Pakistan: Bajaur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ablaze – Analysis

By Tushar Ranjan Mohanty

On July 3, 2024, former Senator Hidayatullah Khan was killed along with four others, when the senator’s car was targeted in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in the Damadola area of Bajaur in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). Bajaur District Police Officer Sajjad Ahmad disclosed that the former senator was on his way to a by-election campaign in Damadola when he was attacked. Hidayatullah, brother of ex-Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Engineer Shaukatullah Khan, was in Damadola to support his nephew Najibullah's election campaign for PK 22 in the upcoming by-election on July 11. No outfit has claimed responsibility for the attack, while the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) denied involvement, stating that its focus is on Security Forces (SFs), not civilians. 

On June 30, 2024, Dr. Abdul Rasheed who was serving at the District Hospital Khar, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in the Mamond area of Bajaur District. He had shot dead two militants who came to extort some money from him a few years ago. Since then he had been receiving threats and had been attacked more than 25 times over the past 5 years.

On June 5, 2024, a Police Constable was shot dead in an incident of targeted killing in the Shah Wali market of Inayat Kallay Bazar in Bajaur District. The Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Tribal District of Bajaur has witnessed a significant rise in terrorist attacks on local politicians, religious scholars, tribal elders and Government officials over the past few years. According to partial data compiled by theSouth Asia Terrorism Portal(SATP), Bajaur District has already recorded at least 35 terrorism-related fatalities (20 civilians, 12 SF personnel and three terrorists) in 2024, thus far (data till June 7, 2024). During the corresponding period of 2023, the province had registered 14 terrorism-related fatalities (five civilians, two SF trooper and seven terrorists). In the remaining period of 2023, another 77 fatalities (68 civilians, one SF trooper and eight terrorists) were recorded. If the fatalities of one suicide attack on July 30 is deducted, in which 54 people perished, the half-yearly fatalities figure was almost the same as the annual fatalities.

Militancy-related Fatalities in Bajaur District: 2000*-2024**

Fatalities in the first six months of the current year in Bajaur have already crossed all previous recorded annual fatalities since 2000, with the exception of 2023, which was the highest due to the major suicide attack of July 30. Bajaur District has accounted for a total of 234 fatalities (148 civilians, 43 terrorists and 43 SF personnel) since March 6, 2000, when SATP commenced compiling data on Pakistan. These fatalities have been recorded in a total of 93 incidents of killing. 16 of these 93 incidents were 'major’ (each involving three or more fatalities). These major incidents resulted in the death of 131 persons (78 civilians, 32 terrorists and 21 SF personnel).

The district has recorded a total of 143 violent incidents since March 6, 2000, including 55 incidents of explosion and three suicide attacks. The biggest major attack of the District occurred on July 30, 2023, when a suicide attack claimed lives of at least 54 people, including a Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) local leader, while more than another 100 sustained injuries at the JUI-F workers' convention at Shanday Morr near the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) office in the Khar town of the District. The blast that took place during the speech of a JUI-F leader, Maulana Laeeq. ISKP claimed responsibility for the attack.

With a population of more than 1.28 million, Bajaur had been a hotbed of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) activities, as it is located on the volatile Pakistan-Afghan border, sharing its Western border with Afghanistan's Kunar Province. The district shares borders with three other districts of KP: Lower Dir in the North, Mohmand to the South and Malakand to the West. Two of these adjoining districts, Mohmand and Lower Dir, also share borders with Afghanistan. As a result of multiple operations by the Pakistan Army in the tribal areas [the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)], the district became relatively peaceful and overall fatalities came down to a low of four in 2018. Since 2019, a regional branch of the Islamic State, ISKP has primarily been responsible for the targeted assassination campaign in the District.

The Khorasan Diary (TKD), an Islamabad-based news and research platform that monitors militant groups, however, noted on August 1, 2023, that the IS-KP had claimed responsibility for at least 23 attacks, exclusively targeting the JUI-F in Bajaur alone, since 2019. Riccardo Valle, director of research at TKD, revealed on August 1, 2023,

The Khorasan Diary (TKD), an Islamabad-based news and research platform that monitors militant groups, however, noted on August 1, 2023, that the IS-KP had claimed responsibility for at least 23 attacks, exclusively targeting the JUI-F in Bajaur alone, since 2019. Riccardo Valle, director of research at TKD, revealed on August 1, 2023,

The Khorasan Diary (TKD), an Islamabad-based news and research platform that monitors militant groups, however, noted on August 1, 2023, that the IS-KP had claimed responsibility for at least 23 attacks, exclusively targeting the JUI-F in Bajaur alone, since 2019. Riccardo Valle, director of research at TKD, revealed on August 1, 2023,

November 21, 2023: Haji Sattar Khan, the father of JUI-F’s Ansar Ul Islam leader for Bajaur, Maulana Abdul Salam, was killed and another three were injured in an improvised explosive device (IED) explosion in the Mamund area of Bajaur District.

June 22, 2023: IS-KP assassinated JUI-F leader Maulana Noor Muhammad in the Inayat Kalay Bazaar of Bajaur District.

April 18, 2023: Maz Khan, the son of JUI-F leader Mufti Bashir Ahmad, was killed and his friend was injured when unidentified assailants opened fire on them in the Inayat Kallay Bazaar of Bajaur District.

October 1, 2022: Unidentified assailants killed a senior JUI-F leader, Maulana Shafiullah, in the Mamondtehsil(sub-district) of Bajaur District.

March 26, 2021: JUI-F leader Maulana Abdul Salam was killed in a remote-controlled bomb blast in the Dama Dola area of Mamond tehsil in Bajaur District.

October 29, 2019: Senior leader JUI-F Mufti Sultan Mohammad was shot dead by unidentified assailants near a mosque in the Badan area of Mamond tehsil in Bajaur District. Mufti Mohammad was the head of JUI-F Mamond tehsil.

The seeds of enmity between IS-KP and JUI-F lie in their conflicting politics. The anti-JUI-F sentiments initially developed within a sub-group of the TTP, led by the then TTP chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, who supported the idea of targeting JUI-F’s chief Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman and the rest of his party’s senior leadership due to their pro-democracy and pro-Pakistani Constitution stance. At the end of 2014, some prominent leaders of a breakaway faction of the TTP pledgedbayah(allegiance) to Islamic State (IS)-Central’s then Amir, Abu-Bakr-al-Baghdadi. Those who pledged allegiance to the IS included the then TTP ‘spokesperson’ Shahidullah Shahid; Kurram Agency ‘chief’ Hafiz Quran Dolat; Khyber Agency ‘chief’ Gul Zaman; Peshawar ‘chief’ Mufti Hassan; Hangu ‘chief’ Khalid Mansoor; and Orakzai Agency ‘commander’ Hafiz Saeed Khan. Soon after, this group shifted base into the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan, as did most terrorist groups operating in the tribal areas of Pakistan, under the impact of OperationZarb-e-Azblaunched by the Pakistani SFs. On January 26, 2015, IS-KP was officially announced with a 12-memberShura(governing council) consisting of nine Pakistanis, two Afghans, and one person of unknown origin. Hafiz Saeed Khan became the Amir. He was, however, killed on July 26, 2016, in the Achin District of Nangarhar Province in Afghanistan. Later, in May 2019, a separate chapter for Pakistan – Islamic State-Pakistan Province (IS-PP) – was established.

While the animosity between the IS-KP and JUI-F does have a history, there has been a significant escalation in attacks in recent times, as the IS-KP perceives the JUI-F as being closely connected with the Taliban Government in Afghanistan. A KP Provincial Home and Tribal Affairs Department report of November 25, 2023, noted that the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam – Fazl (JUI-F) is the most vulnerable among mainstream political parties to terrorist attacks in KP.

While the TTP is targeting SF personnel, the IS-KP’s attacks against civilians is on rise, twice weakening the security situation in Bajaur.

• Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
• Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management