Following the attack on a police training college in Quetta, Sajjan Gohel discusses the security challenges in Balochistan and the wider implications for Pakistan. He writes that given that the province is important to broader regional peace it should be accorded more attention in academic and policy discourse

Gohel, Sajjan

LSE Research Online

2016-11-9As the Baloch issue continues to be handled militarilyrather than politically a peaceful resolution is unlikelyblogs.lse.ac.uk /southasia/2016/11/09/as-the-baloch-issue-continues-to-be-handled-militarily-rather-than-politically-a-peaceful-resolution-is-unlikely/Following the attack on a police training college in Quetta, Sajjan Gohel discusses the security challengesin Balochistan and the wider implications for Pakistan. He writes that given that the province is important to broaderregional peace it should be accorded more attention in academic and policy discourse.Over the last few months violent acts of militancy in Balochistan, Pakistan’s western province, along with theintransigence of the Pakistani military, threaten to further fuel an already present Baloch insurgency which couldhave disastrous repercussions for security in Pakistan as well as economic, political and social consequences.On 24 October 2016, three armed militants carried out an attack on a police training college in Quetta, part of theBalochistan province of Pakistan. 61 cadets were killed and more than 165 injured. The attack was one of thebloodiest incidents in the province in recent years. Confusion remains as to who actually carried out the attack. Thesecurity challenges in Balochistan, let alone Pakistan, are often complicated, murky and at times difficult to unravel.Wilayat Khorasan in BalochistanWilayat Khorasan, the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the siege at the cadetcollege through ISIS’s own news agency, Amaq. Strangely, the Pakistani military had stated that the Sunni Muslimsectarian group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) was responsible and then amended the story to say that Wilayat Khorasanhad ‘outsourced’ the attack to LeJ but as of yet, no evidence has been provided of their connection to the attack.Logistically, it would also be a challenge for the LeJ as they have been based in Pakistan’s Punjab province and noproven track-record of operating in Balochistan.Wilayat Khorasan on the other hand has graphically illustrated its presence in Balochistan. On 8 August, 2016, itclaimed responsibility for the attack on a hospital in Quetta with a suicide bombing and shooting resulting in thedeath of 70 people. Responsibility was also claimed by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, formerly part of the Tehrik-e-TalibanPakistan (TTP) and currently sympathetic towards ISIS. Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, is also the hubfor the Afghan Taliban in Pakistan, also known as the Quetta Shura Taliban.The membership of Wilayat Khorasan largely comprises of former members of the TTP. This has enabled the groupto maintain a strong presence in the tribal areas of Pakistan, especially as the leadership is predominantlyPakistani-Pashtun, even though they try to portray their Afghan ties.The modus operandi of Wilayat Khorasan’s attacks have been to focus on targeting Afghan state institutions andAfghan civilians as well as the Pashtuns and Balochis of Pakistan. Curiously, the presence of the Pakistani militaryin Balochistan and the tribal areas has not resulted in any attacks against them, as yet. The Pakistani military’sOperation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan was identified as being successful in breaking the back of the TTP, yetrather than eliminate the militants, it displaced countless civilians and pushed many militants into Afghanistan.Consequently, the violence orchestrated by groups like Wilayat Khorasan, against Afghans and Pakistan’s ethnicminorities, goes on unabated.Circumstances of the attackOn 31 October, 2016, Wilayat Khorasan were behind a suicide attack in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, targeting local tribalelders of the Pacher Agam district where the terrorist group is actively operating. Several people were killed in theincident. There are growing concerns that Wilayat Khorasan are trying to establish a foothold in the strategic Tora1/4Bora area which is located near Pacher Agam.In a twist of fate, the Balochi cadets who were killed at the Quetta police college, had graduated several monthspreviously but were summoned back to the college by the state authorities days before the attack and confined tothe barracks. Inevitably, many of them were subsequently killed in the raid on the cadet college, wiping out ageneration of young Balochis most of whom were from the Turbat and Panjgur districts of Balochistan. SomePashtuns cadets were also killed.Image: Quetta, Baluchistan. Credit: Beluchistan CC BY-SA 2.0Ironically, the attack also highlighted the overall lack of a security apparatus at the cadet college, despite it being asensitive facility. It is situated on Quetta’s Saryab Road which has witnessed a high volume of violent incidents overthe past few years. Even the cadet compound area had been targeted before. Part of the college’s perimetercompound consisted of mud walls which for years urgently needed to be replaced with a more secure and fortifiedwall. Furthermore, the cadets who had graduated and became police officials were unarmed and did not haveaccess to weapons to defend themselves when the attack happened.It remains to be seen whether the head of the Joint Investigation Team looking into the attack, Brigadier Bilal Ali, ofthe army, will be able to address the security flaws and make recommendations that will be enacted upon in order toavoid another tragedy. There has been some criticism of Ali’s appointment as he is a Punjabi and therefore theperception by some Balochis is that his eventual report could be whitewashed. The Baloch people are an ethno-linguistic group dispersed between Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. In Pakistan, relations between Baloch and thecentral government, and more so with the military, have been truculent since the creation of Pakistan in 1947,sporadically turning violent.Tensions between government and militaryEvents in Balochistan coincide with what appears to be deteriorating relations between Prime Minister NawazSharif’s government in Islamabad and the military led by Raheel Sharif. The cadet college siege has been seized onby Nawaz Sharif’s political enemies to discredit his central and provincial Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)governments, especially as the attack was on the police which falls under the government’s Interior Ministry. Prior tothis, the military had accused the PML-N of leaking a story to the reputed Pakistani journalist, Cyril Almedia, over ameeting at the All Parties’ Conference in October which was chaired by Nawaz Sharif and attended by seniormembers of the Pakistani military establishment including the Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence(ISI) agency, Rizwan Akhtar.Nawaz Sharif warned the military for selectively targeting militants in Pakistan, whilst ignoring the clandestineactivities of some, which could result in Pakistan’s international isolation. The government also didn’t want the2/4military to interfere with police actions against militant groups. Lastly, Nawaz Sharif wanted to re-start relations withIndia that have been fraught recently, by dealing with India’s concerns of cross-border militancy.Although the Prime Minister Office publicly rejected the contents of Almeida’s story, the military clearly did notappreciate the assertions in his article and subsequently added Almeida to the Exit Control List, preventing himfrom traveling abroad. The fall-out continued as Parvaiz Rasheed, the Information Minister, was forced to resign.Despite the restoration of democracy in Pakistan after the departure of General Pervez Musharraf in 2008, themilitary remains the dominant authority on Pakistan’s security, especially in Balochistan and the tribal areas, andpays little heed to the directives of the civilian government. In 2004, another Baloch insurgency erupted which wasfurther fuelled after the military killed the leader of the Baloch Bugti tribe, Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006. The transitionfrom the military government of Pervez Musharraf to the civilian government of President Zardari in 2008 and PrimeMinister Nawaz Sharif in 2013 has done little to assuage Baloch discontent.Economic and political marginalisationAnother important dynamic is economic inequality in Balochistan which is the poorest and least developed provincein Pakistan. Balochistan retains the highest poverty rate as well as the highest infant and maternal mortality ratiosalong with the lowest literacy rate in Pakistan. Yet Balochistan is extremely rich in mineral wealth with silver, copper,chromite, sulphur, marble, iron ore, quartzite, limestone, coal and natural gas. The natural gas is called Sui gasbecause it comes from the district of Sui in Balochistan but it is extracted and used more in other parts of Pakistanthan for Balochistan itself contributing to claims of resource exploitation and the province’s economic deprivation.The Baloch are also marginalised politically since there are barely any in the central government and especially inthe military. Unsurprisingly, many Baloch view the insurgency as an act of desperation against the Punjabi-dominated military. The bureaucracy of Balochistan also has more Punjabis than Baloch despite the fact that thePunjabi’s are only a fraction of the population.Balochistan has the potential to become a key energy corridor and transit route for international trade. Yet violentincidents in Balochistan and the political and socio-economic disenfranchisement of the Baloch will inevitablycontribute to undermining the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), where the entry-point begins at the deep-water port of Gwadar in Balochistan. Ever since it was announced in April, 2015, CPEC forms part of an extensionof China’s ambitious One Belt, One Road initiative, and is seen as a vital economic lifeline for Pakistan’s future.However, many of the infrastructure projects are in danger of being delayed or suspended because of the securityconcerns the Chinese have expressed. Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif said the attacks inQuetta are aimed at hurting the planned China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Although Balochistan is key toCPEC, Quetta is in fact outside the route of CPEC.The situation in Balochistan too often goes without notice by the international community. That is partly becausereporting within Pakistan has been restricted and as a result, a limited number of details of the twelve-year-oldBaloch insurgency are in the public mainstream. Some Pakistani commentators have openly spoken about theevents in Balochistan. The renowned journalist Hamid Mir, who had interviewed Osama bin Laden, survived a drive-by shooting in Karachi in 2014 after he wrote an article about the situation in Balochistan.However, prominent human rights activist, Sabeen Mahmud, was not so fortunate. Mahmud, who had organised aseminar about Balochistan, was shot dead in Karachi on 24 April, 2016. The militant group Jundallah, which isaffiliated with Wilayat Khorasan, was blamed for Mahmud’s assassination. Jundullah was also behind the May 2015Karachi bus shootings of Ismali Shiite Muslims in which 46 people were killed. Some Pakistani human rightsactivists claim that the notorious militant Zakria Hasni was allegedly involved in Mahmud’s death. Either way, theattacks on Mahmud and Mir illustrate why Karachi is regarded as one of the most dangerous cities in the world.It is also interesting that Wilayat Khorasan, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, and Jundullah have all been involved in either targeting3/4minorities such as the Balochis or people that have spoken about Balochistan. This would not be seen as theimmediate priority for ISIS and its Middle Eastern affiliates whose tend to focus on military and governmental targetsin Syria, Iraq, Libya and Egypt. Yet the affiliates in Pakistan have avoided that.ConclusionBy examining the dynamics in Balochistan and its implications for Pakistan, it is clear that whilst the Baloch issuecontinues to be dealt with by the military over and above the elected civilian government, the chances for a peacefulresolution to the insurgency are improbable in the near future. As such, intermittent attacks between the state andthe Baloch will continue for the foreseeable future whilst the lines of who the actual perpetrators are will remainblurred as in the case of the role of groups like Wilayat Khorasan. The Balochistan issue is important to regionalpeace and security and therefore necessitates more attention within academic, media and policy circles.This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the South Asia @ LSE blog, nor of the LondonSchool of Economics. Please read ourcomments policy before posting.About the AuthorSajjan Gohel is International Security Director at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, Senior Advisor to the multilateralPartnership for Peace Consortium’s Combating Terrorism Working Group and a Visiting Teacher in the InternationalHistory Department at the LSE. Read his previous South Asia @ LSE posts here.Copyright © 2016 London School of Economics4/4

As the Baloch issue continues to be handled militarily rather than politically a peaceful resolution is unlikely

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