In the rugged mountains of southwest Pakistan\u00a0lies\u00a0the country’s\u00a0largest province of Balochistan. Far from the bustling cities of Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad,\u00a0this remote\u00a0region has been the battleground for a 60-year-long insurgency by the Baloch ethnic minority.<\/p>\n
| The\u00a0ongoing conflict is often called Pakistan’s dirty war, because of the rising numbers of people who have disappeared or have been killed on both sides.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n But the\u00a0uprising against Pakistan’s government has received little attention worldwide, in part because most eyes\u00a0have been focused on the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in other areas of Pakistan.<\/p>\n Bordering Iran and Afghanistan, Balochistan remains notorious for cross-border smuggling and has more recently been infiltrated by former members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives. Few outsiders gain access or permission to travel in the region.<\/p>\n Al Jazeera’s\u00a0Ahmad Zaidan\u00a0travelled to Balochistan to meet with key Balochi\u00a0politicians who explain the history and current circumstances of the region and to\u00a0get\u00a0an exclusive interview with the leader of the Balochistan rebel movement seeking secession from Pakistan.<\/p>\n This film offers a glimpse into a region which, in 2010, had the highest number of militant, insurgent and sectarian attacks of any province in Pakistan. It is a region torn apart with separatist organisations attacking the state, sectarian and ethnic attacks, and crime, including kidnapping for ransom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the rugged mountains of southwest Pakistan\u00a0lies\u00a0the country’s\u00a0largest province of Balochistan. Far from the bustling cities of Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad,\u00a0this remote\u00a0region has been the battleground for a 60-year-long insurgency by the Baloch ethnic minority. The\u00a0ongoing conflict is often called Pakistan’s dirty war, because of the rising numbers of people who have disappeared or have been killed on both sides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1089"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1090,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089\/revisions\/1090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |