ISPR says terrorists have access to massive cache of US weapons left in Afghanistan
Army soldiers gather at the scene following militant attacks in Quetta on January 31. Photo: Reuters
Dressed in military uniform with rifles on their shoulders, Yasma Baloch and her husband Waseem smile at the camera in a photograph released by Pakistani insurgents after their latest mission: detonating suicide bombs.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) shared the heavily edited photograph sent to journalists and distributed it on social media.
It was among half a dozen photographs and biographies that Reuters could not immediately verify, but which analysts see as part of a propaganda effort by terrorists in the resource-rich southwestern province to show the appeal of their movement.
Terrorist attacks in Balochistan hit a record high last year, stoking risks for huge investments planned in the region, including by Chinese and American interests.
Broader recruitment
The growing number of women is helping to boost recruitment, said Minister of State for Home Affairs Talal Chaudhry. “It gives them popularity and reach, and impresses their community that the fight has come home to them,” Chaudhry said. Reuters. Pakistan has taken up the issue of online terrorist recruitment on numerous social media platforms, he added.
Three suicide bombers were among six women who took part in the group’s largest wave of attacks in January, which killed 58 people and nearly paralyzed the province, said Hamza Shafaat, a senior government official.
Before those attacks, records show a total of five female BLA suicide bombers, including the first such attack in 2022, while three more would-be bombers were captured in counter-terrorism operations in recent months.
“The broader appeal of the insurgency has now gone beyond male-dominated tribal and feudal chiefs to include a broader cross-section of society,” said Pearl Pandya, senior South Asia analyst at conflict monitor ACLED.
Read: 37 terrorists killed and 10 security personnel martyred as attacks thwarted across Balochistan
Arms
The women’s participation amplifies a movement that Pakistan’s military says has increased its firepower with access to a massive cache of American weapons left in Afghanistan after Washington withdrew from the neighboring country in 2021.
Abdul Basit, an insurgencies and militancy researcher at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, cited the group’s use of drones to identify troop deployments and vulnerabilities, adding that it used satellite communications during a February 2025 hijacking of a train with more than 400 people on board.
Pakistan recovered 272 American-made rifles and 33 night vision devices as of June last year, the military says, in addition to weapons seized in the most recent attacks on Balochistan.
The military “continues to see these weapons in the hands of terrorists operating inside Pakistan,” said military spokesman Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry. Reuters before the January attacks.
The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.
Responding to a request for comment, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said: “As President Trump has said, Joe Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan was the most shameful day in our country’s history, tragically resulting in the deaths of 13 American service members and the loss of equipment to the Taliban.”
Read more: The specter of terror in Balochistan
He added: “We do not discuss private conversations with foreign governments.”
During more than a dozen coordinated attacks in January, terrorists stormed hospitals, government buildings and markets, detonated bombs and fired into crowds, killing 58 civilians and security officials.
Dangerous evolution in tactics
Subsequently, of the 216 terrorists who security forces said were killed in nearly a week of fighting, they confiscated items ranging from grenade launchers to more than a dozen M16 and M4 rifles.
Reuters could not verify whether the sophisticated weapons used in the BLA attacks were manufactured in the United States or came from elsewhere.
Among the $7 billion in equipment remaining in Afghanistan, the U.S. Defense Department has said, Afghan forces had received more than 300,000 of a total of 427,300 weapons. Added to this are more than 42,000 items, such as night vision goggles and surveillance devices, he said.
And terrorists hope that propaganda about recruited women will increase their impact.
Also read: Security forces conclude operations after terror attacks in Balochistan
“They are using women strategically in high-profile attacks to gain visibility,” Basit added.
The women come from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and some are university educated, Pakistan’s counterterrorism department said in a December report seen by Reuters.
“The change represents a dangerous evolution in terrorist tactics,” she said, of the growing participation of women.
The change was driven by psychological manipulation, online radicalization and strategic exploitation of vulnerable people, he added. “Both the foot soldiers and leaders of the insurgency now come from the middle class,” said Pandya, the ACLED analyst.
