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........

© New Eastern Outlook