Historical patterns of terrorism in Pakistan

This article presents a descriptive analysis of terrorism in Pakistan over the past three decades. Using statistical tools, the authors disentangle terrorist violence to expose underlying trends. Continuities and discontinuities in the various types of terrorism are identified and correlated with domestic and international events. The gravity of terrorist violence is found to change from one region of the country to another in response to geopolitical events. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa share of terrorist incidents during the last three decades fell from 45% to 5% and then rebounded to 58%. Sindh's share of terrorist incidents followed an opposite pattern over the three decades, increasing from 23% to 68% and then decreasing again to just 9%. Terrorist incidents were most frequent in the 1990s but most lethal in the 2000s. Overall, terrorist violence has followed an increasing trend. The composition of terrorist attacks (sectarian, ethnic, and non-sectarian religious) has changed over the past three decades, with sectarian terrorism emerging as the more lethal, causing almost six casualties per attack. Terrorist methods have also changed over time, with bombings becoming less prominent in the 1990s but much more common in the 2000s. The geographical distribution of terrorist incidents has likewise changed over time -- national and provincial capitals were targeted 64% of the time in the 1980s and just 25% of the time today. Overall, the authors conclude that the methods and pattern of terrorist incidents change logically in response to changes in the geopolitical environment.