Pakistan’s great internal security challenges in the new year

In 2024, Pakistan’s internal security landscape became more volatile, fluid and complex. As militant attacks surge by 70 percent as compared to 2023, four trends have crystallized which will remain major security challenges for Pakistan in 2025. 

First, Pakistan’s internal security challenges are linked to its immediate neighbors, Afghanistan, Iran and India. The two main threat groups, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) are getting some form of external support and assistance to sustain their violent campaigns. While BLA has sanctuaries in Iran, TTP enjoys Taliban’s patronage in Afghanistan. A recent report by the Washington Post has also revealed how an Indian-funded terror network has been involved in covert assassination campaigns in Pakistan. In 2024, Pakistan twice carried out airstrikes in Afghanistan against TTP’s hideouts and also engaged in tit-for-tat missile exchanges with Iran. Externally enabled insurgencies and violent campaigns persist longer and are hard to eliminate unless their hideouts and leaders are neutralized. 

Against this backdrop, Pakistan’s kinetic operations inside its borders will be only tactically effective in the absence of proactive diplomacy with Afghanistan and Iran to address the challenge of militant sanctuaries. In other words, Pakistan’s security and diplomatic responses have to work in tandem to create the required momentum for lasting peace and security. 

Second, militancy in Pakistan is likely to persist for the foreseeable future and it will not vanish only through military operations. The use of hard force in counterterrorism is necessary but not sufficient to eradicate the menace of violent extremism. It is employed to blunt the sharp edge of terrorism and then non-kinetic or non-military strategies are employed to transform military gains into permanent political advantage for peace and security. Often, the absence of violence due to the use of hard power is mistaken for peace. This has happened in Pakistan in the aftermath of Operation Zarb-e-Azb in 2016, where TTP’s weakening and relocation to Afghanistan was confused with its elimination. However, following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 which had a rejuvenating impact on TTP, reversed these fragile gains. Pakistan’s new counterterrorism strategy which focuses on non-kinetic components along with expediting the ongoing Intelligence Based Operations is a step in the right direction. 

Pakistan’s security and diplomatic responses have to work in tandem to create the required momentum for lasting peace and security. 

Abdul Basit Khan

Rather than viewing terrorism as an aberration, Pakistani policymakers will have to reimagine it as a process which has its deep roots in complex historical, political, strategic, ideological and geographical factors. Understanding this will not only help policymakers take a more holistic view of the internal security framework but also assist them in addressing the structural factors of violence. Terrorism in Pakistan neither emerged overnight, nor will it vanish because of one or two major military operations. The fight against terrorism is a generational struggle where a whole-of-state-and-society approach is needed to change radical mindsets, ideological narratives and approaches to political activism (from violent to non-violent). For this, overcoming internal political differences and existing social polarization is paramount. 

Third, addressing non-violent extremism will also remain a major security challenge for Pakistan in 2025. Critically, violent and non-violent extremism are two sides of the same coin. The former is action-based extremism while the latter is value-based extremism. Both share similar world views, value systems and end goals and only differ in their approaches. 

A security-centric approach against non-violent extremism is counterproductive and requires alternative political approaches grounded in democracy, peaceful co-existence, respect for diversity and differences of opinion. Over the years, the state’s proclivity for undermining major political parties has allowed radical outfits like Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) to flourish. Even if Pakistan manages to tackle outfits like TTP and BLA, radical ideologies proliferated by non-violent outfits will create new security challenges for the state. 

Finally, cooperation and alliances between and among different terror and insurgent groups will be another major security challenge for Pakistan in 2025. Last year, at least 16 militant outfits across Pakistan pledged their oaths of allegiance to TTP. Since July 2020, as many as 65 militant outfits have merged into TTP, boosting its operational strength, enhancing its organizational capacity, extending its geographical reach beyond northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and adding to its lethality and longevity. At the same time, different militant outfits like TTP, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Lashkar-e-Islam also cooperated with each other for joint attacks in 2024. A similar pattern was also visible among Baloch separatists which not only improved coordination between their different sub-organs but continued to hold pre-existing alliances, such as the Baloch Raji Ajoi Sangar (BRAS). Terror alliances are positively linked to groups’ resilience and lethality. The more a terror group is allied, the longer it lives and the more violent it becomes. Keeping in view this trend, Pakistani policymakers should devise strategies to weaken inter and intra group alliances between terror groups. 

In 2025, Pakistan will have to navigate a complex threat landscape by combining its security approach with diplomatic and political strategies to restore peace. None of the factors outlined above require a reinvention of the wheel; what is required is a change of mindset in understanding ‘terrorism’ and the approaches to counter it within existing policy frameworks and security paradigms. 

– The author is a Senior Associate Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. X:@basitresearcher.