New Delhi: Pakistan’s long-running insurgency problem appears to have come home to roost as coordinated attacks by separatist and Islamist militant groups across Balochistan have left at least 42 Pakistani soldiers dead over four days. Pakistanis are blaming Asim Munir. Many say that the ‘hard state’ is increasingly looking like a ‘failed state’.
The attacks were carried out between 6 and 9 July by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). While the Pakistan military insists it has responded forcefully by killing dozens of militants, politicians, analysts, and activists argue the violence reflects a worsening security environment rather than a state regaining control.
Former Pakistani parliamentarian Bushra Gohar questioned whether repeated security failures would result in any accountability within the state.
“Has anyone resigned for the security failures? Who has been held accountable? Did the DG ISPR explain how terrorism has spread from a few districts to the entire Pashtun belt? The state’s writ has eroded, and the government has been reduced to issuing meaningless statements,” she wrote on X.
Violence spilling across provinces
The violence began on 6 July when militants allegedly attacked a police outpost guarding the Mangi Dam construction site in Balochistan’s mountainous Ziarat district. According to ISPR, 27 police officers and 11 soldiers were killed in three major attacks across Balochistan, while four civilians also lost their lives.
The assault soon escalated into a hostage crisis. Speaking at a press conference in Rawalpindi on Wednesday, Pakistan military spokesperson Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said TTP militants abducted 18 surviving police personnel after seizing the checkpoint. According to the military, all of the hostages were later killed.
The killings marked one of the deadliest attacks on Pakistani personnel in recent years.
The Balochistan provincial government has since suspended the Ziarat superintendent of police and ordered a formal inquiry. Pakistani media reported that a four-member committee has been tasked with reconstructing the sequence of events, examining possible command failures, reviewing security arrangements around Mangi Dam, and determining whether coordination failures among law enforcement agencies contributed to the attack.
Even as operations continued around Ziarat, violence spread to southern Balochistan. On 8 July, militants ambushed an army convoy near the N-25 highway in the Bela-Winder area of Lasbela district, one of the province’s main transport corridors.
Pakistan’s military blamed the attack on the BLA, saying 11 soldiers, including a junior commissioned officer and 10 enlisted personnel, were killed.
The BLA, however, offered a different account, claiming it had killed 17 soldiers and seized weapons and military equipment from the convoy. Those claims have not been independently verified.
Responding to the attacks, Lt Gen Chaudhry adopted an unusually forceful tone. He said Pakistan’s military would “hunt” those responsible and warned militants not to expect “rationality and proportionality” in the state’s response.
The attacks come amid a broader resurgence of militant violence across Pakistan. While Balochistan has long been the centre of a separatist insurgency, TTP has simultaneously intensified attacks in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, targeting military installations, police stations, and security convoys with increasing frequency.
The unrest extends beyond armed militancy. Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has witnessed weeks of demonstrations, with protest groups accusing authorities of suppressing dissent through arrests, internet restrictions, and force.
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Mounting criticism
The deteriorating security environment has fueled criticism of Pakistan’s security establishment from across the political spectrum. Mahmood Khan Achakzai, president of the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, questioned the effectiveness of the country’s intelligence agencies.
“Pakistan’s intelligence agencies are so competent that they can find a needle in muddy water, but what is happening from Bajaur to Balochistan, no one sees it. Why? What is the intention? And when we say something, immediately fatwas of treason are issued,” Achakzai questioned on X.
“Their ‘Hard State’ is looking more like a Failed State,” Pakistani tech entrepreneur and analyst Hussain Nadim wrote on X.
In another post, Nadim linked Pakistan’s political instability directly to the resurgence of militancy. “Terrorism is the third most critical national security threat. Rigging elections and stealing the public mandate remain the number one threat. An illegitimate government, deeply corrupted and tasked with governing, is the second. Because 1 and 2 fuel 3.”
A Pakistani policy X account Brief argued that the country was now confronting simultaneous domestic instability and mounting international pressures.
“Caught between the friction of international diplomacy and the heat of internal turmoil, Pakistan is well and truly in the crosshairs.”
They gave a verdict then: “This reflects failed governance”.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)