The BLA’s Exploitative Tactics

Dr. Sahibzada Muhammad Usman

Many emerging separatist militant groups especially the Baloch Liberation Army –BLA operating in Baluchistan province even capture educated Baloch women to conduct hazardous terrorist operations. This consequence shows not only the susceptibility of these women to being used but also the extent to which BLA is willing to go in using people for anti-social activities. The female captives who willingly or against their wish were forced to participate in terror activities serve to highlight a problem of gender, education, and violence in this part of the world.

The BLA is increasingly manipulating educated Baloch women to carry out terrorist activities, showcasing a disturbing trend.

In so doing, the BLA wants to pass through security checkpoints, transport its weapons and ammunition more, and take advantage of the cultural stereotype that women are unlikely to be involved in terrorist activity. This manipulation of educated Baloch women is just an example of how this terrorist organization whose motto is to establish Baluchistan as an independent state is ready to go to any extent with the motive of recruiting more and more people even if it has to betray their own.

One of the most blatant such manipulations was when Adeela Baloch, a nurse from Turbat in Kech, was detained by law enforcement agencies. Adeela was a nurse whose profession was the opposite of the role the BLA tried to turn her into. Instead of helping the Afghan society with her skills, the BLA forced her to turn into a human bomb. This remains a sad reminder of how the BLA neutralizes the noble intention and professionalism of people making them agents of death.

Adeela and her colleagues are well-established people in their society but the terrorists took her away perhaps they knew she came from a humble background or blackmailed her using her family’s lives. As bad, the use of an educated girl, a woman trained as a nurse to heal, indicates a rather scary strategy showing just how desperate the BLA has become, and how willing to hurt any core human tenet.

Cases like Adeela and Shari Baloch illustrate how the BLA coerces women into becoming instruments of violence against their will.

Another such manipulation is the case of Sharri Baloch – a mother from Baluchistan, who is educated. This year, by the instigation of the BLA, Sharri went to the Confucius Center at Karachi University and detonated face-to-face Chinese teachers. As was the case of Adeela, Sharri was a woman who ought to have been enjoying her life, living a meaningful productive life but was instead used as a tool, a drogue by the BLA for terrorism. What must be made clear is that Sharri may have been forced into it, like most women in Baluchistan.

The terrorist organization then probably exploited her weakness by threatening her or her family with harm if she declined. This is evidenced by Sharri’s tragic story of how BLA’s growing network of militant women is being used to destabilize the country with the education system being used to produce venerable educated women who can easily be persuaded to cause havoc in society.

Likewise, the Baloch sultan and Mehran Baloch had done in 2023 engaged a young Baloch woman Summaiya Qalandrani for marrying the son of Baloch Liberation Army commander Aslam Baloch had dumped her into being a suicide bomber. The target was a convoy of the Frontier Corps (FC) in Turbat, whose name was Summaiya. The recruitment and use of young women especially those of the kinship of the BLA leadership shows how much they regulate the individuals they recruit, as they inwardly force them to do their bidding through emotional and psychological coercion. Not only does the BLA employ such women as suicide bombers but also aims at becoming more firmly implanted into the local population fabric and hard to combat.

This exploitation reflects deeper societal issues regarding gender, education, and the pervasive influence of militant groups in Balochistan.

Mahel Hameed, a young law student at Turbat University is yet another example of how BLA masters control and misuse social media situations. Bribri’s husband Mahel was forced into being a human bomb and exploded herself at the Bela Camp, on the 25th of August 2024. For Mahel, who could have otherwise been a productive member of society, the BLA has now escalated its hire for more educated women. Like the other women were coerced or convinced into an act of violence which deprived her of the future and revealed the potential of BLA in the use of Baluchistan’s women.

Another shocking story concerns the use of a Baloch woman, Gulnisa, to help perpetrate a terrorist attack on a Chinese convoy at Karachi airport. Her role in the attack was not to play the role of the bomber in the act, however, was to penetrate and sneak through security checks a role that many females are accorded due to the compassionate nature exhibited to them in security checks. This case completely disapproves the myths told by anarchists and separatists that the security forces at check-point women misuse their modesty. Rather, it establishes the fact that women are being used and mobilized by the BLA to undertake unwanted chores in view of hiding them from their captors and underlines how wicked it is that women are being utilized for terrorism.

The writer holds a PhD in geopolitics and is the author of ‘Different Approaches on Central Asia: Economic, Security, and Energy’ with Lexington, USA.