Pakistan’s Balochistan government reported this week that security forces killed 145 members of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) in a concentrated operation over 40 hours, an operation provincial chief minister Sarfraz Bugti described as the largest short‑term takedown of militants since Pakistan’s long fight against terrorism. Bugti said the strikes followed a wave of recent attacks in Balochistan that left 31 civilians dead and cost 17 law‑enforcement officers their lives, and that authorities had taken custody of the militants’ bodies.
The military’s media arm had earlier said that on January 31 security forces repelled multiple assaults across Quetta, Mastung, Harnai, Gwadar and Pishin, killing 92 militants in those clashes, including three suicide bombers. In response to the deteriorating security situation, the Balochistan government ordered a month‑long package of restrictions from February 1: a ban on public display and use of weapons, a prohibition on pillion passengers on motorcycles, a ban on window tinting for vehicles and a ban on unapproved gatherings of five or more people.
The operation in Balochistan sits within a much broader and sustained Pakistani counter‑terror campaign: official military data for 2025 cited 75,175 intelligence‑based anti‑terror operations nationwide and 2,597 militants killed across various actions. The same data recorded 5,397 terrorist incidents last year, concentrated mainly in Khyber‑Pakhtunkhwa (3,811) and Balochistan (1,557), underscoring that the security services are still waging an extensive, kinetic campaign against multiple insurgent and militant actors.
Balochistan’s unrest is driven by a mixture of separatist politics, local grievances over resource distribution and long‑standing distrust of the centre. The BLA, which claims to fight for Baloch independence, has frequently targeted security forces and infrastructure, including sites linked to foreign investment. Gwadar port, a linchpin of the China‑Pakistan Economic Corridor, was among the locations cited in the military’s recent account of attacks, highlighting the strategic stakes and the risks insurgency poses to international projects.
The government’s heavy reliance on force and the imposition of civil‑liberty restrictions risk short‑term containment at the cost of long‑term stability. Detaining bodies and sweeping bans may limit militants’ operational freedom and reassure investors and residents in the immediate term, but such measures can deepen grievances among local communities unless coupled with meaningful political engagement and development initiatives.
Casualty figures and victory claims from security services are difficult to verify independently and tend to be contested by local groups and rights organisations. Still, the scale of recent operations signals that Islamabad and the military are prepared to intensify counter‑insurgency efforts in Balochistan, a policy that will test Pakistan’s ability to balance force with governance and to secure restive, resource‑rich provinces without fueling further alienation.