The Jaffar Express hostage crisis is yet another grim reminder of how non-state actors employ asymmetrical warfare to achieve political objectives while exploiting civilian casualties to garner global attention. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF)—both designated as terrorist organizations—have long utilized such tactics, but the recent attack marks a new level of barbarity, targeting unarmed civilians, including women and children, to maximize psychological and propaganda effects.

The attack on Jaffar Express was not an act of conventional militancy but a carefully orchestrated hybrid warfare strategy aimed at destabilizing Pakistan. Terrorist groups, particularly those with cross-border linkages, operate at the nexus of kinetic and cognitive warfare, where physical attacks are complemented by propaganda, disinformation, and psychological manipulation. The use of unarmed civilians as human shields indicates a deliberate attempt to delay security forces’ response while ensuring maximum media visibility for their cause. This underscores the growing operational sophistication of these insurgent networks, which are no longer limited to sporadic acts of violence but are integrating real-time psychological warfare into their operations.

In the aftermath of the Jaffar Express attack, a parallel information war was waged by anti-state actors and........

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