Two sides, two death tolls: what happened in Balochistan on 31 January?

Among the targets on 31 January 2026 was a labour colony in the port city of Gwadar. There, Balochistan's chief minister Sarfraz Bugti said, five women and three children from one Baloch family were killed, according to Gulf News.

Gwadar was one of at least 12 towns in Pakistan's Balochistan province hit by coordinated suicide and gun attacks that day. The outlawed Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility. Over almost 40 hours of fighting, provincial officials said, 31 civilians, 17 security personnel and 145 militants were killed.

The attack stood out for its scale and coordination. Pakistani officials and the BLA give very different counts of who died, and almost none of the figures have been independently verified.

Where did the attackers strike?

The attacks began almost at the same time across the province, the provincial health minister, Bakht Muhammad Kakar, told the Associated Press. In the provincial capital, Quetta, two police officers were killed in a grenade attack on a police vehicle, and the government declared an emergency at all hospitals.

In Mastung district, dozens of insurgents attacked a prison and freed more than 30 inmates, police said. In Nushki, militants tried to storm the provincial headquarters of the paramilitary forces and were pushed back. Near Pasni and Gwadar, insurgents tried to abduct bus passengers on the highways (AP).

Some banks were robbed, and a police station and dozens of vehicles were set on fire. The insurgents also destroyed rail tracks, so Pakistan Railways suspended trains from Balochistan to the rest of the country. The BLA released videos showing female fighters taking part, the AP reported.

Other towns named by Gulf News include Panjgur. In Quetta, according to the chief minister, security forces stopped militants from breaching the city's Red Zone and foiled an attempt to ram a vehicle into a key target.

How many people died, and who says so?

The numbers changed as the fighting went on. On the first day, Pakistan's military said 18 civilians and 15 security personnel had been killed, and that security forces had killed 92 attackers, the AP reported. Analysts told the agency it was the deadliest single day for militants in decades.

A day later, Chief Minister Bugti gave higher figures: 31 civilians and 17 security personnel dead, and 145 militants killed in nearly 40 hours of operations. He said the militants' bodies were in the authorities' custody (Gulf News).

The BLA's own account is very different. In a statement reported by the Indian broadcaster WION, the group said it had attacked 48 locations in 14 cities and killed 84 army, police, intelligence and counter-terrorism personnel. It also claimed to have captured 18 personnel and said seven of its own fighters had died. WION presented these as the group's claims, without independent confirmation.

Early official figures differed too. On the first day, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi spoke of 10 security officers killed, according to WION.

Who does Pakistan blame?

The military and the interior minister said the attackers had Indian backing. New Delhi did not respond immediately; it has denied such allegations in the past, the AP reported. Pakistan also says Baloch separatists use Afghan soil to attack inside Pakistan, which Kabul denies.

Bugti said he had intelligence about the planned attacks and had launched pre-emptive operations the day before. He rejected claims of heavy-handed force and said security forces had avoided harming civilians. He also accused the militants of hiding among civilians and using children as human shields (Gulf News).

The United States, which has designated the BLA a foreign terrorist organisation, condemned the attacks. Its chargé d'affaires, Natalie Baker, called the US a "steadfast partner" of Pakistan in a post on X, Gulf News reported.

Was this part of a pattern?

The attacks came one day after the military said it had killed 41 insurgents in raids on two hideouts. Bugti wrote on X that at least 700 insurgents had been killed in the past year (AP).

Abdullah Khan of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies told the AP that militants had never before been killed in such numbers in a single day in Balochistan.

What we do not know

• The real death toll. Every figure here comes either from Pakistani officials or from the BLA. Both sides have reasons to shape the numbers, and the sources we used did not verify them independently.
• Who the dead militants were. Officials gave no breakdown of the 145, and none of our sources could check it.
• The fate of the captured. The BLA says it holds 18 security personnel. Pakistan has not confirmed this in the sources we used.
• Foreign backing. Pakistan's accusations against India and Afghanistan have not been backed with public evidence in these reports, and both countries have denied similar charges before.

What to watch

Bugti vowed relentless operations and said the government was ready to fight for a long period if needed. For the province's civilians, the test will be whether security operations reduce attacks like the one in Gwadar, or whether violence on this scale becomes a recurring pattern.

Sources

• AP via WSLS: Coordinated attacks in Pakistan kill 10 security personnel and dozens of insurgents (31 January 2026, updated)
• Gulf News: US backs Pakistan after coordinated terror attacks kill nearly 200 in Balochistan (1 February 2026)
• WION: 84 Pakistani security personnel killed in Operation Herof 2.0, BLA claims (31 January 2026)