Non-State Actors and Hybrid Threats
The signature feature of contemporary Pakistani security is the prominence of non-state actors — organised armed groups that operate without formal state authority but with capabilities approaching, and sometimes exceeding, those of regular security forces. Managing these actors has consumed a substantial share of Pakistan's strategic attention since 2001 and continues to do so.
An organised group or individual that exercises significant economic, political or military influence on the international stage, or within a state, but is not part of any government or sovereign body.
In Pakistan's security context, the most consequential NSAs are armed militant groups — terrorist, separatist, sectarian and criminal — whose activity erodes the state's monopoly on the use of force.
The principal non-state armed groups
Pakistan faces a spectrum of armed non-state actors, each with distinct ideology, organisation and operational area:
- Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — formed 2007, banned in Pakistan since 2008. Anti-state militant umbrella now operating from Afghan sanctuaries. Resurgent since the 2021 Taliban takeover.
- ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K) — Afghan-based affiliate of the Islamic State, active across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border zone. Conducted attacks including the 2018 Mastung suicide bombing and the Kuchlak madrasa attack.
- Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) — sectarian group responsible for major attacks on Shia and Hazara communities. Largely degraded by 2017 but with residual cells.
- Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), BRA, BLF — ethno-nationalist separatist groups in Balochistan. Active since the 2005 insurgency revival; resurgent post-2022, with high-profile attacks on Chinese nationals and security convoys.
- Sindhudesh and Mohajir-nationalist factions — historically lower in scale but active in pockets, particularly in interior Sindh and parts of Karachi.
Each of these groups has at various times maintained cross-border sanctuaries, foreign financing, and operational cells inside Pakistani urban centres.
The concept of hybrid warfare
Beyond traditional non-state actor activity, Pakistani strategic discourse has increasingly framed external challenges through the lens of hybrid warfare: the coordinated use of conventional military, irregular forces, cyber operations, economic pressure, information warfare and proxy non-state actors to weaken a target state without crossing the threshold of declared armed conflict.
A strategy that integrates conventional military force with irregular warfare, cyber-attacks, information operations, economic pressure, and the use of proxies — short of declared war — to achieve political objectives against a target state.
The concept entered formal Pakistani military doctrine in the late 2010s.
Pakistani military and intelligence officials have publicly framed several recent challenges as elements of a hybrid campaign:
| Element | Examples Pakistan has cited |
|---|---|
| Proxy non-state actors | Allegations of external support to BLA and TTP factions |
| Information operations | Social-media campaigns targeting state institutions, particularly through 2018–2024 |
| Economic pressure | FATF grey-listing (2018–2022); financial-system isolation pressure |
| Cyber operations | Periodic attacks on banking and government infrastructure |
| Border instability | Pressures from Afghan and Iranian borders |
The framing is contested. Critics argue that the "hybrid warfare" lens can be used to deflect attention from domestic governance failures. Proponents argue that the concept accurately captures the multi-domain nature of contemporary pressure on Pakistan.
The response architecture
Pakistan's response to non-traditional security threats has evolved through several phases since 2001:
Phase 1 (2001–2014): Military-led
Predominantly kinetic response. Major operations in Swat (2009), South Waziristan (2009), Khyber and Bajaur agencies, culminating in Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan (June 2014).
Phase 2 (2014–2018): National Action Plan
After the APS Peshawar massacre on 16 December 2014 — in which TTP gunmen killed 149 people, including 132 children — the civilian and military leadership adopted a 20-point National Action Plan in January 2015. Key elements:
- Lifting the moratorium on the death penalty for terrorism cases
- Establishment of military courts for terrorism-related cases (21st Constitutional Amendment, expired 2017, then 23rd Amendment, expired 2019)
- Action against banned organisations and their re-emergence under new names
- Counter-terrorism financing through the Anti-Terrorism Act amendments
- Reform of madaris through the Ittehad-e-Tanzeemat process
- A National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) — established 2013, operationalised under NAP
Phase 3 (2017–2021): Consolidation
Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad (Feb 2017) extended the kinetic effort to Punjab and urban Sindh. Pakistan was placed on the FATF grey list in June 2018 and exited in October 2022, having implemented 34 of 40 recommendations. Border fencing on the Afghan border was largely completed by 2021; the Iranian-border fencing followed.
Phase 4 (2022–present): Post-Afghan transition
The 2021 Afghan takeover produced a TTP resurgence; 2023 was the deadliest year for Pakistani security forces since 2014. The current operational concept, articulated as Azm-e-Istehkam in June 2024, is a renewed comprehensive counter-terrorism campaign combining military operations with intelligence-led targeted action and continued FATF-style financial-system controls.
The state will not allow any group — local or foreign-sponsored — to threaten the lives of our citizens or the integrity of our institutions. This is a fight for the soul of Pakistan and we will see it through.
The civilian dimension
A frequent critique of Pakistan's NTS response is its military-heavy character. The National Action Plan included provisions on madaris reform, FATA-mainstreaming (achieved with the 25th Amendment in 2018), counter-narrative initiatives, and reform of the criminal-justice system — but implementation on the civilian side has lagged. The conviction rate in terrorism cases through ordinary courts remained below 15% in 2023; counter-narrative work through Paigham-e-Pakistan (a 2018 fatwa-based declaration against extremism by over 1,800 scholars) was symbolically important but has not been institutionalised at scale.
For CSS answers on non-state actors, a clean structure is: (1) name and categorise the principal groups; (2) describe the response phases; (3) assess the gap between military-led action and civilian institution-building. Avoid loose use of "hybrid warfare" — examiners reward candidates who define the term carefully and apply it with discrimination.