FGD: Security Landscape of Pakistan

Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) held a focus group discussion at its office premises on December 22, 2025, as part of consultations for its Annual Security Report. It focused on the evolving security landscape connected to Afghanistan, militancy trends inside Pakistan, and forward-looking risks for 2026.

Security threats from Taliban-led Afghanistan
This topic examined how the Taliban-era Afghan environment is shaping threats to Pakistan, whether the Taliban should be understood primarily as a religious actor, or as a broader state-linked ecosystem capable of mobilising society, providing enabling space, and fuelling cross-border and internal destabilisation.
Zaigham Khan, top political analyst, argued that the threat has moved beyond questions of militant support into a more serious societal dimension. In his view, Taliban-aligned dynamics are increasingly pitching Afghan society against Pakistan, turning the challenge into one of instigation rather than a contained armed-actor problem. He also questioned earlier Pakistani assumptions that religious affinity would translate into strategic alignment, arguing instead that Taliban ideology combines hardline religiosity with ethno-nationalist supremacism, producing distrust and framing Pakistan as religiously insufficient. He added that Taliban success also creates internal spillover risks inside Pakistan by strengthening clerical empowerment narratives.
Abdullah Khan, Managing Director, PICSS, disagreed with an overly Afghanistan-centric framing. He argued that Pakistan’s state and media often overstate the Afghanistan causal chain, and that the trajectory should be anchored in facts and observable trends. While acknowledging Taliban-era amplification, he maintained that the uptick did not begin only after the Taliban takeover and must also be read through domestic dynamics.
Amir Rana, President Pak PIPS, steered the discussion towards testing claims against observable patterns, pressing participants to link assessments of Taliban behaviour to measurable shifts in tactics, strategy, and data trends.

Governance gaps, and policy deficits
This topic assessed whether the decisive drivers of militancy are external safe havens and cross-border linkages, or Pakistan’s internal enabling environment. It highlighted political fragmentation, weakened governance, closed grievance channels, and inconsistent state policy towards violent and non-violent actors.
Abdullah Khan, framed the problem as largely indigenous. He argued that Pakistan has increasingly tied its Afghanistan policy into a narrow security knot, particularly around the TTP, while neglecting broader political and leverage tools. He emphasised that grievance expression has narrowed sharply, especially for youth in KP, creating fertile conditions for recruitment and wider social tolerance of militant narratives. He also criticised Pakistan’s tendency to consume leverage quickly rather than preserve it for sustained bargaining.
Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud placed even greater weight on domestic conditions. He argued that Pakistan cannot attribute its vulnerabilities primarily to Afghanistan when militant actors retain significant operational depth on Pakistani soil. In his view, internal weaknesses, administrative reach, service delivery, local political functionality, and district-level writ, are central to why militancy sustains itself and regains space.
Senior Journalist and writer, Zia-ur-Rehman, argued that the political and policy environment has become unusually permissive for militancy because of a lack of consensus and a lack of continuity. He suggested that without an aligned national narrative and long-term coherence, state campaigns become cyclical and lose deterrent credibility.
Dr. Arshi Saleem Hashmi broadened the internal-enabler lens by arguing that Pakistan’s response capacity is constrained by unresolved internal social tensions and weak political culture, which adversaries can exploit. She also cautioned that Pakistan often approaches the problem as though it is dealing with a “normal” state counterpart, while the Afghan side’s state structure and governing logic remain contested and unstable, complicating durable outcomes.

Evolving militant landscape: trends and shifts
This topic focused on how militant actors have changed in composition, strategy, targeting behaviour, and internal cohesion, particularly the TTP and its relationship with splinters or adjacent networks, and what that implies for threat forecasting.
Abdullah Khan argued that the militant landscape is becoming more complex rather than more coherent from the state’s perspective. He pointed to confusion in public and official understanding of factional distinctions, arguing that multiple labels and sub-networks create ambiguity and inconsistent messaging. He described a perceived increase in senior-level militant presence and movement inside Pakistan alongside sustained cohesion at the rank-and-file level, suggesting that consolidation at the operational layer can persist even when leadership and factional branding appear fragmented.
Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud emphasised that the “new TTP” differs from earlier cycles: it is more disciplined, more strategic, and shaped by a clearer leadership approach that deprioritises civilian targeting. He argued that this discipline increases long-term threat potential by sharpening organisational coherence and allowing militants to position themselves as a sustained insurgent force rather than a purely terroristic actor. He contrasted this with Hafiz Gul Bahadur–linked patterns that he characterised as more reactive and revenge-driven, which can trigger high-salience incidents and public trauma even when they do not serve a longer strategic plan.
Iftikhar Firdous, Founder and Executive Director, The Khorasan Diary, framed the trend as an uneven contest between non-state innovation and state capacity. He highlighted technical adaptation, particularly IED and drone-related dynamics, as a major accelerant, arguing that tactical innovation has outpaced integrated counter-capacity and has sharply increased harm potential.

Dynamics of insurgency in Balochistan
This topic examined how militant violence in Balochistan is evolving in terms of targets, operational tempo, duration of incidents, propaganda innovation, and the emergence of tactics intended to undermine the state’s information base and logistical control.
Abdullah Khan argued that parts of the Balochistan threat ecosystem are often misattributed to Afghanistan when, in his view, facilitation and support pathways are more strongly linked to Iran in certain cases. He acknowledged that Afghanistan may provide some enabling space but distinguished this from the Taliban–TTP relationship.
Imtiaz Baloch presented a structured assessment highlighting tactical diversification and an effort to directly challenge the state’s local footprint. He emphasised repeated targeting of local law enforcement and administrative nodes, and described the expansion of road-blocking tactics aimed at disrupting provincial arteries and weakening the state’s local information networks. He noted signs of urbanisation of violence through targeted attacks and the use of devices such as magnetic bombs, alongside an increase in incident duration that strains state response and perception management. He also treated women’s involvement as a propaganda and adaptive tactic that could evolve from exceptional use into broader participation.
Senior journalist and writer, Zia-ur-Rehman highlighted the symbolic value of certain tactics, particularly women’s suicide operations, as a means to amplify fear and propaganda beyond the immediate operational effect. He also described Karachi as a facilitation and networking environment rather than a primary operational theatre, with relevance for funding, treatment, and coordination.

Shifts in militant ideologies and narratives
This topic considered whether ideological boundaries between nationalist-separatist and Islamist extremist actors are eroding, and how propaganda narratives are being repackaged to widen recruitment pools and normalise violence.
Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud argued that a strategic convergence is underway in which actors with different ideological labels cooperate because their overriding objective is aligned: positioning Pakistan as the primary enemy. In his view, this makes older distinctions less useful for operational assessment and increases the risk of joint fronts, shared facilitation, and mutual reinforcement across theatres.
Iftikhar Firdous argued that ideological binaries are increasingly collapsing and that recruitment strategies are shifting away from explicit branding (such as openly invoking al-Qaeda or Daesh) towards broader, emotionally mobilising frames. He emphasised Ghazwa-e-Hind as a narrative container capable of absorbing multiple strands and being re-amplified through global triggers, and he warned that Gaza-linked framing could intensify recruitment and legitimisation efforts. He also argued that al-Qaeda is under-discussed despite perceived overlaps and imprints across networks, and that alliance-signalling through claims of responsibility and propaganda output should be treated as an indicator of broader coordination dynamics.
Amir Rana noted that certain narrative frames have become sufficiently popular that multiple extremist ecosystems attempt to appropriate them, creating a contested propaganda space that can spill across borders and audiences.

Pakistan’s external policy choices
This topic assessed Pakistan’s external policy options: the balance between diplomacy and kinetic escalation, the credibility of mediation channels, and how regional stakeholders, especially China and Saudi Arabia, may shape incentives and constraints.
Aarish Khan, Head of Afghanistan Program, IRS, described 2025 as a sequence in which Pakistan pursued sustained diplomatic engagement and third-party involvement before shifting towards escalation when outcomes on the ground did not change. He framed Pakistan’s posture as unusually restrained by regional standards and argued that subsequent pressure tactics reflected a belief that the other side needed to be compelled into responsiveness. He also criticised mediation efforts for lacking weight and authority on Pakistan’s side, limiting the prospects for meaningful outcomes.
Senior Journalist Tahir Khan described tentative expectations that Saudi Arabia could attempt a broader incentive-based approach, while stressing uncertainty and the absence of clear confirmation that a finalised pathway exists. He argued that the Taliban appear to be under some pressure and may modulate rhetoric, but that reassurance remains limited and Pakistan’s position has hardened as a result. He suggested that sustained confrontation is unlikely to be preferred by either side, implying that some adjustment could eventually emerge, even if not through a clean diplomatic breakthrough.
Iftikhar Firdous characterised the external environment as a proxy-prone arena in which fault lines are deliberately activated, and argued that corridor security and border disputes create chronic vulnerability. He also raised concerns that corridor politics and cross-border narratives could be leveraged in multiple directions, increasing the risk of escalation dynamics beyond the immediate Pakistan–Afghanistan dyad.

Priorities for 2026
This topic drew together the discussion into what participants believed should be prioritised in 2026 to reduce risk, regain strategic control, and prevent further deterioration.
A recurring theme was the need for clearer national consensus and continuity. Zia-ur-Rehman emphasised that fragmented politics and stop-start policy cycles weaken deterrence and implementation and argued for a productive narrative and sustained long-term approach. Dr. Arshi Saleem Hashmi, Dean Faculty Social Science, NDU, argued that Pakistan requires clearer conceptual framing for how it defines and engages Afghanistan’s governing structure; without such clarity, negotiations remain tactical and temporary, while internal tensions constrain strategic choices.
On the TTP question, Abdullah Khan, Managing Director, PICSS, argued that negotiations will ultimately be necessary and questioned the logic of postponing talks given earlier ceasefire cycles and engagement precedents. He also argued for a broader Afghanistan approach that preserves leverage and avoids reducing the entire relationship to a single militant file. Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, Co-Founder and Director News, The Khorasan Diary, emphasised dismantling domestic enabling conditions, particularly through functional local governance, funding, services, and visible district writ, arguing that security deployments without governance deepen the vacuum militants exploit.
Aarish Khan offered a structured set of policy principles: build negotiations around stepwise incentives and clarity; distinguish political space for peaceful discourse from any tolerance for political violence; and treat border management as a normalisation project rather than an unrealistic promise of perfect sealing, while still improving controls and predictability.

Conclusion
The focus group represented a significant achievement for the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, both in terms of the depth of expertise assembled and the quality of dialogue generated. Bringing together senior analysts, researchers, and practitioners with long-standing experience across Pakistan’s internal security, militancy, and regional dynamics enabled a level of discussion that moved well beyond surface narratives. The exchange was candid, rigorous, and grounded in field exposure, allowing divergent viewpoints to be tested against each other in a structured and professional setting. Such dialogue is essential for moving from fragmented assessments toward a more integrated understanding of evolving security challenges.
The discussion directly strengthens the Annual Security Report by stress-testing assumptions, refining analytical frameworks, and identifying emerging trends that may not yet be fully visible in quantitative datasets. By capturing expert judgment on ideological shifts, operational adaptation, and policy constraints, the focus group adds interpretive depth that complements empirical reporting. For security experts and policymakers, this process matters because complex threat environments cannot be understood through data alone; they require informed debate, contextual knowledge, and critical interrogation of prevailing narratives. The focus group format provides precisely that space, ensuring that the Annual Security Report is not only descriptive but analytically robust, forward-looking, and responsive to the realities confronting Pakistan’s security landscape.