South Asia Terrorism Portal

PAKISTAN

Dera Ismail Khan: Reviving Terrorism
Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

On December 6, 2022, three terrorists were killed and another was injured in an exchange of fire during an intelligence-based operation (IBO) by the Security Forces (SFs) in the Girah Mastan area of the Daraban tehsil (revenue unit) in the Dera Ismail Khan District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

On December 6, 2022, one Policeman sustained injuries when unidentified terrorists opened fire on the vehicle of the Dera Ismail Khan District Police Officer (DPO), Muhammad Shoaib, who was on a visit to Daraban, Darazanda and Purwa Circles to check the security arrangements of the five-day polio campaign. Terrorists fired indiscriminately at DPO Shoaib's convoy near the Khoi Behara area. The DPO remained safe in the attack, but another officer in the vehicle was injured.

On November 15, 2022, four terrorists were killed by SFs during an IBO in the Kulachi tehsil (revenue unit) of Dera Ismail Khan District. A cache of arms and ammunition, including submachine guns and hand grenades, were recovered in the operation.

On October 30, 2022, a Policeman and a civilian were killed and four Policemen were injured, when terrorists attacked the Daraban Police check post in Dera Ismail Khan District.

On October 29, 2022, two Army soldiers were killed during an exchange of fire with terrorists in the Darazinda area of Dera Ismail Khan District.

According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), Dera Ismail Khan District has recorded at least 43 terrorism-related fatalities (20 terrorists, 19 SF personnel and four civilians) in 2022, thus far (data till December 11, 2022). During the corresponding period of 2021, the Province had registered nine terrorism-related fatalities (four terrorists, three civilians and two SF personnel). In the reaming period of 2021, another one fatality (a trooper) was recorded.

Dera Ismail Khan has accounted for a total of 564 fatalities [259 civilians, 135 terrorists, 134 SF personnel and 36 not-specified (NS)] since March 6, 2000, when SATP commenced compiling data on Pakistan. These fatalities have been recorded in a total of 166 incidents of killing. 52 of these 166 incidents were 'major’ (each involving three or more fatalities). These major incidents resulted in the death of 399 persons [189 civilians, 100 terrorists, 86 SF personnel and 24 not-specified (NS)].

The district has recorded a total of 288 violent incidents since March 6, 2000, including 103 incidents of explosion and 16 suicide attacks. Though no suicide attack has been reported since July 21, 2019, a major suicide attack was averted on October 25, 2022, when two suicide bombers were killed after an intense exchange of fire as they attempted to attack a peace committee chief, Noor Alam Mehsud, at Irfan Colony on the Dera Ismail Khan – Bannu Road in Dera Ismail Khan town. Police said the attackers, wearing explosive jackets, came on a motorcycle-rickshaw and tried to attack Mehsud’s office.

With a population of more than 1.62 million, Dera Ismail Khan has emerged as a terrorist hotbed in 2022 due to its strategic location, and escalating Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) activities. The district shares borders with South Waziristan, Tank and Lakki Marwat Districts of KP; Mianwali, Bhakkar and Dera Ghazi Khan Districts in Punjab, and the Zhob District of Balochistan. Two of these adjoining districts, South Waziristan and Zhob, share borders with Afghanistan. Dera Ismail Khan has served as a transit point for militants operating in each of these areas.

As a result of multiple operations by the Pakistan Army in the tribal areas, the district became relatively peaceful and overall fatalities came down to a low of six in 2020. However, with the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, the District has again witnessed a surge in violence.

Overall fatalities in Dera Ismail Khan District in the current year, with 22 days still to go, are the highest in a year since 2009, at 93. Fatalities in Dera Ismail Khan peaked in 2008, at 95.

Worryingly, the number of fatalities recorded in the SF category (19) in the current year is highest ever in a year since 2000. The previous high of 14 in this category was recorded in 2019. Moreover, terrorist fatalities (20) in in 2022, are the highest in a year since 2008, when 37 terrorists were killed.

On October 21, 2022, Dera Ismail Khan DPO Najamul Husnain Liaqat claimed that the number of terrorists coming from Afghanistan had increased, creating a big challenge for the Police.

Moreover, the terrorists were crossing the border and attacking the Police with the “most advanced weapons”, which had been left behind by the United States’ soldiers when they fled Afghanistan. On October 31, 2022, two Policemen were shot from a long distance at a checkpost in the Daraban Tehsil of Dera Ismail Khan, using night vision rifles and thermal weapons. An unnamed senior security officer in KP confirmed the use of US weapons and thermal guns in the attack, claiming that such armaments had been employed by NATO forces and American soldiers in Afghanistan.

As ‘official’ talks between the TTP and the Government, which started in May 2022 and came to an end on November 28, 2022, have collapsed and TTP has commenced with an escalation of ‘revenge killings’, Dera Ismail khan District is likely to witness a further surge in violence, as are other areas where the TTP is active.

AFGHANISTAN

Women flogged into silence
Sanchita Bhattacharya
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

On December 8, 2022, the Taliban publicly flogged nine women and 18 men in a football stadium in Charikar city, the capital of Parwan Province, for the crimes, variously, of robbery, being in premarital relationships and running away from home. Each of them received between 29 and 35 lashes. Local Taliban officials and hundreds of spectators witnessed the scene.

On December 6, 2022, the primary court of Goshta District of Nangarhar Province gave orders to flog a woman, along with two men, on the suspicion of having premarital relationships. Later, Taliban fighters carried out the lashings in front of hundreds of onlookers.

On November 30, 2022, Taliban punished two women and three men by flogging in a field trial in Aybak city, the provincial capital of Samangan Province. In addition to the physical punishment of 50 lashes each, the Taliban insulted the women with invectives such as “prostitute” and “impure”. The women were arrested on charges of adultery and the men on charges of theft and adultery.

On November 24, 2022, Taliban fighters in Takhar Province whipped a woman and a man accused of talking on the phone and allegedly having premarital relations. The two victims were publicly tried in the Darqad District of Takhar Province. The man and woman were given 30 lashes each.

On November 23, 2022, Taliban whipped 12 persons, including three women, in Logar Province, on charges of adultery. Based on the appeals court’s order, the trial took place at the provincial sports stadium and each one of the individuals were given between 21 and 39 lashes for adultery and theft, respectively. Attendees were invited via social media, but were requested not to film the event.

On November 11, 2022, in Taloqan, the provincial capital of Takhar, Taliban publicly lashed nine women and 10 men accused of adultery and ‘trying to flee’. They were each lashed 39 times.

These incidents are not in isolation. Inputs indicate that such incidents have been on a continuous rise since the return of Taliban in Kabul on August 15, 2021.

More dangerously, these barbaric practices are justified by the Taliban regime under Sharia law.

Indeed, Afghanistan’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada ordered judges to fully enforce aspects of Sharia that include public executions, stoning, flogging and the amputation of limbs, the Taliban’s chief spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid disclosed. On November 13, Mujahid tweeted that the “obligatory” command by Akhundzada came after he met with a group of judges. “Carefully examine the files of thieves, kidnappers and seditionists,” Mujahid quoted Akhundzada as saying. “Those files in which all the Sharia [Islamic law] conditions of hudud and qisas have been fulfilled, you are obliged to implement. This is the ruling of Sharia, and my command, which is obligatory.”

Hudud refers to offences for which, under Islamic law, certain types of punishment are instructed, while qisas translates as “retaliation in kind”, effectively an eye for an eye. Hudud crimes include, inter alia, adultery, and falsely accusing someone of it, drinking alcohol, theft, kidnapping and highway robbery, apostasy and rebellion. Qisas covers murder and deliberate injury, among other things, but also allows for the families of victims to accept compensation from the perpetrator, in place of punishment.

The suppression and abuse of women and girls is, unfortunately, nothing new in Afghanistan under the Taliban. In the late 1990s, the use of football grounds to carry out public executions, stoning and beating was one of the crucial features of the Taliban’s brutal rule. They believed thata such horrifying public spectacles would discourage dissent.

Despite mounting evidence of the restoration of a regressive and barbaric order, some ‘experts’ continue to argue that ‘Taliban 2.0’ would be different, and would not try to alter the hard-won rights of Afghan girls. As expected, and true to its nature, however, the Taliban is doing everything possible to cage women again.  Sadly, this time around, the Taliban is acting with greater impunity with the regime devising strategies to systematically exclude women from every possible public sphere in Afghanistan

For instance, on May 7, 2022, the Taliban announced the 'hijab decree', under which it is "required for all 'respectable' Afghan women to wear a hijab", or headscarf. The Vice and Virtue Ministry, in a statement, identified the chadori (the blue-coloured Afghan burqa or full-body veil) as the "best hijab" of choice. Also acceptable as a hijab, the statement declared, is a long black veil covering a woman from head to toe. Punishment for the failure to comply was also indicated:

Further, male guardians found guilty of repeated offences "will be sent to the court for further punishment.

As reported on November 10, 2022, the Taliban prevented females from entering amusement parks in Kabul city. According to the Ministry of Vice and Virtue’s verbal order, “women are prohibited from entering the park.”

On November 24, 2022, causing further damage to the well-being of the female Afghan population, Taliban’s Vice and Virtue Department issued a new order in nine districts of Nangarhar Province, indicating that women cannot visit health clinics, or have a doctor examine them, without a male companion. Local sources in Nangarhar confirmed that this order was announced to the residents of Achin, Ghanikhel, Nazian, Durbaba, Goshta, Kama, Khogyani, Shirzad and Surkhroud Districts. Residents and the imams (religious leaders) of the mosques have received the order, and must ‘seriously convey and implement’ the order, and inform the people in congregational prayers.

Further on November 26, 2022, the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue Department ordered the closing of shops of female tailors in Parwan Province, calling women’s tailoring “haram”. Earlier on November 23, Taliban entered women’s tailor shops in different parts of Charikar city, the capital of the province.

Indeed, explaining the distressing situation of young girls in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime, Save the Children, reported on December 5, 2022,

Meanwhile, the objections of various international organisations and foreign governments have proven to be nothing more than 'token' acts of condemnation and criticism. Three recent instances include:

Indicating the change in ground realities and to UNAMA's November 25, criticism, the Taliban 'fired back', as its spokesperson tweeted, on November 26, 2022,

Women in Afghanistan, are tortured, beaten up, whipped, excluded from public spaces, refused education and employment, and oppressed in every sphere of life. Such acts are justified under the pretext of religion to preserve the honour of family and tribe. The day is not far when Afghan women will be dragged deep into the darkness of relentless suffering by the fanatical Taliban regime.