Islamabad, Sep 18 (IANS) Pakistan remains vulnerable to the persistent threat of violent extremism, which has shaken national security and unsettled the country’s social fabric, a report has stated.
Citing recent reports, it said government figures recorded 5,397 incidents of terrorism in 2025, while the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) documented 1,066 militant attacks. The violence continued in 2026, with 118 attacks reported in June, around 99 in July and 199 in August, marking a 38 per cent increase.
The figures underscore the continued high frequency of violent extremist attacks and highlight the need for stronger and more sustained efforts to address the threat, a report in Pakistan’s newspaper 'Daily Times' reported.
According to the report, the latest initiative by Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) to address violent extremism was the National Policy on Violent Extremism (NPVE), approved in December 2024 and publicly unveiled in March 2025. The policy came under severe criticism from political parties at the time of its launch, particularly over concerns about implementation.
Pakistani security analyst and counterterrorism expert Muhammad Amir Rana said the initiative was not significantly different from previous policies and criticised the decision to establish a new institution without addressing shortcomings in existing ones. He called for serious implementation and reform of existing institutions, the report mentioned.
Referring to an RSIS analysis, it highlighted that Pakistan’s recurring failure to translate policies into effective implementation exposes a major gap in the current framework. Rather than allowing this gap to persist, it asked whether Pakistan could address it through preventive systemic reforms and immediate implementation on the ground, with or without establishing new institutions that would require additional time and resources.
“One instrument that could help close that gap is ‘Holistic Education.’ It brings together ‘head, hand, and heart,’ with the idea that education should not only shape cognitive intelligence but also character and life skills. Through this approach, especially when applied to teenagers or even young children, who are in a vulnerable phase and at a stage of ideological formation that makes them sensitive to radical thought, proper guidance can be provided,” the report detailed.
“If this space is not filled with proper education, it will be vulnerable to being filled by other narratives. Therefore, this is where Holistic Education plays a role by addressing the four aspects-emotional, social, intellectual, and even spiritual-within children that are necessary to counter radical thought in advance,” it noted.
A recent report in ‘Global Kashmir’ stated that Pakistan's struggle with terrorism is the result of historical strategic decisions, evolving militant ecosystems, ideological radicalisation, governance deficiencies, and regional instability. It noted that the country’s experience showcased that the cultivation or selective tolerance of militant organisations can eventually produce unprecedented security threats.
"The use of militant proxies as instruments of strategic influence, combined with weak governance, ideological radicalisation, and regional geopolitical rivalries, has created an environment in which terrorism has become deeply entrenched. Today, Pakistan is increasingly confronting the unintended consequences of these policies, with militant groups frequently turning against the very state that once viewed some of them as strategic assets," the report mentioned.
--IANS
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