Baloch Liberation Army | The rebels who shook Pakistan Today World News

A special train, organized by the army for the wounded and survivors rescued by security forces from a passenger train attacked by insurgents, arrives at a railway station in Much, in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, Wednesday, March 12, 2025
| Photo Credit: AP

October 18, 2018 came bearing bad news for the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA). On that day, across the Afghan-Pakistan border, Kandahar’s police chief Gen. Abdul Raziq Achakzai was assassinated by the Taliban, who were still three years away from capturing Kabul. Raziq was known for his brutal tactics in dealing with the Taliban but his assassination in the house of the Kandahar Governor Zalmay Wesa, who was also critically wounded, left lingering questions about the fate of the BLA because among many things, Raziq also handled the movement of Baloch militants within the Af-Pak. territory.

The BLA suffered another setback when its top commander Aslam Baloch was killed in a blast three months later, in December 2018. Weeks earlier, the BLA had attacked the Chinese consulate in Karachi where two policemen and four cadre were killed. After the targeted assassinations of Raziq and Aslam, there were signs that the BLA’s logistical network would be disturbed. The next big setback was the U.S. designation of the BLA as a terrorist outfit, on July 2, 2019.

However, the BLA carried out some more daring attacks, including the May 2019 attack on the Pearl Continental Hotel in Gwadar, the newest port of Pakistan which is also vital for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. It was the last major attack by the group which came under pressure after the Taliban took over Kabul on August 15, 2021. But the calm did not last long.

On March 11, 2025, the BLA carried out its biggest attack in its nearly 25 years of operation against the Pakistani state when its militants assaulted the Quetta-Peshawar Jaffar Express.

The latest attack, executed through a series of actions spread across a vast area interspersed with mountain tunnels, has indicated that the BLA has bounced back from the setbacks of 2018-21, and highlighted the souring state of relationship between Pakistan and the Taliban.

Months before the Jaffar Express attack, the BLA had been expanding the footprint of its firepower. A survey of its claims of attacks shows that the Jaffar Express attack came after nearly two years of escalation during which it carried out an exhaustive series of operations across Balochistan. The BLA claimed to have carried out attacks almost every week in 2024.

Support base

On October 7, 2024, the BLA claimed responsibility for a blast that targeted Karachi’s airport road, killing two Chinese nationals and injuring 10 Pakistani nationals. The blast revived fears about the BLA. The group rose out of the Baloch nationalist movement, which was traditionally dominated by the Baloch nawabs or sardars belonging to the Bizenjos, Bugtis and other clans.

The BLA does not possess a formal structure like other armed nationalist groups in South Asia and West Asia. The total strength of the group is believed to be around 6,000 cadre, though the number of sympathisers to the Baloch cause is much higher. The new generation of young social media savvy Baloch university graduates is the main support base of the group, and the Majeed Brigade, the wing of the BLA that carried out the attack on the train, has been consistently at the forefront of violent operations.

The Baloch nationalist movement sprang from the dispute of sovereignty in the princely states in the region that were to join Pakistan. However, the armed struggle under the 21st century BLA is markedly different from the tradition of armed militants who were earlier indirectly supported by the Marri, Bugti, Mengal and other dominant clans or tribes. A dispute over sovereignty at the end of the British colonial rule, coupled with negation of the federal spirit in military-dominated Pakistan, has been the driving force for the Baloch national movement.

A major element of the Baloch nationalist struggle, which was parallel to the linguistic nationalism of Bengali-speaking East Pakistan, was that it unfolded during the Cold War era. The Baloch movement was influenced by the Soviet Union and radical Marxist ideology in the past, and Moscow trained many radical Baloch figures during the period of 1950s to 1970s. Long before the BLA, in 1964, the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) was launched by Jumma Khan but that outfit is now completely overshadowed by the BLA.

The BLA rebels claim that Pakistan has been exploiting the rich resources of the province without giving due share to the indigenous people and the tribes. In recent years, the BLA has emerged as a movement with a wide network in both urban and rural areas of Balochistan that has carved a space for itself away from the traditional hold of the sardars or tribal chieftains. BLA rebels claim that they are aiming for both freedom from Pakistan and internal reform of Baloch society.

After the death of Aslam Baloch, the BLA suffered from lack of coordination and internal controversies.

For example, the June 29, 2020 attack by the BLA on the Karachi Stock Exchange created an internal problem for the organisation, after Majeed Brigade claimed that it was carried out by Tasleem Baloch, Shehzad Baloch, Salman Hammal and Siraj Kungur. The claim immediately triggered a protest from the BLA spokesperson Azad Baloch, who claimed that the four were already expelled from the group. His statement indicated that the attack was part of an Iranian effort to malign the group because it had not compromised with Iran. Baloch nationalist sentiment is prevalent both in Balochistan of Pakistan as well as Sistan-Balochistan, the easternmost province of Iran.

Voice of the rebels

Traditional Baloch sardars have been cautious and refused to acknowledge any link with the BLA, but the London-based pro-independence leader Hyrbair Marri is generally considered to be an overground voice of the group.

Following the Jaffar Express attack, in which, according to the Pakistani military, 31 people, including five civilian passengers, were killed, Mr. Marri said: “We are Baloch and we reject Pakistan’s flag. Remove it. We have our own. Free Balochistan is our only demand.”

By drawing in India, Pakistan has highlighted an old link between Baloch nationalist leaders and India. Non-violent Baloch nationalist leaders and human rights activists like Mama Qadeer and Naela Qadri visited India several times in the past. In the last decade, there were instances when BLA commanders visited India ostensibly to seek medical treatment.

It is said, the slain Aslam Baloch had visited India under an assumed identity provided by the intelligence agency of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (before the 2021 Taliban takeover). After the train attack, Pakistan pointed fingers at India. However, India “strongly rejected the baseless allegations”, and asked Pakistan “to look inwards”.

With the BLA gaining strength in Balochistan and the Pakistani Taliban stepping up attacks in the tribal region, Islamabad-Rawalpindi is once again facing multi-pronged security challenges, at a time when the country’s economy is struggling to stabilise itself amid unresolved political tensions between the military backed government and the jailed former Prime Minister, Imran Khan.