In April 2022, at the University of Karachi’s Confucius Institute, a 30-year-old woman from Balochistan detonated herself, shocking many. Since insurgency in Balochistan had long been viewed through the prism of male guerrillas, tribal networks, and mountain hideouts, this was the first publicly confirmed female suicide bomber in Baloch militancy. The movement, since that time, appears to be a calculated one as militants now are enlisting women, at times educated professionals, who are at times psychologically manipulated or blackmailed, and used to launch high-profile attacks.

This strategic development has an embarrassing similarity to the policy that was earlier adopted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka. Over the decades, the LTTE institutionalized the involvement of women beyond support functions, bringing them in as fighters, propagandists, and, most infamously, as suicide bombers, with its wing called the Black Tigers.

The similarities are graphic and frightening.

In the past, tribal communities in Balochistan promoted strict norms that viewed women as honorable and modest beings who were to be excluded from public spaces, let alone battlefields, but groups like the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) are actively weaponizing this specific set of norms. They take advantage of these biases by deploying women to bypass security checks, gaining a tactical advantage based on gendered expectations in society.

In the LTTE, the female militants recruited from Tamil communities were often traumatized by state violence. They were not only volunteering but were being trained and absorbed into all aspects of insurgent activities, such as fighting, intelligence, and........

© Paradigm Shift