The worsening security situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is increasingly being accompanied by a political confrontation between the provincial and federal governments, with both sides accusing the other of failing to address the province’s security challenges.
The dispute has intensified after a series of deadly attacks in southern KP, including the September 26 bombing at the Aman Mela police and customs checkpoint in Darazinda, Dera Ismail Khan, followed by an attack on an ambulance carrying victims. The incident killed at least 12 people and injured dozens, according to police and other officials.
A day later, KP Chief Minister Sohail Afridi visited the injured in Dera Ismail Khan and called for greater federal-provincial coordination on counterterrorism. He argued that the province’s perspective should be incorporated into the national counterterrorism policy so that it reflects the realities on the ground.
But instead of producing a unified political response to the deteriorating security situation, the latest attacks have triggered another round of accusations between the PTI-led provincial government and the federal authorities.
Security crisis meets political confrontation
The central issue in the dispute is increasingly becoming one of responsibility: who is responsible for the deteriorating security situation in KP, and who should be held accountable for the failure to prevent attacks?
The provincial government says it is bearing the brunt of terrorism but does not have adequate resources and equipment to deal with the threat. Afridi has called for the provision of additional security equipment, including armoured personnel carriers, and has complained about what he describes as inadequate support from the federal government.
The federal government and its political allies, however, have put the responsibility largely on the provincial government, arguing that the KP administration has failed to provide effective leadership and properly utilise the resources available to it.
The PML-N’s KP chapter has meanwhile issued a white paper accusing the PTI-led provincial government of failing to control terrorism, maintain law and order and strengthen the police and Counter-Terrorism Department. PML-N leaders also alleged that provincial resources were being used for political objectives. These are political allegations made by the opposition and should be distinguished from independently verified findings.
The result is a growing blame game in which security has become intertwined with the wider political confrontation between PTI and the federal government.
White paper adds another layer to the dispute
The political confrontation has intensified with the publication of a white paper highlighting the deterioration in KP’s security indicators.
According to the document, 122 police personnel were killed during the first six months of 2026, compared with 63 in the same period in 2025. The number of injured police personnel rose from 84 to 175. It also reported 680 terrorist attacks in the province between January and September 2026, compared with 508 during the same period last year.
The figures have been used politically to question the provincial government’s performance.
But the numbers also raise a broader question: can a complex and long-running insurgency be attributed solely to the performance of one provincial government?
Counterterrorism involves federal and provincial institutions, intelligence agencies, law-enforcement bodies, border management, financial monitoring and, increasingly, Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan. The security situation therefore extends beyond the authority of any single provincial administration.
This is precisely where the political argument becomes more complicated.
The federal-provincial divide
Senior journalist Riffatullah Orakzai says the key issue is not simply the number of military or intelligence-based operations but their outcomes.
“If terrorist incidents and security threats continue to persist, simply increasing military operations is not enough,” Orakzai said, stressing the need to evaluate policy outcomes, intelligence coordination and political consensus.
He said the KP government’s criticism of the existing security strategy reflects differences between the federal and provincial governments over counterterrorism policy.
At the same time, he noted that the federal government and security institutions maintain that extensive intelligence-based and targeted operations are being conducted against terrorism.
“The key question, therefore, is why the desired results in terms of improving the security situation are not being achieved despite such a large number of operations,” he said.
According to Orakzai, the centre and KP need a common position on security policy rather than competing narratives.
“If one side criticizes the strategy of military operations while the other defends the same strategy, such differences can themselves create difficulties for the effectiveness of the overall security policy,” he said.
Political rhetoric is making the problem more difficult
The dispute has gone beyond questions of resources and security policy.
Federal ministers have accused the PTI-led KP government of failing to provide leadership and resources to the security forces. Government representatives have also alleged that the provincial administration has adopted a “soft attitude” towards Afghanistan and have linked PTI politically to the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.
The PTI-led provincial government, meanwhile, has accused the federal authorities of failing to provide adequate equipment and of politicising the security situation.
Such allegations are particularly consequential because they shift the discussion away from a common security threat and towards the political identity of the opposing side.
The danger is that a debate over what security policy should be adopted becomes a debate over which political party is responsible for terrorism.
That distinction matters.
Terrorism in KP did not begin with the current provincial government, nor can the province’s security challenges be explained solely by the policies of one political party. At the same time, the provincial government has constitutional and administrative responsibilities for policing and governance and therefore must answer questions about its own performance.
Both realities can exist simultaneously.
The people are paying the price
For ordinary people in KP, however, the political argument offers little protection.
Residents of districts such as Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, Bannu and North Waziristan continue to live with the consequences of insecurity.
For families, the issue is not whether the federal government or provincial government wins the political argument. It is whether children can travel safely to school, whether businesses can remain open, whether traders can move goods without fear, and whether police officers can perform their duties without becoming easy targets.
The recent Darazinda attack illustrates the human cost.
A security checkpoint was attacked, civilians and officials were killed and an ambulance carrying victims also came under fire.
Two days later, three traffic police officers were killed when gunmen attacked their vehicle in Tank district. No group had claimed responsibility for that attack at the time of reporting.
For communities already affected by years of militancy, repeated attacks also carry an economic and psychological cost: businesses face disruptions, families lose breadwinners, movement becomes restricted and public confidence in state institutions can weaken.
Political protests add another pressure
The security dispute is unfolding alongside a wider political confrontation involving PTI and the federal government.
PTI supporters had planned a march towards Islamabad, prompting authorities to impose extensive security measures and deploy thousands of police and paramilitary personnel. The protest was subsequently postponed.
This creates an additional challenge for the KP government.
The chief minister is simultaneously expected to function as the head of a provincial administration responsible for dealing with terrorism and as a political leader of a party engaged in confrontation with the federal government.
That dual role creates a difficult political environment in which almost every security-related statement can become part of the wider political dispute.
Counterterrorism should not become a partisan issue
The fundamental question for policymakers is therefore not whether the federal or provincial government has won the argument.
It is whether the existing counterterrorism strategy is producing measurable improvements in security.
That requires looking beyond the number of operations and arrests.
Authorities need to examine whether intelligence is being effectively shared, whether terrorist networks are being disrupted before attacks occur, whether police have adequate equipment and manpower, whether investigations lead to successful prosecutions, and whether the financial and logistical networks supporting militants are being dismantled.
The same scrutiny should apply to the use of provincial and federal funds allocated for counterterrorism.
A need for political and institutional coordination
Orakzai argues that the counterterrorism debate should also be separated from political differences.
“If the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government talks about negotiations or a political solution, that by itself does not establish that it supports terrorists,” he said. “Similarly, if the federal government advocates strong security measures, that should not automatically be interpreted merely as political opposition.”
His point is that both sides’ positions should be assessed through their actual policies and actions, rather than political accusations.
The immediate requirement, therefore, is greater coordination between the federal government, the KP government, security institutions and other relevant stakeholders.
The province needs resources and equipment, but resources alone cannot resolve the problem. The federal government needs provincial cooperation, while the provincial government needs to demonstrate that available resources are being effectively used.
The real cost of political division
The security crisis in KP is ultimately testing more than the capacity of police and security forces. It is testing the ability of Pakistan’s political institutions to cooperate when faced with a common threat.
If every terrorist attack produces another round of accusations, the political debate risks overshadowing the policy questions that matter most: Why are attacks continuing? Which parts of the existing strategy are working? Which are not? Where are the institutional gaps? And what changes are required?
The people of KP have already paid a heavy price in lives, displacement, economic disruption and fear.
They now face the additional risk that their security crisis becomes another front in Pakistan’s political confrontation.
A sustainable response will require the federal and provincial governments to disagree where necessary, but cooperate where security demands it—and to measure success not by political statements, press conferences or competing accusations, but by whether attacks decline and ordinary citizens become safer.
