Pakistan’s U.S.–Iran Diplomacy Sought to Prevent a Militant Spillover 

Pakistan’s U.S.–Iran Diplomacy Sought to Prevent a Militant Spillover 

Executive Summary:

• Pakistan’s diplomacy during the U.S.–Iran conflict was driven more by a desire to prevent a security vacuum along its roughly 900-kilometer (about 559-mile) border with Iran than by a bid for diplomatic prestige.
• Islamabad fears that a weakened Iranian state would create operational space for Baloch separatists, sectarian militants, smugglers, and transnational jihadist actors in the country’s southwest. 
• The threat is compounded by Pakistan’s simultaneous pressure from Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan (IMP), and Islamic State-Pakistan Province (ISPP)-linked militancy on the Afghan frontier.
• For Pakistan, sustaining a stable and functional Iranian security apparatus is therefore a strategic counterterrorism priority and not merely a matter of regional diplomacy.

Pakistan’s efforts to position itself as a mediator between Washington and Tehran can be understood through a counterterrorism lens. Islamabad’s diplomacy reflected a hard security calculation that the collapse or severe degradation of Iranian state authority would directly threaten Pakistan’s western frontier (Dawn, April 8). Iran is often viewed in Pakistan through ideological, sectarian, and geopolitical suspicion. Yet along the Pakistan-Iran border, Tehran’s state machinery also performs a stabilizing function. Its security services, border forces, and administrative structures help constrain cross-border smuggling, militant transit, and armed separatist activity. The alternative to that imperfect but functioning state control would be an enabling environment for militants, traffickers, and other armed actors (Chatham House, April 21).

Pakistan’s objective in attempting to mediate the conflict, therefore, was best understood as a form of preventive counterterrorism aimed at avoiding an internal security dilemma linked to potential instability in Iran.

The Balochistan Border 

Pakistan’s immediate concern is Balochistan. The Pakistan–Iran border runs from the Afghanistan–Iran–Pakistan tri-point to the Arabian Sea, linking areas already affected by insurgency, smuggling, weak governance, and militant mobility. Groups such as the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) have demonstrated an ability to conduct coordinated attacks beyond remote border districts and into more strategically sensitive parts of the province. 

On May 22,  BLA’s media wing released a video displaying insurgent women. In the video, young girls aged 18 to 22 were receiving guerrilla training in barren terrain somewhere in Balochistan. The video—originally in Balochi with English and Urdu subtitles—shows militants operating drones, intended to convey that the group also possesses advanced technology (X/@bahott_baloch, May 23). Amid these recent developments, violence in Balochistan reinforced Islamabad’s concern that militants could exploit any deterioration of Iranian border control (Hum English, March 30). 

A weakened Iran would give Baloch militants more room to rest, resupply, recruit, and maneuver across the border. Sistan-Balochistan, already peripheral to Tehran’s political center, could become a more permissive security environment for militants if Iranian security forces were distracted by war, internal fragmentation, and regime survival. For Pakistan, that would create a sanctuary problem resembling the one it already faces on its Afghan frontier.

The January 2024 exchange of strikes between Pakistan and Iran illustrated how quickly cross-border militancy can produce bilateral escalation. Iran struck alleged Jaish al-Adl targets inside Pakistan, while Pakistan retaliated against alleged BLA-linked positions inside Iran. The episode demonstrated that when border counterterrorism coordination breaks down, militant sanctuaries can trigger direct state confrontation (Express Tribune, January 29, 2024). 

Sectarian and Separatist Militancy

The threat environment is not limited to ethno-nationalist insurgency. Jaish al-Adl operates against Iran from a Sunni militant and anti-Shia ideological framework, while Pakistan has its own history of sectarian mobilization. A prolonged U.S.–Iranian conflict—or the partial collapse of Iranian authority—could sharpen sectarian narratives inside Pakistan and create space for both anti-Iranian Sunni militancy and pro-Iranian Shia mobilization (The Strategist, March 13).

Militant ecosystems rarely remain compartmentalized. Separatist groups, sectarian networks, criminal smugglers, and jihadist actors can use the same terrain, routes, facilitators, and safe houses. Even if their objectives differ, they can benefit from the same governance vacuum. Iran’s collapse or prolonged paralysis would therefore multiply threat types: Baloch separatism, sectarian militancy, arms trafficking, refugee infiltration, and anti-state propaganda could reinforce each other (The Diplomat, March 3).

Maritime Expansion and Gwadar Vulnerabilities

The risk to Pakistan also lies in the maritime expansion of militancy. Baloch insurgent violence has increasingly intersected with strategic infrastructure, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Gwadar’s port zone. The April 12 attack on Pakistan Coast Guards near Jiwani, close to Gwadar, underscored that Baloch militants may seek to expand from inland attacks into coastal and maritime areas (Arab News, April 12).

If Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan province became less governed, militants could exploit the Makran coast as both a logistical corridor and an operational frontier. That would complicate Pakistani security planning around Gwadar, coastal highways, naval facilities, and border posts. It would also create a wider battlespace linking Iranian instability to Pakistan’s economic and maritime security.

India, Afghanistan, and the Regional Proxy Dimension

Pakistan’s threat perception is further shaped by its suspicion that hostile intelligence actors could exploit a weakened Iranian borderland. Pakistani officials and commentators frequently cite Indian activity in Balochistan as a central concern. In May, former corps commander General (r) Amir Riaz alleged that Pakistani intelligence agencies had previously detained an Indian diplomat during a meeting with Baloch militants (X/@War_Analysts, May 5).

Islamabad also continues to point to the 2016 arrest of Kulbhushan Jadhav in Balochistan’s Mashkel district as evidence of Indian intelligence activity in the province (Dawn, July 17, 2019). These claims remain part of Pakistan’s broader security narrative: if Iran’s frontier weakens, Baloch militant groups could gain more space while foreign intelligence services seek leverage through separatist networks. This fear is intensified by Pakistan’s uneasy relationship with the Afghan Taliban and concerns about India’s outreach to Kabul as a new security front (Express Tribune, October 13, 2025). In Pakistani military thinking, Iranian instability would not be an isolated western-border problem; it would connect the Afghan, Iranian, Indian, and Balochistan files into a single threat matrix.

The Dual-Front Problem

Pakistan’s diplomacy is also driven by force-allocation constraints. The army is already stretched by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)-linked violence and emerging threats of Islamic State-Pakistan Province (ISPP) and Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan (IMP) on the Afghan frontier. Operation Ghazab Lil Haq reflects the continuing pressure on Pakistani security forces from militants allegedly operating from Afghan soil (Dawn, March 2). If Iran’s border security deteriorated at the same time, Pakistan would face simultaneous pressure in the northwest and southwest. That would require greater deployments in Balochistan, increased demand for intelligence-based operations, heavier border management, and stronger protection for coastal and infrastructure targets. Such a scenario would strain a military still configured around deterrence against India on the eastern front.

On May 22, Pakistan’s Field Marshal General Asim Munir paid a second visit to Tehran as part of Pakistan’s mediation efforts. Pakistan’s defense ties with Saudi Arabia have, however, complicated its relationship with Tehran. If an Iranian–Saudi confrontation emerged from an expanded U.S.–Iranian conflict, Islamabad could face political pressure to support Riyadh while seeking to avoid destabilizing its immediate neighbor. Any direct Pakistani involvement against Iran would risk worsening the very frontier insecurity that Islamabad seeks to prevent (Diplomatic Insight, May 9).

Conclusion

Pakistan’s mediation during the U.S.–Iranian conflict serves counterterrorism functions in addition to diplomatic objectives. Islamabad’s core objective was to prevent the Iranian state from weakening to the point that its borderlands become an ungoverned or semi-governed operating space for militants. The main threat is not only conventional war spillover but also the possibility that Iranian fragility could produce a militant spillover. Pakistan is worried about militant activity on multiple fronts. These include Baloch separatists gaining sanctuary, Jaish al-Adl or similar actors expanding cross-border activity, sectarian networks mobilizing inside Pakistan, smugglers moving heavier weapons, and foreign intelligence services exploiting the disorder. For Pakistan, a functioning Iranian state remains a buffer against threat multipliers. That explains why Islamabad’s diplomacy was modest but strategically important with the objective to keep a regional war from opening another militant front on Pakistan’s most vulnerable border.