Educated, beautiful and lethal; Strange BLA tactics giving nightmares to Pak army

ISLAMABAD: The Balochistan liberation struggle, ongoing for decades, has now touched new levels. Protests and liberation struggles are intensifying with the aim of separating Balochistan from Pakistan, to give revived hope for an independent nation. The mission gave birth to a new movement that saw educated women taking up arms. This is also putting the Pakistani government in a quandary. Several security personnel have been killed in attacks carried out by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). Pakistan alleges India’s role in aiding the rebels.

The images of two female suicide bombers released by the BLA following the attack yesterday have stunned the Pakistani government and security agencies alike. The attack on the ISI headquarters in Nushki was carried out by 21-year-old Asifa Mengal. She joined the BLA's Majeed Brigade on her birthday. Footage of Asifa, brandishing a gun and challenging Pakistani security personnel, has already gone viral on social media.

Although the leader of the Baloch Yakjheti Committee, Mehrang Baloch, and journalist Shammi Deen Baloch have formed organisations in support of women, hundreds of Balochistani women prefer to join the BLA and become suicide bombers for liberation. Mehrang Baloch, who was arrested for peacefully staging a sit-in protest in the capital, Kathua, has been in jail since March 2025.

Unlike religiously based militant groups, the Baloch liberation movement places more emphasis on a secular ethnic identity. Political observer Aisha Siddiqui says that years of atrocities by the Pakistani army and the illegal imprisonment of men are driving women to the liberation struggle.

Estimates suggest that around 5,000 Baloch men have disappeared in the army's custody since 2000. The frustration of being denied justice and having family members killed or missing is what drives women to take up arms. Experts point out that the BLA is strategically exploiting the causal screening of women in checkpoints to infiltrate and wage war against the occupying Pakistan army.