The bleeding provinces

The latest attacks are part of a pattern 

In the mountains of Ziarat, 18 young policemen were taken hostage on a Monday night and executed by Thursday morning. They had been guarding a pumping station on the Mangi Dam, infrastructure built to bring water to a thirsty province, when dozens of armed militants descended from multiple directions and overwhelmed their post. Nine of their colleagues were killed in the initial assault. The remaining 18 were held for days while security forces surrounded the area, reluctant to launch air strikes for fear of killing the very men they were trying to save. The militants killed them anyway before melting back into terrain they know better than the state does.

On the same day, an army convoy on the N-25 highway near Bela was ambushed by Balochistan Liberation Army terrorists. Eleven soldiers, including one junior commissioned officer and ten jawans, were killed. Forty-two Pakistani lives were lost in four days. Their deaths are not isolated tragedies but part of a conflict that has quietly intensified while much of the country’s attention has drifted elsewhere.

The violence is no longer episodic but organized, coordinated and increasingly ambitious. According to the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, Balochistan witnessed at least 254 terrorist attacks in 2025, a 26 percent increase over the previous year, resulting in more than 400 deaths. In January 2026, the BLA launched coordinated attacks across multiple districts, briefly seizing government installations, attacking banks, and engaging security forces in sustained firefights. Earlier, the Jaffar Express hijacking and the suicide bombing of a school bus in Khuzdar, which killed eight children, demonstrated that militants are no longer confined to remote mountains. They are capable of striking strategic infrastructure, public transport, and civilian targets alike.

Balochistan is not simply another province facing a law and order challenge, it accounts for nearly 44 percent of Pakistan’s landmass, possesses enormous mineral wealth, hosts Gwadar Port and is the centrepiece of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and borders both Afghanistan and Iran. Instability here carries consequences that extend beyond Pakistan’s internal security. It threatens regional connectivity, foreign investment, and the credibility of the state itself.

Pakistan has repeatedly presented what it says is substantial evidence, including before the UN Security Council, that India supports the BLA, while the Afghan Taliban provides sanctuary and operational space to both the TTP and the BLA. The recurring pattern of cross border infiltration, sophisticated weapon recoveries, and coordinated attacks points to an insurgency sustained by external backing rather than indigenous capability alone. Yet external support alone cannot explain why the insurgency has endured for so long.

A May 2025 analysis by the West Point Combating Terrorism Center concluded that growing political alienation among the Baloch has made the insurgency increasingly difficult to contain. Despite its vast natural wealth and generous fiscal transfers under successive NFC Awards, Balochistan remains Pakistan’s poorest province. While criticism is often directed at the federation, the province’s own political and tribal leadership cannot escape responsibility.

Pakistan needs political courage equal to the courage shown on the battlefield, a whole of state strategy that combines uncompromising security with justice, development, accountable governance, and genuine political inclusion. The soldiers have done their duty, it’s time for the state to do its own. The next chapter of this conflict will not be written by militants alone but by the choices our leaders make today.

Decades in power have produced little improvement in education, healthcare, infrastructure, or employment, even as many of the same elites have enjoyed influence in Islamabad. Governance failures at provincial level have deepened the trust deficit, creating grievances that militant groups readily exploit.

Pakistan’s security forces continue to fight with remarkable courage under exceptionally difficult conditions. The policemen murdered in Ziarat and the soldiers killed near Bela were not defending abstract policies. They were defending the writ of the state, often at great personal sacrifice. Their professionalism and commitment deserve national respect. But their sacrifice also demands an honest question. Can military operations alone resolve a conflict rooted not only in violence but also in political exclusion, economic deprivation, and competing external interests?

History offers a consistent answer. Durable counterinsurgency campaigns combine effective security operations with political inclusion and economic opportunity. Military pressure can weaken militant organisations, but lasting peace requires reducing the grievances that allow them to recruit and survive. Security without political reconciliation produces only temporary gains. Political outreach without security creates space for militant coercion. Success requires both.

Pakistan is fighting two battles at once. One is against heavily armed militant organisations sustained by external support. The other is against decades of political alienation, weak governance, and uneven development that have created fertile ground for insurgency. Winning only one of these battles will not bring lasting peace. The pain is no longer confined to Balochistan. Large parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, particularly the southern districts and the former tribal areas, have endured the same cycle of terrorism and insecurity for years. Policemen, soldiers, teachers, labourers, and ordinary citizens continue to pay the highest price. They deserve more than periodic military successes followed by the return of violence.

Pakistan’s soldiers and policemen have done what the nation asked of them. They have fought, bled, and died from the mountains of Balochistan to the valleys of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They cannot be expected to win a political battle with military means alone. That responsibility belongs to those who govern. Every day of delay widens the distance between the state and its citizens while giving militant organisations more space to regroup, recruit, and strike.

Pakistan needs political courage equal to the courage shown on the battlefield, a whole of state strategy that combines uncompromising security with justice, development, accountable governance, and genuine political inclusion. The soldiers have done their duty, it’s time for the state to do its own. The next chapter of this conflict will not be written by militants alone but by the choices our leaders make today.