McGill Journal of Political Studies 2014 April, 2014 | Page 114

the Baloch Republican Army (BRA), which
is led by Nawab Bugti’s radical grandson
Baramdagh Bugti, the Baloch People’s
Liberation Front (BLF), the Balochistan
Liberation United Front (BLUF), and
Laskar-e-Balochistan (LB)44. These militant
outfits have targeted the Police and security
forces, as well as government installations.
For instance, BLUF was responsible for
the kidnapping of Mr. John Solecki Chief
of the Balochistan division of the UNHCR
in February 2009 (released in April), as well
as for the killing of the Education Chief
Minister Shafiq Ahmed45. In stark contrast
to earlier conflicts, the Baloch insurgency
has undergone ‘ethnicisation’ - the targets of
the current insurgency also include ‘settlers’
and non-Baloch, thousands of whom have
been killed46. In addition to the historic
grievances, Baloch nationalists have come to
resent the large-scale influx of largely ethnic
Pashtun refugees that has resulted from the
overspill of the US operation in Afghanistan
and the Afghan-Soviet war. Fears of ethnic
swamping are very much alive. The Baloch
nationalists particularly resent the presence
of the Taliban in Balochistan, who operate
in the province with the tacit support of the
Pakistani state47.

Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and
the largely Pashtun province of Khyber
Pahtunkhwa (KPK). However, the Taliban
have been active in Balochistan at least since
the Quetta Shura convened in November
2001, regrouping in the province to escape
the US-led invasion of Afghanistan49.
The overspill of the war in Afghanistan
has brought parts of the Afghan Taliban
leadership to Pathan-majority areas of
Balochistan, in the northern ‘Pakhtun Belt’,
but also in Quetta where Pathans now
constitute an ethnic majority as mentioned
above.50
The Quetta Shura, led by Mullah Omar,
and affiliated with the al-Qaeda, have
not conducted any attacks as such within
Balochistan; rather they have used the