Pakistan faces new frontier against attacks: Balochistan’s Pashtun areas

Published On 9 Sep 20269 Sep 2026.

Key points

• According to its data, Balochistan has been Pakistan's most affected province through most of 2026, with the gap over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa widening sharply from July.
• Though they fought together against United States-led forces in Afghanistan, the TTP, formed in 2007, is separate from the Afghan Taliban.
• Muhammad Ayoub Miryani, president of the Quetta Chamber of Commerce, informed Al Jazeera that roughly 90 percent of the chamber's business had ceased.
• Islamabad, Pakistan – Violence has surged since June throughout Balochistan's Pashtun-majority districts, areas which had largely escaped the fighting that has engulfed much of Pakistan's southwestern province.
• The Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS), an Islamabad-based think tank, publishes monthly and weekly assessments of violence nationwide.

Balochistan is Pakistan's largest province by area, resource-rich but its least developed, bordering Afghanistan and Iran.

While Baloch nationalist rebels have waged an armed rebellion against the state there for two decades, the Pashtun-majority districts had, until lately, remained largely outside that conflict. That pattern has now changed.

On September 1, security forces remarked they had repelled an attack, maintained by the Pakistan Taliban (known by the acronym TTP), on a customs facility at a major intersection, Ziarat Cross, in the Pashtun-dominated Pishin district, 100km northeast of Balochistan's capital Quetta. A number of armed fighters and six security and customs personnel were killed.

Three days afterwards, security forces stated they had killed 26 more fighters from the group in a separate operation in Shaban, on the outskirts of Quetta, another Pashtun-populated area.

It was during the same period, on September 3, that gunmen ambushed a paramilitary convoy returning from Ziarat district, situated more than 100 kilometres (62 miles) east of Quetta. A police officer, speaking to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, remarked more than a dozen paramilitary personnel were killed.

For context, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), the most prominent armed separatist group, asserted responsibility for the attack, but the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the Pakistani military's media wing, has not officially acknowledged the attack.

Al Jazeera sent seven questions to Pakistan's military media wing regarding the security situation in Balochistan, including a query concerning the September 3 ambush, but received no response.

Al Jazeera additionally sought comment from Babar Yousafzai, an official in the Balochistan home department. This person did not respond. Balochistan overtakes Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Data from multiple Pakistani monitoring organisations tracking violence demonstrates that Balochistan has this year overtaken neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the country's most violent province.

In practice, the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS), an Islamabad-based think tank, publishes monthly and weekly assessments of violence nationwide.

According to its data, Balochistan has been Pakistan's most affected province through most of 2026, with the gap over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa widening sharply from July. PICSS called July "the deadliest month of 2026" nationally and remarked the security situation had deteriorated most sharply in Balochistan.

Its weekly review for the first week of that month recorded 25 attacks and 102 deaths in Balochistan alone, pointing to "increasing TTP activity in northern districts" as a contributing factor.

Though they fought together against United States-led forces in Afghanistan, the TTP, formed in 2007, is separate from the Afghan Taliban. The TTP has additionally hosted Afghan fighters in Pakistan.

In August, PICSS recorded security forces killing 115 fighters in Balochistan, compared with 56 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 32 in the merged tribal districts, giving the province the highest toll of the three regions. The military's own moves suggest it is treating the shift seriously.

Faisal Naseer, until lately the director-general for counterintelligence at Inter Services Intelligence – Pakistan's main spy agency – was appointed national coordinator of the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) on September 4. The after day, Naseer was in Quetta when Pakistan's army chief Asim Munir visited Quetta Garrison, where he was given a detailed briefing on measures aimed at maintaining "peace and stability" throughout Balochistan.

"The field marshal reaffirmed that the peace, prosperity and well-being of the people of Balochistan remained central to the efforts of the state, " ISPR remarked.

On September 6, Naseer additionally met Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti and other political leaders to discuss the overall law and order situation and a coordinated strategy for establishing peace.

Bugti, speaking in the Balochistan Assembly over the weekend, remarked it was "deeply disturbing" that residents and security personnel were "being killed on a daily basis". A belt largely spared.

Until this June, one part of Balochistan had remained largely outside the violence.

Open-source tracking by the Durand Dispatch, a Pakistan-focused security monitor, demonstrates that 11 Pashtun-majority districts – Zhob, Sherani, Qila Saifullah, Loralai, Musakhail, Duki, Barkhan, Pishin, Qila Abdullah, Ziarat and Harnai – recorded not a single attack by an armed group between January and May.

That changed the after month. On June 10, gunmen on motorbikes attacked police installations throughout four of these districts. Pashtun-majority districts have recorded at least 13 attacks by armed groups since then, including the killing of 27 police personnel guarding a dam project near Ziarat in July. While the TTP and Baloch groups maintained the different July attacks, the June attack was asserted by the BLA.

In practice, the July killings of police personnel, in particular, drew sharp public reaction. Families of the dead and Pashtun nationalist parties held a three-day sit-in in Quetta, accusing the administration of leaving trapped officers without reinforcements.

Rafiullah Kakar, a Balochistan-focused policy analyst, informed Al Jazeera the pattern "represents a relatively new and significant development".

"The group's willingness and apparent ability to strike beyond its traditional areas of operation indicate an expanding geographical reach, " he remarked. "It also raises questions about whether there is some degree of tactical coordination or cooperation of the BLA with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan."

Iftikhar Firdous, a security analyst and cofounder of The Khorasan Diary, an independent research and media portal that tracks regional conflicts, informed Al Jazeera the TTP had been building outreach in Balochistan since 2019, "initially ideologically focused literature in the Balochi language".

"The TTP chief, Noor Wali Mehsud, had expressed the desire publicly to create an alliance with the 'Sarmachars', " he remarked, using the Balochi language word for armed fighters.

He pointed to how the N-50 national highway connects Balochistan's Pashtun-dominated districts of Zhob and Ziarat, via regional capital Quetta, with South Waziristan, the birthplace of the TTP, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. A trade corridor under strain.

Then there is the corridor that carries much of Balochistan's trade with Iran and domestically with Karachi. Businesses along it say they are being squeezed hard.

Haji Amin Sumalani, a chief executive member of the Balochistan Goods Trucks Owner Association, informed Al Jazeera that the N-40, the major road connecting the border town of Taftan to Quetta, and the N-25. It connects Quetta to Karachi, the country's largest city, had been "effectively unusable" for four months.

"Our drivers are in fear and not willing to travel on these highways due to the imminent threat of attack by armed militants who often set our goods transport trucks on fire, " he remarked.

More than 100 trucks had been set alight during that period, he remarked, causing losses of hundreds of millions of rupees, or at least hundreds of thousands of dollars. Two drivers had additionally been killed.

"Every trader is losing crores of rupees, " he remarked. A crore is 10 million rupees, worth regarding $36, 000 at current exchange rates.

Questions remain over why Balochistan's Pashtun belt is clearly the latest front in Pakistan's battle against armed groups, and what this means for the government's response.

Imtiaz Baloch, a Quetta-based independent researcher tracking security with a focus on Balochistan, informed Al Jazeera that armed groups were trying "to extend their operations beyond their traditional strongholds and target strategic transportation corridors that carry both military and economic importance".

He remarked the routes through northern Balochistan had, unlike highways elsewhere in the province, "largely remained operational and have proven difficult for insurgent groups to gain any success similar to others". It is precisely what makes the corridor an attractive target now.

Rahim Nasar, another Quetta-based security and political analyst, pointed to how the Pakistani military had carried out major military campaigns against the TTP in January and February in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Since those campaigns, "most of those fighters migrated here, " he informed Al Jazeera.

For now, pakistan faces new frontier against attacks: Balochistan's Pashtun areas remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.