Terroristan - March 31, 2022

[bala]

Why the biggest Baloch attack in decades is a wake-up call for US, China

A series of coordinated attacks by BLA rebels across Pakistan's province of Balochistan is a wake-up call to both the US and China. Both countries have high stakes in Balochistan centred around resource extraction and access to alternative trade routes. These moves are fuelling the wave of BLA attacks that have struck Pakistan in the past few years.

Pakistan saw one of its largest attacks by Baloch rebels in decades on Saturday, when across Balochistan, rebels from the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) carried out coordinated suicide bombings and attacks targeting civilians, police, military, and paramilitary installations, marking one of the deadliest days in the province.The scale of the assault serves as a warning for the US and China, both with significant stakes in the region. Despite being underdeveloped, Balochistan holds vast reserves of natural gas and rare minerals, attracting heavy investment from Pakistan, China (via CPEC infrastructure), and growing US interest in critical minerals.

Today's attacks in Balochistan should serve as a wake-up call to those, including in the White House, keen to invest in Pakistan's critical mineral reserves. One of the BLA's core grievances is external exploitation of local resources. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) on Saturday launched coordinated bombings and attacks, dubbing it "Herof 2". Herof is a Balochi literary term meaning "black storm", commonly used in Baloch poetry, including by veteran poet Karim Dashti, according to the news outlet, The Native Voices.

While Herof 1, launched in 2024, largely restricted BLA activity to attacks on security personnel, the scale and scope of Herof 2 were wider. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, citing The Express Tribune and Pakistani military statements, synchronised gun and bombing attacks struck Quetta, Noshki, Mastung, Dalbandin, Kalat, Kharan, Panjgur, Gwadar, Pasni, Turbat, Tump, Buleda, Mangochar, Lasbela, Kech, and Awaran, targeting government buildings, security installations and civilians.

An officer from Pakistan's Intelligence Bureau in Quetta told The Native Voices that between 800 and 1,000 fighters, including a few women, might have been involved in the coordinated attacks. The BLA has not confirmed anything about these figures.

In Quetta, heavily armed rebels attacked multiple police stations and mobile units, detonated explosives in Hockey Chowk and also struck multiple key arterial roads in the city .In Mastung, rebels struck the Central Prison with gun and bomb attacks, managing to free at least 30 prisoners. In Gwadar, rebels targeted a camp housing migrant workers, killing 11 people, including women and children, a senior police officer told Reuters. Clashes were reported near the Deputy Commissioner's headquarters and Police Lines in Kalat, while in Nushki, rebels abducted Deputy Commissioner Hussain Hazara and his family.

A Coast Guard post in Pasni was attacked, highways were shut in Bolan, Lak Pass and Qila Saifullah-Rakhni, and explosives planted on a railway line in Nasirabad were defused. Media reports put the death toll as reaching 200. The figure includes at least 31 civilians and 17 security service personnel, the region's Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said, while the military claimed it killed at least 145 BLA rebels.BLA spokesperson Jeeyand Baloch rejected these claims, saying 84 personnel of the Pakistani army, police, intelligence agencies and CTD were killed and 18 captured alive, while seven BLA fighters died, including four who carried out fidayeen attacks inside military facilities, according to a report from The Balochistan Times.

WHY IS BALOCHISTAN IMPORTANT TO PAKISTAN?

Balochistan, Pakistan's largest province by area, holds major strategic importance because of its location, bordering Iran and Afghanistan and providing access to the Arabian Sea. According to Risk Intelligence, this geography makes the province a key gateway for regional trade and connectivity. The deep-sea port at Gwadar, developed under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is positioned as a hub linking China, Central Asia and the Middle East, strengthening Pakistan's role in global trade and energy routes.The province is also rich in natural resources. According to EBSCO Research Starters, Balochistan holds significant reserves of natural gas, coal, copper, gold and rare earth minerals, including the Sui gas field, a major contributor to Pakistan's energy supply.

The Baloch Liberation Movement is a crisis which has been decades in the making. Since 1948, Pakistani security forces have repeatedly clashed with Baloch rebels in their bid to suppress sentiments of independence rife in Balochistan. Despite this, the Baloch Liberation movement is at its strongest ever, as evidenced by multiple attacks by BLA rebels since 2020. The BLA have given many reasons to justify their desire to liberate Balochistan from Pakistan. And one of them particularly stands out. One of the BLA's core grievances is external exploitation of local resources. The BLA opposes Pakistan largely because it views the central government as exploiting the province's vast natural resources, including natural gas from the Sui fields, copper, gold, and other minerals — while delivering minimal benefits to the local Baloch population.

Balochistan is Pakistan's poorest province, with low royalties for Balochi resources reaching the local population (around 12.5% for gas) often reduced further, fuelling perceptions of colonial-style extraction by the Punjab-dominated Islamabad. The primary motivation driving their interests in the region is the extraction of resources to fuel their industries, something the BLA is opposed to. This was made clear, for instance, when in 2023, BLA rebels ambushed a convoy of Chinese engineers in Balochistan, killing at least four Chinese nationals. Similarly, another convoy was ambushed by BLA rebels in 2024, killing at least two Chinese nationals.The scale of the BLA's attacks show that economic ambitions in Balochistan cannot be separated from the region's grievances.

[kancha]

There was an extract from the speech of ADG Strat Communications in some forum that was tweeted by ANI last week. He talked about the sheer deluge of cyber attacks and 'Misinformation, Disinformation and Malinformation' by Pakistan right from the word go. 3 crore cyber attacks on NSE itself were recorded. I think it is time to consider the Pakistani Info and Cyber Warfare setups also as legitimate targets for kinetic operations in the next round.
Have shared some thoughts on that along with some media.

Twitter Link
Blog Link

On Blurring the Line Between Cognitive and Kinetic Warfare


What caught my attention was the very specific statistics that General Sharda put out in his talk.
However, the most interesting part was the fact that the attacks were launched within 30-40 minutes.
THIS is what caught my interest.
Let me explain why.
The sheer numbers of attacks and their ‘bombardment’ through cyberspace within 30-40 minutes means that the Paakis were already prepared even before the first Indian munition was fired on 7th May 2025.
They knew India would attack. And they were prepared for it.
They were prepared not only militarily, but also in terms of info warfare and cyber attacks. I think it would be a fair assumption that such planning would already have been in place since long. And when the time came, it all was let loose in a torrent.
This was the same template that they let loose during Balakot when the then Propagandu-in-Chief was the first one to announce the strikes, thereby taking the initiative in the war of narratives.

First ‘true visuals’ of the strike too were let out on social media by the same Propagandu-in-Chief soon thereafter. In doing so, Bhikharistan took a lead on the narrative front.
How effective that was the long run, I shall discuss later in this article.

My reason for bringing that out all over again was to highlight the fact that Paakis flooded the social media landscape with so many falsehoods and different versions of actual truth that true facts virtually drowned in that deluge.
As Maj Gen Sharda mentioned in his video embedded in the first tweet, we were bombarded with ‘Misinformation, Disinformation and Malinformation’ on the first day of Op Sindoor.
Hereinafter, as per Paaki plan, we were to once again be playing catch-up on narrative front while military facts would get obliterated under this flood of ‘Misinformation, Disinformation and Malinformation.’
Unfortunately, Paakis were once again caught fighting the previous war!
This time, there was no questions of missing visuals of Indian attacks and utter and complete impotence of the Brown Panted Ones to either prevent them or retaliate against them.
This time the Awaam themselves provided proof.
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Btw, don’t miss what is said in the video above.
A minister in Pakistan Govt announces publicly in their very SENATE that they have attacked Indian Dams via a cyber attack.
What bigger a smoking gun can we ask for?
IMO, in this instance of Op Sindoor, the battle was convincingly won by India both in the Kinetic as well as the Cognitive Domain.
However, fact remains that even though Kinetic engagements may have petered down, attacks in the Cognitive domain still continue. The good General himself says so.
This is where I come to the question that triggered this chain of thoughts :
Is it time to consider Kinetic actions against warriors of the Cognitive domain as well, whenever the inevitable next round comes?
Mull over it for a moment before moving ahead.
Personally, I most definitely believe that time has come to physically eliminate the IW infrastructure, including its manpower, whenever the next opportunity presents itself.
A keyboard warrior in today’s world is just as lethal as one with a rifle in his hand.
Period.
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It is a given that info warfare is a highly delegated operation with multiple nerve-centres feeding millions of individual social media users. However, fact remains that nerve centres play a highly important role in setting narratives and giving course-corrections wherever needed. While Info Warfare goes on unabated across national boundaries and without any distinction between uniformed and non-uniformed ‘warriors’, official information channels still play a key role in providing critical raw material for manipulation on social media.
These nerve-centres are what are identifiable on ground & should ideally form part of the target list whenever the next Indian missiles & bombs fly Westwards. By choking the flow of info from official channels thru physical elimination, Info Ops on the other side will definitely be hobbled.
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The beast needs to be dealt with, not just in the same coin, but with brute physical force.
Once again, as General Sharda mentioned in the video above : ‘War is about making the adversary submit to your Will.’
To that I shall add that any & every means towards achieving that end is justifiable. Even if it means physically destroying the network supplying narratives & inputs to Info Warriors, as well as Info Warriors themselves.
THIS is the sum total of what I want to say via this blog post.
As far as the ‘FANTASTIC’ Bhikharistani win of Feb 2019 goes, it did them a fat load of good barely 6 months later when India abrogated Article 370 and all that they could do was make a song and dance about it!

[kancha]

Meanwhile, some social media handles were reporting of attacks on Chinese compounds in Gwadar as well yesterday.