The recent terrorist attacks carried out by the banned Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in different areas of Balochistan indicate not only the growing operational prowess of these organisations but also the consequences of the alliance that these two largest terrorist networks operating in Pakistan forged several years ago.
The recent attacks included the July 6 assault in Ziarat district on police personnel near the under-construction Mangi Dam, in which 27 police personnel were martyred, including 18 officers. The attack was huge and perhaps one of the deadliest carried out by the TTP in Balochistan. The attack was followed by another incident at Hanna Lake near Quetta, in which three people also perished. Significantly, these attacks took place in the Pashtun belt of Balochistan, which runs from the provincial capital Quetta to Zhob district in the north of the province, bordering Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
These attacks took place simultaneously with BLA operations in Bela and Lasbela districts, located in the Baloch-inhabited regions of Balochistan. On July 16, the BLA carried out a major ambush attack on a Pakistani military convoy and reinforcement teams in the Khadkocha area of Mastung district on the Quetta-Karachi Highway (N-25). The BLA’s elite “Fatah Squad” targeted military transport buses and heavily damaged security vehicles using heavy firearms, hand grenades and improvised explosive devices. Although Pakistani security authorities did not confirm the number of casualties, heavy loss of life was feared.
In response to these attacks, Pakistan’s security forces launched a major anti-terrorist operation codenamed “Shaban”, particularly after the Mangi Dam attack. So far, dozens of terrorists have reportedly been eliminated in the operation. While the situation in Balochistan continues to remain highly volatile, with fears of further attacks by both the TTP and the BLA and the possibility of an even more stringent military response, the key concern has been the manifestation of a possible alliance between the BLA and the TTP. This development must ring alarm bells in the power corridors of both Islamabad and Quetta.
It was more than three years ago that reports about a loose alliance between the TTP and Baloch separatist groups first emerged. The recent attacks appear to be a manifestation of this alliance. Three years ago, the current TTP chief, Noor Wali Mehsud, and Baloch separatist armed commander Dr Allah Nizar Baloch separately acknowledged that both sides had formed a sort of alliance to help each other in launching violent activities against the Pakistani state and its security forces.
It may be mentioned that Balochistan, along with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, forms Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, while the province also constitutes the entirety of Pakistan’s border with Iran. Balochistan is also home to Pakistan’s strategically important Gwadar Port, situated only a short distance from Iran’s own strategic Chahbahar Seaport on the Gulf of Oman and close to the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz.
In the calculations of the TTP, led by Noor Wali Mehsud, Balochistan has therefore become extremely important. The foremost importance of Balochistan for the TTP is that its traditional heartland, the Waziristan region of the Pashtun tribal belt, or for that matter the entire tribal belt, is geographically narrow. In the event of a new offensive by the Pakistani military, the group fears that it could once again face a crushing defeat.
The TTP was already effectively defeated in the military offensive launched after the 2014 horrific terrorist attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar. By 2016, the TTP had been severely weakened and many of its members had fled to Afghanistan. Since then, Pakistani military personnel have manned the length and breadth of the Pashtun tribal belt, extending from Bajaur district in the north to South Waziristan district in the south, which is contiguous with Balochistan. The state also re-established its writ across large parts of the region.
By forging an alliance with Baloch separatist groups, the TTP’s first objective is therefore to establish hideouts and networks in the vast province of Balochistan. This would enable the TTP to avoid being cornered in the Pashtun tribal belt by Pakistani security forces and subsequently eliminated. Balochistan could provide an outlet for TTP militants to retreat, regroup and then relaunch a major guerrilla war and terrorist campaign.
For Baloch armed separatist militant and terrorist groups, an alliance with the TTP would increase their destructive strength. Resources, technical know-how and the ruthlessness associated with suicide attacks and other forms of terrorism could make Baloch armed groups considerably more lethal and capable of inflicting greater damage.
Noticeably, Baloch armed groups have been fighting for decades, with the BLA having been formed in 1964, but they have not been able to achieve any concrete political or military objective. The TTP, on the other hand, has existed since 2007, yet it has at one point compelled the Pakistani state to temporarily cede territory and has emerged as one of the deadliest militant organisations in Pakistan’s history.
The forging of an alliance between the TTP and Baloch separatist militant groups could therefore have large-scale consequences for all regional countries. Undoubtedly, the most immediate, severe and far-reaching consequences would be for Pakistan, as explained above. However, Afghanistan would also be unable to escape the consequences of any sustained cooperation between the TTP and Baloch separatist groups operating in Pakistan.
The Afghan Taliban’s role in the TTP-Baloch alliance has been one of complicity. The Afghan Taliban have been the principal supporters of the TTP, and it is largely because of this support that the latter has been able to regroup and resurge. Moreover, the interest of the Afghan Taliban in an alliance between the TTP and Baloch separatists is obvious: it could help relocate the TTP from Afghanistan to Balochistan.
As long as the TTP remains in Afghanistan, there is a fear among the Afghan Taliban that the Pakistani Taliban group could forge an alliance with the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K). This fear was reportedly conveyed to Pakistan in the past in an effort to compel Islamabad to hold talks with the TTP so that the group could eventually be reintegrated into Pakistan. India, although accused by Pakistan of providing logistical and financial assistance to Baloch separatists and of having extended support to the TTP in its continuing efforts to inflict damage on Pakistan, would also be playing a dangerous game if it were to support such militant networks. Unlike Baloch separatists, whose activities are focused primarily on their separatist agenda, the TTP is, in the final analysis, a militant organisation with a broader ideological agenda and extremist sympathies.
Thus, Afghanistan and India, if they assist either Baloch armed separatist militant-terrorist groups or the TTP, would be playing with fire. If they believe that the resulting fire would remain confined to Pakistan and that Pakistan alone would bear the brunt of the consequences, it would be a grave miscalculation.
On its part, Pakistan’s decision-makers must formulate a new and comprehensive strategy to re-establish the somewhat eroded writ of the state in Balochistan and prevent the situation from further aggravating. The emergence of closer operational coordination between the TTP and Baloch separatist groups represents a potentially dangerous transformation in Pakistan’s security environment. A failure to address the roots of the problem, strengthen state institutions and prevent the creation of new militant sanctuaries could allow the two groups to exploit their respective strengths and create a far more formidable challenge than either organisation could pose independently.