A recent Islamabad seminar reframed Pakistan’s counter-terrorism challenge, emphasizing that its threats are now increasingly transnational rather than purely internal. Consequently, combating this requires a mix of national resilience and international cooperation. Having lost over 90,000 lives and $100 billion, Pakistan’s immense human and economic sacrifices underscore this critical regional reality.

Yet despite these sacrifices, the threat has mutated, not ended. The seminar correctly identified two distinct but interconnected challenges that define today’s landscape: the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) in Balochistan.

While their ideologies and geographies differ, their tactics, networks and objectives converge to destabilize Pakistan. Disrupting their networks and preventing their cross-border movement is therefore central to any........

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