TTP threatens PoK: India’s national security options
29/12/2025
K N Pandita and Fatima Baloch
On 24 December 2025, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) announced its organisational structure across Pakistan. The new structure will encompass Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), including Gilgit-Baltistan. Under the new plan, Pakistani armed forces are likely to face ambushes while their military bases are likely to be attacked.
The upgraded structure envisages establishing an Air Force unit under the supervision of an experienced drone technocrat. He is reported to be planning to deploy sophisticated portable drones with high-rate target precision. The targets would be Pakistan’s key military bases, installations, military-run industries and other sensitive establishments.
The TTP has already formed a shadow government and the military leadership across Pakistan, with governors and commanders actively leading tactical insurgency plans. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the group has been using small drones for military operations targeting checkpoints, police, and law enforcement agencies.
TTP's new focus regions
The reports are that now, for the first time, it has declared Kashmir as a new “Vilayat,” dividing Gilgit into two subdivisions, viz., Vilayat-e Diamer and Vilayat-e Darel. The presence of such extremist groups in PoK, which is legally part of the Indian Union, poses a serious security threat to India’s security arrangement. TTP adheres to an anti-India jihadi ideology. Previously, it conducted operations in PoK, such as the attack on 28 August 2025 against a Gilgit-Baltistan Scouts check post in Hudur, Chilas and Diamer, in which two soldiers were killed, and one person was injured. Sources believe that TTP’s new structure intends to strengthen its military presence in PoK.
In the context of current Afghan-Pakistan tensions, including continued TTP attacks and the October 14–15, 2025, Afghan-Pakistan war, it is evident that Pakistan's army, despite backing from China, Turkey, and several Arab countries, is embroiled in brutal insurgencies in Occupied Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. According to reliable sources, the Pakistani army is losing ground in a two-front war that further intensifies the looming collapse of its resistance capacity.
The escalating internal conflict will inevitably affect India’s national security arrangement. During preparations for Operation Sindhoor 1.0 in response to the Pahalgam attack of 22 April 2025, fighters of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and associated groups intensified their field operations, ambushing Pakistani forces across Balochistan, which was a clear indication of the Baloch solidarity with India. Following the Indo-Pakistan War of May 2025, Pakistan labelled the Baloch struggle as "Fitnat’ul-Hindustan,” (India-sponsored crisis), accusing India of abetting it. The world knows that the Baloch resistance is an indigenous resistance that is as old as the creation of Pakistan. It has existed independently ever since Pakistan’s occupation in March 1948. History shows that whenever India supports liberation movements, new nations have emerged, such as the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971. India had supported the Bangladesh freedom movement despite the US moving its 7th fleet into the Bay of Bengal. Despite global opposition. Today, India must adopt a more decisive stance toward the Baloch cause not only for moral reasons but also to safeguard its own strategic interests. Let us remember that Pakistan, after developing nascent camaraderie with President Trump, has permitted the US to explore and loot the Baloch mineral wealth. In this way, Punjabi-dominated Pakistan has opened the floodgates for the general looting of its mineral wealth to the two most covetous superpowers, namely China and Russia.
Pakistan’s dilemma
In Pakistan-occupied Balochistan, a secular nationalist armed struggle has endured despite repeated Pakistani military oppressive campaigns. Simultaneously, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, TTP controls large swathes of territory, openly fighting the Pakistan Army and intending to impose Taliban-style Sharia law. I
The question is that in case of Pakistan’s army collapsing against TTP, India may run the risk of religious extremists’ expansion into PoK, which may end up in a fierce guerrilla war that would ultimately lead to intensely serious results for Indian national security. Pakistan’s military, backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Turkey, and China, continues its brutal suppression of Baloch nationalism, weaponising religious fanaticism, denying cultural rights, empowering feudal elites, and swindling Baluchistan’s natural resources for Punjab’s benefit. Pakistan has dragged China and these countries into supporting its occupation of Balochistan, a campaign of repression, and fueling anti-China sentiment among the Baloch.
Despite this, the Baloch struggle has evolved into a youth-led secular urban movement, with women playing no less a prominent role and leadership than their male co-fighters, shifting to figures such as Dr Mahrang Baloch, Bashir Zaib Baloch, Dr Allah Nazar and many more.
The Baloch Liberation Army now operates as a structured force with elite units like the Majeed Brigade, Fateh Squad, and an intelligence wing, Zirab. For the younger generation, independence is not just an aspiration but is seen as inevitable and a national dream.
Pakistan, the hub of international terror, is fast slipping into political, economic, and security chaos. Intensification of resistance by BLA, BLF, and TTP directly points to the deepening of the domestic crisis. India, the closest neighbour, cannot remain without direct or indirect fallout of the breakup of Pakistan. Obviously, some key questions arise. Will the PoK’s Sufi and Shia communities accept TTP's radical view of Sharia law? Will a victorious TTP abandon its hostility toward India? Is India prepared to counter these threats with clarity and resolve, and whether the secular Baloch nation should continue to suffer while India offers only a symbolic support? A nuclear-armed Pakistan under TTP control would be catastrophic for South Asia and global stability, while an independent secular Balochistan could stabilise the region and serve as a strategic ally for India.
Strategic options
In the background of these dangerous moves on the chessboard of regional politics, India needs to pre-empt the threats to her security and territorial integrity, especially at a time when the US has turned hostile to her. India has rightly established its age-old fraternal relations with the Afghans, and it must now follow Russia and take the important step of according full recognition to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. India needs to coordinate with Kabul, prepare a contingency plan to reclaim PoK before Pakistan’s collapse, engage secular Baloch nationalists—particularly BLA leadership—to support a free Balochistan, and encourage Afghanistan to absorb Khyber Pakhtunkhwa into a Greater Afghanistan.
The entire region is ripe for reorganisation of states on the basis of their nationalities; charter a development plan for the national states to strengthen their secular democratic arrangements. The reorganisation of the entire region and formation of nation-states like those of the Baloch, Sind, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan will immediately terminate the expansionist designs of China and the US in the region. It will also ensure the rational overland connectivity between India and the sub-Central Asian states, which also means boosting the trade and commerce along this new route connecting India (via Kashmir) to the Wakhan corridor –Tajikistan and to Russia and Eastern Europe.
The time has come for India to assert its sovereignty as an Asian power and grant direct access to Central Asia. India has historically raised the Baloch issue on international platforms, and now is the time to move from symbolic gestures to concrete action. India demonstrated in 1971 that it has the will and the capacity to respond positively to moral obligation and strategic imperative, both to support the Baloch nationalists in their struggle for self-determination.
Conclusion
The rise of TTP and determined resistance by Balochistan both indicate Pakistan’s shrinking control and deepening internal crisis. Indian policy planners need to be cautioned about the changing political chess game in the region. That is the purpose of this write - up. Should India become a silent spectator while China and the US both want to reintroduce the classical “Great Game in South and Central Asia with renewed parameters? A collapsing Pakistan dominated by extremist forces would destabilise South Asia and threaten India's sovereignty, while an independent secular Balochistan could serve as a stabilising ally. Supporting the freedom struggle in Balochistan, reclaiming PoK and GB, and coordinating pragmatically with Kabul are the priority requirements for India to secure long-term regional stability.
Notably, nationalist figures within the Afghan Taliban echelons reportedly maintain cordial relations with Baloch freedom fighters. The Baloch are part of Afghanistan’s ethnic mosaic, with Nimroz being a Baloch-majority province that remained peaceful during the Soviet intervention, Afghan civil war, and U.S./NATO occupation. Afghan Baloch leadership consistently negotiated with Herat’s prominent Islamist commander Ismail to avoid internal conflict and resolve contentious matters amicably. As a result, civil war was avoided in August 2021 during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Today, Afghan Baloch hold key positions in the Taliban’s political and military structure, and some are said to support Baloch nationalists seeking independence. Pakistan's past interference has contributed to the serious security challenges it now faces. Historically, Baloch migrants and BLA freedom fighters from Pakistan-occupied Balochistan have remained neutral in Afghan politics and internal conflicts, earning respect and solidarity.
**About the Authors
Fatima Baloch is a senior geopolitical and regional expert writing extensively on Afghanistan, Balochistan, and India, with a focus on strategic dynamics and regional security.
Shri K.N. Pandita is the former Director of the Centre for Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University
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