Baluchistan: The rise of the anti-Chinese Majeed Brigade that Pakistan dreads the most
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Pakistan, which has roots in India, forgot that what goes around, comes around. It sowed the wind in India and is reaping the whirlwind all over Pakistan, particularly in Baluchistan and along its borders with Afghanistan.
That explains the rise of the dreaded Majid Brigade of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) which has claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on a complex next to the Gwadar Port where its highly controversial joint project, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is taking shape. In particular, this Brigade targets Chinese interests to sabotage them in Pakistan.
While Pakistan tried to scale down the losses, claiming eight militants and two security personnel were killed in the attack, the BLA has said it killed 25 security personnel.
China on Thursday strongly reacted, saying it unconditionally supports Islamabad’s efforts to combat terrorism and national security, as it denounced Baloch terrorists’ attack on Gwadar Port, which is a component of the USD 62 billion CPEC.
The Majeed Brigade, active since 2011, is the BLA’s dedicated suicide squad, named after two brothers, both of whom were called Majeed Langove.
Balochistan, in Pakistan’s southwest, is the Islamist country’s largest and most sparsely populated province, rich with oil reserves and abundant natural resources. However, the ethnic Baloch are Pakistan’s poorest and most under-represented people. For them, the CPEC is an extension of Islamabad’s continuing injustice. Pakistan did not hire Baloch professionals to develop the CPEC but brought them from Punjab, Sindh, and even China.
This neglect has only fueled the Baloch separatist movement. In recent years, Baloch militants have repeatedly targeted both Gwadar and Chinese nationals in the country, even as far as the nation’s financial capital, Karachi.
Since the very birth of Pakistan, Baloch separatism gradually flowered into ethnic terrorism. Majeed Langove Senio, a young Baloch terrorist, died while trying to assassinate then-Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1974 in Quetta. That made him a Baloch martyr. His younger brother, Majeed Langove Junior, born two years after Senior’s killing, was gunned down by the Pakistani Army in March 2010.
The two Majeed Brothers became mythical heroes of the Baloch people.
When Aslam Achu, a BLA leader, decided to establish a suicide squad, the name ‘Majeed’ was chosen for it. The Majeed Brigade carried out its first suicide attack on December 30, 2011, targeting a tribal leader and a Pakistan Army agent, Shafiq Mengal. While Shafiq escaped unhurt, at least 14 persons were killed and another 35 were injured.
After a long hiatus, the group resurfaced with renewed vigor in 2018, when it attacked a bus carrying Chinese engineers in Dalbandin near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. This attack was carried out by Rehan Aslam Baloch, the 22-year-old son of Aslam Achu.
The Majeed Brigade has also attacked the Chinese Consulate in Karachi (2018), the Gwadar Pearl Continental Hotel (2019), and the Pakistan Stock Exchange in Karachi (2020), according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal.
