Who's fueling Pakistan's Baloch militancy – and why?

AllAfrica

2 days ago

In a geopolitical arena increasingly defined by shadows and silence, few conflicts exemplify the dynamics of proxy warfare better than the ongoing militancy in Pakistan's Balochistan province.
On July 15, geopolitical commentator Brian Berletic reignited this debate by alleging that Washington may be quietly enabling Baloch militants to accelerate militant activities, particularly against the Chinese engineers and Pakistani security forces in the province.
While the veracity of his claims remains contested, they tap into a growing body of evidence suggesting that Baloch militancy is no longer a purely domestic insurgency and is becoming a lever in a broader strategic tug-of-war between two powers.
In the last two weeks, Balochistan has witnessed a dozen militant attacks that killed more than 50 people, including two major rank officers of the Pakistan Army.
Balochistan, long a flashpoint of political dissent and insurgency, has now become a fault line in a larger global confrontation. Bordering Iran and Afghanistan and home to the strategic Gwadar Port, the province is a linchpin in China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Gwadar's connectivity offers Beijing a trade route bypassing the Malacca Strait, thereby unsettling the strategic calculus of Washington and its allies. Against this backdrop, each explosion targeting Chinese assets seems to echo not just domestic discontent but also certain international anxieties.
While there is no smoking gun linking the US to Baloch separatists, circumstantial indicators have become difficult to dismiss.
Reports by institutions such as the US Institute of Peace, Foreign Policy and Radio Free Europe have chronicled how abandoned American weapons in Afghanistan, left in the wake of America's hasty 2021 withdrawal, have found their way into the hands of militant groups, including the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Such proliferation of US materiel, even if unintended, becomes part of the strategic ecosystem shaping violence in the region, especially in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The narrative becomes murkier when considering ideological affinities. Baloch insurgents, unlike jihadist movements, couch their rhetoric in secular nationalism, democratic rights and ethnic self-determination, terms that align comfortably with Western liberal values.
This alignment has earned them platforms in Washington and Brussels, with diaspora organizations such as the Baloch American Congress advocating openly for US congressional intervention and global scrutiny of Pakistani counterinsurgency policies.
While public lobbying does not equate to covert sponsorship, the optics are telling. The same BLA that has claimed responsibility for suicide bombings against Chinese nationals in the recent past is the subject of panel discussions and briefings in Western capitals.
The US government's 2019 designation of the BLA as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) appears, on closer inspection, more cosmetic than consequential. Little effort has apparently been made to stem the group's transnational networking, fundraising or narrative-building efforts.
This duality is not unprecedented. From Latin America to the Middle East, the US has a long history of maintaining a diplomatic posture in public while facilitating, or at least tolerating, destabilizing elements in private.
In Syria, for instance, American condemnation of jihadist violence was accompanied by covert support to anti-Assad forces. The lines between rebels and terrorists were often redrawn depending on the utility they offered against regional rivals.
In insurgent-riddled Balochistan, the strategic logic is not so different. Baloch militants disrupting China's infrastructure investments serve a purpose, even if Washington's hands appear clean.
The same logic applies to Iran, where Baloch-dominated areas in Sistan and Baluchestan remain hotspots of insurgent activity. Tehran has consistently accused the US and Israel of fostering groups like Jaish al-Adl – a Sunni militant group responsible for attacks on Iranian security forces.
Whether these claims are true or false, the persistent instability in these borderlands benefits actors looking to contain Iran's regional reach.
India's role further complicates the equation. Wary of growing China-Pakistan cooperation, New Delhi has been accused by Islamabad of funding Baloch separatists from Dubai, the UAE and other Gulf states. With the Taliban now in power and reshuffling regional alliances, the question of who continues to aid the BLA has resurfaced.
Pakistan's muted response to these developments is telling. Despite a litany of attacks on security forces and Chinese personnel in Pakistan, Islamabad has avoided naming the US as a potential stakeholder in the insurgency.
Instead, the blame is largely directed at India, or vaguely attributed to 'hostile intelligence agencies.' This diplomatic restraint is not without reason. Pakistan's economic fragility—underscored by recurring bailouts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and reliance on Western financial systems—leaves it ill-equipped to confront Washington directly.
Yet silence carries its own risks. By refusing to confront the full scope of the insurgency's geopolitical entanglements, Pakistan allows the crisis to metastasize. Equally damaging is the state's failure to differentiate between legitimate political dissent and armed rebellion.
Baloch youth, academics and civil rights activists are often swept into the same security net as armed insurgents. The resulting alienation fuels resentment, creating a fertile ground for both radicalization and foreign manipulation.
The case of imprisoned Mahrang Baloch, a civil rights advocate whose peaceful calls for justice have been met with suspicion and surveillance, illustrates this conflation. In the eyes of the Pakistani state, a protester with a placard is often indistinguishable from a militant with a gun.
This securitized lens has not only delegitimized meaningful political dialogue but has also deprived Islamabad of moderate Baloch interlocutors capable of bridging the widening trust deficit.
In this vacuum of political disengagement, external actors are pursuing their strategic interests. The less space Pakistan provides for peaceful negotiation and catharsis, the more attractive insurgency becomes, not just for disillusioned Baloch youth, but for global players seeking soft targets in their strategic contestations.
Proxy wars, after all, do not require formal alliances; they merely need alignment of interests. And align they do. Baloch militants are disrupting China's economic vision, challenging Iran's border security and exposing Pakistan's internal fissures—all without implicating Western capitals in overt complicity.
This is the new face of hybrid conflict: wars fought without declarations, allies backed without acknowledgment and casualties incurred without consequence.
For Pakistan, the path forward requires more than military operations and international complaints. It demands an honest reckoning with its internal policies and external dependencies.
Until the state distinguishes political grievances from armed rebellion, invests in inclusive governance and navigates its foreign partnerships with clarity and conviction, Balochistan will remain vulnerable – not just to insurgency, but to the invisible hands that steer it for great strategic interests.
In the chessboard of 21st-century geopolitics, militancy is rarely merely a domestic affair. It is a mirror reflecting the ambitions of distant capitals. To ignore this is to mistake the symptom for the cause, and in doing so, to risk losing both the province and the peace in Balochistan.