Michael Hughes
March 15, 2025

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif admitted Pakistan’s ties to the Afghan Taliban have come back to haunt Islamabad. Although, for many, this is like saying the sky is blue, it is quite a development when such a statement emanates from a Pakistani official. The timing of the admission, of course, is too little, too late. But it also comes at a peculiar moment: in the wake of a terror attack by a group not linked to the Afghan Taliban. 

On March 11, Baloch separatists attacked and hijacked a passenger train carrying 440 people about 100 miles from Quetta in the Pakistani province of Balochistan. After a 30-hour standoff, Pakistan’s military said 21 civilians were killed and security forces eliminated 33 attackers from the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA).

Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director, General Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, said the terrorists were in contact with their handlers and “masterminds” in Afghanistan during the operation via satellite phone. He also claimed the terrorist attack was sponsored by India. The ISPR in a separate statement called on the Taliban government to prevent the BLA from using Afghan territory for terrorist activities against Pakistan.

Pakistani authorities have often tried to link the BLA and TTP, especially when both outfits launch terror attacks around the same time. However, I have seen no independent verification that the BLA has ever coordinated efforts with the TTP or Afghan Taliban. 

And it is true the TTP and BLA share a common enemy in the Pakistani government. The BLA is designated as a terrorist group by the U.S., China, Iran, UK, and EU, in addition to Pakistan. The BLA also embraces violence as the primary method for attaining political goals. But that is where similarities stop. 

The BLA is a secular ethno-nationalist separatist group committed to Balochistan’s complete independence from Pakistan. Members of the BLA staunchly oppose religious fanaticism. Religious extremism and sectarianism, according to the Baloch, will have no place in a Free Balochistan. In fact, the BLA has argued that the reason Pakistan is plagued by Islamic terrorists in the first place is because Pakistan’s military and intelligence apparatus groomed, funded, armed, and trained jihadists for decades.

BALOCH-AFGHAN TIES

The Baloch, a unique ethno-linguistic group whose population spans Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, have been at odds with Islamabad since Balochistan was forcibly annexed on August 15, 1947, the day after the partition of India and Pakistan. Pakistan’s Punjabis dominated and controlled the civil and military centers of power, which further alienated the Baloch. These historical tensions reach back to the colonial era, when the British helped forge a political structure favorable to Punjabi interests over the Baloch. 

Repression of Baloch since this period has been well-documented by Selig Harrison, who described Pakistani policy as “slow motion genocide.” The Baloch fought several insurgencies to defend against economic and political discrimination and marginalization. Under Musharraf, Pakistan’s own human rights commission accused the military of using “indiscriminate” bombing as a tactic in Balochistan. In 2011, it was reported that some 10,000 Baloch had gone missing as a result of Pakistan’s “kill and dump” program or via “enforced disappearances.”

So, it is no surprise Baloch sought sanctuary in Afghanistan. There is no denying certain governments in Kabul supported Baloch insurgents dating back to Pakistan’s founding in 1948 under the reign of Afghan King Zahir Shah. In the 1970s, Daoud’s government even established Baloch rebel training camps inside Afghanistan. When the Afghan communist government fell in the early 1990s, however, most Baloch fled after being attacked by mujahideen aligned with Islamabad. Soon after Taliban 1.0 took over in 1994, Mullah Omar issued a fatwa calling for the ethnic cleansing of Baloch in Afghanistan’s Nimroz province.

In the post-9/11 period, Baloch activists found shelter in Afghanistan as Pakistani security forces escalated a crack down in Balochistan. Ironically, Taliban members found sanctuary in Balochistan during the radical movement’s insurgency against Afghan governments under Karzai and Ghani.

Kandahar police chief, Abdul Raziq Achakzai, had housed Baloch separatists for years, including Baloch military leader Aslam Baloch, who was assassinated in a suicide bombing inside Afghanistan in 2018, a year after the BLA attacked a Chinese consulate in Karachi. Baloch political leader Brahumdagh Bugti was targeted by suicide attacks before fleeing Afghanistan to Switzerland in 2011.

When the Taliban 2.0 took over in 2021, Baloch activists and militants fled or went underground. Taliban 2.0 even cooperated with Pakistan in hunting down Baloch refugees left in Afghanistan. A Pakistani official was quoted as confirming that most Baloch “terrorists” fled Afghanistan after the Taliban’s return to power.

Hence, it is hard to imagine the Afghan Taliban providing secular Baloch militants with sanctuary and enough space and resources to orchestrate large-scale terrorist attacks against Pakistan and on Hindu India’s dime. Instead of addressing Baloch grievances, the actual root of the problem, Islamabad finds it much easier to undermine the BLA by lumping them in with the Taliban.