January 8, 2009:
Terrorist attacks that don't happen are not news, and rarely get reported. Most of the time. It's news in Pakistan, where the local police (officially the Frontier Police) in the tribal territories, foiled 158 terrorist attacks. In doing so, 66 terrorists were arrested. Also seized were 52 tons of explosives, 34 suicide vests, 659 grenades and more than 300 explosive projectiles. In the last six years, there have been 141 suicide attacks in Pakistan, most of them in the tribal areas along the Afghan border. Last year there were 28 successful suicide attacks, that killed 337 and wounded 585 people. This was down from 2007, when there were 30 attacks (290 dead and 711 wounded). The Frontier Police went looking for the bad guys last year, killing 738 criminals (including terrorists) and arrested another 1,717. About three-quarters of the Islamic terrorist activity in Pakistan takes place in the tribal areas.