The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) carried out a series of coordinated attacks on January 31 in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. These covered a wide swathe of territory stretching from Gwadar and Pasni along the Makran coast to Panjgur and Tump on the Pakistan-Iran border, and Mastung, Nushki, Dalbandin and Kharan in the shadow of the Durand Line. In addition, the BLA also attacked targets in the provincial capital, Quetta.
Seventeen security personnel, 31 civilians and 133 BLA insurgents lost their lives in these attacks. The Pakistani authorities claimed that in further operations over the last three days they have succeeded in killing 40 more insurgents. The January 31 attacks were the deadliest the BLA had undertaken since that on the Jaffer Express in March last year. The BLA had also carried out coordinated attacks in 2024. This shows that despite all their efforts in Balochistan, the Pakistani security forces, led by the army, have not been able to effectively secure the province.
The Pakistani state agencies have labelled the BLA as “Fitna al Hindustan”. This formulation, in the Arabic language, is meant to convey to Pakistanis and the Islamic world that the BLA, under India’s influence and instigation, is acting contrary to Quranic injunctions. Fitna is a sin in Islam because the faith does not permit rebellion against a rightful and righteous ruler. Under Field Marshal Asim Munir, the Pakistani Army is seeking to invoke religion against insurgent groups so that their political activities and quest for rights and identities can be dismissed as un-Islamic. Munir is also trying to arouse the religious sentiment of the faithful in Pakistan and in the Islamic world against India.
Thus, the Pakistan Army sought to use the BLA attacks of January 31 to put India in the dock. In a press release on January 31, the Inter-Services Public Relations said: “On 31 January 2026, terrorists of Indian-sponsored Fitna al Hindustan attempted to disturb the peace of Balochistan…”. The press release went on to state: “On the behest of their foreign masters, these cowardly acts of terrorism were aimed at disrupting the lives of the local populace and the development of Balochistan…”.
The term ‘foreign masters’ is principally aimed at India. However, Pakistan now also includes the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan in its ambit. They blame them for providing shelter and support to the BLA as well as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), whom they call “Fitna al Khawarij”. This too is an attempt to build religious sentiment against the TTP, for the Khawarij was a group which emerged in the years following the death of Prophet Mohammed. It held extreme views which were rejected by other Muslims.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi went to Quetta on January 31. There, along with Balochistan’s Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti, he openly blamed India for being behind the BLA attacks. The Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported Bugti as saying: “These were not normal terrorists. India is behind these attacks. I can tell you for sure that India planned these attacks along with these terrorists.” Naqvi told the media that India had supported the BLA financially and had helped in planning and strategising these attacks.
On February 3, Pakistan’s National Assembly passed a resolution in which, while condemning the January 31 attacks, it said that evidence pointed to foreign involvement, particularly that of India. It is noteworthy that the National Assembly did not implicate India in its resolution passed after the Jaffer Express attack, though the Pakistan Army blamed India and said that it would settle scores. The Pahalgam attack occurred around six weeks after the Jaffer Express was targeted.
Pakistan is now holding India responsible for the January 31 attacks, though the army has not indicated that it would take any action. In this context, it is noteworthy that India has not publicly implicated Pakistan as yet for the November 2025 Delhi attack in which 15 persons lost their lives. There would have been foreign involvement in that terrorist action, and that could only have come from Pakistan. The question, therefore, is whether Field Marshal Asim Munir will risk fomenting a major terrorist attack in response to the January 31 incidents.
A tit-for-tat response is the Pakistan Army’s default position. This approach flows from its carefully cultivated image of being the country’s protector, especially from a marauding India. It is this image which the Pakistani people have bought through the decades, enabling the army to live off the fat of the land. Hence, if the army and the political class have blamed India for these coordinated attacks, many sections of the Pakistani public will normally expect the army to take revenge. Will the army carry out a terrorist attack in India to assuage this feeling?
The Pakistan Army may be tempted to act according to its default position also because it would have watched recent developments in India-US ties with unhappiness. Indeed, even before the latest developments in India-US interactions, Pakistani analysts had noted that despite the warmth in US-Pakistan ties since Operation Sindoor last year, India had not lost its relevance for the United States. They pointed to the invitation from the US to India to attend the next meeting of Pax Silica. They found it strange that while American companies wished to invest in critical minerals exploration in Balochistan, the United States had excluded Pakistan from Pax Silica as yet.
Now, with the announcement that India and the US have reached a trade deal, the Pakistani establishment would feel that the warmth shown by President Trump towards Asim Munir last year may cool down. This may be a factor in attempting to muddy the waters by carrying out a major terrorist attack in India. At the same time, Pakistan would be aware that the full consequences of such an attack could not be foreseen. This is because India may not react in the way it did last year. That would mean the US leaning on Pakistan not only to do more to control terrorists but also warning it of action through the FATF route. That is what Pakistan would greatly wish to avoid. All this may prevent it from acting in keeping with its default position.
There is another aspect to the current situation. In the Jaffer Express attack, Pakistani security personnel from Punjab were particularly targeted. The Pakistani Army is ultimately a Punjabi army. Hence, the killing of Punjabi soldiers was completely unacceptable to the generals. This kind of focused targeting of Punjabi soldiers was not reported on this occasion. This would douse the army’s passions for immediate revenge.
It would, therefore, seem that despite holding India responsible for the January 31 attacks, the Pakistan Army may not immediately act as it did after the Jaffer Express attack. That does not mean that Asim Munir would not be under pressure to respond. He may have to do so after a few months. Indian security managers, therefore, cannot let their guard down.
(The writer is a former Indian diplomat who served as India’s Ambassador to Afghanistan and Myanmar, and as secretary, the Ministry of External Affairs. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)
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