Pakistani officials said the attack occurred on Sunday when a bomber drove an explosives-laden vehicle into a shuttle train carrying security personnel and their families, derailing several coaches and triggering extensive destruction in nearby civilian areas.

The separatist Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the bombing, the latest in a string of militant attacks in Balochistan, a strategically significant province bordering Iran and Afghanistan that hosts key Chinese-backed infrastructure projects including Gwadar port.

As rescue teams and residents continued clearing debris ahead of the Eid holiday, many families said celebrations had given way to grief and financial hardship.

“I appeal to the government to help me. My entire house, from top to bottom, has been destroyed,” said Hishrat, a resident whose home was severely damaged in the blast. She said the family had spent years saving money to build the property.

The explosion damaged homes, overturned vehicles and shattered nearby buildings, according to local authorities and images broadcast from the site. Officials said the train’s engine and several coaches were derailed in the attack.

Markets in Quetta remained active with Eid shoppers and livestock traders, but residents in the affected neighborhoods said the destruction had made holiday preparations impossible.

“People are roaming in the markets for Eid shopping and for purchasing animals for sacrifice, but for us, you see our condition,” said Muhammad Haseeb, a private-sector employee whose house was damaged in the blast.

“We are busy cleaning up our destroyed house. The explosion destroyed our entire neighborhood including our house. There has been a great deal of financial and human loss,” he added.

Another resident, Farooq, said the attack had erased any sense of festivity for many affected families.
“Eid is for those whose houses are intact and who can go shopping,” he said. “We also had to do shopping for Eid, but now that is impossible, because our house is destroyed.”

Balochistan has witnessed a decades-long separatist insurgency led by militant groups accusing the federal government of exploiting the province’s natural resources without adequately sharing economic benefits with the local population. Pakistani authorities reject the allegations and say security operations are aimed at restoring stability and protecting development projects.

The Baloch Liberation Army has intensified attacks in recent years against security forces, rail infrastructure and Chinese-linked investments in the province. In March last year, militants hijacked the Jaffar Express passenger train and held hundreds of passengers hostage before security forces ended the siege.

The latest bombing underscores the persistent security challenges facing Pakistan as authorities attempt to contain militant violence while safeguarding major regional connectivity and energy projects tied to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The explosion occurred as the train was passing through the Chaman Pattak area of Quetta on its journey from Quetta to Peshawar. According to a senior official, an explosives-laden vehicle rammed one of the train’s carriages, triggering a powerful blast that derailed part of the train and caused extensive damage.

Army personnel were among those killed in the attack, while many of the wounded were transported to local hospitals for treatment. Officials said several passengers were traveling to celebrate the upcoming Eid holiday, scheduled to begin on Tuesday.

Images from the scene showed a mangled carriage lying on its side beside the tracks as rescue workers, volunteers and security personnel searched for survivors. Bloodied passengers were carried away on stretchers while armed forces secured the area and emergency teams worked through the wreckage.

Witnesses described scenes of panic following the blast. Resident Mohammad Rahim said he and his family were awakened by a loud explosion that shook nearby buildings. Another witness, Abdul Basit, said people immediately ran for cover as the force of the blast reverberated through the neighborhood.

Authorities said nearby vehicles were damaged and train windows were blown out by the explosion. A police official told AFP that investigators believe the improvised explosive device used in the attack weighed approximately 35 kilograms.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing. Police and security agencies have launched an investigation into the incident.

The attack occurred in Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province by area and one of its least developed regions. The province has long been the center of a separatist insurgency, with armed groups accusing the federal government of failing to adequately share the benefits of the region’s natural gas reserves and mineral wealth.

Security forces have faced persistent attacks in Balochistan in recent years, targeting military personnel, infrastructure and transportation networks. The province borders both Iran and Afghanistan and occupies a strategically important position along regional trade and energy corridors.

In its efforts to woo foreign investment and overhaul its image, Pakistan is trying to sell the natural resources of Balochistan to the world.

The Government of Pakistan has imposed a series of restrictions to maintain law and order in Balochistan, the largest and most troubled province of the country. Issuing a notice on 17 May, the Government imposed Section 144 across Balochistan for a period of one month. The notification put restrictions on all public gatherings, including rallies and processions involving five or more people. Covering of faces in public places is also prohibited.

Imposition of restrictive measures in Balochistan vindicates the failure of the Pakistan Military, Federal Government, and the Provincial Government led by Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti to bring the armed struggle of Baloch rebels under control. Pakistan security forces have been incurring huge losses at the hands Baloch militants. On 12 May, in the latest case, a search operation team came under heavy fire from the Baloch militants in Barkhan District, killing five Pakistani military personnel.  

Pakistan’s Balochistan problem has lingered for eight decades. The ruling elite has failed to come up with a mutually acceptable solution to the problem that has led to four Baloch insurgencies in the short history of the country: 1948, 1958, 1973, and 2003. The latest insurgency intensified with the alleged rape of a Baloch doctor, from the Bugti Tribe, by a colonel of the Pakistan Army in 2005. 

The rape took place at Sui, Dera Bugti, in the heavily guarded government-owned natural gas plant. The colonel was never held accountable; instead, the doctor was held captive and threatened to stay silent. This not only provoked the Baloch but also united various tribes to seek justice for a Baloch woman, intensifying attacks on the Pakistan Army. In response, instead of addressing the heinous crime and punishing the colonel, Pakistani forces killed the prominent Bugti tribe leader, Akbar Bugti, in August 2006. 

Naturally, the killing stoked up anger, strengthening Baloch nationalist sentiment and escalating the conflict. Since then, the situation has been compounded further with huge human rights violations, with the adoption of the brutal “kill and dump” policy of the Pakistani State. 

In 2011, a senior vice-president of the Balochistan High Court Bar Association (BHCBA) had warned that if the “kill and dump” policy was not stopped, the situation in Balochistan could go out of control. Over 15 years later, the situation in Balochistan has only worsened further. Even the people who raise their voice on human rights violations of the Baloch people, like the leadership of Baloch Yekjehti Committee (BYC) and their supporters, are sent behind bars. 

The ruling elite remain deluded by the notion that the country’s strong military can help it to end the conflict in Balochistan. That is a grossly miscalculated assumption. Internal reports have time and again underlined the reality in Balochistan. Calling its 2025 report on Balochistan Balochistan’s Crisis of Trust, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) had said in its press release that “The mission’s findings reveal a disturbing pattern of continued enforced disappearances, shrinking civic space, erosion of provincial autonomy and unchecked impunity—conditions that continue to fuel public alienation and political instability.” 

At a time when Islamabad is trying to promote an image of being a regional stabilising force and making efforts to bring the two warring factions in the US-led war against Iran to the negotiation table, the persisting internal instability and Islamabad’s approach towards Balochistan and the Baloch people expose its efforts to portray the country in a positive light. 

Shorn of any credibility that it could utilise to overhaul the country’s image by overlooking conflict in Balochistan and security issues in general, the country’s leadership resorts to the practice of externalising the blame and accusing others of damaging its image. 

In a recent statement, Pakistani Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar issued a long statement on X: “We understand quite clearly that behind such stories are certain elements, mainly the detractors of peace, who are unable to come to terms with Pakistan’s role for peace in the region as well as Pakistan’s continued and successful fight against foreign-sponsored and abetted terrorism.” Tarar stated that it seems some elements could not digest the fact that Pakistan was playing a role in regional stability and making progress in eliminating terrorism. 

Measures like the ones taken in Balochistan are a self-evident acknowledgement that the real situation in the province is worrying. Reality is that Balochistan remains Pakistan’s most deprived and poor province despite being rich in natural resources and having a long coastline. The poverty in Balochistan increased from 41.8 per cent in 2019 to 47 per cent in the Financial Year 2025, way high above the national poverty rate of over 29 per cent.

In its efforts to woo foreign investment and overhaul its image, Pakistan is trying to sell the natural resources of Balochistan to the world. Lately, it has tried to woo the US to invest in the critical minerals of Balochistan, including copper. When Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshall Asim Munir presented rare earth minerals to President Donald Trump while on a visit to the US in October 2025, the Chief Secretary of Balochistan said in a statement in December that “American and other companies are interested in investment in this mineral (antimony, among others), which is more precious than gold and copper.” 

While the government is making ambitious efforts to entice foreign countries to invest and dig minerals from Balochistan, regional parties like the Balochistan National Party (BNP) have raised questions on the laws that allow the extraction of Balochistan’s resources. 

The hard reality is that situation in Balochistan remains abysmal: use of force, threatening and arresting people like Mahrang Baloch and others. This will not resolve the Baloch problem; nor will it divert attention from the issue. The country needs concrete steps, acceptable to the Baloch people, to resolve the issue of continued Baloch resistance.

But the brutal use of force by the Pakistani state against the poorest province of Pakistan is unlikely to change in a country where the military’s domineering presence in politics remains strong. This will keep fuelling public apathy and disaffection in Balochistan and in the absence of any genuine and sincere approach by the state if Pakistan to resolve the issue of Baloch alienation, the situation in likely to aggravate further in the days to come.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

The attack targeted troops from the Frontier Corps in southwestern Pakistan, where separatist violence has intensified in recent years amid insurgent campaigns against security forces, infrastructure projects and foreign-linked energy investments.

A senior security official told AFP that an explosive device detonated near the convoy before militants opened fire, triggering an armed confrontation.“Five soldiers were killed and another was critically wounded,” the official said.

Pakistan’s military said troops launched a follow-up operation after identifying the militants’ location.“During the operation, a group of terrorists was located and engaged by troops. During fire exchange seven terrorists were killed,” the army’s media wing said in a statement.

The Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the assault. The separatist group, designated a terrorist organization by the United States, has waged a long-running insurgency seeking greater autonomy and control over Balochistan’s natural resources.

The BLA has increasingly targeted Pakistanis from other provinces working in Balochistan as well as foreign companies involved in mining, transport and energy projects linked to regional development initiatives.

Violence in the province escalated sharply last year when separatist militants hijacked a passenger train carrying around 450 people, leading to a two-day siege that left multiple casualties.

Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest but least populated province, borders Iran and Afghanistan and remains strategically significant due to its mineral wealth and access to the Arabian Sea.

Some disappeared are released, broken by torture. Some are formally charged. Some are killed and their bodies dumped.

Some human rights crises burst into international consciousness through a single image, a single video, a single act of resistance that the world cannot ignore. Other crises unfold in the dark, year after year, building a pile of unaddressed suffering that grows so high it becomes invisible. Balochistan belongs to the second category. It is the most underreported sustained human rights crisis in modern South Asia, and the international community’s silence on it is one of the diplomatic failures of our time.

The numbers, when assembled, are difficult to dismiss. The Baloch Yakjehti Committee documented over 1,250 cases of enforced disappearance in 2025. The Human Rights Council of Balochistan recorded 1,455 cases in the same year. Paank, the human rights wing of the Baloch National Movement, documented 95 enforced disappearances in November 2025 alone, along with 21 cases of severe torture and 20 extrajudicial killings. These figures, reflecting only what could be verified, suggest that what is happening in Balochistan is not occasional repression but a sustained campaign of state violence against a population.

The Pattern of Disappearances

The mechanism of enforced disappearance in Balochistan follows a well-documented pattern. Pakistani security forces, operating in plain clothes or in uniform, conduct raids on homes, often at night, and take individuals away without warrants, charges, or notification of family members. The detained person enters a network of informal detention centres run by the army or intelligence services, where they may be held for weeks, months, or years without external contact.

Some of the disappeared are eventually released, often visibly broken by torture, with explicit warnings against speaking publicly about their experience. Some are formally charged after extended periods in incommunicado detention and transferred to regular prison. Some are killed during their detention, with their bodies dumped near roads or in remote areas, in what Baloch activists call kill and dump operations. And some simply vanish, never accounted for, leaving families to wait indefinitely for information that does not come.

The targets of disappearance are not, by and large, militants. They are students, lecturers, journalists, doctors, lawyers, and human rights activists. Mahrang Baloch, the woman human rights defender who has emerged as the most prominent voice of the movement, is a medical doctor. Many of her colleagues in the Baloch Yakjehti Committee come from professional and academic backgrounds. The pattern is one of targeting the educated, articulate, and organisationally capable members of Baloch civil society, not just suspected separatists.

Some disappeared are released, broken by torture. Some are formally charged. Some are killed and their bodies dumped. Some simply vanish, never accounted for, leaving families to wait indefinitely.

The Recent Escalation

The crisis in Balochistan has escalated sharply since 2024. The triggering events have included a March 2025 attack by Baloch separatists on a passenger train, after which Pakistani authorities launched broad sweeps under the Counter Terrorism Department and arrested or disappeared several prominent Baloch human rights defenders. In response to peaceful protests organised against these arrests, Quetta police stormed a Baloch Yakjehti Committee gathering at the University of Balochistan in March 2025. A subsequent sit-in, organised by Mahrang Baloch and other activists, was raided by police using batons and tear gas at five-thirty in the morning.

The pattern continued through 2025 and into 2026. The provincial government’s approval of the Balochistan Prevention, Detention and Deradicalisation Rules 2025, signed off by Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti, was understood by human rights organisations as a state attempt to legalise the disappearance system that had been operating informally for years. The new rules permit the designation of individuals as suspects subject to interrogation in detention centres, formalising what had previously been an extra-legal practice.

Federal-level changes have made the situation worse. Amendments to Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 now allow law enforcement to detain individuals for up to three months without charge or judicial oversight. This power has been used repeatedly against Mahrang Baloch and other Baloch Yakjehti Committee activists. The legal framework that emerged in 2025 essentially provides Pakistani authorities with broad discretion to detain whoever they wish for as long as they wish, with minimal accountability.

The International Response Gap

The international response to Balochistan has been thin compared to the scale of the crisis. UN human rights experts have issued statements. Some Western governments have raised concerns in private diplomatic channels. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have published reports. But there has been no sustained international campaign comparable to those organised around other comparable crises. There has been no UN Security Council attention. There have been no targeted sanctions against the Pakistani officials responsible. There has been no equivalent of the Magnitsky-style measures that Western states use for other human rights abusers.

The reasons for this gap are partly geopolitical. Pakistan has been treated as an important state by various Western governments, by China, and by Saudi Arabia. Each of these relationships has imposed costs on the willingness of those states to confront Pakistan publicly on its conduct in Balochistan. But the gap is not just about external geopolitics. It is also about the difficulty of access. Foreign journalists are largely barred from Balochistan. Foreign human rights observers face severe restrictions. The information space is, by Pakistani design, opaque. As a result, what is happening in Balochistan does not generate the kind of viral images and stories that drive sustained international attention.

This dynamic has allowed the Pakistani state to operate in Balochistan with a degree of impunity that would not be tolerated anywhere with greater external scrutiny. The pattern of disappearances has continued for over two decades. The international response has been incremental concern, rarely translating into structural pressure.

What Operation Sindoor Changed

Operation Sindoor, indirectly, has begun to change the international information environment around Pakistan. The detailed exposure of Pakistan’s relationship with Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba during the May 2025 conflict, combined with international attention to the Pahalgam massacre, has raised broader questions about the Pakistani state’s conduct. Some of those questions extend naturally to Balochistan. If Pakistan’s security establishment is willing to host UN-designated terrorists in major cities, what is it willing to do to its own citizens in marginalised provinces?

Indian diplomatic engagement with international human rights bodies has also become more sophisticated. The contrast between India’s open society in Kashmir, where journalists work and tourists travel, and Pakistan’s closed system in Balochistan has been highlighted in international forums by Indian representatives in ways that previously felt heavy-handed but now resonate more credibly.

The Baloch movement itself has become more articulate, more organised, and more capable of presenting its case in international languages. Mahrang Baloch’s prominence as a face of the movement has helped. So has the work of diaspora communities in Europe, North America, and the Gulf, who have built advocacy networks that did not exist a decade ago.

These developments are early. They have not yet translated into the structural international pressure that would force a change in Pakistani conduct. But they represent a shift in the information landscape that, if sustained, may eventually force the world to look more carefully at what has been happening in Balochistan for far too long. The first step is to refuse to look away. Operation Sindoor, by exposing what Pakistan does abroad, may help sustain attention on what Pakistan does at home. That is a small consolation for the families of the missing. It is not nothing.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Balochistan’s modern history is inseparable from the manner in which it entered Pakistan.

On December 10, the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in Islamabad, Natalie Baker, announced that the U.S. Exim Bank had approved a package of $1.25 billion in financing to support mining operations at Reko Diq, one of the world’s richest untapped copper and gold deposits. On the surface, Washington framed the decision as a step toward securing global supply chains for critical minerals.

Islamabad portrayed it as a sign of renewed confidence in Pakistan’s investment climate. But for Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province by land but its poorest by every measure, the announcement landed like yet another reminder that its natural wealth is a prize others are free to carve up.

This Exim Bank financing flows directly after two MoUs were signed on September 8, 2025, between Pakistan and the United States for “critical minerals cooperation.” The military dominated Shehbaz Sharif government heralded the agreements as a milestone. But in Balochistan, they are yet another chapter in an old story: the extraction of Balochistan’s resources by outside powers, facilitated by a central government that treats the province not as a partner but as a colony.

For decades, Pakistan has perfected a model of imperial governance in Balochistan, which combines military control, political manipulation, and economic dispossession. What is new today is not the extraction but the identity of the extractors. The United States now joins China, whose multibillion-dollar projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) have already given Beijing expansive access to Balochistan’s ports, highways, and mineral deposits.

Pakistan’s rulers have turned Balochistan into a marketplace where global powers shop for resources while the people who live above those riches remain among the most deprived in South Asia.

Balochistan’s modern history is inseparable from the manner in which it entered Pakistan. After the forced accession of 1948, the province was governed with suspicion and repression. Islamabad treated Baloch aspirations for autonomy as rebellion, not politics. The result is a province where the most powerful institution is not the provincial assembly but the Quetta cantonment, whose writ supersedes that of any civilian office.

Even today, Balochistan’s political leadership is crafted in military corridors of Rawalpindi and the condonement at Quetta. The current chief minister, Sarfaraz Bugti, is widely viewed as a product of the military establishment, who is another local administrator empowered to manage dissent rather than address the province’s material deprivation. The result is a governance system more interested in securing resource corridors than building schools, hospitals, or representative institutions.

Under this militarized order, resource extraction has been carefully organized to ensure that wealth flows outward to Pakistan’s dominant province, Punjab, and to foreign partners courted by the military-led state. Balochistan’s natural gas from Sui fueled Pakistan’s industrial growth for decades, yet most Baloch households cook on firewood.

Today, its copper and gold fields promise to enrich foreign corporations and deliver revenue to Islamabad, while the communities living in the shadow of these mines remain jobless, landless, and under surveillance.

Even menial jobs at major projects like security guards, cleaners, construction labor, are routinely filled by workers imported from Punjab. The message is unmistakable that the state does not merely extract from Balochistan, it excludes Baloch people from even the crumbs of that extraction.

The rush by both China and the U.S. for access to Balochistan’s minerals reflects how Pakistan’s ruling elite has repositioned the province within global competition. Beijing’s footprint was first to expand, anchored by the Gwadar port and a series of infrastructure and mining agreements.

CPEC promised development but delivered a model where Chinese companies received generous concessions, security cordons were erected to protect foreign workers, and local fishing communities were pushed to the margins.

Now, Washington enters the scene, not as a counterweight to China’s influence but as another partner in Pakistan’s long tradition of opaque, extractive deals. It reflects a bipartisan plunder with Pakistan inviting multiple patrons to mine a region whose own residents are denied the most basic political and economic rights.

The most striking thing about Balochistan is how starkly its material reality contradicts its mineral wealth. Despite being mineral rich in every aspect, the province ranks at the bottom of every development index in Pakistan. For instance, the poverty appears near-universal with 71 percent of the provincial population living in multidimensional poverty. It is nearly double the national average of 38 percent and in districts like Awaran, Kharan, and Panjgur, even exceeds 80 percent.

Likewise, education is in an equally dire state. Literacy hovers around 40–44 percent, the lowest in the country, with female literacy dropping below 25 percent in many rural districts. More than 60 percent of Balochistan’s children are out of school. These are not statistics of a neglected province; they are the metrics of deliberate underdevelopment.

The story is same across healthcare with the province recording the highest maternal mortality ratio of 785 deaths per 100,000 live births. It is abysmal compared to the national average of 186.

Nevertheless, the new U.S. financing for Reko Diq along with the other critical mineral MoU is significant not because it marks a shift in Washington’s policy but because it reveals a continuity in Pakistan’s own governing logic of treating Balochistan as a frontier to exploit.

The province is secured by force, governed through proxies, and opened to whichever foreign power is willing to invest billions with no questions asked about political rights or local consent.

Even when the government speaks of “benefit-sharing,” it does not specify it that the benefit is for Punjabis and Punjabi military and political elite that dominates the levers of power in Pakistan. As such, it is not partnership but a plunder with legal paperwork.

The tragedy is not just that Balochistan’s resources are being plundered. It is that this plunder is now bipartisan, endorsed by Islamabad, welcomed by Washington and Beijing, and justified in the name of development that never arrives.

For the people of Balochistan, the empire has simply added new partners. The loot continues. The province remains impoverished. And the world’s most powerful countries now share in the spoils of a land whose own residents have yet to taste the prosperity lying beneath their feet.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

The latest incident occurred on 27 September in the Dasht Konchati area of Kech, where Pakistani forces reportedly carried out a late-night raid. Two men — Altaf, son of Habtain, and Gulab, son of Ayub Baloch — were seized from the area. According to family members, no information has been provided by authorities about their location or condition.

Two days earlier, on 25 September, Saud, son of Haji Rahim, was taken from his home in Hairabad. His relatives remain unaware of his fate, heightening concerns he too has been forcibly disappeared.

Human rights activist Noora Marri, commenting on the pattern of detentions, said the situation has become unbearable for families across the province.

“Every week brings new names of disappeared Baloch men. Their families are left to suffer in silence while the state refuses to acknowledge their arrests,” she wrote in The Baloch Circle. “This cycle of fear must end.”

While several individuals remain missing, there have been a few recent releases. Sheeraz, son of Ghulam Qadir, from Barkhan, who was detained on 20 September, returned home a week later.

In Turbat, Siraj, son of Sanjar, was freed on 27 September after being detained the day before. Meanwhile, Asghar Karmdani has also been reunited with his family after spending three months in custody.

Security operations continue across the wider region. In Buleda, forces stormed homes in the Gardank area on Saturday, with local witnesses reporting gunfire in residential neighbourhoods — though no casualties have been confirmed. In Panjgur district, raids were conducted in Haji Isa Bazaar, Haji Hakeem Bazaar and Kadaan, where houses were searched and the surroundings photographed and filmed. No arrests or injuries have been reported in these operations.

For many in Balochistan, such raids — often followed by disappearances — have become a grim routine, reinforcing long-held fears of unchecked security powers and a lack of accountability.

In a formal communication dated 13 August 2025, UN Special Rapporteurs requested clarification from Islamabad following reports concerning the deaths of journalist and human rights advocate Abdul Latif Baloch and his son, Saif Baloch, as well as the arrest of civil society coordinator Gulzar Dost.

The experts said they were deeply concerned by allegations that the killings were linked to reprisals against Mr Baloch’s family. They called on authorities to ensure an “independent, impartial and transparent” investigation, warning that accountability was essential.

According to the letter, Abdul Latif Baloch was shot dead by unidentified armed men at his home in Mashkay, Awaran district, on 24 May 2025. His son Saif was reportedly detained by Pakistani military personnel on 28 February and subsequently disappeared. His body was recovered on 26 March, prompting fears of enforced disappearance and extrajudicial execution.

The communication also referred to Mr Baloch’s earlier detention and alleged torture by security agencies. It noted that his brother, Rasheed Ali Baloch, died in custody in 2011 – raising what the UN experts called a pattern of human rights abuses linked to security operations in Balochistan.

Concerns were also raised over the case of activist Gulzar Dost, coordinator of the Turbat Civil Society Forum. He was taken from his home on 6 July 2025 and charged under anti-terrorism laws despite the lack of an arrest warrant, the letter said. He was released on bail on 1 August, but UN experts argued the case illustrated how anti-terror legislation was being used to target human rights defenders.

The letter set out seven specific questions for the Pakistani government, including updates on investigations into the deaths of Abdul Latif, Saif and Rasheed Baloch, and clarification of the legal basis for Mr Dost’s arrest.

Pakistan, the experts said, remains bound by international obligations to safeguard the right to life, protect freedom of expression and ensure the safety of those defending human rights. They urged authorities to act swiftly in addressing the allegations.

Islamist terrorism did not rise in a vacuum. It was engineered, cultivated, and weaponized—first by colonial powers, then by Cold War strategists, and now by regional regimes.

In the aftermath of European colonialism, the world has seen many upheavals—but few have been as globally disruptive and persistently violent as the rise of Islamist terrorism. It is one of the darkest legacies of the colonial era, ironically shaped and sharpened by the very empires it now claims to oppose. Today, it stands as a transnational threat, claiming lives from Karachi to Kuala Lumpur, and from Tel Aviv to London.

The data tells a haunting story. Since 1979—the year of the Shia Islamic Revolution in Iran—there have been more than 49,000 Islamist terror attacks worldwide, resulting in over 220,000 deaths. But what is often overlooked is the fact that 89.5% of these attacks occurred in Muslim-majority countries, with the vast majority of victims being Muslims themselves. Even the holiest of sites, such as Mecca, have not been spared. The carnage is indiscriminate, and the ideology behind it is far more complex than simplistic narratives often suggest.

Islamist groups would have the world believe that their violence is a response to foreign occupation or injustice. Yet the overwhelming facts betray that narrative. Most Islamist terrorism does not take place in occupied territories but in nations where Muslims are the majority. This disproportionality demands a deeper, more historically rooted investigation into how this ideology emerged and why it continues to thrive.

The Colonial Incubator of Political Islam

To understand the modern-day menace of Islamist terrorism, we must go back to the time of European imperialism—particularly British colonial rule. Colonizers, determined to suppress nationalist uprisings and maintain control over their dominions, employed a classic divide-and-rule strategy. In this context, religious identity became a tool of political manipulation.

Extremist elements were co-opted and even fostered by colonial administrators to counter secular, anti-colonial movements. It is no coincidence that key Islamist movements—such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jamaat-e-Islami in India—were born during this time. These Islamist movements did not rise organically from within their societies as spiritual or theological reforms; rather, they were often sponsored or tolerated by colonial regimes as buffers against resistance.

Figures like Sir Syed Ahmed, who promoted the divisive “two-nation theory” in British India, and Sir Agha Khan, who founded the Muslim League, played pivotal roles in politicizing Islam. Their ideas—encouraged, amplified, or at least facilitated by the British—ultimately contributed to the partition of India and laid the groundwork for modern political Islam. This ideological framework would later become fertile ground for the rise of violent jihadist movements.

From West Africa to Southeast Asia, similar patterns emerged: colonial authorities empowering Islamist elements for short-term control, only to leave behind long-term instability.

Cold War Complicity and the Rise of Armed Jihad

The Cold War did not reverse this legacy—it accelerated it. In Afghanistan, for example, the United States and its allies, including Pakistan, armed and trained Islamist fighters to push back against Soviet expansion. The result was the creation of well-equipped and ideologically radicalized groups such as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

What was once political Islam turned into militant jihadism. The West had, once again, fed the very forces it would later call its enemies.

The Twin Threats: State-Sponsored and Non-State Jihadism

In the modern context, Islamist terrorism operates under two primary umbrellas: non-state actors and state-sponsored networks.

Non-state actors are dispersed, often embedded within societies, waiting for ideological or operational cues. Their roots trace back to political Islamist thought developed during colonialism, shaped further by theological radicalism and geopolitical grievances. Their dream of a global caliphate transcends borders, and they are often motivated not by poverty or lack of opportunity—but by ideology. No amount of economic aid or deradicalization programs alone can address this; it requires ideological confrontation led by credible scholars and religious authorities.

On the other hand, state-sponsored Islamist terrorism is far more organized—and dangerous. Here, nation-states actively fund, shelter, or enable terrorist proxies to project power or destabilize rivals. Iran, since the 1979 revolution, stands out as the most prolific actor. From supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon to Hamas in Gaza, and from Houthi insurgents in Yemen to Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, Iran’s fingerprints are evident across some of the most devastating conflicts in the Middle East.

Turkey and Qatar, despite being close Western allies, also play significant roles. Both states have financially supported Islamist groups—including the Muslim Brotherhood and others—across North Africa and the Levant. Media outlets like TRT (Turkey) and Al Jazeera (Qatar) have become soft-power instruments, often amplifying Islamist narratives under the guise of journalistic independence.

Then there is Pakistan—arguably the most paradoxical player. Created as a result of colonial partition, Pakistan has, since its inception, used Islamist militancy as statecraft. Its long-standing doctrine of “Bleed India with a Thousand Cuts” has led to decades of cross-border terrorism. From Kashmir to Punjab, from Naxalite regions to the Northeast, India has faced relentless proxy warfare orchestrated from across the border.

Unlike Iran, Pakistan has largely escaped Western censure or sanctions, remaining a “major non-NATO ally” and benefiting from strategic utility. Whether during the Afghan jihad against the Soviets or the post-9/11 conflict, Pakistan’s duplicity has been tolerated, if not rewarded.

A recent example was the attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir, where 26 innocent civilians were killed by Pakistan-sponsored Islamist militants. It is part of a consistent pattern—not an anomaly.

Solutions Begin with Truth and Courage

Combating Islamist terrorism requires more than drones, security checkpoints, or surveillance. It demands truth—about its origins, its enablers, and its geopolitical underpinnings.

The first step must involve addressing state actors that perpetuate terrorism under ideological or strategic pretexts. In this context, resolving the “Pakistan-Iran-Turkey” triad is essential. And one of the most viable ways to do this is by supporting the self-determination of oppressed peoples within those states.

The liberation of Balochistan (currently divided between Pakistan and Iran) and Kurdistan (spanning parts of Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and Syria) is not just a moral imperative—it could be a strategic game-changer. Empowering these freedom movements would strike at the very heart of the Islamist-terror ecosystem and weaken the foundations upon which these regimes rely.

Time for a Reckoning—and a Response

India, Israel, and democratic states across the world must come together, not just to condemn terrorism, but to confront its root causes and supporters. The West, too, has an opportunity—a responsibility—to correct the historical wrongs of colonialism. This means no longer appeasing authoritarian allies who feed Islamist extremism for their own ends.

Islamist terrorism did not rise in a vacuum. It was engineered, cultivated, and weaponized—first by colonial powers, then by Cold War strategists, and now by regional regimes. To dismantle it, we must stop treating the symptoms and start confronting the disease.

And that means standing with those who fight for freedom—not those who hide behind religion to suppress it.

Discrimination is one of the prominent characteristics of Mullahs’ regime.

The mullahs of Iran are the masters of hypocrisy and throughout history never practiced what they preached. They easily do and justify what they proclaim sinful for others and punish others for it.  

Before entering Iran, Khomeini, while in Paris, spoke of freedom and well-being of the people and that in Islam, freedom is one of the most fundamental principles. He promised free water and electricity for the people. He said that after coming to Iran, he would go to the city of Qom as a simple cleric and would not interfere in politics. However, when he grabbed the power, he consciously and selectively gave up all his promises and established a religious dictatorship called Velayat-e-Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) under the pretext of establishing an Islamic state.  

He did his best to eliminate all his opponents by either killing them or locking them up. He did not even show mercy to those who helped bring him to power, such as Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, who was his foreign minister, and executed him and Bani-Sadr, who became Iran’s first president, but was forced to flee Iran for fear of having a similar fate as Ghotbzadeh. 

Khomeini legitimized all forms of torture, even to the point of death in prisons. He executed thousands of teenage girls and boys just because they opposed his ideas and demanded freedom. 

He allowed the rape of girls in prisons and sent tens of thousands of schoolboys to their death in minefields during the eight years war with Iraq to fulfill his desire to conquer Iraq. 

Discrimination is one of the prominent characteristics of Mullahs’ regime. That is why we see that while the majority of Iranians now live below the poverty line, the affiliates of the regime’s leaders have millions of dollars in wealth, and their children live like kings and queens in the United States and Europe.

With this introduction, it is very clear that the treatment of the regime’s elites is not the same as ordinary people. While most Iranians are deprived of basic medical treatment and many small towns do not have hospitals and specialist doctors, regime leaders and their affiliates go to Europe for medical treatments when needed. For example, Mojtaba, son of Ali Khamenei, and his wife went to London accompanied by his mother-in-law and 20 bodyguards, rented a floor of an expensive hotel, and stayed there for two months for treatment of his wife. 

This was a glimpse at the major discrimination in the treatment of ordinary people and the regime’s officials and affiliates. 

The deprived people on the outskirts of cities and ethnic minorities such as Balochs, Kurds, and Arabs, whose provinces are among the poorest in Iran are doubly oppressed compared to other provinces in terms of medical facilities and care.  

For example, according to Moinuddin Saeedi, a member of parliament from the city of Chabahar in the province of Sistan and Baluchistan, with a population of more than 800,000, there is only one hospital with 196 beds, which also lacks the requirements to treating coronavirus. Or, according to Malek Fazeli, a representative of the city of Saravan, this city of 480,000 people has only one hospital and does not have any ward for treatment of coronavirus. 

The same situation prevails in many of these deprived areas while regime leaders brag about social justice! 

With the outbreak of coronavirus, all Iranians fell victim to the anti-human policies of the mullahs. The pandemic coincided with the parliamentary elections in Iran. Although several people in the city of Qom had contracted the disease before the election, and some doctors had warned about an imminent outbreak of the virus, on Khamenei’s behest, (since he wanted to fill up the parliament with his direct affiliates in an engineered election and defeat the opposition and did not want any interruption in his plan), regime officials, including the Ministry of Health, denied the existence of any coronavirus patient in Iran and took no action to quarantine Qom or ban flights from China that caused the outbreak. As a result, the disease spread throughout the country at a rapid rate.  

Furthermore, when the disease was taking heavy casualties all over Iran, Khamenei banned the import of vaccines from the US, France, and Britain. They did not even accept the help offered by other countries and did not allow entry to a team of Doctors Without Borders from France that brought a field hospital with them. They return them to France. Because they knew that with their presence, the catastrophic situation of the disease in Iran would become public and they could no longer hide it.  

This led to the killing of many people in Iran. According to reliable statistics obtained by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) from its sources inside Iran, the actual number of victims has reached over 460,000. But Khamenei, fearing a backlash from the people, always put the figure at a quarter of the actual number, threatening to silence the doctors and those who challenged the figures or provided real figures  

In essence, Khamenei’s intention was to keep the people of Iran occupied with the coronavirus and forget about the social and economic challenges they were dealing with. Khamenei was fearful that because of people’s discontent with its regime, another widespread uprising, similar to the November 2019 uprising, might take place. At the same time, he banned any gathering under the pretext of fighting the disease. To achieve his goal, Khamenei used the network of Friday prayer Imams to blame all the shortages of vaccine – medicine and equipment on the United States and sanctions. While the United States has repeatedly stated that imports of medication and medical equipment were never among the sanctioned items.  

Meanwhile, the mafia in control of the drug supply, instead of buying vaccines from the countries that succeeded in producing them, looted more than $120 million, with the promise that Iran itself is producing vaccines. But after two years, under various excuses, they broke their promises to produce a domestic vaccine. Meanwhile, their fraudulent action inflicted heavy casualties on the people who paid a big price for it. 

But now, after nearly two years of the outbreak, while many Iranians have lost one or more family members to this disease, everyone blames Khamenei for this situation. It is quite clear to the Iranian that the main culprit is Khamenei, and this can be seen in the statements of people on social media who want Khamenei and the regime leaders held accountable for this massacre. 

Cyrus Yaqubi is a Research Analyst and Iranian Foreign Affairs Commentator investigating the social issues and economy of the Middle East countries in general and Iran in particular.