New Delhi, March 31 During this year's (2025) Ramadan, Pakistan experienced a surge in militant violence, marking the highest number of attacks in a decade. This was disclosed in a new report released by a think tank on Monday.
Interestingly, the militant groups which had previously observed ceasefires during Ramadan continued to target people frequently during this holy period. As a result, the country saw a steady rise in violence, with extremist factions continuing their offensive actions.
Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) revealed “a troubling increase in militant activity, recording a total of 84 attacks throughout the month of Ramadan”, which concluded on Sunday. This was a significant rise compared to last year's figure of 26 attacks during the same period.
One of the primary contributors to the escalation in violence is the Pakistani Taliban, which ended a ceasefire with the government in November 2022. However, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban, this year on March 29 announced a three-day ceasefire during Eid-ul-Fitr.
In addition, Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) has grown in strength, increasingly carrying out sophisticated attacks across the country.
A particularly brutal incident occurred on March 11, when the BLA hijacked a train in the southwestern province of Balochistan, resulting in at least 25 fatalities.
Another think tank, the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, recorded 61 militant attacks within the first three weeks of Ramadan, a slight increase from the 60 attacks recorded in the same period last year. This was the deadliest Ramadan in a decade for security personnel, with 56 killed between March 2 and March 20, according to this institute’s findings.
The uptick in violence is being attributed by experts to a general escalation in militant activity, including a unification of various groups. According to them, factions of the Baloch militants were collaborating more closely. Moreover, groups like the Hafiz Gul Bahadur faction had become more lethal, even competing with the Pakistani Taliban in some regions as well.
Revival of banned outfits such as Lashkar-e-Islam, operating from the northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, is also one of the reasons behind the increasing militant attacks. Pakistan has long accused the Taliban-led government in neighbouring Afghanistan of providing refuge to these militant groups. Kabul has, however, been denying such claims of Pakistan. However, the resurgence of these factions has raised concerns about the spillover of militancy from Afghanistan into Pakistan.
At the same time, intelligence lapses have also been cited as a contributing factor to the escalating violence. It is reported that a lack of proper intelligence inputs was also one of the factors leading to the train hijacking.
Meanwhile, security and strategic affairs experts say that the situation in other Islamic countries was not good either. In total, this year's Ramadan saw 254 Islamic militant attacks across 20 countries, resulting in the deaths of 2,007 people and leaving 626 others injured, says a report. Pakistan now ranks higher than Afghanistan, Somalia, and Syria on global terrorism indices, underlining the gravity of the situation and the ongoing challenges the country faces in combating extremism, say experts.
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