On April 23, 2009, Rehman Malik, the then Interior Minister, during an in-camera session of the Senate, made a presentation of what he called “evidence of the involvement of India, Afghanistan and Russia in Balochistan and other parts of the country.”


One of the senators who was also present at the session told TNS, requesting anonymity, that Malik had documentary evidence — “video clips” — of the involvement of the abovementioned countries in incidents of terrorism in Pakistan. “Malik told the session that the Balochistan Liberation Army of Brahamdagh Bugti, who now lives in Kabul, is funded by Russia and India. Besides, around 1,000 students have trained in Russia and now they are back in Balochistan.”


The senator also said that in 2008, the then DG military operations Ahmed Shuja Pasha had briefed a joint session of the parliament about the involvement of India and Russia in Balochistan. “Pasha told the parliament that India had established as many as nine training camps along the Afghan border to train BLA activists.”


The ‘foreign hand’ factor in Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province area-wise and smallest population-wise, has to do with its huge strategic importance. The province is rich in natural resources, has a long coastline that provides the closest link through Arabian Sea to Afghanistan, China and Central Asian states. Frederic Grare, a Balochistan expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is of the view that there are about 20 countries which can benefit hugely from development work at Gwadar port.

“Balochistan is also important on the world’s ‘war arena’ as it borders with both Afghanistan and Iran and can easily be used to monitor China, Central Asian states and Persian Gulf.”


The Pakistani security officials believe several countries are ‘working’ actively in Balochistan. On June 2, 2012, Maj Gen Obaidullah Khan Khattak, Inspector General of Frontier Corps (FC), told the media at a press conference that 20 foreign intelligence agencies were active in the province.


Justice Javed Iqbal, head of the Judicial Commission on missing persons in Balochistan, believes foreign elements are involved in the region’s unrest. “The foreign intelligence agencies want to worsen the Balochistan situation in order to destabilise Pakistan,” he said on June 10, 2012 in Quetta.
According to a leaked US memo, former president Pervez Musharraf also took up the issue with the US officials in September 2007. “He asked the US to intervene”, says the memo. Musharraf also told US officials that Pakistan had proof of India and Afghanistan’s involvement in efforts to provide weapons, training and funding for Baloch extremists through Brahamdagh Bugti and Baloch Marri, two Baloch nationalists. “We have letters instructing who to give what weapons [and] to whom.”
Maria Sultan, Director, South Asian Strategic Stability Unit, says “Most of the arms and ammunition being recovered from the Balochi insurgents are foreign-made, though they do not bear any brand names.”


According to the available data on years 2009 to 2012, 810 IED attacks, 390 rocket attacks and 325 mine attacks were carried out in Balochistan that killed over 400 people while more than 735 people lost their lives to target killings in the province during the same period. “Balochi militants cannot carry out such massive attacks without foreign help,” she says.
Dr Ayesha Siddiqa, leading security analyst, says she would be surprised if no foreign agencies were involved in Balochistan. “Several Baloch leaders have said on record that they would not shy away to get foreign help,” she tells TNS. “But there may be help which is limited.


“Pakistan is also not pleading as much on international forum about foreign involvement as it could have.”

Siddiqa also says the Baloch are weak and they are not a huge number. “Our establishment knows very well this is not a 1971-like situation. Back then, the Bengalis were in majority but the Baloch are not, even in their own province.”


She believes the foreign involvement in the province is not to the degree where it can disallow a serious political dialogue. “I do not buy the narrative that a foreign country wants disintegration in Balochistan. It does not suit anybody in the region. We should not give that much importance to the research papers of the US think tanks. Most of these think tanks, like ours, are insignificant.”

Siddiqa believes Pakistan needs to plead its case at the international forum in a proactive way.


Senator Hasil Bakhsh Bizinjo, a leading Balochi voice, says it would be wrong to say that there is no foreign involvement in Balochistan. “No militant movement can operate without foreign assistance. But there are two types of such movements — one that works on foreign agenda and the other which is indigenous and receives foreign assistance to spread its agenda. There is a need to have different strategies to tackle an indigenous movement.”

He considers it the duty of the state and the agencies to stop the foreign involvement. “In Balochistan, even today, we have low insurgency as those killed in different attacks are mostly civilian. It is true that India is anti-Pakistan but I believe it does not want to disintegrate Balochistan. It does not suit China, Iran and even Afghanistan because once this process of disintegration of a country on the basis of ethnicity starts in the region there will be no stopping it.”


A military source in Islamabad says that along with the US, Afghanistan, Russia, India and China, other “brotherly Muslim countries” are actively involved in Balochistan. “Some want to destabilise Pakistan while others do not want to see an operational Gwadar port as this would hurt the business of their ports badly.

“Sectarian killings in the province are also part of the activities of the foreign agencies,” the source says. “Some US media reports have also suggested that Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad was active in Balochistan.”


Military officials say it is difficult to stop infiltration through the 1,200-km border with Afghanistan. “There are 212 border passes on Balochistan and Afghanistan which makes monitoring it too difficult. Arms and ammunition illegally enter Balochistan through the porous Afghan border, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and even through Sindh and the sea routes.”