11,500 terror hits in Pakistan during 2010: report

The US State Department has issued annual report of war on terror which revealed that 11,500 terrorism incidents occurred in Pakistan during 2010.Majority of these incidents occurred in the tribal areas as most of the terrorist outfits use the tribal areas as their bases to launch terrorist activities. Heavy casualties were recorded in different cities in the acts of terrorism. Suicide bombers were recruited as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA remained hub for the terrorist organisations, the report said.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 rpeort said. When Pakistan conducted operations to eliminate safe havens in the country, it often lacked the capability to ensure these areas remained under the control of Pakistans security agencies. Given its inability to pursue the complete elimination of the terrorist presence and fully eliminate terrorist safe havens, Pakistan utilized a strategy to conduct limited operations to contain terrorist operatives in known areas of activity, the report said.Pakistans civilian government and military departments cooperated and collaborated with U.S. efforts to identify and counter terrorist activity in Pakistan, and the United States continued to engage Pakistan to ensure it had the will and capacity to confront all extremist elements within its borders.According to the report, the floods in 2010 affected Pakistan very badly. The US State Department lauded the efforts of Pakistan armed forces in war against terror.The US government says Al-Qaeda remains the “most pre-eminent terrorist threat” to the United States especially because of the group’s “cooperation” with Islamic militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In its annual report on global terrorism, the US State Department said that although Al-Qaeda’s core membership in Pakistan has become weaker, the group retains the capability to conduct regional and transnational” terrorist attacks.The report covers 2010, before US forces killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May.