Deadly December, 15 Suicide Bombings, Highest Militant Attacks: 2022 Was a Violent Year for Pakistan

The rise of the Pakistani Taliban once again coupled with December as its deadliest month, Pakistan had the highest number of militant attacks in 2022 and will possibly have to endure more violence in 2023.

As the year drew to a close, an end to a ceasefire agreement between the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and security forces in November resulted in increased terrorist attacks. Capital Islamabad saw its first suicide bombing since 2014, in which one police officer and two suspected militants belonging to the outfit were killed on December 23. Six others, including four policemen, were injured in the bombing in an upscale residential area.

According to local researchers, Pakistan witnessed four times more suicide attacks than in 2021. There were reports of 15 suicide bombings in 2022 as compared to only four in 2021.

Data released by Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS), an Islamabad-based security think tank, showed that this was highest number of suicide attacks in the country since 2018.

Not only this, the country faced at least 376 terror attacks in 2022, in which 533 people were killed and 832 injured. This is for the first time since 2017 that the country faced more than 300 militant attacks. In 2017, Pakistan recorded 420 such attacks in which 912 people were killed.

Amid multiple attacks in the final two weeks of the year, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, under fire from ousted predecessor Imran Khan, promised to eliminate terrorism from Pakistan. Khan said Sharif’s government had failed to curb militancy during its eight-month stint.

Sharif, while addressing a gathering in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province a few weeks ago, had said the menace of terrorism was on the rise and the state will soon crush it. He said with the help of provincial governments and security forces, the government would eliminate terrorism in all its forms.

Sharif had further said a meeting of the National Security Committee will be summoned in a few days to take stock of the security situation.

But his government also blamed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, led by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, saying the number of TTP fighters in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area was between 7,000 and 10,000. Some militants, who previously laid down arms, had also secretly resumed activities, interior minister Rana Sanaullah had said on December 29.

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