Assessment finds militants retain initiative despite intensified counterterrorism operations and leadership losses nationwide.
Pakistan’s military has eliminated senior militant commanders, conducted hundreds of counterterrorism operations and inflicted heavy battlefield losses on insurgent groups during the first half of 2026, but these tactical successes have failed to wrest the strategic initiative from militant organisations, according to a previously unpublished assessment accessed by The Sunday Guardian.
The biannual Pakistan Militancy Assessment (January-June 2026), prepared by the Centre for New Age Warfare Studies (CNAWS), concludes that militant groups continue to dictate the tempo, location and nature of violence despite an intensified security campaign, leaving Pakistan locked in what it describes as a prolonged war of attrition.
The report is based on a structured six-month database of security incidents compiled through multi-source open-source intelligence (OSINT), official government statements, militant communications, media reporting and, where possible, geospatial verification. According to CNAWS, individual incidents were coded and analysed to identify operational trends, targeting patterns, casualty data, geographic spread and the evolving strategies of both militant organisations and Pakistani security forces.
The Centre for New Age Warfare Studies describes itself as a think-and-do tank focused on defence, security, intelligence and strategic affairs. It says it combines rigorous research, OSINT-driven investigations and expert engagement to generate actionable policy insights on contemporary warfare and emerging security challenges.
According to the assessment, Pakistan recorded 1,610 security incidents between January and June 2026, including 1,215 militant attacks, 304 counterterrorism operations and nine airstrikes. The violence resulted in 2,927 fatalities, comprising 1,460 militants, 1,087 security personnel and 380 civilians. While the security forces eliminated a large number of militants and several senior commanders, the report argues that these battlefield gains failed to fundamentally weaken the insurgent ecosystems.
Instead, CNAWS concludes that militant organisations retained the operational initiative throughout the reporting period by continuing to determine the timing and location of attacks, forcing Pakistan’s security forces into a predominantly reactive posture.
The assessment argues that the military’s increasing operational tempo illustrates this dilemma. Militant violence declined briefly in February, largely because winter conditions restricted movement across key operational areas, before rising steadily with the onset of spring. Violence peaked in May with 345 recorded incidents, including 248 militant attacks. Although Pakistan increased counterterrorism operations to 74 in June, the highest monthly figure during the reporting period, militants still mounted around 200 attacks, suggesting that the state’s expanded military effort had only limited impact on the overall trajectory of the conflict.
One of the principal reasons for this, according to CNAWS, is the structural resilience of the militant networks.
The report argues that Pakistan’s strategy of eliminating senior militant leaders has imposed tactical costs without producing strategic disruption because insurgent organisations have evolved into decentralised ecosystems capable of rapidly replacing commanders, redistributing responsibilities and maintaining operational continuity through shared logistics, cross-border sanctuaries and allied networks.
It cites the killings of senior TTP commanders, including Jan Mir alias Toor Saqib in May and Khalid Raza during a June operation in North Waziristan, as examples of successful intelligence-led operations. However, it notes that the overall operational tempo of militant groups showed little sign of collapsing after these leadership losses, indicating that command structures remained resilient.
Another indicator underpinning the assessment is the widening geographical footprint of the conflict. According to the report, the number of districts experiencing militant violence increased from 41 in January to 53 by June, suggesting that insurgent organisations expanded beyond traditional strongholds while compelling Pakistani forces to disperse security assets over a larger area. The report identifies Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan as the principal theatres of conflict, while arguing that militants have steadily broadened their operational reach into additional districts.
CNAWS argues that Pakistan is simultaneously confronting two distinct insurgencies.
In the northwest, the Pashtun militant ecosystem, centred on the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and allied organisations, continues to focus on sustained military attrition through coordinated assaults, drone attacks, improvised explosive devices and attacks on security forces.
In the southwest, Baloch insurgent organisations have increasingly shifted towards economic warfare by targeting highways, railway infrastructure, energy pipelines, communications networks and projects linked to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), with the objective of raising the economic costs of the conflict while undermining investor confidence.
The report records 710 incidents linked to the Pashtun militant ecosystem during the reporting period and 491 involving Baloch insurgent groups. It says Baloch organisations carried out 134 incidents of infrastructure sabotage in addition to armed clashes, targeted killings and bomb attacks, reflecting what it describes as a deliberate strategy of economic denial.
While the assessment includes a separate chapter on the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), it concludes that the group’s operational footprint inside Pakistan remains comparatively limited.
Its significance, the report argues, lies less in the number of attacks than in its focus on high-casualty sectarian violence and symbolic urban targets designed to generate political and psychological impact.
Looking ahead, the assessment forecasts little change during the second half of 2026. It expects Pakistan to continue mounting a high volume of counterterrorism operations while militant organisations retain the capacity to regenerate, adapt and sustain violence across multiple theatres.
The report concludes that Pakistan’s internal security challenge has evolved beyond episodic militancy into a persistent, multi-front insurgency in which the state continues to achieve important tactical victories but has yet to dismantle the underlying structures enabling militant organisations to sustain their campaigns.
