Is India Really a Victim of Terrorism as the Fiend Kindles in Iraq but Trims in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria

By: Azhar Azam

The economic impact of terrorism is only 1% of the total global economic impact of violence – revealed Institute of Economics & Peace (IEP) in its so-called research paper ‘Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2017’ released this month.

Terrorism sparked global economy an impact of $84 billion in 2016 – only a trifling aggregate as compared to economic impact caused by violence that reached $14.3 trillion in 2016 or 12.6% of the global GDP.

Previously, GTI 2014 had also discovered that global homicide killings are 13-times more than the deaths from terrorism. At-least 437,000 people die of homicides every year, which is 13-times more than the victims of terrorism.

Globally, there has been 17% increase in terrorist attacks on civilians in 2016. The year 2016 also observed a unique resemblance due to similar increase in deaths from terrorism (67%) and battles (66%).

The overall score of global GTI however deteriorated by 4% in 2016 as terrorist activities expanded in 77 countries as compared to 65 countries last year – with at least one death caused by terrorism.

Independent, non-profit think tank however suggests that although the economic impact of terrorism is much small but it is vital to contain it over its potential to expand quickly and kindle major social consequences.

2017 GTI finds that the number of deaths from terrorist attacks have declined for the second consecutive year in 2016 to 25,673 people – 13% less from 2015 (29,376 deaths) and 22% fewer than peak 2014 (32,685 deaths).

Five countries – Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Syria together comprised about 75% of total deaths from terrorism in 2016.

The report explores that terrorism widely prevailed in Middle East and North Africa (MENA), South Asia, and sub-Sahara Africa regions – otherwise mainly in most parts of Asia and Africa. Nearly 84% of all terrorists’ attacks and 94% of all deaths from terrorism resulted only from these regions.

In comparison, Central America and the Caribbean accounted for 0.05% of the total attacks and deaths – lowest levels of terrorism.

Except for Iraq that witnessed 40% death increase attributed to ISIS, ISIL or IS – terrorism has fallen in the other four epicenters in 2016 – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and Nigeria those all recorded a consolidated decline of 33%. 

Nigeria has been the pick of the countries which impressively confined deaths from terrorism by 80% in 2016 – 3,100 fewer deaths as a result of 80% decline in deaths attributed to Boko Haram.

Afghanistan also showed some recovery as the deaths from terrorism in the country fell by 14% in 2016. This decline is however attributable to Afghan Taliban tactical shift to focusing on conventional armed conflict with Afghanistan security forces.

In 2016, there were nearly 18,000 battle-related deaths in Afghanistan – that is 700 more deaths in 2015 and the largest since US invasion in the devastated country in 2001 after September 9.

For the third consecutive year, Pakistan witnessed fewer terrorist attacks and deaths. In 2016, there were 956 deaths from terrorism – lowest in a decade (since 2006), 12% fewer than 2015, and 59% less than peak 2013.

IEP classifies these improvements ‘notable’, ascribing this success to Pakistan’s military effort ‘Zarb-e-Azab’ started in mid-2014, as the country has a long history of high levels terrorism and this year’s result is the best in a decade.

The trend outlines the decline in the terrorist activities of TTP which is responsible for over half of the deaths from terrorism in Pakistan. The military estimates to kill over 3,500 TTP terrorists besides destroying their hideouts and infrastructure in the country.

Subsequently as a result of comprehensive military operation, Pakistan upgraded its ranking in GTI to #5 in 2016 – for the first time ever. The South Asian country has been ranked as at least 4th worst country for terrorism since 2007 and was ranked 2nd on six occurrences.

After a radical wave of civil war in the last decade – terrorism in Syria paraded a slight improvement in deaths from terrorism in 2016 as the terrorism death toll fell 24% – to 2,102 due to 75% decline in deaths from terrorism attributed to Al-Nusra Front.

Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen are the countries that saw 500 fewer deaths from terrorism year-over-year.

Iraq is the country that has consistently been most impacted by terrorism for last 13 years. In 2016, terrorism in Iraq killed 2,803 more people than 2015 – an increase of 40%. The country witnessed one of the largest deaths increase due to nearly 1,000 attacks carried by Islamic State (Daesh), killing 7,351 people.

Egypt (9x) and Turkey (16x) experienced substantial increase in terrorism whereas for the first time, Turkey has been included in top-10 countries those have been affected by terrorism mainly due to increased activities of Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) and ISIL.

India is constantly the surprise inclusion in several global terrorism indices by IEP – has been ranked between 2nd and 6th from 2002 to 2015. Despite the increase in the terrorist attacks (+16%), the GTI score of India has improved for the last two years.

This is because, unlike in other countries where single terrorist group is involved in killings – 39 militant organizations are operating in India predominately left wing extremists (LWE) like Maoists or Naxalites parties promoting the communist ideology ‘due to abject poverty, deprivation, exploitation, displacement of people, and social injustice’.

Maoists or Naxalites are responsible for more than half of the attacks and 88% of the deaths in India. IEP also cites two deadliest Islamic groups – Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizbul Mujahideen (HuM) – for fatal militant activities in 2015 in Indian-occupied Kashmir.

In 2016, India experienced some 929 attacks which claimed 340 deaths averaging 0.4 deaths/attack but the number is still significantly lower than the other most terrorism-impacted countries those averaged 2.7 deaths/attack.

On deaths from terrorism chart, deaths in India (340) are even scarcer than the deaths in Democratic Republic of Congo (479) and South Sudan (472) – both excluded from 2017 GTI top-10 most impacted countries from terrorism.

But the number of attacks (929) favored India to limelight – majority of those were least lethal or more discriminate and did not result in any deaths and the report itself clarifies ‘This discrepancy between the number of attacks and deaths reflect how the nature of terrorism in India differs when compared to other countries’.

So India must be excluded from the list of most impacted countries from terrorism since Kashmir struggle for plebiscite under UN resolution and Maoists/Naxalite drive against inequality and injustice are the result of international community total failure to insert its role on dispute resolution and providing basic human rights to asphyxiated people in India.

US Drawing Out of Global War on Terror

By: Azhar Azam

The cost of war could never be calculated – the emotions shattered could never be measured – the relations detached could never be refilled – the misery of an orphan could never be sensed – the feelings of a widow could never be expressed – and the sacrifice of the son, brother, father or husband could never be weighed.

Though it is not possible to convey the human toll in the wars on terror in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan but what is calculable are the ledgers, financial burdens and offence allocations or expenditures which could give an idea of devastation incurred.

Since 9/11, a number of international, regional and territorial wars and conflicts have been kindled – shadily nearly all in selective Asian regions. Starting from US-led coalition forces attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan – later tugging Pakistan into war – and then to ongoing Middle East chaos, everywhere the number of casualties is myriad.

As these wars and operations have been triggered by the United States directly or indirectly – it has to make huge on account of weapons, destruction then reconstructions, logistics, pays, interests and medical etc.

According to a study for Department of Defense released in July 2017, American taxpayers are estimated to pay a total of $1.52 trillion at an average of $7,740 for US wars on terror in Afghanistan (3,785) and Iraq/Syria ($3,955) through FY2018.



Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has also obtained a DOD report through Secrecy News that lists US costs of war has exceeded $1.46 trillion as of June 2017 – showing US wars expenditure of $253.6 million per day.

Professor Neta C. Crawford research paper revealed this month estimates that the actual costs of war are much higher through FY2017 – $1.88 trillion at per month average expenditure of $320.3 million in these war zones.

US began global war on terror in October 2001 alongside war against Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaida in Afghanistan. It launched war against Iraq in March 2003 and later expanded it to Syria in August 2014. Pentagon baptized various war missions with different names.

Operation Freedom’s Sentinel (OFS) – train, advise, and assist mission to Afghan security forces – began on January 1, 2015 in Afghanistan (incl. operations in Pakistan) after formally ending Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) – combat mission – which lasted for over 13 years – October 7, 2001 to December 31, 2014.

Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) – military air power intervention – began in August 2014 in Iraq and Syria. Earlier it launched Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) – military action – that ran from March 19, 2003 to August 31, 2010. War in Iraq continued under Operation New Dawn (OND) till December 2011 before renamed into Post-Operation New Dawn (P-OND). With the inclusion of Syria, it is now known as OIR.

Eventually US have formally ended combat missions in Afghanistan and have also limited its military operations in Iraq and Syria to solitary air strikes.

Operation Noble Eagle (ONE) was started on September 14, 2001 attacks and is the military operation related to homeland security and providing support to federal, state, and local agencies after 9/11 attacks.

Prof. Crawford lists various hidden outlays that cracks the US war costs incredibly. He estimates that the total US spending on Global War on Terror (GWOT), Homeland Security, Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs since the 9/11 attacks has already exceeded $4.3 trillion through FY2017.

An additional $281 billion is estimated to be spent by the US (excluding Pakistan) through FY2018 – ramming total cost of wars to over $4.6 trillion.

That goes on to corroborate that the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria would essentially charge each American taxpayer a total of $22,120 or US economy $755 million per day through FY2018.

The report also calculates an additional $1,000 billion spending on account of future obligations for GWOT Veterans Medical and Disability for 2019-2016.

One must not be confused with $877.4 billion war appropriation to Afghanistan that includes Pakistan Coalition Support Fund (CSF). CSF is a reimbursement to Pakistan for military operations conducted against Taliban and Al-Qaida on behalf of the US and is just a fraction of total amount – $14.5 billion.

CSF to Pakistan so as the other aids to several countries is appropriation only – final obligations and disbursements are much lower than these appropriations as reference document verifies too. For example, the US appropriated $742 million, obliged $142 million and spent only $130 million on foreign assistance to Pakistan in FY2017.

Professor explains the point on Page 11 and confirms that the US disbursed and compensated Pakistan for using ports, overland transportation of food, fuel, and military equipment, providing logistical support for its forces, manning observation posts on Pak-Afghan border, conducting maritime interdiction operations, and combat air patrols.

On the other side, US global war on terror has charged Pakistan’s economy direct and indirect losses of nearly $120 billion from 2002 to 2016 besides maiming death toll of nearly 80,000 in GWOT including innocent people, armed and other law enforcing agencies personnel.

Consequently the report opines that these massive costs of wars are likely to cost tens of thousands of jobs, affect US ability to invest in infrastructure, increased interests costs on borrowings leading to greater overall Federal indebtness.

Based on DOD current contingencies $120 billion (FY2017) on account of two major international missions – Operation Freedom’s Sentinel (OFS) in Afghanistan and Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) in Iraq and Syria – Professor’s estimate of $70 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) and US troops’ withdrawal from all the three countries (except for tactical troops’ increase in Afghanistan) accentuate that the United States is gradually drawing out of its own-waged Global War on Terror (GWOT).

Trump's Troops increase will make No Difference to War in Afghanistan

Meeting of NATO Ministers of Defense - Brussels, Belgium

By: Azhar Azam

You may win a war with limited financial and weaponry resources but you can never win it without valiant and resolute combat forces – an instinct NATO misses critically in Afghanistan.

After a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, the commander of NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan General John Nicholson once again called the allies to contribute more troops for the war against Afghan Taliban and other insurgent groups.

The General further briefed the reporters that the entire ‘uplift’ of the American troops committed by Trump has reached in Afghanistan which will make total U.S. troop strength to 14,500 in the country. Besides military personnel, a total of 15,000 U.S. civilian contractors are also working in Afghanistan.

Of 11,000 U.S. troops deployed earlier in Afghanistan under Operation Freedom’s Sentinel (OFS) – nearly 5,000 troops are on a NATO Resolute Support (RS) mission to train, advise, and assist Afghan security forces. Nearly 7,000 troops from 39 NATO and non-NATO nations are helping them on this undertaking.

The additional 3,000 U.S. military personnel, sent as reinforcement, will also join RS mission – not combat forces and will serve in advisory roles only. Other NATO nations would also be sending their troops only for RS mission. Neither the U.S. nor NATO members’ troops are on a combat mission in Afghanistan.

U.S. troops’ level in Afghanistan reached peak in when the troops’ tally equaled 110,325 in 2011 before gradual withdrawal in later years.

Nicholson plea comes at a time when the war-torn country is experiencing a sadistic 2017 and Afghan Taliban are growing their control in the country. As of August 2017, Over 33% of the area in 407 districts of Afghanistan are either under Taliban control or being contested, according to the latest SIGAR report.

As of 30-September-2017, the United States has obligated $44.4 billion and disbursed $43.3 billion to train, equip, build, and sustain the Afghan Security Forces (ASF). As of 2017, Congress appropriations for Afghanistan security totaled $70 billion that is 60% of total reconstructing funds and four-times of U.S. World War II restructuring costs.

Another $48 billion was requested for war spending in Afghanistan during FY2018 by U.S Department of Defense – reaching cumulative war expenditure in Afghanistan to nearly $916 billion through FY2001-2018. United States’ war-related expenditure is projected to exceed $5.6 trillion through FY2001-2018.

But this massive spending could not prevent to control 6,769 ASF casualties including 2,531 killings in the first four months of 2017. Instead, Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) assigned strength declined by 9,000-persons in this quarter – to about 320,000.

On the front of civilian casualties, Secretary James Mattis itemized that in ‘recent months, there have been fewer civilian casualties as a result of Coalition operations’. But UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) disagrees.

According to a recent report, UNAMA documented 8,019 civilian casualties in first nine months of 2017 – 6% decrease in as compared to same period in 2016. Despite this decease, the mission noted a 52% increase in civilian casualties through aerial strikes by Coalition forces for the same nine-month period.

In the contextual of these deadly circumstances in Afghanistan, the other North Atlantic Treaty Organization member countries have been cautious to raise troops’ level in Afghanistan – a kind of response General Nicholson seemed to be quite concerned about.

Invoked after 9/11 attacks, article 5 of the treaty requires the fellow countries to come and aid any of the member country in the event of any armed attack – considering it an attack on all. Troops in Afghanistan were deployed under this proviso.

But the prolonged war in Afghanistan has watered the applicability of this stipulation now as a number of military posts are lying vacant in the battle-weary country since last year – adding on to the frustration to the United States.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the new number is yet to be finalized – revealing ‘still have some gaps’ and acknowledging to facing a problem in filling up the hundreds of military vacancies in Afghanistan.

Sore to the wish of the United States, key NATO troops’ contributor, Germany refused to lift its troops’ level for the coming year. ‘The commitments received so far are sufficient. We will not reach the total troop level but to a high degree’, said German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen.

United States and the other NATO member countries are clearly reluctant to deploy combat forces in Afghanistan to avoid troops’ casualties. This is why; Trump administration is using pressure tactics on Pakistan to somehow persuade it for military engagement in Afghanistan.

The recent statement by General Nicholson ‘no change in Pakistan behavior’ is part of this tactical move. But Pakistan is rightly conceiving the NATO ambitious plan and is sensibly evading any step that could undermine peace and stability in its country.

Consequently the more U.S. and NATO troops are not going to change the overall trajectory of war in Afghanistan as the recent troops’ increase is non-combative stride – except for air strikes and for just assisting, advising, and supporting the Afghan security forces battling with the insurgents.

Additionally, if NATO cannot achieve ‘objectives’ in Afghanistan with constant military deployment of up to 150,000 troops in 16 years of war – how could it is going to get there with a few thousands of them?

Unless, the U.S. and other NATO partners engage in direct war against Taliban – the dream of winning in Afghanistan will remain a dream.

Tablet Market Worldwide Experiences Twelfth Sequential Quarter of Annual Decline

By: Azhar Azam

Positive growths by 4 of the 5 vendors failed to prevent the decline in global worldwide tablet market as third quarter of 2017 (Q3-2017) shipments closed at 40-million units.

Q3-2017 flashed yet another negative growth of 5.4% – denoting traumatizing 12th sequential quarter of annual decline, according to latest data released through IDC Worldwide Tablet Market Tracker.

The market intelligence firm imputes growing smartphones market demand, prolonged replacement cycle of tablets and consolidation of traditional PCs as the major factors for steady tablets market degeneration.

In 2016, the tablet market had a hard landing when the shipments fell by 15.6% – to 174.8 million units as compared to 207.1 million units in 2015. The growth of both Apple and Samsung was seriously interjected by -14.2% and -20.5% respectively.

This is not going to change in 2017 either!

Tablet market is set to suffer a critical blow at the close of 2017 as well. The 9M-2017 data shows total shipments of 114.2 million units so the market is lagging behind by 60 million units to avoid another year of decline.

Nevertheless, there are some good vistas too!

As of 2016, although Apple (24.4%) and Samsung (15.2%) reined the global tablet market followed by Lenovo and Huawei but there is a challenger coming up quickly, Amazon – that has already pushed Lenovo and Huawei on the backseat to clutch third place in 2016.

The e-commerce company nearly doubled its market in 2016 – shipping million units at exploding 98.8% growth rate.

Amazon has been the star performer in 2017 as well and posted enormous 38.7% growth in Q3-2017 under highly detrimental market conditions. The largest e-commerce company in the world shipped 9.0 million units in the first 9 months of 2017 to fortify its market share to 7.8%.

But Huawei is not going to give Amazon a smooth sailing!

Like Amazon, Huawei also demonstrated a solid growth in 2016 – and shipped 9.7 million units in 2016 at breathtaking 49.9% growth. The Chinese multinational networking and telecommunication company also shipped 8.7 million units in 9M-2017 to capture market share of 7.6%.

So, it is going to be fierce battle between Amazon and Huawei for the third place in the final quarter of the year.

Lenovo was one of the vendors, IDC expected to watch in 2017 despite its flat growth in 2016; -1.2%. However the Chinese technology company could ship just 7.3 million units in 9M-2017 to settle at its market share of 6.4%.

Ironically, Lenovo needs to ship 3.8 million units Q4-2017 to catch up with its last year’s market of 11.1 million units that seems to be highly unlikely overseeing its current dismal performance.

Japanese Company Hosts 6-Days Holidays for Non-Smokers

By: Azhar Azam

A Japanese company, Piala Inc., rocked the media as it introduced additional six days paid-salary holidays for its non-smoking employees. Immediately after the incentive circulation by the incorporation, 31 of 120 workers availed the freebee.

The perk characterized as ‘Smo holiday’ was hosted when one of the non-smoking employees complained to CEO Takao Asuka about the several cigarette breaks that triggers them to work for more hours than smokers every day.

Responding to the resentment in non-smokers which accounts for nearly 65% of 120-staffed company – Asuka announced the privilege to compensate them as well as neutralized the disparity in working hours of smokers and non-smokers.

Instead of slapping penalties and coercion to smoking workers, this unique system of preferential treatment by the Tokyo-based marketing support company obliged a few employees since some of them have already started smoking cessation.

The global tobacco market is estimated at around $770 billion – about 91% of which comes from cigarette consumption worldwide. There are nearly one billion adult smokers around the world consuming 5.6 billion of cigarettes every year.

The initiative is likely to be opposed by Japan Tobacco (JT) – the makers of Winston, Mevius and Camel – that is the third-largest tobacco company in the world (excluding China) behind Philip Morris International (PMI) and British American Tobacco (BAT).

According to a joint report by World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Cancer Institute of the United States of America, the tobacco industry leaves a deadly impact and costs world economies more than $1 trillion annually in healthcare expenditures and lost productivity.