ABSTRACT
Pakistan has experienced ethnic and centre-province tensions resulting from the perceived marginalisation of the Baloch, Pashtuns and Sindhis by the Punjabi majority since gaining independence in 1947. The 1971 secession of East Pakistan to form Bangladesh made Punjab the country's majority province in terms of population and increased these tensions. This means that conflicts in Pakistan sometimes conflate demands for increased civil liberties and provincial autonomy with violent separatist insurgent movements, primarily in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Another BRAS member, the Baloch Liberation Army, continues to pose the most significant threat to the Pakistani state in Balochistan and Karachi, which is in Sindh province and is Pakistan's financial capital and most populous city. Assaults on Pakistan's security forces continued throughout both ceasefires, which may have allowed TTP fighters to move more easily from their safe havens in Afghanistan to Pakistan.
