Balochistan Is Now Pakistan’s Most Dangerous Province

Balochistan witnessed an unprecedented surge in separatist violence in July: 176 terrorist attacks, involving suicide bombings, complex ambushes, coordinated high-profile assaults and drone operations, were reported that month, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal’s open-source database. In total, the attacks killed 438 people, including 127 security personnel.

July was the most violent month in Balochistan this year, both in terms of attacks and fatalities. The statistics make Balochistan Pakistan’s most volatile province, surpassing Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where 143 violent incidents caused 244 casualties the same month. The data trendlines of terrorist attacks and killings so far in 2026 also reveal that Balochistan has overtaken Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the most volatile region in the country. As compared to 574 attacks and 1,196 casualties reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa between January and July this year, Balochistan witnessed a staggering 765 violent incidents and 1,600 fatalities in the same period.

In addition to the increase in the number of terrorist attacks is the geographic expansion of violence to Balochistan’s Pashtun areas, where Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been quietly increasing its footprint. The TTP unleashed its firepower on former personnel of the Afghan National Army (ANA), who have been reorganizing and rearming in the province to relaunch the anti-Taliban campaign in Afghanistan. Ironically, ex-ANA factions are using the same residential compounds where once the Taliban’s Quetta shura lived, trained, and launched insurgent campaigns in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Taliban have tasked the TTP to counter the presence of ex-ANA elements in Balochistan’s Pashtun areas. Recent clashes between the TTP and ex-ANA elements have resulted in casualties among Pashtuns in Balochistan, prompting Pashtun tribes in Balochistan to protest, demanding justice and security from the state.

Furthermore, the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP) is also active in the restive province. The group claimed responsibility for the assassination of a judge and his police bodyguard in Mastung district. ISKP has maintained a footprint in Balochistan in one form or the other since 2015. Over the years, ISKP’s influence in Balochistan has ebbed and flowed, amid counterterrorism pressure and aggression from rival militant groups. Meanwhile, ISKP has survived by diversifying its recruitment base, expanding it from Central Asia to Turkiye, keeping its narrative alive through encrypted social media platforms, and leveraging inter-group alliances with like-minded groups in the region, especially Jundullah and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. ISKP, like other terrorist groups, thrives in chaos by exploiting sectarian and sociopolitical faultlines, weakly governed peripheral areas, and soft borders.

So, the surge in violence and killings in Balochistan is the outcome not only of attacks and counterattacks by Baloch separatists and Pakistani security forces but multifaceted militant activity as well. These patterns need to be unpacked against the backdrop of the evolving regional security environment, where internal and external factors together are shaping Balochistan’s security landscape.

First, the Iran-Israel-U.S. conflict, which has entered its sixth month, has created security vacuums along the Iran-Pakistan border, which terrorist groups are exploiting and making gains to the detriment of Balochistan’s internal security. The involvement of the TTP, ex-ANA, ISKP, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and other Baloch separatist groups in Balochistan’s violence exemplifies this.

Second, the Afghanistan-Pakistan proxy war has spilled over into the Pashtun areas of Balochistan. After trying bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, border closures, suspension of trade, expulsion of Afghan refugees, and airstrikes to change the Taliban’s strategic calculus on the TTP, ex-ANA elements have now been brought out of the closet to kickstart a proxy war in Afghanistan. Pakistani security institutions are allegedly using Afghans to fight the TTP as well as the Afghan Taliban.

In response, the Taliban have supported, financed, and armed the TTP to increase its footprint in Balochistan’s Pashtun areas. TTP elements were arriving in large numbers and quietly sitting in the mountains without much activity. However, as the ex-ANA elements became more active, armed clashes broke out. Developments in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province have their roots in the deadly clashes in Balochistan’s Pashtun areas between TTP and ex-ANA factions. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s old strategy of fighting monsters with monsters is continuing.

Third, enhanced operational capabilities of Baloch insurgent groups, especially the BLA, have contributed to the upsurge in violence in Balochistan as well. Since 2024, when it launched Operation Herof, a series of complex and coordinated operations, the BLA has displayed capacity for carrying out near-simultaneous attacks in several districts against high-profile targets. The attacks have displayed immense operational sophistication, revealing resource abundance and detailed planning and months of preparations. The BLA carried out Herof I and II in August 2024 and August 2025, respectively, marking the death anniversary of the Baloch tribal elder and politician, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti.

It appears to be preparing for Herof III now, as evident from the recent surge in violence in Balochistan.

Baloch separatist groups are now in possession of M4 and M16 carbine rifles fitted with thermal scopes that the U.S. left behind in Afghanistan, satellite phones for communication, as well as Starlink’s satellite internet and commercially available quadcopters.

Finally, the Pakistani state’s apathy toward a political approach has also contributed to the deteriorating security situation in the restive province. Pakistan has pursued a highly militarized counterinsurgency policy, while adopting a dismissive attitude toward the issue of enforced disappearances and persistent opposition to peaceful activism of the Baloch for political, economic, and constitutional rights. The state imposed an illegitimate political setup in Quetta through rigged elections, and has implemented a complete information blackout and censorship of Balochistan’s conflict in the mainstream media. It has failed to capture the imagination of Baloch youth.

Pakistan’s decisions to arm and finance ex-ANA elements and persist with its militarized counterinsurgency policy in Balochistan are recipes for more violence. Instead, it should explore more nuanced and calibrated approaches grounded in political processes and diplomacy. Balochistan needs representative political leadership with roots among its people and a participatory development model.