In the first weeks of 2026, the situation in Pakistan, which has always been characterised by a heightened level of terrorist activities, has been marked by a series of bloody acts, which have overlapped with serious domestic and foreign policy challenges to the statehood of this de facto nuclear power.

Continuing the ‘Bloody’ 2025

The latter occupies more than a third of the country’s territory. In this war, the geographical factor is of paramount importance, given that both provinces border each other and also Afghanistan. This is because on both sides of the border dividing Afghanistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa live the same Pashtun people, who constitute almost half of Balochistan’s population. Moreover, the Pashtuns’ aspiration to eliminate this border (the ‘Durand Line’), which divided them over a century ago, has in recent years been coordinated with the longstanding intention of the Baloch to attain their own statehood. This drastically complicates the country’s leadership’s efforts to combat separatism.

The main organisation leading the Pashtun separatists is Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan* (TTP), which retains its status as a terrorist organisation in the Russian Federation, unlike the Afghan Taliban. This is despite the fact that the very existence and nature of the TTP’s interaction with the latter is a subject of debate. The series of terrorist attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in mid-January, which resulted in the deaths of police officers and the destruction of vital bridges in the province’s northern mountainous districts, is attributed precisely to the TTP.

However, this was merely a ‘warm-up’ for the events that were taking place over several days from late January to early February in Balochistan, where a series of coordinated attacks on various state facilities were carried out across the entire province. This resembled a full-scale guerrilla war, with hundreds killed and railway and other infrastructure destroyed.

Immediately after the hostilities in Balochistan came to an end, another major terrorist attack occurred in the country’s capital, this time linked to another internal problem stemming from the confrontation between adherents of different branches of Islam. This refers to a suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Islamabad, with the preliminary toll of around 40 dead and 170 wounded. What is particularly striking is the timing of this attack, which took place shortly after the recent ‘war on mosques’ in neighbouring Shia Iran.

A Complex Domestic Political Situation

The acuteness of the separatist problem, which has recently taken on the character of a full-scale guerrilla war, significantly explains the phenomenon of the de facto special position of the military within Pakistan’s system of governance. Something similar in the region is observed in Myanmar. And it raises extreme doubts about the very preservation of statehood by both these countries should they follow the advice of Western political pharisees in terms of ‘adherence to generally accepted democratic norms.’ Let us note that the hypothetical disintegration of Pakistan makes even such a ‘model of democracy’ as the United States apprehensive about a potential outcome, for the perfectly understandable reason of Pakistan possessing nuclear weapons.

A very important factor, having an extremely negative impact on the situation in the country, stems from the uncompromising nature of the struggle between the main political clans, which takes the form of a ‘zero-sum game.’ Among Pakistani experts, another popular definition for this phenomenon is the term ‘vendetta.’ Over the past three years, this has manifested mainly as a contest surrounding the very fact and the regime of imprisonment of the penultimate prime minister and leader of the still-popular Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, Imran Khan.

It has reached the point of barely veiled accusations against the PTI, whose representatives govern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, of literally sabotaging the fight against Pashtun terrorist organisations. Hence, the nascent contacts between the central government and the provincial leadership are becoming even more significant.

The Factor of Relations with Neighbours

When examining the external backdrop of terrorist activity in Pakistan, it is significant to pay attention to the way the mentioned organisations are referred to officially. Their names predominantly employ two significant words: ‘Kharijites’ (heretics) and ‘Hindustan’ (India). The latter, as it is believed in Pakistan, alludes to the main culprit behind almost all terrorist activities within the country. This is despite the fact that neither Khyber Pakhtunkhwa nor Balochistan shares a border with India.

The emphasis on India comes as no surpsise, considering the fundamental nature of the Indo-Pakistani conflict as a whole, which has periodically intensified since both countries gained independence in 1947. Similar accusations, but against Pakistan, are invariably made in India per se whenever terrorist attacks in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir are concerned. In the first half of 2025, a similarly bloody terrorist attack there provoked yet another brief but intense armed conflict, in which everything short of nuclear weapons was used.

However, in the last year or two, Afghanistan has also been identified in Pakistan as another external ‘sponsor of terror,’ accused of failing to uphold its own commitments to block the activities of groups involved in ‘cross-border terrorism’ on its territory. These accusations should be viewed in the context of Afghanistan’s long-developing, but sharply accelerated over the past year, rapprochement with India.

Terrorist activity in Pakistan directly affects the interests of the People’s Republic of China, which is implementing the grand transport and infrastructure project, the ‘China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’ (CPEC), on the Pakistani territory. Among other things, CPEC is intended to bind together the ragtag population of all the Pakistani provinces, which by no means pleases various separatist movements, particularly in Balochistan.

In recent years, Chinese specialists working within the CPEC framework have increasingly become targets of armed attacks by BLA militants. This provokes understandable demands from Beijing to Islamabad regarding ensuring the security of Chinese citizens working in Pakistan. In response, Islamabad unfailingly promises to ‘take necessary measures.’ Such pledges were also made in the wake of recent hostilities in Balochistan. India, which lays claim to the part of the Pakistani territory once belonging to the former princely state of Kashmir through which the corridor’s route also passes, is more or less openly opposed to CPEC.

In conclusion, we will pinpoint that the situation in the region of South Asia and the Greater Middle East, of which Pakistan is a key component, resembles a ‘heated cauldron’. Any external player attempting to establish some form of presence here without a prior and thorough analysis of all the developments in the region could easily and severely ‘burn their fingers.’ In particular, the potential risks of participating in certain transnational infrastructure projects require careful assessment, taking into account, for example, the serious problems faced by the implementation process of CPEC per se.

*a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation

Vladimir Terekhov, Expert on Asia-Pacific Issues

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