Why peace remains elusive in Pakistan’s troubled Balochistan 

Islamabad, Pakistan – Stretching across Pakistan’s southwestern border, the mineral-rich province of Balochistan is the country’s largest and poorest region, and the site of its longest-running sub-national conflict.

Balochistan’s relationship with the Pakistani state has been uneasy almost since Pakistan came into being in August 1947, following the partition of the subcontinent after the end of colonial rule.

The province has witnessed violence since it formally became part of Pakistan a year later in 1948. While the conflict has ebbed and flowed over the decades, it has resurged sharply in recent years, in what analysts describe as an almost unprecedented phase.

The latest escalation unfolded on January 31, when coordinated attacks were carried out in nearly a dozen cities across the province by secessionist groups seeking independence.

Led by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the attackers killed more than 30 civilians and at least 18 law enforcement personnel. Following those attacks, during government operations lasting several hours, security forces said they killed more than 150 fighters.

A day later, Sarfraz Bugti, the chief minister of the province, said in a television interview that the solution to Balochistan’s woes lay with the military rather than political dialogue.

But analysts say that the roots of the conflict – and some of the factors that keep it alive – lie in the final years of British rule in South Asia and the uncertain political geography preceding Pakistan’s independence.

Accession to Pakistan and discontent

On the eve of partition, Balochistan was not a single political unit. Parts of the region were directly administered by the British as “Chief Commissioner’s Balochistan”, while the rest consisted of princely states including Kalat, Makran, Las Bela and Kharan, tied to the British Crown through treaties rather than colonial governance.

In 1947, the Khanate of Kalat was technically independent, a status initially recognised by Pakistan’s founder and first governor general, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

That position shifted as the strategic value of Balochistan’s coastline – a gateway to the Strait of Hormuz – became clear. Mir Ahmed Yar Khan, the khan of Kalat, agreed to accede to Pakistan on March 27, 1948.

His brother, Abdul Karim, rejected the deal and led a small band of fighters into Afghanistan, marking the first Baloch rebellion. It ended within months with his surrender.

The episode was seen among Baloch nationalists as a “forced accession” and laid the foundation for future resistance.

A pattern soon emerged. Political exclusion gave rise to armed resistance, followed by a military response, and then an uneasy and temporary calm – before the cycle would repeat itself.

Cycles of revolt

The second major uprising began in 1958, triggered by Pakistan’s “One Unit” scheme, which dissolved provincial identities in West Pakistan into a single administrative entity.

Baloch leaders saw the move as an erosion of autonomy and demanded the release of Mir Ahmed Yar Khan, who had been arrested.

Nawab Nauroz Khan, a veteran tribal leader who had fought British rule, led an armed rebellion. It ended with his arrest and the execution of several associates after a military trial. Khan was also awarded the death sentence, but it was later commuted to a life sentence, and he eventually passed away in jail.

A third phase followed in the 1960s, driven by opposition to military rule in the province – at a time when Pakistan was ruled by its first military government, that of Ayub Khan – and demands for political rights, increasingly shaped by leftist ideas. Though limited, it reinforced the view that Balochistan’s relationship with the state was governed by force.

The most intense conflict erupted in the 1970s.

After the dismissal of the elected provincial government of Balochistan in 1973, led by the National Awami Party (NAP), a full-scale rebellion spread across large parts of the province.

The NAP and its leaders were accused by the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the prime minister of the country, of a conspiracy hatched in London to allegedly help in the disintegration of Pakistan. The conspiracy was never proven.

But the party’s leaders, including then chief minister Sardar Attaullah Mengal, were arrested. Thousands of Baloch fighters clashed with nearly 80,000 Pakistani troops, and thousands of people were killed.

The fighting ended in 1977 after General Zia-ul-Haq seized power in a coup and granted amnesty to Baloch fighters. Their core grievances, however, remained unresolved.

The tipping point

A period of relative calm followed, but resentment persisted. Critics accused the state of exploiting Balochistan’s natural resources, such as gas reserves, while local communities remained deprived.

Several incidents highlighted what Baloch groups described as heavy-handed state tactics, leading to the fifth and current rebellion that began in the early 2000s.

One flashpoint was the 2005 rape of Shazia Khalid, a physician working for a state-run gas company, allegedly by an army captain. Pakistan was then ruled by General Pervez Musharraf, who had taken power in a 1999 coup.

The incident provoked massive local protests, which met lethal force, but the simmering tension exploded into a full-blown conflict in August 2006, when Nawab Akbar Bugti, a former chief minister of the province and a popular Baloch tribal chief, was killed in a military operation.

Bugti’s death turned him into the most powerful symbol of Baloch resistance, triggering a surge in anger and rebellion, alongside a growing belief among many Baloch that independence was the only path forward.

In recent years, protests have increasingly been led by younger, middle-class Baloch, with women playing a prominent role.

The state’s response has involved a vast security presence and tactics criticised by rights groups.

Activists accuse the government of killing and forcibly disappearing thousands of ethnic Baloch suspected of supporting the rebellion. Many of the missing later turned up dead, often bearing signs of torture.

The government denies responsibility for the enforced disappearances and suggests that most of those who have gone missing have likely joined rebel armed groups, either in the mountains or across the border in Iran or Afghanistan.

The contemporary rebellion

The ongoing rebellion has coincided with major shifts in Pakistan’s political economy.

Large-scale extraction of natural gas plans for deep-sea ports at Gwadar, excavation for minerals, and the launch of the $62bn China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) have transformed Balochistan into a strategic focal point.

For many Baloch groups, these projects represent extraction without benefit, leaving local communities marginalised.

Armed groups such as the BLA and the Balochistan Liberation Front frame their struggle as resistance to colonial-style exploitation and in pursuit of “national liberation”.

The Pakistani government has accused regional rival India of fomenting trouble in the province by supporting separatists. Those claims gained traction in 2016 with the arrest of Kulbhushan Jadhav in Balochistan. Islamabad said he was an Indian intelligence operative working for the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency.

Pakistan later released a video showing Jadhav confessing to facilitating attacks, presenting it as evidence of external interference. India has denied that Jadhav was a spy.

The 2010s saw the emergence of more sophisticated Baloch armed groups that increasingly targeted Chinese citizens and projects.

Attacks hit Gwadar port, a luxury hotel in the city, the Chinese consulate in Karachi, and a Chinese cultural centre, among many several other incidents.

As violence has intensified, the government has also increased its focus on extracting Balochistan’s mineral wealth.

China operates a major copper mine in Saindak, while the Reko Diq project in western Balochistan, which is considered one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper and gold deposits, is also in the pipeline.

With Balochistan making up 44 percent of Pakistan’s landmass, bordering Iran and Afghanistan, Abdul Basit, a research fellow at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, says geography poses a greater challenge than the rebellion.

Balochistan’s terrain is defined by a rugged, arid landscape of mountain ranges, with vast spaces which are only sparsely populated, making up just more than 6 percent of the total population of the country. The mountainous regions of the province are often used by rebel groups as sanctuaries.

“Can you really deploy security apparatus in a province which is as large as Balochistan, and with as difficult a terrain, to ensure complete eradication of violence, especially when the state refuses to look at the local faultlines?” he asked.

Many analysts argue that Pakistan must shift away from military-first approaches.

Imtiaz Baloch, a researcher on conflict in the province, says the rebellion has been handled with ego rather than a genuine effort to secure peace.

“Instead of addressing the root issues, governments have focused on shaping a narrative, mainly for audiences outside the province. Balochistan doesn’t need emotional posturing or optics; it needs a calm, political, and realistic approach,” he said.

Saher Baloch, a Berlin-based scholar with extensive experience in the province, says a political problem cannot be resolved through force.

Because fighters know the terrain better than security forces, she said that they need only to strike occasionally to expose state vulnerabilities.

“Where the state rules through fear rather than trust, intelligence also dries up. People don’t cooperate, information doesn’t flow, and that’s why even high security zones keep getting breached,” she told Al Jazeera.

Government officials continue to argue that military force is the answer, a view that Rafiullah Kakar “strongly disagrees” with.

Kakar, a political analyst specialising in Balochistan and a doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge, said Pakistan has relied on “coercive and militarised approaches” that have failed to bring stability.

“The Pakistani state needs to fundamentally shift and recalibrate its approach. The starting point must be meaningful confidence-building measures to create an enabling environment for political reconciliation and dialogue,” he told Al Jazeera.

Any serious attempt to resolve the crisis, he added, must recognise its political nature and include steps such as addressing enforced disappearances, ensuring electorally legitimate representation, and establishing “a credible Truth and Reconciliation Commission”.

“Finally, the state must present a clear roadmap for structured dialogue and institutional mechanisms to address Balochistan’s longstanding political, economic, and governance-related grievances,” he said.