Pakistan’s response to militancy is not a single military campaign. It is a layered system involving the armed forces, provincial police, Counter-Terrorism Departments (CTDs), intelligence agencies, the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA), courts and financial-investigation institutions. The military provides much of the country’s heavy counterinsurgency capability, while police and civilian agencies are responsible for investigations, arrests, intelligence-led operations and bringing suspects through the criminal-justice system.
That distinction has become increasingly important as militant violence has risen again. The Pak Institute for Peace Studies recorded 699 terrorist attacks in Pakistan in 2025, a 34% increase from 2024, with 1,034 terrorism-related deaths. More than 42% of those killed were security and law-enforcement personnel, illustrating both the scale of the threat and the extent to which Pakistan’s security institutions themselves have become major targets.
Why Pakistan uses both the military and police
Counterterrorism and counterinsurgency overlap, but they are not the same task.
The military is designed to conduct large-scale operations against armed organizations, particularly when militants have established bases, control territory or possess substantial weapons and manpower.
The police, by contrast, are the principal civilian law-enforcement institution. Their work includes investigations, arrests, evidence collection, intelligence development, protection of communities and prosecution of suspects.
In practice, the distinction becomes blurred in Pakistan’s highest-risk areas.
When militants attack military installations or establish armed positions in remote terrain, the armed forces may lead the response. When investigators need to identify an attacker, trace a network, seize evidence or build a criminal case, civilian law enforcement becomes essential.
A successful counterterrorism strategy therefore requires the two systems to complement one another rather than treating military force as a substitute for policing.
The main institutions in Pakistan’s counterterrorism system
| Institution | Primary role | Where its role matters most |
|---|---|---|
| Pakistan Army | Large-scale counterinsurgency, territorial operations and support to civil authorities | Areas facing organized armed insurgency |
| Frontier Corps | Paramilitary security, border protection and counterinsurgency support | Especially KP and Balochistan |
| Provincial Police | Arrests, investigations, intelligence, public security and criminal enforcement | Cities, districts and settled areas |
| Counter-Terrorism Departments (CTDs) | Specialized police counterterrorism investigations and operations | Identifying and disrupting militant networks |
| Intelligence agencies | Collection and analysis of information on militant networks and threats | National and strategic intelligence |
| NACTA | National coordination, policy, databases and counterterrorism strategy | Federal interagency coordination |
| Courts and prosecutors | Prosecution and adjudication of terrorism cases | Turning investigations into legally sustainable cases |
| Financial-investigation institutions | Tracking terrorist financing and illicit financial networks | Disrupting organizations’ ability to raise and move money |
The boundaries are not absolute. Different agencies can operate jointly, and responsibilities vary according to the location and nature of an operation. NACTA describes its mission as coordinating and synchronizing counterterrorism and counter-extremism efforts among national and international stakeholders.
The military’s role
Pakistan’s armed forces became deeply involved in counterterrorism after militant organizations expanded their territorial presence during the 2000s.
The military’s role became particularly prominent in the former tribal areas along the Afghanistan border.
Large operations such as Operation Zarb-e-Azb, launched in 2014, were intended to dismantle militant infrastructure and regain state control over areas where armed groups had established strongholds.
Later counterterrorism activity continued through a combination of military operations, intelligence-based actions and support to civilian authorities.
The basic military advantage is scale.
An army can deploy helicopters, armored vehicles, artillery, surveillance assets and large numbers of troops in ways that conventional police forces generally cannot.
That capability becomes particularly important when militants are heavily armed or operate from remote mountainous areas.
But military operations have a limitation: destroying a militant position does not necessarily eliminate the wider organization.
A network can lose territory and still retain recruiters, financiers, facilitators, weapons networks and clandestine cells.
Pakistan’s police are more important than the military model suggests
The police often receive less attention in discussions of terrorism because major military operations are more visible.
Yet a militant organization ultimately has to be investigated, identified and prosecuted if the state wants to dismantle its network rather than repeatedly fight its fighters.
Pakistan’s provincial CTDs are designed for this purpose.
They combine police powers with specialized counterterrorism functions, including intelligence gathering, investigations and operations against suspected militant networks.
PIPS has repeatedly identified stronger civilian law enforcement—particularly CTDs in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan—as an important component of a sustainable counterterrorism strategy.
The reason is practical: police operate within communities on a continuous basis.
They can develop local sources, investigate suspicious activity, identify facilitators and preserve evidence for prosecution.
Military forces can disrupt an armed group. Police institutions are generally better positioned to dismantle the legal and logistical network surrounding it.
What Counter-Terrorism Departments actually do
CTDs operate within provincial police structures and focus specifically on terrorism and militant networks.
Their work can include:
- Intelligence-led raids
- Arrests of suspected militants and facilitators
- Investigation of terrorist attacks
- Identification of explosive networks
- Surveillance and intelligence development
- Interrogation and evidence collection subject to applicable law
- Coordination with intelligence agencies
- Preparation of cases for prosecution
The distinction between an ordinary police investigation and a CTD investigation can therefore be substantial.
A conventional homicide investigation may focus primarily on identifying an individual offender.
A terrorism investigation may need to establish an entire network: who planned an attack, who supplied money, who provided transportation, who acquired weapons, who communicated with commanders and whether the suspect is connected to a proscribed organization.
That network approach is essential because militant attacks are often organizational rather than purely individual crimes.
Intelligence is the link between the institutions
Modern counterterrorism depends heavily on intelligence.
An attack may be prevented not because security forces happen to discover militants at the scene, but because information about a planned operation is obtained beforehand.
Pakistan’s system therefore includes multiple intelligence and information-sharing structures.
NACTA maintains databases of proscribed individuals and organizations and says its Counter Terrorism Branch works on policy development, implementation of the National Action Plan and interagency counterterrorism projects.
In December 2025, NACTA’s Board of Governors approved establishment of a National Intelligence Fusion and Threat Assessment Center (NIFTAC), with proposed provincial-level structures as well. The stated purpose is to improve intelligence coordination and threat assessment.
The significance is straightforward: intelligence is most useful when information held by different agencies can be connected quickly enough to produce an operational response.
The National Action Plan
Pakistan’s modern counterterrorism architecture was heavily shaped by the National Action Plan (NAP) adopted after the December 2014 Army Public School massacre in Peshawar.
Parliament approved the 20-point plan on December 24, 2014.
NACTA says the plan covered both immediate counterterrorism measures and longer-term institutional reforms.
Its agenda included measures dealing with:
- Militant organizations
- Terrorist financing
- Hate speech and extremist propaganda
- Sectarian violence
- Prosecution of terrorism cases
- Police and CTD capacity
- Regulation of religious seminaries
- Criminal-justice reform
- The former FATA
- Extremism and radicalization
This breadth is important.
The NAP was not simply a military strategy. It recognized that terrorism could not be addressed only by killing or arresting militants.
The revised National Action Plan
Pakistan subsequently revised the framework.
NACTA’s Revised National Action Plan 2021 divides its measures into kinetic and non-kinetic areas.
The kinetic component includes intolerance for armed militant groups, action against terrorist propaganda, measures against religious and sectarian terrorism and efforts to disrupt terrorist financing.
The non-kinetic component includes strengthening CTDs, countering violent extremism, criminal-justice reform, regulation of religious seminaries and reforms in the merged districts of KP.
That distinction captures one of Pakistan’s central counterterrorism challenges.
Kinetic operations can disrupt an immediate threat. Non-kinetic institutions determine whether that disruption becomes durable.
Why the criminal-justice system matters
Arresting a suspect is not the same as defeating a militant network.
For a terrorism case to succeed through the legal system, investigators generally need admissible evidence linking suspects to criminal activity.
That requires trained investigators, forensic capabilities, prosecutors and courts capable of handling complex terrorism cases.
PIPS has argued that Pakistan needs stronger police investigative capacity, reforms to evidence law and a more effective criminal-justice system. Its research has also recommended stronger parliamentary oversight and clearer performance measures for the National Action Plan.
This is one reason counterterrorism cannot be measured only by the number of militants killed or arrested.
A security operation can produce immediate tactical results while leaving the underlying network intact.
Countering terrorist financing
Militant organizations also need money.
Funds can support recruitment, weapons, transportation, communications, safe houses and other forms of logistical infrastructure.
Pakistan’s National Action Plan therefore includes measures intended to disrupt terrorist financing and the financial networks of proscribed organizations.
NACTA’s framework includes counter-financing-of-terrorism measures involving financial investigations, regulation and seizure or freezing mechanisms.
Financial disruption is particularly important because it attacks the organization without necessarily requiring a conventional military engagement.
If investigators can identify the financial infrastructure behind a militant network, they may be able to disrupt operations before an attack takes place.
The special challenge of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
The largest burden currently falls on Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
PIPS reported that the province experienced a major increase in militant violence in 2025 and remained the country’s principal centre of terrorist activity. Security personnel made up a large proportion of the casualties nationally.
KP presents a difficult counterterrorism environment because it combines:
- A long border with Afghanistan
- Mountainous terrain
- Former tribal districts with a history of militant activity
- Established militant networks
- Cross-border movement
- Large numbers of security personnel deployed in high-risk areas
The former FATA districts were formally merged into KP in 2018.
But administrative integration does not automatically produce fully developed policing, courts, infrastructure and local governance.
PIPS has identified the merged districts as particularly vulnerable to renewed militant violence following the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in 2021.
Balochistan presents a different problem
Pakistan’s counterterrorism strategy also has to address violence in Balochistan, but the underlying conflict is different from the TTP insurgency in KP.
Balochistan has experienced attacks by separatist organizations including the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and other armed groups.
That means a national counterterrorism policy must address different types of armed organizations.
A strategy designed primarily for Islamist militants cannot automatically be applied to an ethno-nationalist insurgency.
PIPS recorded more than 95% of Pakistan’s terrorist attacks in 2024 in KP and Balochistan combined, demonstrating how heavily the national security burden has become concentrated in those two provinces.
Why the military cannot solve the entire problem
There is a structural reason.
Military operations are most effective against identifiable concentrations of armed fighters and physical infrastructure.
Modern militant organizations can instead operate through small cells.
A network may consist of a commander, several facilitators, financiers, recruiters and attackers who rarely gather in one place.
Destroying one compound does not necessarily eliminate such a network.
This is why intelligence, policing, financial investigations and prosecutions become increasingly important as an insurgency becomes more dispersed.
The objective shifts from controlling territory to disrupting networks.
Why police cannot simply replace the military
The opposite argument also has limits.
Police forces are not designed to fight sustained battles against heavily armed organizations controlling remote territory.
In areas where militants can attack checkpoints, overrun installations or establish fortified positions, conventional military capabilities may be necessary.
Pakistan’s experience therefore points toward a division of labor rather than a simple choice between soldiers and police.
The military can provide the force required for major security operations.
Police and CTDs can follow with investigations, arrests and intelligence work.
Courts can convert those investigations into criminal cases.
Financial institutions can attack the money supply.
And civilian institutions can address the governance problems that allow militant organizations to regain influence.
The human cost inside the security forces
Pakistan’s security personnel are not only perpetrators of counterterrorism operations; they are also among the principal victims of militant violence.
PIPS recorded 437 security and law-enforcement deaths in terrorist attacks during 2025, including 174 police officers, 122 army soldiers and 107 Frontier Corps or Federal Constabulary personnel.
The figures illustrate why the state continues to devote substantial resources to counterterrorism.
They also explain the difficult operating environment faced by police and military personnel in KP and Balochistan.
A security institution attempting to dismantle militant networks must simultaneously protect its own personnel from infiltration, ambushes, suicide attacks and targeted killings.
The civilian side of counterterrorism
Security operations are only one part of the problem.
Residents need functioning police stations, courts, schools, roads and local government.
This becomes particularly important in areas that have experienced years of militant violence.
PIPS has argued that community trust is a significant component of counterterrorism, noting that community resistance to militants has emerged as an important but fragile factor in KP.
That creates a practical challenge.
Residents may possess information about militant activity but hesitate to share it if they fear retaliation or do not trust government institutions.
Effective policing therefore depends partly on relationships between communities and the state.
The role of counter-extremism
Not every security threat begins with an armed attack.
NACTA’s framework also includes countering extremist narratives and preventing radicalization.
Its national narrative states that armed resistance against the Pakistani state is prohibited and emphasizes the role of law-enforcement agencies in combating terrorism and extremism.
The policy challenge is distinguishing legitimate religious, political or ideological expression from incitement to violence and recruitment into armed organizations.
This is why counter-extremism policies raise questions about law, rights, evidence and implementation that are different from the immediate problem of stopping an armed attack.
Technology is changing the fight
Counterterrorism increasingly depends on information systems rather than manpower alone.
Investigators can use digital evidence, communications analysis, financial records, databases and surveillance technologies to identify relationships between people and organizations.
NACTA’s development of national databases and its proposed intelligence-fusion architecture reflect this shift toward integrated threat analysis.
But technology does not eliminate the need for human intelligence.
A database can identify a connection; investigators still need to determine what that connection means.
Similarly, surveillance can identify unusual activity without necessarily establishing criminal intent.
The quality of counterterrorism intelligence therefore depends on both technological capability and trained personnel.
What the recent numbers reveal
Pakistan’s experience since 2014 demonstrates two apparently contradictory facts.
First, sustained military and intelligence operations can significantly disrupt militant organizations.
Second, disruption does not guarantee permanent elimination.
PIPS recorded 158 anti-militant operations in 2024, a 22% increase from 2023, while 621 militants were reported killed in those operations. Yet terrorist attacks increased by 70% in 2024 to 521.
The figures should not be interpreted as proof that operations caused the increase in attacks. They demonstrate instead that high operational activity and rising militant violence can occur simultaneously.
The same pattern continued into 2025, when PIPS recorded 699 terrorist attacks despite continued security operations.
That is why casualty or arrest figures alone are inadequate measures of counterterrorism success.
The most difficult question: disruption or lasting prevention?
Pakistan has built a substantial counterterrorism apparatus over more than two decades.
Its military can conduct major operations. Its police have specialized CTDs. NACTA provides national coordination. Intelligence agencies collect information on militant networks. Financial institutions can target terrorist financing. The National Action Plan provides a policy framework.
The continuing rise in violence nevertheless shows that institutional capacity and operational success are not the same thing.
The harder task is preventing militant organizations from regenerating after individual leaders, fighters or facilities are removed.
That requires a chain extending from intelligence to police investigation, from investigation to prosecution, from financial disruption to organizational isolation, and from security operations to durable civilian governance.
The central issue for Pakistan’s counterterrorism strategy is therefore not whether the country has the capacity to conduct military operations—it clearly does. The longer-term question is whether its military, police, intelligence, judicial and civilian institutions can operate as one sustained system capable of preventing militant networks from rebuilding after each round of disruption. The continuing concentration of violence in KP and Balochistan makes that institutional question more important than any single operation or temporary decline in attacks.