- Govt raises online recruitment issue with social media firms.
- Six women took part in major January attack wave: officials.
- Records show rise in women suicide bombers since 2022.
ISLAMABAD: Dressed in military fatigues with rifles over their shoulders, Yasma Baloch and her husband Waseem pose smiling for a photo released by Pakistani insurgents following their final mission — carrying out suicide bombings.
It was among half-a-dozen pictures and biographies that Reuters was unable to immediately verify, but which analysts see as part of a propaganda effort by rebels in Balochistan.
The growing number of women helps to boost recruitment, said Minister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry.
“It gives them popularity and reach, and it impresses on their community that the fight has entered their homes,” Talal told Reuters.
Pakistan has taken up the issue of insurgent recruitment online with numerous social media platforms, he added.
Three suicide bombers were among six women who participated in the group’s largest wave of attacks in January that killed 58 and nearly brought the province to a standstill, said Hamza Shafaat, a top government official.
Before those attacks, records show a total of five women BLA suicide bombers, including the first such attack in 2022, while three more would-be bombers were captured in counter-terrorism operations in the last few months.
The participation of women amplifies a movement that the government says has boosted its firepower with access to a massive cache of US weapons left behind in Afghanistan after Washington pulled out of the neighbouring country in 2021.
“In South Asia today, the BLA is the most organised and lethal insurgent group,” said Abdul Basit, a researcher in insurgencies and militancy at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
He cited the group’s use of drones to identify troop deployments and vulnerabilities, adding that it used satellite communication during a February 2025 hijack of a train with more than 400 aboard.
