Pakistan is one of the world’s clearest victims of terrorism, and one of the countries fighting it hardest. Over the past ten days, militants have struck a mosque inside a police compound, bombed a highway checkpoint and abducted laborers at a construction site. In the same days, security forces have carried out major operations, and the prime minister has taken the country’s case to the United Nations.
The most recent attacks show how wide the threat is. On September 18, militants attacked Kohat’s Old Police Lines during Friday prayers, killing 23 people, including 17 police officers. Investigators identified one of the two suicide bombers as an Afghan national. A week later, a suicide bomber struck a joint Customs, police and Excise checkpoint in Dera Ismail Khan, killing 13 people, including two women and a young girl. The violence then targeted the people who came to help, as armed men fired on a Rescue 1122 ambulance carrying the injured, killing two rescuers. The TTP claimed responsibility.
Balochistan faces a different but equally cruel form of violence. On September 26, dozens of gunmen attacked a road construction site in Duki, killing a security guard and abducting workers from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after checking their identity cards. Outlets reported between 12 and 18 abductees. Insurgents have also turned highways into hunting grounds, setting up an illegal checkpoint near Kalat to kidnap for ransom, extort money and snatch vehicles.
Independent data confirms that this is not a passing spike. The Institute for Economics and Peace ranked Pakistan first on its 2026 Global Terrorism Index, with 1,139 terrorism deaths in 2025, the highest level since 2013. The world moved the other way that year, with global terrorism deaths dropping by 28 per cent. The report also recorded a sharp rise in hostage-taking, from 101 victims in 2024 to 655 in 2025, largely because of the Jaffar Express attack. It noted that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan together accounted for over 74 per cent of attacks.
Against this backdrop, the state has not stood still. In Balochistan, the military says security forces killed more than 71 terrorists in 96 hours in Operation Shaban and other intelligence-based operations, clearing hideouts in Ziarat and surrounding areas. Officials say the effort continues under the Azm-e-Istehkam vision approved by the Federal Apex Committee on the National Action Plan. The operation near Kalat shows what this means for ordinary people: troops killed five militants and recovered 23 abductees, along with six trucks, three buses and two cars. The provincial government has closed the door on talks with insurgents, as Balochistan’s chief minister ruled out negotiations and said operations would continue until militancy is eliminated.
Islamabad has also made clear that it will not let sanctuaries beyond its border go unchallenged. After Kohat, its Information Ministry urged the Afghan Taliban to dismantle militant sanctuaries and recruitment and training networks, saying Pakistan had the will and capability to eliminate threats wherever they are. It also reminded Kabul that it cannot evade its counterterrorism obligations under the 2020 Doha Agreement. Pakistan then carried out airstrikes inside Afghanistan, which it says killed 28 militants, while Kabul reports three civilians killed. Islamabad has also stressed that condemnation alone is not enough. When Afghanistan’s foreign ministry condemned the Kohat attack, Pakistan replied that condemnation must be matched by concrete action.
It was this record that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif took to the UN General Assembly on September 25. He told delegates that Pakistan had lost nearly 100,000 civilians and members of its armed forces and suffered economic losses exceeding $150 billion in the fight against militancy, and argued that the world is safer because of those sacrifices. He warned that Afghan territory continues to be used by the TTP and the Balochistan Liberation Army to destabilize Pakistan, and demanded that the abuse stop. He asked the Taliban authorities to take verifiable and decisive action so that Afghan soil is not used against Pakistan or any other country.
The same speech showed Pakistan positioning itself as a force for stability. Sharif said his government had helped bring Washington and Tehran to the negotiating table in Islamabad, leading to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding. The message was that a country that has suffered so much from violence is working to prevent it elsewhere.
Not everyone accepted Pakistan’s account. India used its right of reply to warn that cross-border terrorism by Pakistan would have consequences and rejected Islamabad’s remarks on Kashmir. Pakistan holds that India backs militant groups in Balochistan, a charge India denies, and Kabul denies sheltering the TTP. These disputes will continue, but the human cost is not in question. Police officers were killed at prayer, a child died at a checkpoint, and rescuers were shot while carrying the wounded. Pakistan’s answer is to keep fighting, keep pressing for action against cross-border networks, and keep making its case to the world.
