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

Security incidents have multiplied since June in several Pashtun-majority districts of Balochistan that previously saw little of the province’s long-running violence. Open-source tracking cited by Pakistani monitors shows 11 Pashtun-majority districts recorded no attacks from January through May; that pattern began to change with coordinated motorcycle gun attacks on police installations on June 10 and at least 13 attacks by armed groups in those districts since then. The September spike included an assault on a customs facility at Ziarat Cross in Pishin on Sept. 1 in which authorities said six security and customs personnel died, and an ambush on Sept. 3 of a paramilitary convoy returning from Ziarat that a police source told Al Jazeera killed more than a dozen personnel. Security forces reported killing 26 fighters in an operation near Quetta on Sept. 4; responsibility for particular attacks has been claimed at different times by the Pakistan Taliban and by Baloch separatist groups such as the Balochistan Liberation Army. Independent monitoring groups and think tanks have tracked the worsening trend. The Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies reported that Balochistan had become the country’s most affected province in 2026, with July described as the deadliest month nationally and a weekly review recording 25 attacks and 102 deaths in the province in the first week of that month. PICSS also recorded security forces killing 115 fighters in Balochistan in August, higher than in neighbouring regions. The federal security establishment has signalled a tougher posture in response. On Sept. 4 Faisal Naseer, formerly the director-general for counterintelligence at ISI, was appointed national coordinator of the National Counter Terrorism Authority; he travelled to Quetta the next day and met provincial leaders on Sept. 6 to discuss law-and-order measures. Military media said the army chief received briefings in Quetta and emphasised efforts aimed at restoring stability, while local political leaders have expressed concern at the daily toll of deaths and public protests have followed high-casualty incidents such as the July killings of 27 police personnel near Ziarat. The expansion of violence into Pashtun-majority districts — many of which had been largely insulated from the province’s Baloch separatist insurgency — marks a significant change in Balochistan’s security landscape. Authorities and monitoring organisations are treating the trend as a serious shift that has prompted both operational responses and political outreach, even as questions remain about responsibility for specific attacks and the prospects for reversing the recent surge.