Pakistan: State Failure, Terrorism, and Insurgency in Context — Part 2

Abstract

Pakistan has become one of the world’s centres of radical Islamic ideology and its terrorist adherents, with some of the main elements of al-Qaeda and militant Islamic organisations using it as a base. In 2009 alone, for example, there were a total of 2,586 terrorist, insurgent, and sectarian related terrorist attacks; the highest percentage of attacks being reported from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (1,137), followed by Baluchistan with 792 attacks, FATA with 559, Punjab with 46, Sindh with 30, and 12 in Islamabad.¹ This rise in the level of attacks occurred despite a persistent counterterrorism campaign by the Pakistani military, and once again the border regions are the most active when it comes to terrorist attacks. Many of these attacks have been directly attributed to the ease of access that terrorist groups have from Afghanistan into Pakistan and vice versa, with, from January 4 to January 10, 2010 alone, a total of 22 terrorist attacks being carried out in the border regions.² Support for Islamic militancy in Pakistan did not emerge from a religious base, as is the case in Afghanistan or Iraq, but emerged from the guidelines that were adopted from the policies enforced by the West against the Soviet Union during the invasion of Afghanistan (1979–1988). The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was one of the main catalysts for the strengthening of the relationship between the military in Pakistan and its Mullahs — a relationship which resulted in Pakistan moving closer towards Islamic fundamentalism.