In early November, the Baluch militant group Jaish al-Adl announced that 12 of its fighters had died in a joint operation by Iran and Pakistan. Tehran welcomed the strike but insisted Pakistani forces had carried it out alone.
The distinction matters less than the picture around it. Only in January, the two countries traded deadly cross-border attacks and came close to open conflict. Now they look like partners.
A relationship that changed in months
For decades each government has accused the other of sheltering armed groups that hit its territory. The two share a border of about 900 kilometers, and the militancy along it has been climbing. Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan are trying to bring it down together.
“The two sides have turned a corner in their relationship,” said Farzan Sabet, a senior research associate at the Geneva Graduate Institute.
There were earlier signs. In July, Islamabad handed Iran an alleged Jaish al-Adl member, a group believed to operate from Pakistani soil. Iran sent a Pakistani Baluch separatist figure the other way.
Aziz Baloch, an independent Pakistani security expert, said Tehran and Islamabad are cooperating on “security and border management for the first time.” In his view the two have “grasped that without turning this situation around through cooperation, they will suffer mounting losses.” Imtiaz Baloch, who covers Balochistan for Khorasan Diary, a website that tracks militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, went further. The partnership is deeper than either capital admits, he said: “Cooperation between the two is deepening and gathering pace.”
Why the violence is growing
Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province and Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province have fought insurgencies for decades. Both are vast and poor. Both are home to the Baluch, an ethnic minority that says it faces discrimination and violence from the authorities, who it accuses of taking the region’s natural resources.
Jaish al-Adl and the Baloch Liberation Army, the largest Baluch armed group in Pakistan, have grown more dangerous. They now use suicide bombings, recruit more widely, carry better weapons and feed on local anger at both governments.
The recent toll is stark. On October 26, Jaish al-Adl attacked a police patrol in Sistan-Baluchistan and killed 10 officers. On November 9, the BLA claimed a suicide bombing aimed at soldiers at a train station in Balochistan that left at least 26 people dead.
Money on the line
Experts point to a financial motive too, since both economies are in trouble. Balochistan is rich in resources and hosts dozens of multibillion-dollar projects funded by China. Militants have killed at least seven Chinese workers in Pakistan this year, a threat to the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
China is also a top buyer of Iranian oil and a leading investor in Iran’s collapsing economy. Chabahar Port, in Sistan-Baluchistan, is a key route for trade with Afghanistan.
Sabet said those security risks and the economic weight of the Baluch regions have raised their place in both governments’ development plans. “This has led the two governments to embark on an effort to suppress the violence there,” he said.
