KHAR: Security situation in tribal districts witnessed significant improvement in 2019, according to the annual security report of Fata Research Centre (FRC).

The report issued here on Tuesday, said that 160 incidents of violence were recorded during the year 2019 in tribal districts compared to 264 such incidents in 2018.

“It shows a 16 per cent decline in incidents of terrorism and 82 per cent decrease in counter-terrorism incidents,” said the report. It added that the 106 incidents of terrorism in the previous year included 54 attacks on security forces and 48 attacks on civilians while attacks targeted members of civil militia or peace committee.

The incidents of both terrorism and counter-terrorism resulted in 281 casualties including 110 killed and 171 injured in all tribal districts, marking a significant decrease of 24 per cent in overall casualties.

The report said that of the total casualties, 57 per cent were related to security forces. Comparatively, 12 per cent increase in casualties of security forces was observed.

Civilians stood at second with 87 casualties, which make it 31 per cent of the overall casualties. A significant decline of 55 per cent was observed in civilian casualties in the reporting year.

Eight casualties of peace committees were also recorded during the year 2019. The report said that North Waziristan tribal district remained the most turbulent one as 45 terrorism incidents were recorded in the district compared to 58 such incidents in 2018.

South Waziristan tribal district stood second with 25 terrorist incidents which resulted in 44 casualties followed by Bajaur and Khyber that reported 15 and 12 incidents of terrorism, respectively.

Six incidents of terrorism were reported from Mohmand tribal district while only one such incident took place in Orakzai. Although only one incident of terrorism was reported from Kurram, yet the district is highly vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2020