The recent wave of terrorist violence in Ziarat, along the Makran coast of Balochistan and across the southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has once again exposed an uncomfortable reality that terrorism and insurgency in Pakistan remain far from being under control.
Rather than diminishing, they appear to be expanding in geographical reach, operational sophistication and the scale of casualties inflicted on both security personnel and civilians.
Police officers, soldiers of the Pakistan Army and personnel of other law-enforcement agencies continue to lay down their lives in defence of the state. Every martyr is honoured with dignity, but behind every state funeral is an irreplaceable human being. Financial compensation for bereaved families is essential, yet no amount of money can replace a father, a son or a spouse and every life lost leaves a permanent void.
Following the latest attacks, the security forces launched Operation ‘Shaban’, with official statements emphasising that more terrorists were killed than members of the security forces. Such operational successes deserve recognition. Yet they also invite an important question. If Azm-e-Istehkam, launched a year ago to consolidate the revised National Action Plan, was intended to comprehensively tackle militancy, why has another operation become necessary? Tactical victories on the battlefield should not be confused with strategic success.
Ironically, while Pakistan continues to battle terrorism at home, it has also emerged as an increasingly important diplomatic player abroad. It has been credited with helping to reduce tensions between rival states and contributing to efforts to prevent wider global conflict. This growing diplomatic stature deserves appreciation. Friends acknowledge Pakistan’s constructive role, while adversaries have found that a country they once hoped to isolate has instead become an important regional interlocutor.
Yet therein lies a profound irony. A country that seeks to promote peace beyond its borders has yet to secure enduring peace within them. If Pakistan can encourage bitter rivals to engage in dialogue, why has it not been able to create a meaningful national dialogue involving political stakeholders, provincial representatives, civil society and other peaceful actors to address domestic grievances before violent groups exploit them?
Pakistan’s internal security landscape has also become increasingly complex. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Pashtun area of Balochistan, the principal threat comes from religiously inspired militant organisations such as the TTP, along with ISKP and remnants of Al-Qaeda.
In Balochistan, the challenge is posed primarily by ethno-nationalist insurgent groups, including the BLA and its affiliates. Despite their divergent ideologies, security agencies believe that these organisations have, at times, benefited from tactical cooperation and external support aimed at undermining Pakistan’s stability, particularly strategic projects such as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Simultaneously, deteriorating relations along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border continue to complicate the country’s security environment.
The situation in Datta Khel, North Waziristan, illustrates the persistence of the challenge. Although the area was cleared during Operation Zarb-e-Azb more than a decade ago, militant groups continue to exploit the porous border with Afghanistan. Military operations have eliminated numerous militants, but the conflict continues to impose a high humanitarian cost. Thousands of displaced families remain unable to return permanently due to insecurity, demining operations and administrative restrictions. Many continue to depend on government assistance years after their displacement, rather than rebuilding their normal lives.
These realities should compel us to confront an uncomfortable truth. No violent movement survives indefinitely without some degree of local facilitation, passive acceptance or ideological sympathy. Such support seldom develops overnight. We must ask who shelters these groups, who recruits vulnerable young men and who finances them.
Equally important is acknowledging that many of today’s militant networks trace their origins to the infrastructure created during the Afghan jihad. History has shown that forces once viewed as strategic assets can eventually become strategic liabilities, exploited by hostile actors against the Pakistani state itself.
Unfortunately, Pakistan’s response continues to rely predominantly on kinetic measures. Military force remains indispensable against armed terrorists, but force alone has rarely defeated an insurgency. From Vietnam to Afghanistan, experience demonstrates that guerrilla movements cannot be eliminated solely through bombing hideouts or conducting repeated search and clear operations.
Sun Tzu famously observed that “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”. Modern counterinsurgency doctrine echoes the same principle. Sustainable success depends not only on military operations but also on political legitimacy, effective governance, economic opportunity, capable policing, credible intelligence, strategic communication and public trust.
Pakistan has yet to fully develop these non-kinetic dimensions. We still lack a coherent national counter-narrative capable of challenging extremist ideology. Political engagement in Balochistan remains limited, while police continue to struggle with shortages of manpower, equipment, technology and specialised training. Equally concerning is the weakening of institutional coordination in counterterrorism. The National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta), originally conceived as the country’s central coordinating body, no longer appears to exercise the level of coordination and policy integration that the evolving threat demands.
Most importantly, Pakistan still lacks a genuinely integrated national strategy that brings together security, governance, political reconciliation, economic development and ideological contestation within a single coherent framework. Military operations can suppress violence, but they cannot by themselves remove the political, social and economic conditions that allow militancy to regenerate.
Pakistan’s foremost responsibility is not to resolve every international dispute; it is to ensure that its own citizens can live without fear. A peaceful Pakistan where grievances are addressed through constitutional institutions, citizens trust the state, political differences are managed through dialogue and extremist narratives find no fertile ground would itself become the country’s greatest strategic asset.
International diplomacy undoubtedly enhances national prestige. But prestige abroad cannot substitute for stability at home. Until Pakistan succeeds in securing lasting peace within its own borders, every military victory will remain incomplete, every diplomatic success will carry an element of irony, and every fresh terrorist attack will remind us that Pakistan’s most important battle is still being fought at home.
The writer is a former inspector general of police (Punjab) and a former Punjab caretaker home minister.
