Opinion | Why Are Pakistani Security Forces Being Killed in Targeted Attacks?

This is not simply a military problem. It is a problem of the Pakistani state’s own security architecture.

There is an uncomfortable question that Pakistan can no longer avoid: how has a country with one of South Asia’s largest military and intelligence establishments reached a point where its own soldiers, policemen and paramilitary personnel are repeatedly becoming targets of organised attacks?The answer is not simply that militant groups have become stronger. It is also a story of Pakistan’s own security policies, the selective treatment of armed groups, weak governance and the failure to address political grievances that have been allowed to deepen for decades.The statistics expose the seriousness of the crisis. According to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, Pakistan recorded 699 terrorist attacks in 2025, a 34 per cent increase from the previous year. At least 1,034 people were killed and 1,366 injured. Security and law-enforcement personnel accounted for 437 of those deaths, including 174 policemen, 122 army soldiers and 107 Frontier Corps and Federal Constabulary personnel.

These figures raise a fundamental question about the effectiveness of Pakistan’s security model. The country maintains a powerful military, intelligence agencies, paramilitary organisations and one of the largest defence establishments in the region. Yet its own security personnel remain exposed to attacks on roads, at checkpoints, inside police stations and even on major transport routes.The problem is not merely a shortage of weapons or manpower. It goes deeper into the policies that shaped Pakistan’s security environment.For decades, Pakistan’s establishment has been accused of distinguishing between militant organisations according to their usefulness or hostility towards the state. Some groups were treated as enemies while others were tolerated, negotiated with or viewed through the prism of strategic interests, particularly in relation to Afghanistan and India. This approach created a dangerous contradiction: militant infrastructure could be tolerated as long as it appeared to serve a particular purpose, but the same networks could eventually turn against the Pakistani state.The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is perhaps the clearest example of this blowback. The TTP is distinct from the Afghan Taliban, although the two have ideological and historical connections. The group has repeatedly attacked Pakistani military and police personnel and remains one of the principal sources of militant violence in the country. PIPS recorded a substantial number of TTP attacks during 2025, including suicide and fedayeen attacks targeting security forces.

The tragedy is that Pakistani soldiers and police officers are now paying the price for a security environment created largely by decisions made above their level. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has suffered particularly heavily. In 2025, the province recorded a 40 per cent increase in terrorist attacks compared with 2024. Difficult terrain, porous borders, weak state presence in some areas and established militant networks have made counterterrorism exceptionally difficult. But Pakistan’s crisis cannot be explained through militancy alone. Balochistan presents a different challenge, one rooted not only in armed separatism but also in longstanding political and economic grievances.The Balochistan Liberation Army and other separatist organisations have repeatedly attacked security personnel, railway infrastructure, highways and government installations. These attacks are indefensible when civilians are deliberately targeted, but the persistence of the insurgency also reflects a deeper political failure by Islamabad to build trust in the province.For decades, Balochistan has complained of political marginalisation, inadequate control over its resources and an excessive role of the federal security establishment. Human Rights Watch has documented allegations of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings involving Pakistani security forces in the province and has repeatedly called for accountability. This is where Pakistan’s counter-insurgency policy becomes self-defeating. When the state answers political alienation primarily through military force, it may suppress an immediate threat, but it can also deepen the very resentment on which an insurgency feeds.A young man who sees his community subjected to arbitrary detention, disappearance or excessive force may become more vulnerable to militant propaganda. This does not justify terrorism. It explains the environment in which terrorism can recruit.Pakistan therefore faces a cycle largely of its own making: militant violence produces military operations; military operations produce further resentment; resentment creates recruitment opportunities; and new recruits generate another wave of violence.

The February 2026 attacks in Balochistan demonstrated how serious the problem has become. Coordinated attacks by the BLA struck multiple locations, killing security personnel and civilians and prompting a large-scale military response. The episode again showed that despite Pakistan’s vast security apparatus, insurgent organisations retain the ability to coordinate attacks across a wide geographical area.The March 2025 attack on the Jaffar Express was an even more striking illustration of the state’s vulnerability. The BLA attacked the passenger train in Balochistan, taking passengers hostage. Pakistani forces eventually ended the siege, but the incident demonstrated that an insurgent organisation could disrupt one of the country’s major transportation routes and hold a large number of civilians captive.There is another contradiction that Pakistan must confront. The state frequently attributes terrorism to foreign conspiracies, particularly Afghanistan and India. External involvement cannot be dismissed where credible evidence exists. But blaming outsiders cannot substitute for examining why militant organisations continue to find recruits, local networks and operating space within Pakistan itself.

Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan provides another example. Islamabad repeatedly accuses the Afghan Taliban authorities of permitting TTP militants to operate from Afghan territory, while Kabul rejects those allegations. The continuing dispute shows that Pakistan’s policy towards its western frontier has failed to produce the security environment it has repeatedly promised.The broader lesson is difficult for Pakistan’s establishment to accept: military power is not the same thing as state capacity. A state cannot permanently secure its territory through force alone if political grievances remain unresolved, governance is weak and communities distrust security institutions.The security forces themselves are becoming victims of this failure. Policemen and soldiers are sent into dangerous areas to confront threats that successive governments and security establishments have failed to eliminate at their roots.Pakistan’s response has too often been to demand more military action, more powers for security agencies and more restrictions on dissent. But a sustainable solution requires something Pakistan’s establishment has repeatedly struggled to provide: accountable governance, political inclusion, credible justice and an end to policies that allow armed groups to be viewed selectively according to short-term strategic interests.

The deaths of Pakistani security personnel are therefore not merely a measure of militant strength. They are also a measure of the failure of Pakistan’s security policies.A state cannot keep creating or tolerating an ecosystem of armed groups and expect those groups to remain permanently useful, controllable or loyal. The policy eventually produces blowback.

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