 28pc decline in terrorist attacks in 2016 - 441 terrorist attacks took place in 57 districts and regions across Pakistan and killed 908 people.

The report noted that suicide bombings had fallen in number with targeted killings or shootings making up 50pc of the year’s attacks.

Sectarian violence also declined last year but the report warned that sectarian violence would linger as sectarian outfits were still active and, together with banned outfits, were becoming the new far right, encroaching on socio-political space and injecting sectarian discourse into the country.

The report said sectarian militancy “is further blending upon the militant landscape.”

In 2016, LJ was reborn as LJ Al-Alami, the group that attacked a shrine in Khuzdar. The group is believed to have widened its scope and developing compatibility with global terrorist outfits including IS.

The report said these groups also posed a far graver threat in Balochistan than Baloch insurgents; while the former have been behind major attacks, including in Quetta and Khuzdar, the latter carried out low intensity attacks. The latter, the PIPS report stated, can be tackled through political resolve which has been missing for the last year.

The report said security forces carried out around 95 operational strikes and raids, and apprehended 1,418 suspected terrorists and members of violent groups in 315 search operations.

The report also argues that Pakistan’s counterterrorism campaign urgently requires functional soft counterterrorism approaches, including those espoused in NAP. NAP’s points are still contested, and the National Counter Terror Authority has yet to be made fully functional partly because it operates as a subsidiary of the interior ministry.

Now that the military courts have expired, expectations will be raised once again from the civilian side on what has been done to strengthen the criminal justice system.

The report recommended a mechanism for parliamentary oversight of the criminal justice system.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2017