THE ROLE OF REMOTE SENSING IN FIGHTING AGAINST TERRORISM- A CASE OF PAKISTAN

摘要

The use of Remote Sensing (hereafter called RS) in the exploration and monitoring of natural resources inherited by land as well as planning and development domains is not innovative and new to the geospatial community. However, benefiting from RS to fight against terrorism can be an innovative and a new approach for many countries such as Pakistan and geospatial community working on this most significant issue in the current global scenario. The growing number of terrorist attacks in recent years in Pakistan has added a new dimension and value to the use of RS data and its analytical capabilities such as pattern recognition in the country. As reliable and timely supply of geospatial data is not only needed by security agencies but also by the rescue workers and teams to save loss of human lives. But the dilemma is that such data sets are mostly outdated and it is not possible to update these data sets through ground survey operations due to law and order situation of the country that started about five years ago and has not ended yet. A possible solution to the situation could be to have an intersection of traditional military warfare tactics and making maximum use of geospatial knowledge and technologies such as remote sensing for a symmetric warfare. Therefore, this paper takes a closer look at the potential supporting role of RS to help antiterrorism and rescue efforts in geospatial domain of Pakistan.