Modern terrorist attacks no longer end when the shooting stops. Increasingly, a second battle begins immediately afterward: the struggle over who receives credit.
In an era of encrypted communications, instant messaging and digital propaganda, attaching an organization’s name to an attack can be almost as valuable as the hit itself.
The assassination of District and Sessions Judge Abdul Hakeem Kakar in Pakistan’s Mastung district on July 23, 2026, illustrates how attribution itself is becoming a weapon.
Gunmen ambushed vehicles carrying judicial officers from Quetta to Mastung, killing Judge Kakar and his police guard. Additional Sessions Judge Tariq Lashari was seriously injured.
Shortly afterward, reports emerged that Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), based in neighboring Afghanistan, had issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack. Suspicion within Pakistan, meanwhile, focused largely on Baloch separatist militants because of their presence and recent activity in the region.
The reported ISKP claim has not been independently authenticated, nor has a completed public investigation conclusively identified those responsible for planning and executing the attack and its possible motivation.
The uncertainty reflects a transformation in how militant organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan compete for influence. Violence is now frequently followed by a contest over attribution, allowing different actors to dominate early reporting, magnify fear and complicate investigations before forensic evidence becomes available.
Terrorism’s new information economy
Modern terrorist organizations compete not only for territory but also for attention, making visibility a strategic asset.
Successfully linking an organization to a high-profile attack can magnify its perceived capabilities far beyond its actual operational reach, strengthening recruitment, fundraising and media influence regardless of who actually carried out the operation.
In the past, declarations of responsibility primarily demonstrated capability and reinforced an organization’s standing among supporters. Today, however, they serve a much broader purpose.
They can intimidate opponents, inspire sympathizers, attract financial backing and shape diplomatic debate. By the time investigators establish the facts, the first narrative may already have framed public understanding and influenced political responses.
Organizations that successfully attach their identity to a high-profile attack can gain strategic advantages even when their operational role was indirect, limited or nonexistent.
The phenomenon extends well beyond Pakistan. Across multiple conflict zones, overlapping militant networks, shifting alliances and decentralized support structures have increasingly blurred the distinction between those who execute attacks and those who benefit from claiming them.
Responsibility may reflect direct command, ideological inspiration, opportunistic appropriation or some combination of these. The result is a security environment in which identifying the gunmen may be easier than identifying the organization ultimately responsible.
Mastung as case study
Against this backdrop, the Mastung assassination matters not only because a judge was killed, but because it illustrates the growing relationship between violence and information.
Judicial officers occupy one of the most sensitive positions in a state’s counterterrorism system. They oversee trials, assess evidence and uphold the legal process through which terrorist violence is prosecuted. Targeting judges can deter prosecutions, intimidate witnesses and weaken public confidence in the rule of law.
The assassination also occurred amid wider violence affecting civilian transport, infrastructure and security personnel in Mastung. Whether these incidents formed one coordinated campaign remains unclear. Together, however, they demonstrate how sustained insecurity can pressure governance, restrict mobility and erode trust in public institutions.
The competing narratives that emerged in the immediate aftermath of the attack point to three plausible explanations, each carrying different implications for investigators and policymakers.
ISKP may indeed have conducted the attack. But it may also have sought to appropriate an operation carried out by another organization to increase its visibility. Alternatively, the reported claim may indicate logistical assistance, shared propaganda interests or limited tactical interaction between different militant actors.
None of these possibilities has been established by publicly available evidence. Each would nevertheless require investigators to pursue a different chain of responsibility.
Why limited convergence is possible
Counterterrorism analysis has traditionally classified militant organizations according to ideology. Operational relationships, however, can be considerably more complex.
The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) is an ethno-nationalist separatist movement. Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) is the Islamic State’s regional affiliate operating primarily across Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Their ideological objectives differ sharply, yet ideological incompatibility does not automatically eliminate the possibility of limited tactical interaction.
Contemporary militant networks frequently rely on decentralized logistics rather than rigid command structures. Smuggling routes, criminal intermediaries, informal financial channels and encrypted communication platforms can be used by actors with no shared political vision.
Temporary cooperation may arise simply because it serves an immediate operational objective. These conditions do not demonstrate that any such interaction occurred in Mastung. They simply illustrate why investigators should avoid assuming that ideological differences rule out every form of operational contact.
Planning, logistics, financing and propaganda no longer need to reside within the same organization. Different actors can perform separate functions while pursuing different strategic objectives. A group may even publicize an attack in which it played no direct operational role if doing so enhances its reputation or redirects attention.
The central question is therefore not simply who fired the shots. It is also who selected the target, who enabled the operation, who financed it and who benefited from associating themselves with it.
Killing credit
Governments design security responses to terror attacks according to who they believe is responsible. Intelligence agencies allocate resources based on their assessment of an organization’s capabilities.
Diplomatic engagement, sanctions policy and international intelligence cooperation may all be influenced by how responsibility is assigned during the earliest stages of an investigation.
When attribution becomes contested, every subsequent policy decision becomes more difficult. Misattribution can distort threat assessments, misdirect investigative resources and complicate international counterterrorism cooperation long after an attack has occurred.
The Mastung assassination does not prove a formal BLA-ISKP alliance. It does, however, expose a broader transformation in contemporary terrorism.
The most significant battlefield revealed by the attack may not be the roadside where Judge Abdul Hakeem Kakar was killed. Rather, it may be the struggle over who owns the narrative.
In an era of decentralized militancy and algorithm-driven propaganda, identifying the gunmen is only the first step. Increasingly, the more consequential question is not simply who carried out an attack, but who profits politically, strategically and psychologically from claiming it.
Saima Afzal is a researcher specializing in South Asian security, counterterrorism, and broader geopolitical dynamics across the Middle East, Afghanistan, and the Indo-Pacific. She is currently a Research Scholar at Justus Liebig University, Germany.
