Double Whammy of Armed Baloch Rebels, TTP Cadres push Pakistan to record levels of Violence

In the year just gone by, the Baloch rebels and Tehreek Taliban Pakistan (TTP) cadres targeted the Pakistani security forces, including its Army, and caused massive casualties. The armed Baloch rebels are fighting for an independent Balochistan even as its civil society groups are gaining strength daily with Dr Mahrang Baloch becoming an international celebrity of sorts during 2024. The success of the Afghanistan Taliban inspires the TTP cadres and they want a puritan Islam imposed all through Pakistan. 2024 brought a double whammy to the Pakistani nation as it battled abject poverty and knocked at the doors of International Monetary Fund (IMF) to try staying afloat.

Pakistan started deporting Afghans on a large scale in November 2023, after repeatedly threatening to do so many times earlier. The deportations continued throughout 2024, leading to the displacement of about 20 lakh Afghans, according to some estimates. The bad blood it caused has turned the western border of Pakistan, once touted as giving it “strategic depth’’, into a living nightmare for the Establishment (government, military, and to a lesser extent even the judiciary). Diplomatic relations with Afghanistan  have never been as strained as they are now.

Mass deportations, the Pakistanis thought, would put pressure on the Taliban government of Afghanistan to fall in line. The Pakistanis seemed to have calculated that this way they would be able to force the Afghan Taliban to act against Tehreek Taliban Pakistan (TTP) cadres staying on Afghan soil. The Afghan Taliban government has asked its Pakistan counterpart to sort out its problems with the TTP on its own. All efforts by Pakistan to force the Afghan Taliban to crack down on TTP cadres, now called Khwarij officially, have failed.

In Pakistan, large parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province appear to be free zones dominated by the TTP, particularly the Gul Bahadur group, who have wreaked havoc. Schools for girls, politicians aligned with Pakistan’s government, Army, and police personnel were repeatedly targeted throughout the year 2024 by the TTP in KP. The Federal government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had tried to neutralise TTP cadres through kinetic actions, but failed to curb them effectively.

As if the overactive TTP cadres were not enough of a headache, the Baloch rebels went into overdrive  last year, all over Balochistan, wreaking havoc all around. The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), Baloch Liberation Front (BLF), the Majeed Brigade, and other groups gained wider currency last year. They became known the world over for targeting Pakistani security forces, including its Army. The most spectacular and deadliest suicide attack of the Baloch rebels was carried out on Quetta’s railway station.

Incidentally, Quetta was once the stronghold of the Haqqani brothers, the Afghan Taliban group, many members of which are now ministers in Afghanistan. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had hosted the Haqqanis, as well as some others, in these parts. The starkest evidence of the way ISI nurtured Haqqanis was an image of ISI chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed in Hotel Serena in Kabul on September 4, 2021. On November 9, 2024, a lone suicide Baloch bomber of the BLA exploded the device he was carrying when passengers were about to board the Zaffar Express coming from Peshawar. At least 26 soldiers were killed in the resulting blast, with dozens left injured, many of whom succumbed to their injuries later.

A yearly report released by an Islamabad-based Pakistani think tank named the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) has shown that the year 2024 proved to be the deadliest for Pakistan’s security forces and civilians in a decade. There were 444 armed attacks resulting in the deaths of 685 security personnel. Overall, 2,546 people lost their lives across Pakistan due to violence, including civilians, security forces, and alleged terrorists, marking a 66% increase compared to a year earlier in 2023.

A sharp rise in the number of fatalities was also recorded during the year among civilians and security personnel. The number was put at 1,612, accounting for over 63% of the total recorded in 2024 and marking 73% more losses whereas 934 outlaws (rebels and terrorists) were eliminated. The overall toll recorded was the highest in the last nine years, and over 66% above the 2023 count.

Giving details regarding the overall toll in 2024, the CRSS report says that Pakistan suffered 2,546 violence-linked fatalities and 2,267 injuries among civilians, security personnel, and outlaws. This tally of casualties stemmed from 1,166 terror attacks and counter-terror operations, marking a grim year for country’s security landscape.

Among the provinces, the most affected were Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan. Together they accounted for 94% of all fatalities and 89% of all incidents across the country. According to the data from the last 10 years, violence in Pakistan declined from 2015 to 2020, but this six-year trend was reversed in 2021. From that year onwards, violence continued to rise and hit a peak in 2024.

The highest number of violent incidents was reported in KP’s districts bordering Afghanistan, namely Kurram, North Waziristan, and Khyber. Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu, and Lakki Marwat were not far behind.

In reality, at the ground level, the writ of the Federal or the provincial governments does not run in most of these areas. Balochistan’s Quetta, Kech, Kalat, and Musakhail districts also witnessed high levels of violence. The fatalities in 2024 alone were nearly as many as those recorded in the previous three years. In 2024, The security forces conducted 257 operations and there were over 900 attacks on them by the rebels.

A sharp spurt was noticed in the incidents of insurgency and militancy during the period under review. The aforesaid report further highlights that sectarian violence also added to the year’s tally, claiming 182 lives and injuring 234 individuals. Shia communities bore the brunt of the losses, with 79 fatalities, followed by incidents involving both Shia and Sunni groups, which accounted for 79 deaths.