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Pakistani security personnel inspect the site of a suicide attack in the Dalbandin region, about 340 kilometres from Quetta, the capital of southwestern Balochistan province. Photo: AFP

A deadly turn on China’s Belt and Road raises the stakes in Pakistan

  • A surge of lethal attacks by Baloch separatists has sent the risks and costs of China’s Belt and Road projects in Pakistan soaring
  • At the same time, a web of espionage and proxy warfare involving Iran has tangled up Beijing’s interests in Gwadar
The security risks – and costs – of Belt and Road Initiative projects in Pakistan are rising amid a resurgence of deadly attacks by separatists in southwest Balochistan province, home to the Chinese-operated port of Gwadar.

In the third such attack since May, militant separatists opened fire on a patrolling paramilitary convoy in Panjgur district on Tuesday, killing three soldiers and wounding eight others, including an army colonel, the military said.

Militant ethnic Baloch factions have also recently expanded their range of operations to adjoining Sindh province and its port city of Karachi.

China-India border dispute: is Pakistan about to enter the fray?

Beijing’s stakes in Sindh are as high as they are in Balochistan. Its state-owned enterprises run container terminals at Karachi port, Pakistan’s busiest, and are invested in nuclear and coal power projects established both under the umbrella of the US$60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and in partnership with local corporations.

On June 29, four militants were killed by police commandos when they tried to shoot their way into the Karachi Stock Exchange, which is 40 per cent owned by a consortium of three Chinese bourses.

“Baloch groups have not only intensified their attacks but also expanded the outreach of their terrorist violence beyond Balochistan, but it is hard to predict whether this trend will persist,” said Mohammad Amir Rana, director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, an Islamabad-based think tank.

Security personnel examine the site of a bomb blast at a mosque in Quetta, Balochistan province, Pakistan. Photo: Xinhua

He said Baloch insurgent factions had historically preferred to conduct low-intensity attacks, while their high-intensity attacks had tended to come in waves lasting “only for a few weeks”.

Rana said CPEC projects and Chinese personnel remained well protected by the dedicated 13,700-strong Special Security Division, led by a two-star Pakistani army general, established in 2017.

“Only low-intensity attacks have been reported around CPEC project sites, but the financial cost of the security [to Pakistan] is high,” he said.

The attack on Karachi’s stock market was claimed by the Majeed Fidayeen Brigade (MFB) of the Baloch Liberation Army, which emerged as a serious security threat to Beijing’s interests in southern Pakistan two years ago.

In August 2018, MFB militants killed three Chinese engineers and wounded five others travelling in a bus in the town of Dalbadin, 930km north of Gwadar – to date, the most lethal attack on Chinese personnel since CPEC was launched in 2015.

The MFB subsequently carried out a foiled attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi in November 2018.

01:28

Several killed in attack on Pakistan Stock Exchange

Several killed in attack on Pakistan Stock Exchange

RISING ANGER

Beijing’s political risks are also escalating because of a renewed wave of public anger in many parts of Balochistan against human rights abuses by Pakistani troops deployed to crush the low-intensity insurgency in the province.

It began in 2006 after Nawab Akbar Bugti, a rebellious former provincial chief minister and senior tribal chief, was killed in an operation ordered by military dictator General Pervez Musharraf.

The alleged abuses included the “enforced disappearances” of hundreds of people suspected of being involved in the insurgency.

In June, Akhtar Mengal, leader of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal, parted ways with the ruling coalition led by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, citing the government’s failure to bring a halt to state-enforced disappearances.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. Photo: DPA

In a subsequent interview with the BBC’s Urdu-language service, Mengal said more than 1,500 Baloch had “disappeared” since Khan took office in 2018, and claimed that he had personally secured the release of nearly 500 people from the custody of the security forces.

In an attempt to bring Mengal back into the fold, the government has since reactivated a parliamentary committee tasked with reaching out to disgruntled Baloch leaders.

However, a veteran politician in the Balochistan provincial coalition government said the military was calling the shots, and even oversees most civilian development projects.

“Every two years, a new general is sent to Balochistan to take charge of Southern Command. But when they get here, they seek advice from other soldiers who are also from outside the province, rather than consulting pro-federation local politicians who are in a position to negotiate with insurgency leaders,” said the politician, who sought anonymity because he was contradicting the government’s policies.

“By the time the corps commander gets to grips with Balochistan, he is rotated out and replaced, and the cycle is repeated,” the politician said.

The military continues to push a security-heavy, economy-driven policy reliant on CPEC connectivity projects.

02:34

Imran Khan's journey from cricket star to Pakistan's next PM

Imran Khan's journey from cricket star to Pakistan's next PM

This month, the CPEC Authority chairman, retired lieutenant general Asim Bajwa – who served as corps commander in Balochistan from 2017 to 2019 – said the beginning of construction work on a motorway across the width of Balochistan – from Gwadar to the junction of Pakistan’s national motorway network in eastern Pakistan – would “act as a beacon light for southern Balochistan and change lives”.

While Bajwa was serving in Balochistan, Chinese diplomats met Akhtar Mengal and another nationalist politician to gauge their sentiments towards CPEC and pitch its benefits to them.

Because of the political and security situation in Balochistan, China’s CPEC investments in the province have hitherto been limited to the development of Gwadar port and a road linking it to the coastal highway to Karachi.

The port is not yet fully operational and only recently handled its Afghan transshipment cargo. The city continues to suffer severe power and water shortages.

China operates a port in Gwadar, Balochistan. Photo: Bloomberg

WEB OF ESPIONAGE

Meanwhile, Chinese geopolitical interests at Gwadar, the Arabian Sea outlet of the corridor running overland from Xinjiang, have become caught up in a web of espionage and proxy warfare involving Pakistan and neighbouring Iran, which has been dealing with an ethnic Baloch insurgency of its own since the early 2000s.
Rather than working together against the rebels as they did during a 1970s uprising backed by a Soviet-supported government in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran have accused each other of allying with each other’s nemeses, India and Saudi Arabia respectively, to support cross-border attacks.

As coronavirus bites, Pakistan looks to China for belt and road economic boost

After joining forces under a new umbrella group, Baloch Raji Aajoi Saangar (Bras), militant separatists launched their bloodiest attack in April last year, kidnapping and executing 14 Pakistani servicemen from a bus travelling from Karachi to coastguard and navy bases in Balochistan.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Bras staged the attack from bases in the adjoining Iranian province of Sistan Baluchestan and subsequently “conveyed the anger of the Pakistani nation” to his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif in a telephone conversation.

The bloody incident followed the October 2018 kidnapping of 14 Iranian paramilitary soldiers by Jaish ul-Adl, an affiliate of al-Qaeda waging a separatist campaign in southeastern Iran from bases on the Pakistani side of the porous 959km border.

Pakistan’s security agencies have secured the release of 12 of the Iranian soldiers, while two are still being held hostage.

The Multan-Sukkur Motorway in Pakistan, part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Photo: Xinhua

In February last year, a Jaish ul-Adl suicide bomber rammed a bus carrying members of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps near the border with Pakistan, killing 27 soldiers.

Iran is highly suspicious of Pakistan and its relationship with Saudi Arabia, especially since Riyadh was invited in late 2018 to establish a US$10 billion oil refinery and storage facility at Gwadar.

“The Iranians feel that Pakistan is not doing enough to secure the border on its side,” said Seyed Mohammed Marandi, a professor of English literature and oriental studies at the University of Tehran and renowned political commentator.

“A lot of Saudi money has gone to extremist groups in this region and the Saudis have funded these [Jaish ul-Adl] terrorists,” he said.

Similarly, Pakistan is deeply concerned about India’s involvement at Chabahar port, which is competing with Gwadar for transit cargoes heading to landlocked Afghanistan.

China’s belt and road: after the gold rush, Pakistan sees the downside

The Pakistani authorities arrested an alleged Chabahar-based Indian spy and naval officer, Kulbushan Jadhav, as he entered Balochistan from Iran in March 2016.

After a series of top-level meetings stretching back last year, Pakistan agreed in April to fence its side of the border and in mid-May quietly launched a mopping up operation in adjacent areas, reportedly resulting in the deaths of more than 20 insurgents.

But the operation has also sparked a surge of complaints on social media about human rights abuses from Baloch living in affected areas, particularly after three women were killed in Turbat, Zamuran and Harnai.

Politicians have warned that popular resentment towards federal government policies in Balochistan is dangerously close to igniting a wider uprising.

Former president Asif Ali Zardari last month said the state needed “to be more careful in Balochistan”.

“If another Akbar Bugti-like incident happens, it will be difficult to handle the situation,” he said.

Journalist Kiyya Baloch said Chinese security concerns would continue to drag on the pace at which CPEC projects in Gwadar have been developed.

“Despite increasing diplomatic engagement, it is highly unlikely Beijing will make any significant further investment in Gwadar until security is improved,” Baloch said.

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