Read first: Political spectrum of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) – Part I: ANP, PPP & MMA

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, commonly known referred as KP or KPK, is perhaps the most democratic province in the country and its electoral history is testament to that fact. This, perhaps, goes as far back as 1500 years when Pushtunwali code – a code of life for ethnic Pushtun/Pukhtun people – was formed. Pushtunwali codes states that ‘nobody is above you and nobody is below you’. This is ingrained in their psyche and candidates are judged on their past performance and record when Pushtuns go out to vote. Performance also becomes a key factor here when we speak of last two elections as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, bordering troublesome FATA region and war-torn Afghanistan,  was at the center of US war on terror and faced the brunt of the war.

Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of right-wing parties, swept through KPK in 2002 election securing 29 out of 35 National Assembly seats. However, their lack of performance and silence over US war in Afghanistan turned people away from them and in 2008 elections, left-wing parties Awami National Party (ANP) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPPP), were able to secure 19 seats. The rest were divided among Pakistan Muslim League factions and MMA.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and more importantly its leader Imran Khan, has been vocal against US war in Afghanistan and price Pakistan is paying for supporting US, with thousands of lives, terrorism and economic collapse; voicing the popular sentiment in Pakistan and especially in KPK province. As we go for elections in 20 days, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa looks like a fortress of PTI with its effects bleeding into FATA region comprising of 7 tribal agencies where people will vote for political parties for the first time in 2013 election. Internal PTI members stats suggest that party is poised to win at least 18 seats of National Assembly from the province; with Taliban targeting ANP and PPPP political activities, PTI is the only party that is campaigning in the province with full force and is likely to sweep KPK with a possibility of 27 seats.

A geo-spatial analysis of the above table reveals that PTI has hit the power center of KPK – Peshawar, Charsadda, Mardan, Nowshehra & Swabi – and is rapidly reaching to the urban parts of the province. With PTI chairman Imran Khan visiting two districts – Karak and Dera Ismail Khan – in the mostly politically ignored Southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, PTI hopes to sweep the province with effects reaching to Tribal Agencies in the West, Seraiki area on the East and Northern parts of Pushtun-dominated Baluchistan. As a most potent electoral force in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2013 election, PTI has finally arrived!

NOTE: Please read our explanation of our writings with Data Analysis through geo-spatial visualizations here before commenting. 

About Author: Yasir H. Sheikh helps with PTI Election Campaign as a Data & Geo-spatial Analyst. This analysis was based on PTI’s internal members stats which mainstream media and analysts do not have access to. Moreover, broadcasters in Pakistan normally ignore scientific methods while analysing a party’s chances in Election. 

Related articles

• PTI tsunami all set to strike Peshawar today (thenewstribe.com)
• PTI finalises candidates for KPK (nation.com.pk)

You may also want to read on where we see the limits of such an analysis and to what extent we are qualified in this field.

All Data is from the SATP Portal.

Introduction

Analysis of conflict data for the case of Pakistan is growing in recent years, especially with the drone war and recently sectarian violence getting wider attention. There are three major issues that these analysis face.

Conflict is often simply discussed in numbers – how that makes little sense, we have criticized earlier here. We have kept it simple and are not doing any detailed statistical analysis, since this series of posts is primarily on getting the data together and looking at it roughly (that is an analysis of the data available, not of the war by using data!). It is in any case important to keep in mind that such a view does never tell the whole story.

Certain parts of the war in Pakistan are looked at completely independent of each other, or only selected conflict events are compared. One can argue that there are currently many sorts of conflicts going on in Pakistan (violence in Karachi, insurgency in Balochistan, Sectarian Violence all over the country, the drone war, Army operations in KP and FATA, infrequent border skirmishes with India). Most of them have an interrelation on a number of levels though (operational, political, in their media portrayal), which we do not heed at the moment. Especially if viewed from abroad, researchers like to differentiate between ‘our’ war with ‘them’ and just ‘their’ wars for which we have no responsibilty. Derek Gregory criticizes this distinction and we believe that one can not look at one while disregarding the other – running a ‘succesful’ drone war against the heads of al-Qaeda factions, while the country is plunging into a violent abyss seems tragically odd. Here we are looking at available data from a number of violent conflicts in Pakistan. Since the link between the violence in Karachi and the rest of the country is especially difficult to understand and data is not yet available in an apt format, this part is disregarded. Also targetted killings are not looked at in this analysis and the Kashmir conflict has not been included. The quality of data regarding Sectarian Violence is yet poor, however we try to include what is there.

Finally, while looking at numbers, Pakistan is often looked at as one data column, often also with higher resolution province wise. We have collected data by district, and are hence able to look at the regions in better detail. Just looking at FATA without KP is taking attacks in Miran Shah and Domodolla in FATA together, while the earlier may be much more comparable to Hangu and the later to Dir in KP respectively. The same can be said between terrorist links from KP to Punjab. Actions in Swat had effects on Northern Punjab, the Souther Punjab is closely linked to what is going on in DI Khan. And then terrorist networks in Pakistan do operate at much wider scales, to Lahore and Karachi. It is difficult to determine how to compare conflict data in the area in a most reasonable way to for example deduct effectiveness of drone strikes or army operations against terrorist networks. We realize that one has to be cautious to conclude. However, looking at data at better detail than just the provincial level is in our view important. For the FATA and the neighbouring districts in KP we have also looked at monthly data.

On Data Sets

There are a number of data sets on conflict in Pakistan available. The best seems to be at PIPS, however it is not free of cost. Others, especially from the US or UK, have a strong drone focus and are, based on the arguments of their respective think tanks heavily biased in one way or another (you can find an overview in our Library). I have found the SATP database from Dehli the most extensive and detailed, without bias in one way or the other. It lacks yet a good collection on sectarian violence, though this seems to be improving since a while. Also there were some mistakes in locations (all data are extracted from news reports), but they were at a scale that is insignificant to an analysis with district wise resolution.

Since all data is obtained from media reports, one has to ask how reliable or biased this source is. The war in Balochistan is heavily underreported and data regarding events there is definitely less valid than for other regions. Equally, media reports often draw their numbers from the Army, which may well tinker with data in their favor. In this analysis, we are not making a distinction between terrorists, insurgents, Army and Security Personell or civilians. We attempt to give an idea of the impact generally and not on ‘who is winning’ and we do not value one’s life more or less than someone else’s. One should keep in mind however, that numbers in Balochistan and FATA may be very well less accurate than for example in Punjab and Sindh.

We welcome suggestions on data sets in this regard.

We have collected all raw data, punched it into spreadsheets and make them accesible. You can contact as for further processed data. We understand that working with Spreadsheets is about as bad as it gets when trying to work something from data sets – however, since we are currently only in the phase of grouping the data in a relevant way we find it to be to be the most convenient. As this work grows and as time permits, we may work with more professional software, which we do use in other work.

Other analysis in this direction

A very recent, yet unpublished paper looks at spatial mapping of the drone war in FATA and tries to deduct effectiveness (P.B. Johnston, 2013). There are a number of reports who look at conflict data on the provincial level (which we collect in our Library as we come by them), but few of them with a satisfying look at further detail.

Main Analysis

Conflict from 2009 to 2012 – Annual Datasets

We have collected data on people killed and injured as well as the number of events from 2009 to 2012. The data is available at a daily resolution. For the moment we only lookes at annual data, and at monthly scales in FATA and neighbouring districts in KP. Data is available on and grouped as blasts (suicide attacks, bomb blasts, major IED blasts), drone strikes, encounters (between army and insurgents or insurgents and civilians or between different insurgent groups – it is planned to look at these separatley at a later stage) and sectarian attacks. Only the first three are mutually exclusive, a sectarian attack may either be a blast or an armed attack. Data is available for all provinces, however little regard is given to AJK and Gilgit Baltistan since the numbers in these provinces are relatively minor, or in the latter are mainly sectarian and targetted killings, for which the SATP database is not very suitable.

We commence with looking at the Provincial Level, and proceed with looking at Balochistan, KP and FATA and Punjab and Sindh.

Provincial Level

Figure 1 shows the number of bomb and suicide attacks, with Figure 2 giving trends, comparing 2012 to the mean of the earlier three years. Gilgit Baltistan only had one blast in 2011 in the dataset. While Punjab has become comparably calmer after major attacks especially in Lahore in recent years, in all other provinces the number of attacks are on the rise. And while FATA is often in the news just for drones and Balochistan for insurgents, while major blasts are often reported only from KP and Punjab, these two provinces are heavily affected. Even if many of these were without a loss of life, we argue that also minor attacks are a significant cause of fear and impede daily life heavily. They should therefore be equally regarded.

While in Punjab in 2012 18 people where killed on average per attack, in KP this number was down to 5 and in Balochistan and FATA at 6. In Punjab only 40% of all attacks in 2012 were non-lethal (compared to 61% in 2011), in Sindh 78% (64%), in KP 74% (68%), in FATA 53% (71%) and in Balochistan 60% (67%). The increase of non-lethal attacks in Sindh and KP is mostly due to an increase of minor bomb blasts generally and not a deminishing number of lethal ones.

Figure 1: Number of major attacks/blasts in all provinces [Data]

Figure 2: Trend of Blasts (2012 compared to mean of 2009-2011) [Data]

Figure 3: Blasts (Suicide Attacks, Bomb Blasts) in 2012. [Data]

Figure 4: Change in Blasts (Suicide Attacks, Bomb Blasts) in 2012 compared to 2011 [Data]

Figure 5: Number of Deaths in Blasts [Data]

Figure 6: Trend in Deaths in Blasts [Data]

Figure 7: Intensity of Blasts (Killed and Injured/Blast) [Data]

Figure 8 and 9 give figures of people injured in blasts. This shows how overall such attacks have affected the Western provinces to a considerable larger degree than Punjab and SIndh.

Figure 8: Total Injured/Maimed due to Blasts, Armed Encounters and Drone Strikes in 2012. [Data]

Figure 9: Change in Total Injured/Maimed due to Blasts, Armed Encounters and Drone Strikes in 2012 compared to 2011. [Data]

We have also looked at numbers from armed encounters. These are relatively negligible for other provinces, and we here only look at KP, FATA and Balochistan (see Figure 10). While the major operations by the Army in Swat, Dir and South Waziristan have ended and in FATA have now heavily resumed further north, it is noteable that the number of deaths have consistently risen in Balochistan. Considering that probably many encounters are not even reported, this development is, especially in regard of it being so little regarded in the media, especially worrying. Deaths in Encounters have risen by 169% in Balochistan and 22% in the FATA in 2012 compared to the 2009-2011 mean and have decreased in KP. In Sindh they have increased by 224% but stand at only 27 in total in 2012 (excluding the Karachi urban war!).

Figure 11 shows the number of sectarian attacks. However, as noted earlier, the SATP dataset doesn’t seem to include all such events especially in earlier years and whether attacks are sectarian or not is often not clear. We do not go into further detail into this issue at this point, and may do so later once datasets and reporting (!) have improved on it. The trend however, from what is there, is obvious.

Figure 10: Deaths in Encounters between Army, Security Forces, Terrorists, Insurgents and Civilian Population [Data]

Figure 11: Number of Sectarian Attacks (dataset since 2010) [Data]

Figure 12: Total Number of Deaths due to Conflict in Pakistan [Data]

Figure 13: Total Number of Deaths compared to Province’s Population (1998 Census) [Data]

Figure 14: Total Fatalities due to Blasts, Armed Encounters and Drone Strikes in 2012. [Data]

Figure 15: Change in Total Fatalities due to Blasts, Armed Encounters and Drone Strikes in 2012 compared to 2011. [Data]

You may als want to read on where we see the limits of such an analysis and to what extent we are qualified in this field.

All Data is from the SATP Portal.

What do we expect from a monthly analysis of this data?

A number of interests are at play in the War in Pakistan, with especially many players in the FATA and the bordering districts in KP.

• Locals have an interest for peace and prosperity and politics in which they have a say – where they do not get that or are supressed, they do at times use violence to defend their ineterests against rival groups or the Pakistani National or Provincial Government and its loosely attached arm, the Army and Security Forces.
• Non-Local Insurgent Groups fight for influence and power, sometimes against local groups, sometimes together with them.
• International Terror Outfits use the FATA as a safe haven and a staging ground for their war with its multiple enemies (the Western Troops, the US, the Pakistani and Afghan State).
• Non-Local Groups from elsewhere in Pakistan do seem to have close links to the FATA at times.
• The US is leading a war against international terror outfits, with little interest seemingly in how that affects ‘their’ wars – the conflicts in Pakistan proper. Their aim is not so much to decrease violence in the (wider) area but to decapitate these outfits.
• The Pakistani State and Army are waging a war against local and international outfits, while it is sometimes unclear who they target and who they let prevail.

The first group is largely a victim in this war. If they surface as a perpetrator of violence, it is in armed clashes (Lashkars, Tribal Militias). The next three are actors and responsible for blasts (suicide attacks, bomb blasts) as well as armed attacks and defence against the Pakistani Army as well as International Forces over the border to Afghanistan. The fifth is in charge of the Drone Strikes and the last is responsible for most armed encounters.

Ideally, a higher temporal resolution of this war data will enable to judge how the actions of these actors do influence and trigger each other and whether they rather escalate actions from the adverse side or disrupt action. Pakistan Army Operations and Drone Strikes should ideally lead to decreasing attacks or at least less intense blasts.

By looking at districts and its neighbours, we should also be able to judge how violence spills over district borders. We are doing this here solely based on the data, not on considering the different insurgent factions and their possible links which need not be geographically adjacent. Once we have judged from the data, will go back and see whether these observations can be backed by known affiliations, locations and tactics of different outfits as well as tactics of the Pakistan Army or the Drone Program.

FATA and KP Frontier Region – Monthly Data

Looking at annual data limits the possibility of judging whether blasts occured as a response to Army interventions or drone strikes. Even on a monthly scale that is often still not possible. However some trends become obvious. We have looked at all FATA individually and included the KP districts of DI Khan and Tank (Southern Waziristan Area), Bannu, Lakki Marwat and Karak (Northern Waziristan Area), Hangu, Kohat and Peshawar (Central Area) and Dir and Charsadda (Northern Area) with the respective FR added to the KP side to see how conflict has spilled over the borders of the FATA or in the other direction. All FATA data is hence without the FR, but these are included with the respective districts in KP.

In Figure 1 (and subsequent for each Agency) blasts, drone strikes and armed encounters are compared. Also blast intensity (killed and injured per blast) is included to have a measure for the scale of the attack.

Looking at all FATA, one can make out a relation especially between two time series – armed encounters, which mostly include attacks of the Pakistan Army against insurgents and Blast Intensities. As soon as armed encounters drop, huge bomb blasts are the result (especially visible in January 2010, September 2010, November 2012, January 2012 and November 2012). At a smaller scale this can also be said for drone strikes and number of blasts. However, since drone strikes do not cover the FATA evenly, this will be looked at in detail for the respective FATA.

Figure 1a: Monthly Data for the FATA. [Data]

Figure 1b: Monthly Data for Bajaur Agency. [Data]

Figure 1c: Monthly Data for Khyber Agency. [Data]

Figure 1d: Monthly Data for Kurram Agency. [Data]

Figure 1e: Monthly Data for Mohmand Agency. [Data]

Orakzai on the other hand (1g) has seen nearly no drone strikes but enourmous fighting troop presence. Equally, blasts occur rather seldom, but they do seem to occur especially during Army interventions (R=0.28). For both Agencies the spill over effect into neighbouring areas is of importance.

Figure 1f: Monthly Data for North Waziristan Agency. [Data]

Figure 13g: Monthly Data for Orakzai Agency. [Data]

Figure 13h: Monthly Data for South Waziristan Agency. [Data]

We have now looked at the respective neigbouring districts in KP, to see how actions of war have shown effect in these areas. We have not looked at the relation between the different FATA yet, because relations between the Agencies are likely not driven foremost by geographical proximity but rather by tribal and political alliances. These we need to investigate before we attempt an intra-FATA analysis. The neighbouring districts, irrespective of tribal or political alliances are known to bear the brunt when groups flee army interventions in the FATA themselves. This has happened between Bajaur, Mohmand and Dir (all the way to Swat) respectively and is the case for Orakzai and Hangu/Kohat.

Figures 2a – 2e compare blasts and their intensity in the respective intensities in the neighbouring districts of KP (including the FR of DI Khan, Tank, Bannu, Kohat and Peshawar) with drone strikes and armed encounters in the Agencies.

While until late summer 2010, the number and intensities of blasts have largely been a response to increasing activities of the Pakistani Army and have spiked when the army retreated immediately (Dec 2009 – Jan 2010) or dropped when the army stayed (May 2010), from September 2010 the intensities of blasts have nearly continuously increased with increased drone strikes, and decreased again when drone strikes dropped. Since the drone war is probably little influenced by attacks in Pakistan, it can be assumed, that these attacks happen as a response to drone attacks and not vice versa. While such a direct response is not apparent in FATA itself (see Figure 1a) it looks like the response to drone strikes but also forays of the Pakistan Army really needs to be looked for outside the Tribal Agencies.

Intensities have overall rather dropped, but the number of blasts has stayed largely the same.

Figure 2a: KP Frontier region – FATA

Assuming that there is a relation between outfits based in Mohmand and Bajaur Agencies and attacks in Dir and Charsadda (a rough assumption, attackers in these districts may well come from Khyber, Orakzai, from Afghanistan or further South), one can observe how attacks spike once army interventions drop (April 2009, November 2009, February 2010, February 2011, September 2012).

Figure 2b: Blasts in Dir/Charsadda compared to Drone Strikes and Armed Clashes in Mohmand and Bajaur. [Data]

Figure 2c: Blasts in Hangu, Kohat and Peshawar compared to Drone Strikes and Armed Clashes in Kurram, Orakzai and Khyber. [Data]

Figure 2d: Blasts in Bannu, Lakki Marwat and Karak compared to Drone Strikes and Armed Clashes in NWA. [Data]

Figure 2e: Blasts in DI Khan and Tank compared to Drone Strikes and Armed Clashes in SWA. [Data]

It seems that there are some prevalent traits in the data. Drone Strikes in a FATA agency cause attacks in the same Agency to decerease at the same time, while they significantly increase attacks in neighbouring districts in KP. Army Interventions in all Agencies cause attacks to increase in the same Agency however and only interventions in Bajaur and Mohmand have caused attacks in the neighbouring Dir and Charsadda to decrease at times (R=-0.16). Drones hence have to seem a ‘better’ effect in the FATA itself, but have a stronger spill over effect.

Just from the data, little relation can be found between the Agencies. Army Offensives in Orakzai have perhaps caused attacks in South Wziristan to decrease (R=-0.32), which would be explainable with a close relation between the two Agencies (many insurgents from South Waziristan fled to Orakzai when the Army started their offensives there). Armed Encounters in Kurram and Attacks in Khyber are furthermore similar (R=0.4). No other time series show any resemblance over the 4 year period.

Before any more conclusions can be drawn, we will look at the tribal, political and tactical relations between the regions.

You may also want to read on where we see the limits of such an analysis and to what extent we are qualified in this field.

All Data is from the SATP Portal.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – Annual Data

Like in all other provinces, major attacks in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa concentrate on the Provincial capital (see Figure 1 and Figure 5). In Peshawar, like in Quetta and Lahore this amounts consistently to around 30% of all attacks. Only Karachi with 60% has a much higher share in Sindh.

As is obvious from Figure 1, the area around Peshawar is generally the most heavily affected by blasts, especially major urban areas like Charsadda and Nowshera. It is surprising, that how amid violent districts, some tend to be not affected at all like Karak or Thor Gar for example. This may be due to their being less populous and hence less interesting for an effectful attack.

Compared to 2011 (see Figure 2), blasts increased especially in the south of the province (Lakki Marwat, Tank and DI Khan). These are bordering to South Waziristan and northern Baluchistan, areas that have rather become calmer compared to earlier years. With pressure and attention growing on Waziristan, the bordering districts may here be taking the brunt.

Except for Dir and Mansehra, the northern parts have become calmer. Peshawar, Nowshera and Swabi, already heavily affected have worsened even further.

Figure 1: Major Blasts in KP province in 2012 [Data]

Figure 2: Major Blasts in KP province in 2012 compared to 2011 (% change) [Data]

Figure 3: Injured in Blasts in 2012. [Data]

Figure 6 shows how especially in Lower Dir, blasts were of a very high impact even though rather few in number. The same is true for DI Khan and Lakki Marwat were attacks in recent years have gained some attention for their extreme attrocities.

Figure 4: Number of Blasts in most affected districts [Data]

Figure 5: Number of Deaths in Districts most affected by Blasts [Data]

Figure 6: Number of Blasts (red) and Intensity (Killed and Injured/Blast; blue) in all of KP’s districts [Data]

Figure 7: Individuals Killed in Encounters between Army and Insurgents in the most affected districts (excluding Swat, where in 2009 more than 2000 were killed) [Data]

Figure 8: Total Number of Casulaties in KP province due to blasts and encounters. [Data]

Figure 9: Change of Casulaties in 2012 compared to 2011 [Data]

The impact of war in the FATA is quite different over the different agencies, and has changed quickly based on Army Operations in the area and the US drone policy, as well as the offensives of insurgents or Taliban factions.

For the time being we are not looking at the FR in detail since relatively few events have happened there on an annual scale (see Figure 10). They are however part of the datasets and are an important area as a link between the FATA and the main KP province. This however is of more concern at the monthly resolution.

From Figure 10 it is obvious, that like in KP, the area close to Peshawar is most heavily affected when looking at the human lives’ toll. Khyber and Orakzai are both not part of the Drone War but heavily affected by blasts and Army interventions. And contrary to all other FATA (except Bajaur), violence has been on the increase here (see Figure 11). So while in KP, it is rather the South that gets worse, it seems to be the other way around here, where Bajaur (adjacent to the equally worsening Upper Dir) is doing bad.

Figure 10: Total Fatalities in the FATA due to Blasts, Encounters and Drone Strikes. [Data]

Figure 11: Change in Total Deaths in FATA and FR during 2012 comapred to 2011 (blasts, encounters, drone strikes). [Data]

North Waziristan, the most heavily targeted Agency by the drone war, had the fewest blasts over the 4 years (see Figure 21). However at the same time, it has also been the least under attack by the Pakistani Army (see Figure 20). Without further insight one could make two rather opposed deductions there – either the Drone Strikes show effect, or there are simply fewer blasts because there is no reason for retaliating threats.

Khyber has already been worse in 2011 (see Figure 13), while there are two areas where blasts have increased heavily – the North and North Waziristan/Kurram.

Figure 12: Number of Blasts in all FATA and FR. [Data]

Figure 13: Change between 2011 and 2012 in Blasts in all FATA and FR. [Data]

Figure 14: Injured in Blasts in all FATA and FR. [Data]

Figure 15: Number of Blasts [Data]

Figure 16: People killed in Blasts [Data]

Figure 17: Intensity of Blasts (blue) and number of Blasts (red) between 2009-2012 [Data]

An overview over all Agencies is given in Figure 18, with changes compared to 2011 in Figure 19. Opposite to the Drone War, the Army Operations and attacks by militants on the Army are more focused on the Central Agencies as well as Bajaur. Already at high total numbers, the casualties have also increased in these areas compared to 2011, while the increase in Waziristan was on a minor scale.

The high number of deaths in SWA in 2009 (Figure 20) is due to the Army’s Operation Rah-e-Nijat there. This was followed by an Offensive into Orakzai and Kurram in 2010 (Khwakh Ba De Sham) after militants had escaped North. In Mohmand the effect seems to have been a stark spike of attacks by the militants with over 150 people killed compared to 50 the year before, while army operations have decreased here, after the commencements of the Brekhna Offensive, which is officially still ongoing. Mohmand and Bajaur were used as corridors and safe havens during the war in Swat (Rah-e-Rast). Orakzai has since stayed a fierce battleground and being the staging ground for many attacks into the Peshawar region, operations seem to be of minor success there.

The Drone war has largely focused on Waziristan (for a spatial analysis, consult Johnston’s recent paper), although all locals who have been executed by the Taliban for allegedly spying for the US were found in North Waziristan (with one exception in Mohmand).

Figure 18: Deaths in Encounters between Army and Insurgents, and between different Insurgent Factions as well as inter-Tribal conflicts and clashes between pro-government Lashkars and Taliban. [Data]

Figure 19: Change in Encounter Fatalities from 2011 to 2012. [Data]

Figure 20: Individuals killed during Clashes between Army and Insurgents/Militants [Data]

Figure 21: Individuals killed in Drone Strikes [Data]

Figure 22: Deaths due to Drone Strikes, Military Operations and Blasts compared for all Agencies

Finally we look at the total impact of the war on the population in the FATA. Again it is important to note, that these numbers should not suggest that these casualties were all citizens of the respective district. In many cases militants hail from somehwere else, so does Army personell. It however brings the scope of the war for such a comparably scarcely populated area in perspective. Khyber, with a strong increase in blasts and armed clashes has seen a rise in deaths, all other agencies were relatively less deadly – considering their absolute numbers in 2012, this however just shows how bad the years before were. Comparing these numbers (all deaths and injured from 2009 – 2012) to the agency’s population (see Figure 24) one gets to nearly 1% directly affected of the total population in Orakzai Agency, considering that the absolute numbers do not include targetted killings, injured in drone strikes and other violence.

Figure 23: Total number of people who died in violence between in 2012 (blue) and trend in 2012 compared to the earlier three years. [Data]

Figure 24: Total deaths (2009 – 2012) compared to the population in the respective Agency (1998 Census) [Data]

You may also want to read on where we see the limits of such an analysis and to what extent we are qualified in this field.

All Data is from the SATP Portal.

The War in Balochistan is until today getting very little attention. If, it is Quetta, especially since the recent attacks on the area’s Hazara, that surfaces in media reporting and international attention. Equally heavily affected by bomb attacks is the Dera Bugti District and at a smaller scale Nasirabad and Jaffarabad. While however in 2012 the number of attacks increased in Quetta, in the other districts blasts decreased (see Figure 1 and Figure 2). This, while in most districts deaths caused by clashes betwen Security Forces and insurgents have risen compared to 2011 (see Figure 3). However the district where blasts happen frequently and those where clashes occur do not overlap – hence any deduction of efficiency of armed interventions is futile, if one sees districts as independent from each other. We have not yet looked at relations between all different districts to be able to make a more detailed statement here.

Insurgents killed in armed encounters (Baloch Nationalists) are however often also not linked to the big blasts (often from Sectarian Outfits or Terrorist Outfits originating not historically from the Baloch Insurgency). In the end, it seems like the war’s attention is shifting to Quetta (although this may also solely because attention in the media has risen) and the very Western areas (Kech and Chagai).

Figure 1: Number of Blasts in the most affected Districts [Data]

Figure 2: Injured and Killed in Blasts in most affected Districts [Data]

Figure 3: Killed in Armed Encounters in the most affected Districts [Data]

Figure 4 shows a map with all deaths in Baluchistan in 2012, with the respective change compared to 2011 in Figure 5. Clearly there are three areas of unrest. Quetta, as the provincial capital with a lot of sectarian violence, Dera Bugti, the stronghold of Baloch Nationalists and the Baloch Coast, bordering to Iran. However all over the province, violence has risen.

Figure 4: Total Number of Deaths in Baluchistan in 2012. [Data]

Figure 5: Change of Fatalities in 2012 compared to 2011 [Data]

Figure 6: Deaths in Balucistan due to Armed Encounters between Army and Insurgents [Data]

Figure 7: Change in in Deaths due to armed encounters [Data]

In 11 districts did the number of deaths significantly increase in 2012 compared to the 2009-2011 mean, in 5 it decreased (see table below). In Chagai, Dera Bugti, Gwadar, Khuzdar, Qilla Abdullah and Quetta also deaths in encounters specfically have increased.

You may also want to read on where we see the limits of such an analysis and to what extent we are qualified in this field.

All Data is from the SATP Portal.

The numbers of violent incidents and the number of people killed and injured is lower in the most populous provinces of Punjab and Sindh, especially if leaving the urban war in Karachi out of sight. Nevertheless, these provinces are closely linked to violence elsewhere, as Ayesha Siddiqa shows for the Punjab. A closer look at these links in terms of how that affects numbers of incidents is beyond this work at the current point.

In both provinces attacks are mainly happening in the large cities. We have therefore grouped Punjab into North (Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Gujranwala), Center (Multan, Faisalabad), South (Dera Ghazi Khan, Mianwali) and Others. This is not to suggest that attacks in these areas have been carried out by the same outfits. A more detailed look has not been attempted so far.

Incidents in Punjab have significantly decreased in recent years (see Figure 1), solely due to a decrease of attacks in Lahore. In the other areas there is no significant trend.

Figure 1: Number of Blasts (suicide attacks and bomb blasts) in main areas [Data]

Figure 2: People killed in Blasts (suicide attaks and bomb blasts) in main areas [Data]

Figure 3: Number of Blasts (suicide attacks and bomb blasts) in Karachi and the rest of the province [Data]

Figure 4: Number of people killed in Blasts (suicide attacks and bomb blasts)  in Karachi and the rest of the province. [Data]

A few words are however necessary to explain – what we think are the limits of this work and why we are qualified (and to what extent) to do it.

Sudhan Ghali – Chikar Road (AJK, 2006)

the limits

There exists the misconception, that data itself is raw and true and once you manage to pack it all in a graph you have it all laid out and there is little space left to argue. Especially with recent debates on drones for the case of Pakistan this problem is becoming apparent. Different respected scholars and think tanks read completely different results from the same facts and with their stubborn trust in numbers they fail to see much more important arguments. This very recent article by Hamzah Saif is an excellent explanation of this dilemma and a must-read.

Data, Statistics and Numbers can be used to make a point. But trusting them blindly is dangerously naive. Even datasets have often been assembled with a certain bias to preconceived opinions on a topic. Many posts we put up at the early stage are meant to make data accesible in a reasonable format first and foremost. More detailed Statistical Analysis (other than a mere optical evaluation of correlation) are in planning but will take some time.

We try to make data accesible and point out as many possible flaws as we can find. Where we interpret this is mostly based on our personal experience as well, which is not just data based …

our qualification

We are neither social scientists nor data analysts by profession. We do however have experience in data trust in other areas (climate change research for one, where very similar problems arise) and we have detailed knowledge and experience of ground realities. Geographically our strength lies more in the North of the country (that is Sindh and Balochistan not so much), since we have (and do so until today) lived or worked in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Kashmir.

This work is not directly related to what we write about here (we sell carpets, do IT programming, research on water and climate change, make music and are active in development projects) but some of these experiences give us an ability to judge.

We welcome strong criticism of our work.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is traditionally dominated by its Pashtun/Pakhtun (hence the name) population with sizeable chunks of Potohari-speaking population in the north-east and Seraiki-speaking population in the south. Awami National Party (ANP) is the flag bearer of Pushtun nationalism that has, arguably, conflicted with Pakistan’s national ideology at times. Peshawar, the provincial capital, and surrounding Pushtun dominated districts has always preferred to vote left-wing ANP and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). However, in 2002 elections, MMA alliance of religious parties fared better and formed the provincial government, mainly due to anti-American sentiment after the start of US war in Afghanistan. The utter failure to address critical issues and lack of governance has brought the Pushtun votebank back to ANP and PPP. I will forego Hazara division as its politics is closer to Punjab’s than KP’s and PML-factions that normally win here have no affect on the politics of the rest of the province.

I had studied political strengths by districts earlier but soon realized that it is an ineffective measure as electoral politics is heavily dependent on the constituency boundary than anything else. An electoral candidate’s politics does not overlap the boundary of his electoral constituency and neither is he interested. These made me start a project to develop the constituency maps of all constituencies of National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies of Pakistan, and use them in my political study to analyze the patterns.

I have sharing strength maps of three political parties or alliances that share Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s votebank between them; PPP, ANP and MMA. Have a look at the maps below:

These heat maps are self-explanatory and there is no need to add more detail to it than what is obvious. For example, ANP is strong in the big population center of Peshawar and surrounding areas, PPP has sizeable presence all over province but is especially strong in the Seraiki-speaking southern district of Dera Ismail Khan (D.I.Khan). MMA is present in conservative southern districts and its influence overlaps into the northern districts of Baluchistan as well. Here is the comparison of parties votebank in the 2008′s general elections:

Party Votebank:

ANP: 557,494
PPP: 617,099
MMA: 523,871

Next, I will present the case of PTI and where its ‘tsunami’ stands in the politics of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and study through statstics if it has a realistic chance to beat all three traditionally strong parties to form the next government in the province.

Related articles

• Tsunami: PTI’s rise in Pakistani politics (rugpundits.com)

And for some people he met, the only compulsion to cross the borders was to “see the world”: jahanbini. “Both nation-states and foreign powers frequently interpret these patterns of mobility and the relations they forge between Muslims from apparently incompatible backgrounds as a dangerous source of instability… These two elements — mobility and the consequent cosmopolitanism — run in the face of colonial conceptions and efforts to categorise Frontier society as simultaneously simple and static.”

While today an exchange over these borders is often exclusively equated with the notion of the global jihad, Hopkins and Marsden, with their equally necessary and enlightening fragments on history and modern-day accounts, offer a richer language than the commonly used tropes.

Marsden interestingly also once mentions this as a concept of fun – travelling simply for fun. This is a difficult topic to be explained in scholarly language. Oskar Verkaaik, in an another excellent contribution on the migration topic has elaborated on that in his Migrants and Militants which I have reviewed earlier.

Some very similar points as Marsden’s are made by Conrad Schetter – see my earlier post here on Trailers and Tractors.

Similar to their approach of telling stories of migration I have recently written down such narratives for theTuqay.

In an area south of Peshawar towards Orakzai we were talking about the change of demography. There has been a recent influx of refugees from the areas in FATA where the Pakistani Army is moving in. Thirty percent of the people in the area lives as tenants. This is a very high number for a rural area and is due to economics; many people here live as bonded labor to brick kilns and also because only a relatively small number of refugees inhabit the camps. Many stay in other people’s houses. Some Pakistani refugees who moved into the area inhabit houses left vacant by Afghans for the summer.

Datasets

Being at it and while we are currently juggling with a lot of Pakistan-data here (some election stuff has already been posted, some more on the war, elections and the census will follow), I looked at available migration data from the Census Bureau and the Statistics Department of the Government, in the end have however for now focused on the earlier set.

Note that the earlier data are from the 1998 Census – we will compare it to the new census once the data are finally out – and the later from surveys in 2008. Also I will have a seperate post on ‘trust in data’ soon – one can debate the accuracy of the census data and I have already found minor incosistencies, but they should be minor enough to be able to deduct a bigger trend. If you are interested in the raw data, do write an email.

The following graphs are all based on the 1998 data from the census and included migrants of all types, whether for economic or other reasons.

Total number of migrants who had earlier migrated out of their resepctive province.

Total number of Migrants who had earlier migrated within their own province.

From the below graphs one can see the respective migration fluxes from each province to other provinces (people migrating from title to respective segment). It should be noted that in Punjab 79% of all migrants migrate within the province, in Sindh 74%, in Balochistan 46% and in KP 32%. Data how many people migrate within the other provinces is not available.

From the following graphs one can see, that most migrants coming to Sindh settle in Karachi, the major reason while the city is probably the fastest growing in the world according to the new Census data. For Punjab, the values are balanced, nearly half move into the countryside. It is further interesting, that while migrants from nearly all provinces move to cities elsewhere, migrants from FATA do settle equally in rural areas in their exile.

Settlement of migrants within a province (urban or rural).

Migrants moving from a respective province to rural or urban areas somewhere else.

The following graphs show for what reason people moved to a respective province and, for the first graph, in Pakistan in general. The largest chunck is always family moving with a family member who moved for some other reason. Surprisingly small numbers are given for reason of education, while if you marry to another province it is most likely Punjab. With the data sets from the Labour Force Survey 2008-9 I will look at the respective segments of ‘Employment’ and ‘Business’ at a later stage.

Two interesting papers recently published in this respect are by Arif Hasan and Manzoor Raza on small town migration and by Mahreen Mahmud, Tareena Musaddiq and Farah Said on general statistics.

One is in Pakistani Administered Kashmir, where we ran a Skills Training Centre (2007 – 2010) some 10km from where the recent border dispute happened between Pakistani and Indian soldiers that sparked some outrage on both sides and has gained attention abroad as well. The other is somewhere between Peshawar and Kohat in the environs of the Shamshattoo Refugee camp, ca. 15 km from the FATA, where we currently run an ambulance (2011 – ). The graphs and observations I present here are really just to be understood as an observation. They shouldn’t be interpreted straight away as representative for a wider area, nor for larger segments of the population. But both institutions are well known in a radius of 20 – 50 km around their location and have made one or the other impact there and gave a chance of understanding issues the respective population faces.

This is not official reporting – all such can be obtained by directly contacting me or learning German and consulting our website http://www.direkthilfe.at. I rather want to learn from my work and try to bring small outcomes into a larger perspectives as far as that is permissible.

Also, it is a good chance to see how stark differences between different rural areas within Pakistan can be.

(the images can be viewed in full size when clicked)

Women Skills Training Centre Dhulli
This project has been finalised as such and been since passed on into the hands of local women. The complete report can be obtained from our site (PDF) and what I point out here are just excerpts from this Evaluation. All sources can be found in the original report and won’t be replicated here.

The area is very close to a mute war (see pictures below), but apart from the fact that people know where training camps of Mujahedin are and a constant army presence this plays no role here. Many people however have family on the Indian side as well. And few here will talk bad about India, while many do about Pakistan, simply because the ignorance of the Pakistani side affects them, the aggresion of the Indian side does not …

The Mosque for farmers of summer pastures and soldiers who are allowed to retreat from Forward Positions for a chai – the area here is already riddled with trenches, in the back of where I stand one can see down to Haji Pir Pass. (picture taken in 2007)

At the main gate of the major army barracks of the area. (picture taken in 2006)

During 3 years, 200 women from the area were trained in Handicrafts and encouraged to establish their own workshops. After the closure of the training Centre, small scale training Centres were established in different villages, where former trainees are carrying on the initiative. The main aim was to provide a training facility for women for skills they could eventually use to earn money themselves. At the end of the project we interviewed 113 of the students to determine the success of the project and the issues they faced in becoming economically independent or if that was still their wish.

What I wanted to find out with the Evaluation I wrote then:

The perspectives such a Training Centre poses for women in AJK were evaluated on two grounds: economical and societal. In the end both can only be understood in an interrelation:

The defensive viewpoint states, that economic perspectives for women are only possible within the societal framework.

The offensive viewpoint acknowledges, that economic success will result in a loosening of the societal restrictions for women.

… now how does that work in rural Kashmir?

Figure 1: Household Income in the area. The women hailed from 2 different UC, of which one is more located in the valley (Nar Sher Ali Khan) while the other has many hamlets in remote locations. The data is from official government records.

As Figure 1 suggests one can see a gradient in income due to location – residencies of students from Swange reach all the way to the border and it took some students up to 90 min. each day to reach the centre. Most people here have a job in the local market, as a trader or skilled labour or are subsistence farmers. Many also have family members all over Pakistan and the world who contribute to their family back home.

The same gradient is obvious from education (Figure 2). The Centre aimed at favoring women from poorer backgrounds.

Figure 2: Girls education in Union Councils Nar Sher Ali Khan and Swange (Government Data), compared to the students from the WSTC.

62% of the women wanted to get a job – the others did not aim for that either because of lack of interest (they wanted to stay at home) or because they felt there was no use in aiming for this wish anyway. The most favored professions were those, that are most realistic for a woman in the area (Tailor and Teacher > 30%, Medical Worker ca. 15 %). The salary they hoped for was often very optmistic (see Figure 3) – though most women did realize this and many were dismayed by the prospects. Others vowed to do everything possible to get the education and job they so hoped for in the end.

Figure 3: The desired salary women hoped for in their future. The red line denotes the average for skilled females in Pakistan. A number of women did not answer this question.

Figure 4: Income generated by the women who attended the training.

In the end 70% managed to turn their skills into commercial benefit, 30% only contributed with their handicrafts to needs in their own family or supported others without renumeration. Figure 4 shows how much women earned. From Figure 5 it becomes obvious, that women with a better school ecucation had advantages in then turning their skills into money. However the other way around, there were a number of cases of women who had stopped going to school earlier (mostly because they saw no perspective in getting a job anyway) but the regained confience from earning money with their handicrafts skills prompted them to persue schooling. The problem that family (especially fathers or brothers) would not allow women to attend school or any kind of training of course exists in the area. But the much more prevalent reason for dropping out of school or not getting any education is the lack of hope to get a proper job in future and that education will not help in that regard. Looking at the overall Pakistani statistics they are unfortunately not wrong in their assumption. For many the approach of getting skills and confidence in ones capabilities first and then persue formal education has proven to be a viable solution. As long as the job market won’t be open equally to both sexes, especially in rural areas, a parallel skills training may thus be a good approach. More than 70% of the women aslo stated that their training has gained them more respect within the family, more than 60% said that respect also increased among the wider village community. For 90% the training increased their confidence and there were a number of cases where women convinced their comunities to support them in running tailor workshops in the end.

Figure 5: The benefit of education.

Ambulance in the environs of Shamshattoo Camp (UC Urmar Bela)

This project is still under way, and a final report comparable to the one for above mentioned project will only be out by 2014. The data discussed here is taken from surveys taken before and during the project period. I just want to point out what some pertinent issues are and am not complaining that this or that doesn’t work. It’s just to point some attention at issues that are far too little appreciated because of their lack of sexiness when it comes to churning out a news story. It should also show however, that in an area that by many is regarded as hopelessly backward, conservative and dangerous working with e.g. women and giving them a voice is not of the impossible. We have recorded a number of interviews with women here who have something to say – and they are allowed to say it, not because we come with progressive values but because they are part of the community and as such are listened to.

It is also of course to people, who constatntly ask me if it isn’t far to dangerous for me to go there. That is hardly on my mind. Not because I am naive or crazy but because I see no point in constanly talking about the possible, not conceived danger when there are so many other dangers (bandworms for example, or stupidity) around that I can actually think about and have data for that I can handle.

People in the area are quite poor, wages of men who mostly work in brick kilns are 3000 PKR/month maximum. Many people live as bonded labor to the brick kiln owners since they are forced into debt. They can move to another brick kiln when the respective owner buys them free. Organ trade for money is happening in many cases.

Literacy rate in the immediate area is 17% (in Kashmir it was well above 80%) and more than 80% of the children in the area are malnourished, 70% to a severe degree. Families here are rather large, and women often get their last (9th or 10th living) child before they turn 30. The focus of the ambulance was early on to be decided on women and children, however generally it is an open facility for all people in the area.

Many inhabitants here are Afghan, who have lived in the area since they fled Afghanistan during the 70s and 80s (see Figure 2).

Figures 1 and 2 look at patient numbers. Interesting here to note is the drop in spring 2012. For economical reasons and after holding a jirga we raised fees from 20 PKR to 50 PKR. This has barred many people from attending and shows in what economical range people have to cope here.

While the war is quite close here, the most pressing issues are of a different kind – and that is not speaking only from numbers but from being there, listening to people over lunch and seeing what decisions we need to make.

There has not been a local government for 10 years, elections have always been postponed and deemed unimportant – and this area is no exception for Pakistan. This means of course for the area, that noone really is and feels responsible. While Peshawar or cities like Nowshera are an altogether different case, here people live in a limbo. While even though Hezb-i-Islami (Hekmatyar) has quite some influence in the area, people are generally far to poor to care for militancy, they also have no government to turn to.

Basic necessities like electricity or drinking water are far from certain – and I am not talking about load shedding. There are simply no lines around. We had to invest into our own electricity line to get more energy our way than to just light a bulb. This has direct consequences for water – no electricity means no water to be pumped regaularly from a convenient depth. Hence often water here is poluted with mud. Hand pumps are installed where communities can afford it. These issues of course accumulate in hygiene and health issues that are of a much higher prioity here than shrapnel wounds or missing limbs.

Only then does security come in – all our medical staff has to come from Peshawar and not only since the recent attacks is working in such environments where you are more exposed and without guard than in a city hospital not very attractive. Staff changes are hence frequent, since we spice up the position with an assured position in Peshawar at a later point. Generally the health sector is being extremely corrupted by international organisations – they pay exorbitant wages draining good staff from government institutions causing uncertainty and a gradient between institutions that makes hardly any sense. We pay local rates and hence will always be subject to such uncertainties.

Figure 1: Patient Numbers dropped when treatment fees were raised from 20PKR to 50 PKR.

Figure 2: Ethnicity data was not recorded at a later stage. However one can see that both ethnicities attend – that is not the case for every ambulance in the area, at some Pakistani are turned down (mostly international institutions), at other Afghans (mostly national hospitals)

Figure 3: Percentage of malnourished patients has dropped mainly because nutrition package stocks are depleted and our fees are keeping the most afected away. That is an issue we will tackle over the next year. However many children and women have also been relased succesfully from the program.

The patient data only give a very small insight in how work proceeds. All kinds of vaccinations are carried out in the ambulance for children and women receive education as well as treatment in regard to child bearing and rearing.

Hygiene Training is carried out in schools around the ambulance regularly and from responses from fathers one can see that a change in behavious of young kids especially can take effect at home.

Figure 4: Breast feeding Courses are offered for women where they are instructed about nutrition in general and have a chance to breast feed at the ambulance. Family Planning includes treatment and information. All a bit a difficult terrain but so far accepted in the communities.