On July 20, the Voice of Khorasan, a pro-Taliban and anti-Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP) media outlet, claimed that the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) had eliminated the last remaining ISKP fighters in Balochistan’s Mastung district. This was preceded by a 36-minute Pashtu-language video put out by Al Azaim Foundation, the ISKP’s propaganda arm, on May 25, detailing a BLA raid in Mastung that killed 30 ISKP fighters. In the video, ISKP vowed retaliation against the BLA, other Baloch separatist groups, as well as Baloch and Pashtun nationalist groups like the Baloch Yakjehti Council (BYC) and the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM).
Since its return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban regime has carried out ruthless crackdowns on ISKP both at the operational and ideological levels. It arrested and killed several of ISKP’s top commanders and leaders. Simultaneously, the Taliban launched Al-Mirsad, a multilingual online portal, which provides robust ideological rebuttals of ISKP’s ideological propaganda along with running reports of the Taliban’s crackdown against the ISKP. These developments forced ISKP to relocate its assets and fighters across the border in Pakistan.
In Pakistan, ISKP has a strong presence in Bajaur and Mastung districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, respectively.
It was natural for the terror group to set up its presence in Mastung as claimed in the May 25 video. Balochistan is crucial for ISKP for two reasons. First, Balochistan is home to key anti-Shia and anti-Iran Sunni extremist groups, such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish al-Adl. In the past, ISKP has leveraged its alliances with these groups to survive and persist.
Second, Balochistan’s strategic location at the confluence of South and Central Asia makes it a key transit and logistical hub for ISKP. In the last couple of years, ISKP has recruited from Central Asia and carried out attacks in Russia, Iran, and Turkiye. The terror group’s network stretches from Turkiye and Iran to Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Russia through Balochistan. Reportedly, ISKP fighters transit through Balochistan to travel between these countries and beyond.
In March, the arrest in Pakistan of Mohammad Sharifullah, the mastermind of the Abbey Gate attack, along with the 48-member cell of ISKP responsible for the overseas attacks, revealed the terror group’s growing footprint in Balochistan. More recently, in a joint operation, Pakistani and Turkish authorities arrested a key operative of ISKP, Ozgur Altun alias Abu Yasir At-Turki, from Balochistan. He was closely linked to Al-Azaim Media Foundation and acted as a moderator and disseminator of its Turkish and English content. In short, ISKP’s presence in Balochistan has been building up for the last few years.
Despite being in ideologically opposite camps, Baloch separatists and ISKP hitherto showed tactical shrewdness by not opening a front against each other. Their pact of non-aggression was consistent with the past pattern when Lashkar-e-Jhangvi also avoided fighting Baloch separatist groups. Reportedly, ISKP’s fighters coexisted with BLA militants in Mastung until they were gunned down in a BLA attack in March. Prior to that, both groups remained tight-lipped about their secret pact and refrained from verbal or physical clashes. It is not uncommon for ideologically divergent groups to engage in covert tactical pacts against a common adversary. Both the BLA and ISKP had an incentive to tolerate each other in order not to provide any counterterrorism advantage to the Pakistani law enforcement agencies. Their pact of non-aggression shows that at times ideological narratives can be misleading unless they are seen together with the ground conditions or local contexts in which they operate.
While declaring war against Baloch separatists in Balochistan, ISKP has engaged in ideological critique of territorial nationalism, ethnonationalist politics, and democracy. It has accused Baloch separatist groups of exploiting the suffering of Baloch masses for to advance their separatist and ideological agendas. At the same time, it has accused the Mahrang Baloch-led BYC and the Manzoor Pashteen-led PTM of hypocrisy and opportunism.
ISKP’s declaration of war against Baloch separatists can have serious implications for Balochistan’s security landscape. However, it will not be easy for ISKP to fight the BLA, as it is outgunned and outnumbered by the latter in Balochistan. Nevertheless, ISKP, numerical disadvantages notwithstanding, has successfully used suicide terrorism against the operationally stronger Taliban in Afghanistan. It will use the same modus operandi in Balochistan.
The BLA’s counterresponse can be expected to further weaken the already fragile ISKP in Balochistan. ISKP has still not recovered from the two major setbacks it suffered in March, i.e., the arrest of Mohammad Sharifullah and his cell as well as the BLA’s attack on its fighters. Hence, the ISKP is unlikely to engage in tit-for-tat violence with BLA anytime soon.
At any rate, if ISKP attacks the BLA and fighting ensues between the two terror groups, it will increase the level of violence in Balochistan, where the security situation is already volatile. At the same time, if ISKP targets the political rallies of BYC, as it has warned, it will deter people from launching protests.
Any BLA-ISKP inter-group clashes will ease counterterrorism challenges for Pakistan’s security institutions in the short-term. In conflict zones, fighting between terrorist groups is tactically advantageous for counterterrorist forces. It also becomes easier for security institutions to infiltrate and gather information about terrorist groups when they are engaged in fighting. This information can be used for decapitation raids.
ISKP’s secret pact of non-aggression and its eventual declaration of war against the BLA shines light on the complex nature of militant and security landscapes in Pakistan. While circumstantial evidence pointed to some form of tactical accommodation between the two terror groups, it was hard to establish these linkages with conclusive evidence until the May 25 video.
Keeping that in view, an accurate understanding of the inner workings of militant groups makes the job of security institutions easier. Therefore, to stay ahead of terrorist groups, Pakistani security institutions must invest their energy and resources in building their intelligence capital.