Has Pakistan lost Balochistan?

Pakistan, the nursery of global jihad, faces a serious challenge to its sovereignty and integrity from multiple quarters, including the intensifying resistance in the PoK; growing resentment in the Sind region; the TTP in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa; and last but not least, the militant rebels of the Balochistan Liberation Army. Amongst all these, the most threatening challenge comes from the Baluch freedom movement.

In the last few days, a post has gone viral on X, claiming that the Baloch rebels have driven out Pakistani Security Forces (SFs) and they now control 85 per cent of the territory of Balochistan, the state that constitutes 44 per cent of Pakistan’s territory, 6 per cent of its population and massive deposits of gold, copper, gas and coal.

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The post also mentioned that the Baloch rebels have announced their national anthem, separate currency, flag, and established political and military units. Mir Yar Baloch, a US-based Baloch human rights and political activist and special advisor to the Middle East Media Research Institute’s (MEMRI) Balochistan Studies Project, declared Balochistan’s independence and, in his X post, said that Baloch residents are out on the streets and have given their verdict against Pakistan. He requested India and the world community recognise Balochistan.

Further, he urged Indian YouTubers not to refer to Balochis as Pakistan’s own people. He also supported India’s stance on PoK and suggested that world leaders ask Pakistan to leave PoK if it wants to avoid another humiliation like that of the 1971 war, when Pakistan’s 93,000 soldiers surrendered after its army suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of the Indian armed forces.

However, neither the Pakistani army nor any independent source has verified the above-mentioned claim of Baloch rebels controlling 85 per cent of the province’s territory. Nevertheless, the Baloch freedom movement poses the most alarming challenge to Pakistan’s territorial integrity. Even if the above-mentioned claim is not verified, it brings forth Pakistan’s eroding military footprint and declining credibility in the region. The Baloch rebel groups control a significant part of Balochistan province, though less than 85 per cent of it. The Baloch resistance movement began right after the partition in 1947, when the Khan of Kalat declared its independence for a brief period before the Pakistani military boots trampled upon it. Since then, the Baloch movement has challenged the Pakistani state in several phases. Between 1947-77, Balochistan witnessed four tribal-led insurgencies, which were ruthlessly crushed by the Pakistan army.

However, in the 5th phase, which began in the early 2000s, the movement turned into an extremely violent and prolonged guerrilla war, much more intense in scale and lethality. In Jan 2005, the alleged rape of a female doctor by a Pakistani military officer at the Sui Gas fields sparked massive retaliatory action with rocket attacks, resulting in a full-fledged military crackdown using gunships. The turning point arrived when Pakistan’s military dictator Gen Parvez Musharraf’s commanders killed Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a 79-year-old powerful tribal chief of Balochistan, on August 26, 2006, in a mountain cave hideout near the Bhamboor Hills in Balochistan. His death triggered violent protests, civil unrest and a major escalation in the Baloch nationalist insurgency.

Bugti’s murder marked a decisive shift in the Baloch insurgency, radicalising the youth and shifting the leadership from tribal elders to educated and militant middle-class youth. The most recent spike in the Baloch movement came in 2022. Between 2022 and 2026, the Baloch resistance movement became highly sophisticated and lethal. Rebel groups such as the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Balochistan Liberation Front have adopted new tactics. They attack military convoys, police posts, public infrastructure, China’s CPEC infrastructure, Chinese engineers and non-local Punjabi labourers. They have employed female suicide bombers of the Majeed Brigade for lethal suicide attacks at high-profile military and state installations instead of their previous hit-and-run tactics. The rebel groups have targeted public transportation and killed Pakistani soldiers in large numbers.

In 2025-26, in operation Herof, the Baloch rebels have staged simultaneous assaults and bomb attacks across several districts in Balochistan. In the Mastung ambush (July 2026), the BLA reportedly killed 45 Pakistani security forces personnel, and in Operation Hero, the number was 80 to 90 military deaths; however, these numbers exceeded the figures given by the Pakistani army. In March 2025, during a hijacking and an attack on the Zafar Express, the BLA claimed to have killed 100 soldiers; however, the Pakistani army released the figure of 23 deaths. Comprehensive databases suggest around 3,500 to 4,500 casualties of the Pakistani soldiers in the 5th phase of the Balochistan insurgency.

Pakistan has left no stone unturned in ruthlessly crushing this insurgency. There are 1000s of cases of forced disappearances, custodial killings, extrajudicial killings and gross human rights violations. Many domestic and international groups, such as the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Amnesty International and the Human Rights Council of Balochistan (HRCB), have documented 7000 to 8000 cases of verified forced disappearances. HRCB documented 801 cases in 2024, and Baloch Yekjehti Committed reported 1224 kidnappings in 2025. In recent years, the Pakistani state machinery has targeted middle-class youths, doctors, activists, female lawyers, and human rights workers. Pakistani intelligence has also assassinated Baloch activists in Europe and Canada.

As the movement intensified over the last decade, Pakistan has blamed India for providing material and financial support to the Baloch insurgency; however, the Indians have mostly denied it. Though India’s NSA Ajit Doval and PM Modi mentioned Balochistan in their public speeches aimed to signal Pakistan to stop supporting terror, it hardly furnishes strong evidence of India’s hand. Secondly, China’s CPEC is a major issue in the Balochistan insurgency. The rebels have targeted CPEC infrastructure and killed Chinese engineers. The Indian state is highly unlikely to support Baloch rebels lest it offend the Chinese. Given that India’s ties with China are at their worst since Galwan, India is unlikely to annoy Beijing by lending support to Baloch rebels. Besides, India does not share a geographic contiguity with Balochistan, so it will be extremely difficult for India to supply weapons or render any other kind of help except for some high-pitched activity on the propaganda front.

However, lately, Pakistani think tanks have alleged the role of joint India-Israeli activities as one of the major reasons for escalation in militant violence. No doubt, Israel’s role can be crucial. After the rising Hamas presence and activity in Pakistan and its strengthening ties with Pakistani jihadist groups, Israel sees Pakistan as a security threat. Further, its ties with India and Pakistan’s robust strategic partnership with Turkey also accentuate the frictions between Islamabad and Jerusalem. However, after the Iran-Israel-US war, Jerusalem has a crucial incentive to strengthen the Baloch insurgency to weaken the Iranian regime on the eastern side, as the Baloch resistance is also active in Iran’s Pakistan-bordering Sistan and Balochistan territory.

Further, Chinese equipment can reach Iran through the Pakistani territory, so both the US and Israel have a legitimate reason to support the Baloch insurgency to weaken China’s allies, Pakistan and Iran. Further, due to the ongoing frictions between the Taliban government and Pakistan, the Baloch rebels have reportedly received support and safe havens in Afghanistan.

In all likelihood, it can be concluded that Balochistan will increasingly become a highly complex conflict theatre with massive stakes for foreign stakeholders like Israel, India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, China and the US. Given the intensity and lethality of the recent Baloch attacks and the scale of operations and weakening morale of Pakistani security forces occupied with conflict in multiple theatres, it is highly likely that Balochistan resistance will be an existential threat to Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

(Abhinav Pandya is a policy analyst specialising in counterterrorism, Indian foreign policy and Afghanistan-Pakistan geopolitics. Umar Iqbal is an intern in security and counterterrorism studies programme at Usanas Foundation. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)