Sunday, September 13, 2009

Is Pakistan not a victim of terrorism?

*Recent updates to this are at the end of the post*.

Apparently, no. If you listen to western media, there is a lot of talk about countries like US, UK, Spain etc being victims of terrorism. Lately, India has also been included in the group. Agreed, thousands of civilians have lost their lives in terrorist attacks in US (9/11), UK (7/7), and India (Mumbai). But, how about the thousands who have died in Pakistan only in terrorist attacks since 9/11? Does the media not count those attacks as terrorist attacks? I guess these attacks are considered a day-to-day matter?

To quote from one of the related articles: "THE statistics are numbing and mind-boggling and should make any Pakistani sit up: in 2008 the country saw 2,148 terrorist attacks, which caused 6,825 casualties — 2,267 of them fatal. Suicide attacks alone killed nearly 1,000 people — 967 to be precise — and wounded or maimed for life over 2,000."


Latest update: One news story puts the total death toll in "war against terrorism in Pakistan" to be about 30,000. That's a really big number; Pakistan has not lost so many lives even in the two full-scale wars against India fought in 1965 and 1971.


update: Another
news story on terrorist incidents in Pakistan.

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