"We are certainly winning, that's my assessment."

President Pervez Musharraf voiced his confidence during a panel interview with Dawn at his Rawalpindi camp office on August 4, 2004, declaring that Pakistan was winning its war on terrorism, which, he said, the military regime was 'confronting frontally'.

But within the current churning process within Pakistan and the rising portents of trouble, such optimism may just be the mirage that the military regime chooses to project. Among others, events of the past week in the Balochistan province, the site of a revitalized insurgency - three previous guerrilla wars have been fought in Balochistan since the creation of Pakistan, the last of these in 1973-77 - suggest that such sanguinity may well be incompatible with the realities of the ground.

Amidst a series of rocket attacks on vital installations in the recent past, Balochistan witnessed two major acts of violence in just the last week. On August 1, 2004, five soldiers and a civilian were killed when three unidentified gunmen attacked their vehicle near Zinda Pir road at Khuzdar, a military cantonment. Mir Azad Baloch, representing the little known Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), has claimed that the Khuzdar attack was a reaction to the ongoing military operations in Turbat and the construction of a new military cantonment.

On August 2, Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Muhammad Yousaf escaped unhurt when his cavalcade was attacked by unidentified terrorists near Surab, about 180 kilometers south west of Quetta, the provincial capital. A police constable and one of the attackers were reportedly killed during the incident.

Located in western Pakistan, Balochistan is bordered by Afghanistan on the northwest and Iran on the west, with the Arabian Sea to its south. With a geographical spread of approximately 347,641 square kilometres, Balochistan is the largest province in Pakistan covering almost 43 per cent of the country's total area, but accounts for just six per cent of the country's population.

The contours of insurgency in Balochistan envelop the familiar loop of underdevelopment, discrimination by the Federal Government, and political grievances - real or perceived. There is a concurrent and intense resentment towards the presence of the Army in the province, as well as vivid public memories of the brutal repression of the military campaigns in the region in 1973-77. The underdevelopment matrix includes the absence of infrastructure and basic facilities like clean drinking water, health and educational facilities. The province has the largest proportion - 55 per cent - of the population living below the poverty line, and the lowest literacy rates in the country (Men: 34 per cent; Women - 14.1 per cent). The prevailing circumstances have long led the Balochis to protest against the 'hegemony' of the Punjab province. For instance, Balochistan has some of the largest gas reservoirs in Pakistan at Sui, Pir Koh, and Marri, and while the province accounts for approximately 40 per cent of the country's total gas production, it exports 80 per cent of its output to Punjab. Utilization within Balochistan is a mere17 per cent of its output. The province is also rich in iron ore and copper, among an extended range of other minerals of great economic value, but this wealth is exclusively 'managed' by the Federal Government.

Protests against the Federal Government's acquisition of vast tracts of land for mega military ventures, such as the Gwadar Port and City project, are snowballing, and feed the insurgency. The strategically located port, scheduled to be operational by 2005, is intended to handle transit trade with Central Asia, Afghanistan and western China. However, a relatively large section of the Balochis believe that the benefits will overwhelmingly be cornered by the Pakistani Army and non-Balochis, while Balochis will emerge the principal losers, as is in part the already the case as large tracts of land are acquired by outsiders, primarily from Punjab.

While Islamabad debates the best course of action in Balochistan, recent reportage from the province indicates a broad acceptance and justification of anti-state violence. Voicing popular discontent, Nawab Akber Khan Bugti, chief of the Jamhoori Watan Party, in his August 1 interview to the BBC said, "They force you to take up arms, and you are compelled to put up resistance. After all nobody quarrels or dies eagerly."

The current outbreak of violence has also generated a critique of the continuing dualism in the military regime's understanding of terrorism and sub-conventional conflict. Habib Jalib, Secretary General of the Balochistan National Party (BNP) and a former Senator, states, "They are terming it [the August 1 attack at Khuzdar] as a terrorist incident but I do not agree... I think the Pakistan Government does not recognise national political and economic sovereignty of the people. It demands (the) right of self-determination of Kashmir but is not granting it to Balochistan…" He added, further, "Military operations are underway at the moment in Kohlu, Dera Bugti, Gwadar and Turbat district."

While outfits like the BLA seek to demonstrate their capacity for violence in areas like Khuzdar, there are also reports of a broad understanding emerging between the disparate Baloch political groups. While a four-party Baloch alliance, led by the Bugti and Mengal tribes in Balochistan, has protested in Turbat, Gwadar, Kalat, Dera Bugti, Kohlu and Nushki, the Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement (PONM) has accused the Musharraf regime of launching an 'unannounced military operation' in Balochistan.

Gas pipelines in Sui have been under constant attack from the local tribes over the past years. In May 2004 alone, approximately 140 rockets were fired in Sui, while at least 120 rocket attacks were reported in June. Attacks have also targeted the Gwadar project, with the most recent among significant attacks on May 3, 2004, when three Chinese engineers were killed and 11 persons, including nine Chinese nationals, sustained injuries in a car bomb attack. Other notable incidents of violence in 2004 were:

July 18: Islamist leader and Member of National Assembly, Maulana Muhammad Khan Sherani, survives an attempt on his life at Chena Baratkhel in the Qilla Saifullah district.

July 2: Seven Frontier Constabulary personnel are wounded during a landmine blast at Dera Murad Jamali in the Sui area.

June 27: At least two police personnel and three tribesmen are killed during an encounter at Maiwand.

June 19: Terminal of the Sui airport was destroyed after a bomb blast.

June 6: Two persons are killed and two others sustained injuries during a landmine explosion in Kohlu district.

As a result of the escalating violence, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees decided to limit its operations on June 7, 2004, while other foreign non-governmental organisations have closed their offices in Quetta, despite assurances from the Home Department regarding the provision of security to them.

Increasing violence at sensitive locations has been used by the Federal Government to justify its decision to establish new military cantonments inside Balochistan, including three at Gwadar, Dera Bugti and Kohlu, adding to the existing cantonments at Quetta and Khuzdar.

The fact that Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, who hails from Balochistan was recently forced to resign as Prime Minister, has evidently not had a positive impact on the insurgency dynamic. Jamali was at least partly responsible for the delayed decision to send in troops to the province, and his 'removal' has reportedly been received very unfavourably in Balochistan.

While Pakistan's economic capital, Karachi, and the borders with Afghanistan are already under siege, renewed violence encompassing the protracted insurgency in Balochistan can only cause further apprehension in military circles. The provincial capital, Quetta, has long been wracked by sectarian bloodshed, and any immediate expansion of the sphere of violence across the rest of the province can be expected to provoke larger military commitments of the kind currently being witnessed in South and North Waziristan along the Afghan border. But military operations to quell dissidence, insurgency and terrorism, irrespective of the nature of grievances, have been riddled with complexities in Pakistan.

Musharraf may seek to portray the operations in Balochistan as targeting 'terrorists' affiliated to Al Qaeda. However, the Baloch groups have insisted on their identity as 'Baloch nationalists' and have rejected the label of Islamist extremists. There is evidence, moreover, that the Islamists have, till now chosen not to get involved in the ongoing insurgency. However, given the recent trajectory of terrorism in the region, it is likely that the Islamists will eventually try to appropriate the 'Baloch cause', and to exploit the discontent in the province in order to further undermine the beleaguered Musharraf regime. Balochistan could, in such a scenario, emerge as a new staging post for Islamist extremists.

The linkages, in this context, are already crystallizing. The Islamist alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, deeply sympathetic to the Taliban, is a coalition partner in the Pakistan Muslim League - Quaid-e-Azam (PML-QA) led Government in Balochistan. A substantial number of Al Qaeda operatives have been arrested from the province since 9/11, and Pushtun nationalism has created significant spaces for the Taliban presence in the province.

However, a deep divide between the Pashtun-dominated northern areas, and the Baloch south, remains a barrier to a unification of Islamist Pashtun elements and nationalist Baloch factions in the immediate future.

Nevertheless, US intelligence is reportedly concerned that, after earlier Pakistani Army operations in South Waziristan, some Al Qaeda operatives relocated to the Balochistan ranges. Islamabad-based writer Mohammad Shehzad told South Asia Intelligence Review on August 7 that there are a substantial number of jehadis present in the province, waiting to harness the operational possibilities that may be created by an escalating Baloch insurgency, and the current violent situation has the potential to worsen rapidly. Sections of Balochis have also accused Islamabad of masterminding terrorist acts in the province to justify plans to build Army cantonments and increase troop deployment.

With the arc of instability widening in Pakistan, there are grave dangers that what is currently a low-level conflict in Balochistan, may be transformed into a full-scale conflagration.

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Kanchan Lakshman is Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management; Assistant Editor, Faultlines: Writings on Conflict & Resolution. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal