The country’s former tribal areas bordering Afghanistan are plagued by escalating militancy, leading to widespread disillusionment.

By Zia ur-Rehman

Zia ur-Rehman traveled to Pakistan’s former tribal districts bordering Afghanistan for this story.

The rugged borderlands of northwestern Pakistan have long had a reputation for lawlessness and militancy, labeled by President Barack Obama as “the most dangerous place in the world.”

The Pakistani government, facing global scrutiny over the presence of groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, moved in 2018 to overhaul the semiautonomous region’s outdated governance. It merged what had been known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas into the country’s mainstream political and legal framework, vowing economic progress and a reduction in violence.

Today, the effort is seen by many in the region as a failure.

A renewed wave of terrorism, especially after the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in 2021, has undone much of the progress toward stability. Attacks have risen sharply in Pakistan, with more than 1,000 deaths across the country last year, up from 250 in 2019, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace, an international think tank. The group ranks Pakistan as one of the countries most affected by terrorism, second only to Burkina Faso in Africa.

The region’s troubles can be traced back to harsh colonial-era laws that were in force for more than a century and were meant to control the population, not serve it. The tribal areas’ ambiguous legal status and proximity to Afghanistan also made them a geopolitical pawn.

The merger of the underdeveloped region into a neighboring province has not resolved deep-rooted issues, experts say. The deteriorating law and order there is yet another major challenge for a nation of 250 million people that is grappling with economic instability and political turmoil.

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