US report acknowledges Pakistan’s suffering in terror war

Nearly 11 years after joining the fight against terror, Pakistan continues to be a crucial partner and remains one of the biggest victims of terrorist violence with the loss of another 3,170 lives in the year 2011.
Over 2,500 civilians and 670 law enforcement personnel died in terrorist-related incidents in Pakistan in 2011, an “extremely significant” year, which saw elimination of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in May and several other high-value militants in the South Asian region, the State Department annual Country Reports on Terrorism 2011 revealed.
The total number of worldwide attacks in 2011 was more than 10,000 in 70 countries, resulting in more than 12,500 deaths. But that figure, large as it may be, is a drop of 12 percent from 2010, Daniel Benjamin, State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism said.
The report came the same day when Pakistan and the United States signed an agreement that would allow US and its NATO allies the use of key Pakistani routes into and out of landlocked Afghanistan.
The agreement underscores Pakistan’s importance to completion of the US-led Afghan mission. Pakistan provided the supply corridor to NATO soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which led to invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001. Since then, Pakistan has launched several operations against militants on its side of the Afghan border and has lost more than 38,000 civilians and 6,000 security personnel to retaliatory bombings. The fact was noted at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday.
In the annual State Department, data shows that once again, the largest number of reported attacks occurred in South Asia and the Near East. More than 75 percent of the world’s attacks and deaths occurred in these regions. “The victims of terrorist attacks remain overwhelmingly Muslim.”
The majority of attacks occurred in just three countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, which together accounted for 85 percent of attacks in these regions and almost 64 percent of attacks worldwide. Both Afghanistan and Iraq saw declines in the number of attacks from the previous year. While attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq decreased from 2010 by 14 and 16 percent, respectively, attacks in Pakistan increased by eight percent.
Releasing the Congressionally mandated Report, Benjamin noted, “counterterrorism efforts in Pakistan continued to have wide-ranging regional and global implications.”
“Pakistan remained a critical partner on counterterrorism efforts, actively engaging against al-Qa’ida (AQ) and the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP).” However, its cooperation regarding other terrorist groups, such as Lashkar-e-Tayiba (LeT), was mixed, he claimed. “Despite strained ties, Pakistani officials publicly reiterated that cooperation between the United States and Pakistan was in the best interest of both countries.” In addition to Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts, a deluge of politically and ethnically-motivated targeted killings in Karachi consumed the attention of Pakistan’s parliament, Supreme Court, and law enforcement agencies during the summer months.