As per a Jamestown Foundation research paper, since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the security situation in Pakistan has worsened over the past two years, especially the Baloch separatist insurgency.
It reported a 73 percent increase in militants and a 138 percent increase in casualties in Pakistan in the past two years, with Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa states most affected.
Since the Taliban took over Kabul, the Baloch separatist insurgency in the southwestern province of Baluchistan has taken on a more "dangerous" form, the foundation said.
Pakistan is once again experiencing a wave of killings, bombings, suicide attacks and targeted attacks on police, military and government officials, the report stated.
Pakistan's southwestern and northern provinces, which border Afghanistan, have repeatedly been subjected to devastating militant attacks, it added. As the Foundation put it, 2022 was "one of the bloodiest years”. There have been more than 376 terrorist attacks in Pakistan this year.
However, militant groups have increased their operations in 2023. A deadly militant attack on June 30 this year killed 101 Pakistani officers. According to the Jamestown Foundation research paper, at least 389 people were killed and 656 injured in the first half of this year by terrorist and suicide attacks in Pakistan.
Separatist violence has increased dramatically, and women have also been involved in suicide bombings, the foundation added.
Jamestown Foundation has called the rise in the number of female suicide bombers alarming.
The foundation said that the capital of Baluchistan provided many opportunities for the Taliban, criminals, drug traffickers and human traffickers during the US-led war in Afghanistan.
In addition, the Jamestown Foundation in the article also noted Pakistan's shift in view of the Taliban. The foundation added that Pakistan, at the beginning of the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, interpreted the incident as a "positive development for Pakistan's security environment”.
However, two years after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the security situation in the country has worsened, contrary to what Pakistani officials thought.
The increased activity of militant groups in Pakistan has increased the rhetorical tension between the Pakistani authorities and the Taliban, it added.
