Pakistan has been at the forefront of the spill-over of events in Afghanistan since 1979. From hosting millions of Afghan refugees, to the TTP and other terrorist organisations attacking Pakistan during the war on terror, to the worst loss of lives in 2025 from attacks emanating from Afghanistan, Pakistan has borne the brunt, paying a colossal price, both in lives and infrastructure.

For the last quarter of this century, Pakistan’s counterterrorism strategy has primarily been centred on kinetic measures. Thousands of intelligence-based operations by the military and law enforcement agencies have dismantled terrorist command centres, degraded their operational capacity, and reclaimed the pockets where terrorists once ruled the roost. These achievements are real and hard-earned.

But militant violence has mutated. It appears that deep thinking and recalibration have been undertaken by the terrorists, resulting in the metastasis of this cancer into a decentralised, ideologically diffuse, digitally enhanced, regionally more networked phenomenon, with increased potency. For example, the BLA has used women suicide bombers since 2022, signifying the above metamorphosis, which is a gross violation of Baloch traditions. This follows the tradition of using women suicide bombers by the TTP, starting from the first attack by a woman in Bajaur Agency in December 2010.

After the brutality witnessed in 2025 and the evolving contours, it is time to move beyond counterterrorism 1.0.

Counterterrorism 1.0 was built for fighting organised militant outfits, identifiable leadership, declared goals, and operating physical training infrastructures. In that context, the strategy delivered notable successes.

From what has been observed and........

© The Friday Times