Pakistan said it carried out counterterrorism operations in Balochistan that killed more than 100 militants in the two days after coordinated suicide and gun attacks killed 33 people, mostly civilians. Government officials said the raids began early Saturday in multiple locations across the restive southwestern province and continued into Sunday.
In Quetta, Balochistan’s chief minister Sarfraz Bugti told reporters that police and troops responded swiftly and killed 145 members of a group Pakistan described as “Fitna al-Hindustan,” a phrase the government uses for alleged “Indian-backed” fighters linked to the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, or BLA. He also said the dead were in Pakistan’s custody and that some of them were Afghan nationals.
Bugti spoke alongside Hamza Shafqat, a senior government official who often oversees operations against insurgents in the province, and both praised security forces for repelling the assaults. Bugti also accused “Indian-backed terrorists” of seeking to take hostages but said they did not reach the city center.
Authorities said the coordinated raids left 18 civilians dead, including five women and three children, along with 15 security personnel. Residents described scenes of panic after the Saturday attacks, including after a suicide bombing killed several police officers.
Bugti said militants stormed the home of a Baloch laborer in Gwadar and killed five women and three children, and he condemned the killings. He also said the attackers had planned to seize hostages after storming government offices in Quetta’s high-security zone but were thwarted, adding, “We were aware of their plans, and our forces were prepared.”
Pakistan’s government repeatedly blamed India and Afghanistan for backing the assailants and said senior BLA leaders were operating from Afghan territory. Both Kabul and New Delhi deny those allegations, and Bugti said Afghanistan’s Taliban had pledged in a 2020 Doha agreement not to allow Afghan soil to be used as a base for attacking other countries.
He said, however, that “unfortunately, the Afghan soil was still being used against Pakistan.” Tensions between the two countries have persisted since early October, when Pakistan carried out airstrikes on what it described as Pakistani Taliban hideouts inside Afghanistan, killing dozens of alleged insurgents.
The BLA is banned in Pakistan and has carried out attacks in recent years, often targeting security forces as well as Chinese interests and infrastructure projects, according to the government. Authorities said the BLA has operated with support from Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, which Pakistan says is allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban, who returned to power in August 2021.
Balochistan has long faced a separatist insurgency led by ethnic Baloch groups seeking greater autonomy or independence from Pakistan’s central government. The province is also resource-rich, and Pakistan has been seeking to attract foreign investment in mining and minerals, including after a U.S. metals company signed a $500 million investment agreement with Pakistan in September 2025.
Khan Muhammad, a local resident, described the day of attacks as alarming and said: “It was a very scary day in the history of Quetta,” adding that “Armed men were roaming openly on the roads before security forces arrived.”
Pakistan’s statements came as it continued to frame the BLA attacks as part of broader militant activity tied to India and Afghanistan—an account that Kabul and New Delhi reject.