Rehmat ullah
The strategic areas of Western Balochistan are a critical part of securing Pakistan. This area is a key geo-strategic location being where South Asia; Central Asia and the Middle East all meet. It is therefore essential to create a multi-agency intelligence driven security apparatus to assist in securing this area.
Western Balochistan is a key part of the geopolitical landscape, and also the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). This is the centre piece of the Western Alignment of CPEC. It connects the deep sea port of Gwadar to the northern part of the country. This area also borders Iran and Afghanistan with a long border of 909km and many key economic features including the N-40 highway connecting Quetta and Taftan, International border crossings and multi-billion dollar mining projects such as Reko Diq (Chagai District). It is essential to secure these CPEC projects and ports to protect the Pakistani economy.
The threat to this area of the border is an intricate hybrid threat. Non-State Actors and transnational criminals use asymmetric tactics, decentralised approaches and social media to target security personnel, key strategic developments and CPEC personnel. To strategise and protect this area intelligence collection is needed to anticipate threats and prevent them happening. Identifying key points of supply, funds and safe houses. However enemies are using socio-economic factors to create grey zone conflicts to target foreign investment. This can be combated with having a strong Strategic Communications team, strong integrity and good community engagement.
Frontier Corps (FC) Balochistan (West) are the main Paramilitary force tasked with securing this area. This means securing the border and protecting the vital economic parts of the country such as CPEC. As the border is being fenced off, electronically monitored and border trading introduced between Pakistan and Iran and Afghanistan, Continuous Human Intelligence (HUMINT) will be required to ensure no infiltration occurs. The Frontier Corps Intelligence Unit (FCIU) will play a key role as they help link the information collected in the field to intelligence services. Increasing the speed of intelligence sharing will help to prevent any new threats.
Now with modern technology border areas must take into consideration the change to border economics. Non-State Actors have been known to use unregulated border movement and smuggling to fund their activities. By introducing regulated border crossings (Taftan, Mand, Gabd and Chedgi) along the border will help ensure no smuggling occurs via border trading.
Understanding the local culture and being fluent in local languages will help greatly. Having intelligence personnel that are fluent in local languages (Balochi, Brahvi, Pashto and Urdu) will give them an advantage. This will build trust with locals, understand tribal issues and provide effective human intelligence. If locals see the security forces as protecting them during development more intelligence will be gathered.
To increase security and ensure long term stability around this border, security forces must apply specialist security methods. Intelligence collection must be implemented to protect CPEC supply lines, energy and Gwadar. Border crossings must be standardised to ensure no border trading occurs. This will stop any legitimate trading between regions however CPEC trading can still happen safely. Technology must be improved by adding in Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) to compliment HUMINT. Security must be integrated with development within the CPEC to increase resilience within society.
Overall securing the western border of Pakistan involves much more than just a military issue. It involves high level geopolitical intelligence, protecting CPEC assets, intelligence fusion and economic development. Improving specialist intelligence within FC Balochistan (West) will allow Pakistan to reduce any threats, protect investment and ensure long term peace.
