ISLAMABAD: Pakistan saw a significant surge in terrorist attacks in 2025, with the number of attacks rising by 34 percent compared to the previous year.
According to the Pakistan Security Report 2025 released by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) on Thursday, the country witnessed 699 terrorist attacks, resulting in at least 1,034 deaths and 1,366 injuries.
It said that terrorism-related fatalities increased by 21 percent, highlighting a continuing upward trend in militancy since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021.
Of the 699 terrorist attacks, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa witnessed 413 attacks, Gilgit-Baltistan witnessed 254 attacks, Sindh province recorded 21 attacks, Punjab witnessed 11, and three attacks were carried out in Gilgit-Baltistan in the previous year, according to the report.
The year also saw a record high of 1,313 militants killed in military operations and clashes with security forces.
Besides rising border violence and militant resurgence, evolving militant tactics from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Balochistan fuel a widening security challenge, the report says.
The burden of this violence fell disproportionately on the state’s defenders as security and law enforcement personnel suffered over 42 percent of all terrorism-related fatalities, with 437 lives lost, the data shows.
The report notes that this stark figure highlights the frontline nature of the conflict and the relentless targeting of army, police, and paramilitary forces.
Civilians were also heavily affected, with 354 non-combatants losing their lives. Meanwhile, 243 militants were killed, either in suicide attacks they carried out or during retaliatory fire by security forces following some of the terrorist attacks. Over
The PIPS report said that out of the total attacks, over 95 percent of attacks concentrated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a 40 percent rise in incidents illustrated the entrenched presence of groups like the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its affiliates.
The province experienced the highest number of terrorist incidents in the country in 2025, with 413 attacks. These violent incidents claimed a total of 581 lives and left 698 others injured. The province faced not just more frequent attacks, but more complex ones, including a coordinated wave of assaults across 11 districts on Independence Day—a symbolic challenge to state authority, the report says.
In Balochistan, the insurgency evolved qualitatively. The province experienced 254 militant attacks in 2025, resulting in 419 deaths and injuries to 607 others. A 26 percent increase in attacks was accompanied by a shift towards high-impact, coordinated operations. Militant groups like the proscribed Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) moved beyond hit-and-run tactics to execute highway blockades, sieges, and hijackings, directly targeting economic infrastructure and state symbols to amplify their political message and disrupt governance.
Sindh province recorded 21 terrorist attacks, including 16 in Karachi, two in Shikarpur, and one each in Hyderabad, Jacobabad, and Jamshoro. These incidents resulted in 14 fatalities and left 17 others injured.
Punjab witnessed seven terrorist attacks in 2025, a decline from 11 incidents in the previous year. These attacks killed five people, including four militants and one policeman, and injured two policemen.
A suicide blast outside the judicial complex housing the Islamabad district and sessions courts killed 12 people. JamaatulAhrar, a faction of the banned TTP, claimed the attack.
In Gilgit-Baltistan, three attacks were reported, including two in Diamir district and one in Gilgit. These incidents killed three security personnel, including two Scouts and one Frontier Corps official, and injured six others.
Of the 699 militant attacks recorded in 2025, a clear majority – 454 incidents – were carried out by religiously motivated groups, reflecting a sharp increase from 335 such attacks in 2024. This terrorist violence was largely driven by TTP and its allied local Taliban factions, alongside the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, Lashkar-e-Islam, and Islamic State–Khorasan (IS-K). Together, these groups were responsible for 679 fatalities, up from 520 the previous year, and left another 881 people injured.
Sectarian violence, while far less frequent, remained a grim constant. As in 2024, 11 sectarian-related attacks were reported in 2025, claiming 16 lives and injuring nine more.
Despite multiple rounds of mediated talks in Doha, Istanbul, and Riyadh, diplomatic efforts repeatedly stalled.
“A fundamental impasse remains: Pakistan’s demand for ‘verifiable action’ against militant sanctuaries clashes with the Afghan Taliban’s reluctance to openly act against them.”
This security deadlock is compounded by the humanitarian and political strain of mass Afghan refugee repatriations, which saw over 1.7 million returns and the closure of all formal refugee camps in KP, it added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
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