An Overview
North West Frontier Province (NWFP) faced the highest number of attacks that caused about 60 percent of the total casualties in terrorist attacks in Pakistan and lethal damages in the reporting month. The security operation against militants still continues in NWFP and parts of FATA. Militants remained active in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and a rapid increase in terrorist attacks was observed there. The government seems committed to intensifying and continuing security operation in Waziristan till the elimination of key leadership of the militants, particularly Baitullah Mehsud. Baloch insurgents were also in action during the month. A suicide bomber attacked a madrassa, religious seminary, in Lahore and killed a prominent moderate religious scholar who had given the decree against suicide attacks. Islamabad and Azad Kashmir also witnessed one suicide attack each in the month. The security situation in Karachi too remained worst where more than 50 persons were killed in a continued spree of ethno-political violence. In a total of 265 terrorist and insurgent attacks, 305 people were killed and 807 injured across Pakistan during the month of June. (See Chart 1)

Chart 1: Terrorist Attacks in Pakistan in June 2009

The total number of casualties was however much higer if counted collectively in terrorist/insurgent attacks, operational attacks, incidents of clashes between security forces and militant, border attacks, incidents of political violence, and inter-militant and inter-tribal sectarian clashes.  (see Table 2)

The casualty figure in June 2009 was low in number than the casualty figures in the last month but it was still higher than the months preceding May (see Chart 3).

Chart 3: Comparison with Last Five Months’ Figures

The number of militants in total casualties was high due to ongoing military offensive, followed by casualties of civilian and security forces. (See Table 4 and Table 4a).

Table 4a: Distribution of Casualties (June ‘09)

The militants continued their mission to hit their targets with multiple tactics throughout the month. Maximum incidents, 62, were reported of firing, followed by 51 incidents of rocket attacks and 42 IEDs blasts. 29 bomb blasts and 26 hand grenades were also recorded.  (See Table 5)