No one knows how Kamran Hasan became a militant. The history-loving 23-year-old had returned home from Islamabad, where he worked as a chartered accountant, and had his hopes set on a degree in education. But then in June, he disappeared. A brief phone call to his father came days later.
“He told me, ‘I am going to the mountains,’” says his father, Mohammad Akram, who knew that meant only one thing: his son was joining the militant insurgency that had rocked their home region of Balochistan for decades. “I begged him no, asked if it was reasons of money or family that led him to take this step. But he did not give any more details and disconnected the call.” Hasan’s friends also had no answers.
Hasan’s story has become an increasingly familiar one in homes across Pakistan’s troubled south-western region of Balochistan, the country’s largest and poorest province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan.
The insurgency in Balochistan is almost as old as the country itself. It began in 1948 when the region was controversially – some say forcefully – annexed to become part of the newly formed Pakistan. Violent separatist uprisings, which were largely tribal-led, took place again in 1958, 1962 and 1973.
In the early 2000s the violence took a turn. Baloch nationalists, who had long accused the Pakistani state and military of exploiting Balochistan’s valuable mineral resources, oppressing its people and rigging its elections, began to mobilise into organised insurgent armies that called for an independent Baloch state.
For years it remained a low-intensity operation, marked by sporadic attacks and ambushes. Yet in recent years, the long-festering insurgency has gathered a lethal new momentum. Baloch militants – often in vast numbers – began to carry out sophisticated attacks on high-profile Pakistan military targets and multimillion-dollar Chinese projects . They also started using suicide bombers.
Young men and women in their hundreds – some estimate thousands – began to bolster the ranks of militant groups such as the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA). Increasingly, those radicalised were educated graduates from middle class families with no militant connections. The BLA has also become highly media savvy, sending out coordinated press releases about their attacks and posting videos across X, TikTok, Telegram and Instagram glorifying their violence.
Insurgents show a ‘massive escalation’ in military skill
The newfound scale and ambition of the Baloch insurgency became starkly apparent this month, as the BLA carried out one of its most high-profile attacks yet. Hundreds of Baloch militants blew up railway tracks and hijacked a passenger train carrying almost 500 passengers as it travelled through the remote mountains of Balochistan, taking hundreds hostage.
The Pakistani government claimed that 31 people were killed overall, and that the military operation took out 33 Baloch insurgents. But the BLA called the claims “a lie” and said they had executed 214 hostages who were mostly military and police personnel onboard the train. With secrecy surrounding the Pakistan military’s operation and very few of the rescued hostages seen in the aftermath, both accounts were impossible to independently verify, leading to questions about the true scale of the death toll on either side.
Watching the news of the train hijacking unfolding, Hasan’s father was unable to sleep for days, fearful that his son was among the militants responsible. “We keep switching on TV and scrolling social media to know about the attackers,” he says. “I am haunted by the fear he is among those killed.”
It was followed days later by another deadly BLA attack, as suicide bombers attacked a convoy of paramilitary forces in the city of Noshki. In 2024 alone, the BLA claimed responsibility for 302 attacks, including a bombing at Quetta’s main railway station that killed 26 people, including 14 soldiers.
“Since around 2017 we have seen a massive escalation, not just in the levels of violence but the lethality, the complexity, the military skill and the geographical scope of the Baloch insurgency,” says Asfandyar Mir, an expert in South Asia counter-terrorism at the United States Institute of Peace. “It’s clear there is a high level of resolve to sustain the fight.”
The surge of violence has helped push Pakistan’s security situation to its most precarious in more than a decade. Baloch militants have become highly visible across the province, frequently blocking roads, setting up checkpoints and attacking police and military posts, forcing the army and paramilitary to stay confined in their camps.
A loss of faith in political solutions
This month, senior government ministers and army leaders held a special meeting to discuss the country’s deteriorating security crisis.
Public support for the Baloch resistance – both violent and non-violent – has been growing, particularly among the younger generation, with vast numbers turning out to recent protests. Many continue to be radicalised in response to the ongoing human rights horrors inflicted in Balochistan by the army and paramilitary for about two decades – an anti-insurgency crackdown and the crushing of dissent, known as Pakistan’s secret dirty war, that has led to thousands of activists, journalists, students and civilians in the region being abducted, tortured and then killed or rarely seen again.
According to Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, since 2009 almost 1,500 of the “disappeared” have turned up dead, often in a beaten state, and another 6,000 remain missing. Since the insurgency was revitalised, human rights groups have reported an increase in extrajudicial killings and disappearances once again. The military denies any involvement.
There has also been a widespread loss of faith in finding political solutions to Balochistan’s problems, after credible allegations of military interference in the last two elections in 2018 and 2024 which brought down popular Baloch nationalist politicians.
“Violence has become the dominant form of interaction between the state and the Baloch, sidelining and undermining political avenues for addressing the issues,” says Sajid Aziz, a researcher into the Baloch insurgency.
Ayoub Azim was 21 when he was abducted, along with his best friend, by the security forces along in 2017. He was kept in a dark cell and tortured, despite having no links to militant groups. When he was eventually released two years later, Azim tried to get over the trauma and got married, with his wife quickly falling pregnant. But months later, he disappeared to join the ranks of the BLA.
“As a family, we tried to stop him but he refused and said he only wanted to take revenge,” says his father-in-law, Uzair. Azim returned briefly to see his daughter two years ago. The next the family heard of him was that he had been killed last March carrying out a suicide attack on a naval base.
Benefiting from the return of the Taliban
In 2017, the BLA – now the most prominent Baloch separatist group – also began to undergo a transformation. In the decade previous, the brutality of the military’s crackdown was deemed largely successful in bringing the Baloch insurgency under control. However, this began to shift when the BLA began to reorganise and brought in founder Aslam Achu Baloch as their commander-in-chief.
Under Aslam Baloch’s leadership, the BLA moved away from its powerful tribal leaders to become a more educated middle class movement. He revitalised the Majeed brigade – the elite squad of suicide bombers – and established intelligence and operative wings within the BLA. The infighting and division between the BLA and other insurgent groups was also largely brought to an end after a coalition of separatist groups was formed in 2018.
Afghanistan is also seen to have played a critical role in fuelling Baloch militancy. Mir says it had gone “under-appreciated how much the Baloch outfits have benefited from the return of the Taliban”, who came back to power in Afghanistan in 2021 and have an increasingly hostile relationship with Pakistan.
It is widely acknowledged that the current BLA commander-in-chief, Bashir Zaib, has been freely living in Afghanistan, just as his predecessor Aslam Baloch did. Afghanistan is also believed to have provided a crucial training ground for BLA militants, with evidence suggesting BLA fighters have trained in camps alongside the Pakistani Taliban.
This was reiterated by a senior security source in Pakistan who say they have traced direct coordination and logistic support between the BLA and Pakistani Taliban, particularly in training for suicide bombers. They also allege the BLA militants were using American weapons left behind in Afghanistan. In a press conference last week, the military alleged the train hijacking was coordinated from Afghanistan.
Pervez Saleem, the former chief secretary of Balochistan, says the renewed insurgency and its widespread support should serve as a wake-up call for Pakistan’s military.
“They think they can keep Balochistan by force but it can’t happen any more. The geopolitical situation has changed and the army needs to change its policies. There’s a new great game at play.”
