Recent gains on the economic front could be swiftly jeopardised if terror and insecurity spread from the country’s tribal borderlands to its urban centres
The Pakistani state’s control over its western borderland has never been absolute. Last week, the horrific hijacking of a train by Baloch separatists showed that what little authority it had is fraying. Four soldiers died retaking the Jaffar Express; 21 of the hundreds of hostages had already been killed by the militants, some of whom may have been in the military as well.