The US State Department annual report on the war on terror has revealed 11,500 terror incidents occurred in Pakistan during 2010.
Most of the catalogued incidents occurred in the tribal areas. The report said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA remained recruitment and operational hubs for terrorist organisations.
According to the report, Pakistan’s Frontier Corps and military initiated large-scale counterinsurgency operations in Mohmand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Orakzai, and added one battalion in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The report claimed Pakistan-led forces often lacked the capability to ensure areas cleared of militants remained under Pakistani control. The Pakistani strategy was to conduct limited operations to ‘contain’ terrorist operations in known areas of activity, the report said.
Pakistan’s civilian government and military cooperated with US efforts to counter terrorism in Pakistan and the US continued to back Pakistan’s will and capacity to confront extremists within its borders.
Acknowledging that Pakistan suffered great losses during the floods of 2010, the US State Department lauded the efforts of the Pakistan armed forces in the war against terror.
The report declared Al-Qaeda the “pre-eminent terrorist threat” to the US due to its ‘cooperation’ with Islamic militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The report claimed that while Al-Qaeda’s “core” membership in Pakistan became weaker, the group retains ‘the capability to conduct regional and transnational’ terrorist attacks.
‘Increased resource-sharing’ between Al-Qaeda and its Pakistan-based allies such as Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan and the Haqqani Network meant the terrorist threat in South Asia remained high, the report said.
The report covers the year 2010, before US forces killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
India-targetting terrorist groups at large:
The report also pointed out that several illegal Pakistan-based terrorist groups remain active in Kashmir and continue to plan attacks on India.
It named the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Harkat ul-Mujahideen (HuM), who control hundreds of armed supporters in Kashmir.
