Pakistan internal insurgency (TTP and BLA)

Assessment

Pakistan's TTP and Baloch insurgencies run at a high tempo: PICSS counted 199 militant attacks in August 2026, up 38 percent on July, with 158 people killed in attacks and 211 more killed in counter-terrorism operations, and attacks in the merged tribal districts more than doubled even as security-force deaths fell from 112 to 54. The state is answering with near-daily raids: after ISPR reported 48 militants killed across Balochistan in the 72 hours to Sept 4 and 21 killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in early September, security forces and the Counter Terrorism Department killed nine militants in Mastung and Pishin on Sept 14, and a police, Anti-Terrorist Force and CTD operation in Qilla Abdullah district reported on the same day killed six suspected BLA and BLF fighters and detained five, wounding one ATF officer. The violence is spreading into Balochistan's previously quiet Pashtun-majority districts, a GNET analysis reports TTP drone attacks in at least 13 of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's 40 districts, and Pakistan's UN envoy told the Security Council on Sept 11 that Afghanistan-based militants had killed more than 4,700 Pakistanis in three years. No attack on Chinese nationals or CPEC sites surfaced in coverage through Sept 15.