PAKISTAN’S internal security threats continue to escalate in complexity and lethality, even as state institutions attempt varied approaches to contain them. Instead of meaningfully reassessing their strategies, these institutions appear to be resorting to increasingly coercive and defensive responses. While coercion has its place, especially when integrated with a broader political strategy, an overemphasis on primitive actions risks undermining hard-won security gains and is counterproductive.
Before unpacking this argument further, it is worth examining how Pakistan’s security apparatus is currently attempting to secure two key capitals: Islamabad, the federal seat of power, and Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, a province grappling simultaneously with a protracted insurgency and the persistent threat of Islamist militancy.
The key issue is not to contrast London and Paris as Charles Dickens did, but to analyse how two Pakistani cities, despite receiving similar financial and human resources for security, face threats on different scales, one significantly more secure, the other less so. The state expends large resources on intelligence, deployments, and checkpoints. Still, terrorists exploit weaknesses: attacks occur less often in Islamabad and far more frequently in Quetta. The residents of both cities remain dissatisfied with the security institutions’ counterterrorism strategies, as these measures directly disrupt their daily routines and negatively impact local businesses. The security institutions rarely take public grievances into account when developing their preventive strategies.
Recent statistics on terrorist incidents in Islamabad and Quetta underscore the pressing need for security agencies to rethink and modernise their preventive measures. In Islamabad, there have been six terrorist attacks since January 2021, resulting in 21 fatalities. Notably, the most recent attack on Nov 11, which struck the district courts and led to 12 deaths, was the deadliest; earlier attacks were comparatively smaller, occurring on the city’s outskirts and primarily targeting police officers, with most incidents linked to the TTP.
Public frustration and insecurity are as lethal as the threat of terrorism itself.
In contrast, Quetta faced 152 terrorist attacks during the same period, causing 264 fatalities. The targets in Quetta were far more diverse: civilians, government officials, security forces, tribal elders, religious communities and their leaders, and political workers. The perpetrators were equally varied, from nationalist insurgent groups such as the Baloch Republican Guards, BLA, BLF, and BRAS (an alliance of BLA, BLF, and BRG), to Islamist militant and sectarian organisations including IS-K/ISPP, LeJ, TTP and UBA. This pattern has remained persistent. Since January alone, Quetta has suffered 32 attacks, causing 32 deaths, with the same range of actors and targets.
The data clearly shows that militant groups, their targets, and their operational tactics have evolved over the years. This shift reflects the ineffectiveness of current counterterrorism strategies, both operational and preventive, which rely heavily on security checkpoints, safe city surveillance systems, and internet jamming. In Islamabad, the latest attack is a stark reminder that terrorist groups have breached the defensive wall constructed by law-enforcement agencies.
The level of insecurity in Quetta is naturally very high, but residents of the federal capital are increasingly frustrated for different reasons: the expanding layers of security, the growing number of checkpoints, and hours-long road blockages due to the movement protocols for cricket teams, foreign dignitaries, and government officials. The city often comes to a standstill, reflecting nervousness and poor management despite the availability of substantial state resources. Yet the government appears reluctant to revisit or rethink its security planning.
When security agencies become overly obsessed with rigid protocols, they inadvertently give an advantage to terrorists who adapt their tactics, focusing on breaching these measures. Data from the two cities illustrates this pattern.
When terrorists gain a sense of advantage, or in some cases of victory, it weakens the state’s coercive strategies. These strategies include pressuring states that provide hideouts or support to militants, as well as the political approach of engagement or non-engagement with such actors. The state’s counter-propaganda strategies also lose credibility when the public sees a very different reality unfolding on the streets.
Pakistan has been pressuring the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to cease its support for terrorist networks, particularly the TTP. Just the other day, the Foreign Office stated that the resumption of trade with Afghanistan depends on Kabul ending cross-border terrorism, and even linked the future of key regional energy projects to the Taliban halting support for militant groups. This was in response to the Afghan deputy prime minister for economic affairs Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar’s recent press conference, in which he advised Afghan traders to stop exporting goods through Pakistan. Clearly, this approach is not working, as the adversaries see the level of frustration when dealing with them.
Law-enforcement agencies must enhance their use of human, financial, technical and cyber resources, and strategically adapt operations. Reliance on visible deterrence, such as check posts and major street blockades, disrupts public life, yet efficacy would not decrease with fewer check posts if technology were used more efficiently. As terrorists continually attempt to breach both overt and covert security measures, agencies must broaden their efforts across all domains.
Blocking highways and major routes for the movement of foreign and local VIPs does not reduce risks. In many cases, it increases them and fuels public panic and frustration. This frustration is particularly pronounced in Islamabad, while insecurity remains high in Quetta. Again, the data indicates that the state needs a comprehensive review of its countering strategies, with coherence across political, operational and preventive dimensions.
Public frustration and insecurity are as lethal as the threat of terrorism itself, yet these human-centred dimensions find little space in the state’s counterterrorism thinking. State institutions often expect citizens to bear the burden of sacrifices required to secure cities, while ordinary people observe a contrasting reality: state functionaries allocate disproportionate resources to securing their own areas, creating red zones, deploying heavy contingents, and disrupting daily life whenever the power elites move through public spaces.
The writer is a security analyst.
Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2025
