Pakistan has made meagre progress in its pledge to dismantle all terrorist organisations without delay or discrimination. The country experienced significant terrorist activity in 2021. The number of attacks and casualties was higher than in 2020, according to the US Bureau of Counterterrorism’s ‘Country Reports on Terrorism 2021: Pakistan’.
Major terrorist groups that focused on conducting attacks in Pakistan included Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), and ISIS-K, the US Bureau of Counterterrorism’s report said. “Pakistan reviewed and revised its 2015 National Action Plan (NAP) to counter terrorism, reducing the NAP from a 20-point plan to 14 key points, but made meager progress on the most difficult aspects—specifically its pledge to dismantle all terrorist organizations without delay or discrimination,” the report read.
Terrorist attacks were conducted against varied targets in Pakistan’s Balochistan and Sindh provinces by separatist militant groups. The terrorists used a range of tactics to attack varied targets, including IEDs, VBIEDs, suicide bombings, and targeted assassinations.
Pakistan was in 2018, designated a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. It was redesignated as a CPC in 2019, 2020, and 2021.
In 2018, FATF identified Pakistan as a jurisdiction with strategic deficiencies in its AML/CFT system. Pakistan remained on the FATF grey list in 2021. In 2021, members of religious minorities in Pakistan faced significant threats from terrorist groups. On January 3, ISIS-K militants claimed responsibility for the murders of 11 Shia Hazara coalminers in the Kachi district of Balochistan. On April 21, five persons were killed in a VBIED suicide attack in the parking lot of the Serena hotel in Quetta, Balochistan. According to details of the investigation, the attack targeted local and foreign officials.
