Indian Council of World Affairs

Pakistan is in the throes of political and economic instability with two umbrella groups taking on the country’s security apparatus - the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baloch militant groups. When the Taliban took over power in Kabul, the then Prime Minister, Imran Khan stated “Afghanistan people have broken the chains of slavery”, but what Pakistan failed to grasp is that, its strategic depth in Afghanistan would soon wither away. Since Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in August 2021, there’s been a sharp uptick in terror attacks in Pakistan, which have become more widespread and lethal owing to the TTP’s emboldened posture and it has found the most opportune time to forge a nexus with other militant groups to stage attacks against the centre. One noteworthy development is an emerging nexus with Baloch militant groups. 

The TTP has traditionally operated within the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province and other northwestern tribal areas. Following the offensive of Zarb-e-Azb in 2014, and Radd-ul-Fasad in 2017, the TTP’s internal structure was dismantled. Mullah Fazlullah, the former TTP chief, was killed in 2018. Upon his death, Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud was appointed as his successor, who has now pledged allegiance to the Taliban supremo, Hibatullah Akhundzada. Under Mehsud, the TTP has stridently strengthened itself to take on the Pakistani state through various means. Most of these advances can be attributed to Mehsud’s leadership ability, who has tried to emulate the Afghan-taliban structure, i.e., to centralise the organisation and form shadow provinces. Lately, it has been making inroads into the restive province of Balochistan and trying to woo locals by espousing the long-standing issues of the local population, such as enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and exploitation of the province’s resources; its strategy thus involves appropriating the local grievances of not just Pashtuns, but also Balochs for boosting its operational capacity. For instance, after the February 2 attacks on Nushki and Panjgur camps by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the TTP spokesperson Mohammad Khurasani congratulated the group, saying “The Pakistan Army is carrying out the massacre in Balochistan. We are against the massacre in Balochistan as well as in Waziristan. Our enemy is common.” Umar Media, the TTP’s official media channel, plays an instrumental role in conveying the same through a plethora of languages, including Balochi, and has issued clarion calls for Baloch recruitment into their group. 

However, analysts say that a concrete alliance between the two groups is yet to be verified. Although some sort of understanding can be seen, major separatist groups have refrained from joining, while the smaller, independent militants have joined hands with the TTP, perhaps to acquire more influence. Since June 2022, four Baloch groups led by Aslam Baloch, Mazar Baloch, Akram Baloch, and Asim Baloch, who had earlier fought against the U.S led NATO Alliance in Afghanistan, have joined the TTP. 

Two chapters of TTP have been introduced in the Balochistan province: the Kalat-Makran chapter that covers the Baloch-majority areas, and the Zhob chapter covering Pakhtun-dominated areas. The Pakhtun dominated areas lie in the northern part of Balochistan, bordering Afghanistan, where the TTP has had a strong foothold. After the U.S invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, veteran Taliban leaders and their families sought refuge in Quetta, the capital city of Balochistan, establishing what is known as the “Quetta Shura”, a sobriquet for the government in exile. As a result, the TTP refrained from engaging in disorderly behaviour in the region, but after the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 2021 and the subsequent outflux of the leaders back to Kabul, the Pashtun areas have witnessed a spate of attacks. The TTP’s ingress into the Baloch-dominated areas, a new phenomena, on the other hand, reflects that its emotional appeal has found its place among the locals, and a complacency on their part to let the group achieve its strategic gains. 

Baloch groups have also adopted TTP-like tactics, such as suicide bombing, which they earlier opposed, for fear of being clubbed together in the extreme category as the Pakistani Taliban. The Balochs, by and large, have been secular in character, while the TTP has a more extremist religious ideology; this alludes that despite having ideological differences, both groups are coming together against their common enemy, the Pakistan state. Baloch separatists have a history of cooperating with groups that are ideologically different from theirs, such as the Islamic State, and Al-Qaeda, so cooperation with the TTP, on a wider level in the future, should not be overlooked and must be watched closely. The Balochistan Liberation Army receives a broad range of military training from the TTP, including technical know-how of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and helps the TTP with the logistics in Balochistan, in return. Against this backdrop of growing alliance, brutal attacks on security forces by both parties remain unabated. The year 2022 was the worst in terms of deadliest attacks on police, military personnel and the Frontier Corps. 

Implications for CPEC 

The Zhob chapter initiated by the TTP falls on the Quetta-Dera Ismail Khan highway, a part of CPEC’s western route. The Kalat-Makran chapter incorporates Gwadar, which is the crown jewel of CPEC. There are countless instances of attacks on Chinese interests by Baloch armed groups, but of late, TTP has been targeting Chinese sites, albeit sporadically. And China has repeatedly flagged the deteriorating security situation around its investments and the growing anti-China rhetoric. CPEC projects have presently faced a slowdown due to the many political and economic vicissitudes in both countries, the incorporation of Baloch groups by the TTP creates a not-so-conducive environment for amassing new investments, and may hinder the existing ones. In September 2023, China rejected Pakistan’s proposal to expand cooperation under CPEC, citing economic and security concerns. This comes a few months after China and Pakistan celebrated 10 years of CPEC in July 2023. 

Pakistan & Iran 

Since Balochistan borders Iran, some factions operate from there as well, which has led to Iran and Pakistan cooperating on the terrorism issue. With the inclusion of Iran into SCO, regional cooperation between China-Pak-Iran in eliminating terrorism can be seen. A top commander (Nawaz Ali Rind) of Baloch Liberation Front was killed in Iran, following the trilateral cooperation on terrorism between Iran, China and Pakistan. 

Recalibration of Strategy 

This calls for Pakistan to rethink its policies on:

• Afghanistan Policy: Pakistan cannot hope to take on the TTP without developing an understanding with the Afghan Taliban, as both groups are essentially cut from the same ideological cloth. Although the Taliban had offered to mediate between the TTP and Pakistan, it has continued to provide a safe haven to the The fraying relations between the two countries underlines the importance of this aspect now more than ever before. Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy must be led by a civilian set-up, a point that has been reverberated by several analysts, since millions of Afghans remain interlinked with the country. 

• Balochistan: While the government had shown interest in talking to the TTP earlier, it has not done so with Baloch militant groups, for fear of legitimising these Military bravado, and kinetic approaches used for the TTP will likely falter in quelling the Baloch separatist groups, because a military solution to a political and economic issue is, at best, a defensive short-term action.

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*Bantirani Patro, Research Intern, Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi
Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal.