Pakistan’s militancy surge amid wider regional tensions

Abdul Basit Khan

November 14, 2025 12:17

November 11 was a devastating day as Pakistan suffered three major militant attacks targeting a court in Islamabad, a cadet college and a military convoy in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s South Waziristan and Dera Ismail Khan districts, respectively.

Amid worsening tensions with Afghanistan following the breakdown of talks in Türkiye, these attacks demonstrate a clear pattern of a dangerous escalation. As Pakistani security forces fight valiantly, better vigilance, timely and actionable intelligence as well as enhanced coordination among different security institutions will be critical in maintaining the internal peace and security.

There are several disturbing characteristics in the December 11 militant attacks which require closer scrutiny. Their careful evaluation will be imperative in responding to the evolving terror threats in the country. Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Pakistani militant networks have largely confined their attacks to hard targets, i.e., security convoys, check posts, police stations, and avoided hitting soft (read civilian) targets, barring some notable exceptions.

Pakistan’s counterterrorism strategy is at an inflection point, and the state will do well to stitch up internal differences to avoid politicization of key security policies.

Abdul Basit Khan

However, two of the three targets in the November 11 attacks, a court in Islamabad and a cadet college in South Waziristan, were civilian. Though it will be premature to conclude that this pattern will persist in future attacks, the signal from militant networks is clear. They could carry out more indiscriminate attacks in Pakistan’s major urban centers to overstretch the Pakistani security forces and deviate their attention from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. At the same time, the suicide attack in Islamabad could also be a warning that if Kabul is targeted in drone and airstrikes, repercussions could come to the Pakistani capital as well. The dangerous escalation in militant attacks in Pakistan cannot be analyzed outside of wider regional tensions where Islamabad-Kabul ties have deteriorated and the latter’s relations with Delhi have resuscitated.

The second pattern of these attacks resides in the responsibility claims and militant politics revolving around them. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a disgruntled faction of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), initially claimed responsibility for the Islamabad suicide attack, but later retracted its statement. However, a cursory look at JuA’s past attacks hitting soft targets in Punjab and Islamabad, throws doubt over this retraction. On Friday, the government announced four members of the TTP had been arrested for their involvement in the suicide blast earlier this week.

While JuA walked back on its initial claims of responsibility, the cadet college attack was claimed by a little-known faction Jaish-ul-Hind, apparently a front group of the TTP. Since Pakistan started exerting pressure on the Taliban regime to stop TTP from using Afghan soil for attacks in Pakistan, the militant group has stopped claiming attacks through its official media arm, Umar Media. Instead, several groups with obscure names have emerged and they are claiming the recent wave of attacks in Pakistan.

The idea behind retracting responsibility claims as well as taking ownership of attacks through front groups could be to maintain plausible deniability without stopping cross-border militancy. More such obscure groups are likely to emerge if Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions prolong.

Finally, the emergence of new groups could also be aimed at dispelling the impression that the TTP is carrying out the most militant attacks in the country, and that attacks by new militant factions have their origins inside Pakistan itself.

Keeping in view the most recent surge in attacks, Pakistani security forces will have to improve their inter-provincial and inter-institutional coordination to foil nefarious designs. Timely and actionable intelligence and enhanced vigilance at the exit and entry points of main cities will be critical in repulsing militant attacks. At the same time, the breakdown of the Pakistan-Afghanistan talks and rising tensions will open several fault-lines which transnational terror networks like Al-Qaeda, Daesh-Khorasan and their affiliated factions will exploit.

Pakistan’s counterterrorism strategy is at an inflection point, and the state will do well to stitch up internal differences to avoid politicization of key security policies. TTP and other networks have exploited the grievances of people in the ex-tribal regions to create opposition against impending major military operations. Overcoming such polarization is critical in succeeding against militant networks who threaten both the state and society in Pakistan.