Rising Terrorism Stirs Protests in Pakistan

Late last month, a bomb blast tore through a mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 101 people, most of them police officers attending afternoon prayer. The suicide attack took place in a high-security zone, and it was one of the worst the country has seen in recent years—a stark reminder that the restive threat of terrorism has surged again in Pakistan. A faction of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack, although other leaders from the group denied its involvement.

The Jan. 30 blast has added fuel to ongoing protests in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in Pakistan’s northwest, where residents are making it known that they do not want violence and lawlessness to return to the area. This outcry is particularly strong among ethnic Pashtuns who grew up in cities and villages long impacted by the tumultuous dynamic between the Pakistani military, militants in Pakistan, and Afghan Taliban fighters across the border.

Since the Afghan Taliban took over in Kabul in 2021, Pakistan has seen an uptick in terrorist attacks—especially in its border regions, where a 2014 offensive targeted TTP strongholds with some success. The TTP has claimed responsibility for several terrorist incidents throughout the country in recent months, including a suicide bombing in Islamabad, an attempted attack targeting a police station in Punjab province, and an assault on a police compound in Karachi last week.

The fact that attacks have expanded beyond Pakistan’s tribal areas suggests the TTP—which is aligned with its Afghan counterpart—has regrouped from inside Afghanistan. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and beyond, the resurgence in terrorism has stirred grievances against both the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan’s military buildup, which protesters say has contributed to insecurity. The Afghan Taliban brokered peace talks between the TTP and Pakistan last year, but the TTP ended an agreed cease-fire last November, calling for fighters to carry out attacks throughout Pakistan.

The Afghan Taliban once found public support in Pashtun-majority areas in Pakistan such as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, recruiting fighters to join their violent campaigns. But many people in these areas have now come to resent the group because of the resulting unrest, said Afrasiab Khattak, a former Pakistani senator and senior leader of the National Democratic Movement, a Pashtun-led political party. “There’s a level of political consciousness not seen before,” he said.

The Pashtun Tahafuz (Protection) Movement, a Pashtun human rights movement that rose to prominence in 2018, is one of the groups that is most vocal about how the Pakistani state approaches terrorism in the border areas; it includes senior leaders from the National Democratic Movement. Its criticism of Pakistan’s military establishment has led to a contentious relationship with the government, and several members of the group’s leadership have been arrested and jailed.

In heavily militarized areas, the uptick in terrorism brings a fresh feeling of foreboding. Last month, residents of Waziristan province protested for days in response to recent attacks in the area. They called for the state to empower police and local governments to address the violence. Ghazi Amanullah, a 22-year-old student, said the demonstrations reflect frustration in an area known for militancy; grassroots protests have enabled people to voice their grievances against both militants and the state. “Everyone is oppressed, and everyone has been victimized, so everyone wants peace in the area,” Amanullah said. “We are not able to tolerate anymore the unrest, the terrorism.”

In the days following the Peshawar attack, police officers also held protests voicing their frustration that terrorist attacks often target security forces who lack the capacity to fight back. These demonstrations reflected tension between the police and the military, which has more counterterrorism resources. “The police don’t have access to weapons or facilities,” said Salar Fayaz Ali, the mayor of Tangi—a subdistrict of Charsadda, near Peshawar—who joined the protests. “Only when they are provided the facilities will they be able to defend well.”

Attacks inside Pakistan have led to tension between Islamabad and the Afghan Taliban regime. Pakistan initially had cordial relations with the Taliban government, but the TTP’s increased activity has pushed it to reevaluate how it deals with the neighboring government. Leaders in Kabul have sought international legitimacy based on the promise that they would not harbor terrorist groups on Afghan soil—one of the preconditions in the group’s 2020 negotiations with the United States that led to the withdrawal of all NATO forces from Afghanistan.

However, according to a July 2022 report from the U.N. Security Council, as many as 4,000 TTP fighters are based across the border in Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban deny sheltering militants; in response to the TTP attacks, the group’s foreign minister suggested that Pakistan should find its own solution to its security challenges. The foreign ministry in Kabul condemned the attack in Peshawar, saying it deemed attacks on worshippers against the teachings of Islam.

In the months after the Taliban takeover, leaders in Pakistan expressed hope that regional dynamics could change after decades of unrest. “We thought that maybe they would look at it in a different perspective and do something more concrete to rid their country of any terrorist presence that would be operating against us,” said Raoof Hasan, a former special assistant to ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan. “Obviously that has not happened.”

Instead, Hasan said he thinks that the peace talks allowed the TTP to regroup; as part of the negotiations, Pakistan agreed to release dozens of TTP fighters and two top commanders last May. “They have taken up arms against the very people who released them,” Hasan said, adding that the dynamic gave the TTP more power without the promise that the Afghan Taliban will curtail the group’s activities. “We have ceded space to them. We have ceded legitimacy to them,” he said.

These debates about how Islamabad should tackle the rise in terrorism are taking place against the backdrop of an ongoing reckoning with the role of Pakistan’s powerful army in civilian and political affairs. Khan, who survived an assassination attempt last November, has accused the military—as well as the United States—of orchestrating his ouster last April. He has mounted continued calls for fresh elections and last month dissolved provincial assemblies in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where his party has a majority.

Pakistan must now come up with a strategy to deal with the TTP threat, but it is caught in a tough position: It may need to seek help from high-level Afghan Taliban leaders. The current Pakistani government has criticized Khan’s party for its conciliary approach toward negotiations with the TTP. At the Munich Security Conference last weekend, Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said convincing the Taliban to take the threat of terrorist groups like the TTP seriously is key to getting a handle on the attacks in Pakistan.

Pakistan now faces overlapping crises, including an ailing economy that makes fighting terrorism more difficult. The dire economic situation hinders the potential for a renewed military operation against the TTP; Islamabad can’t sustain a costly, drawn-out offensive. And in the areas where bloody campaigns against the TTP have long disrupted ordinary life, the potential for another campaign is a cause for exasperation and resistance. Residents of the border areas have lived through many seasons of violence. This time, they are making their demands heard.