Karachi Saved from 2,000 Kilograms of Hell

How often do we hear the cynical whispers in our drawing rooms and on social media timelines? “Humari agencies akhir karti kya hain?” (What do our agencies even do?). Critics and armchair analysts often claim the state is sleeping. To those skeptics, I say: look at Karachi today. Look at the carnage that didn’t happen. The silence you hear in the city this morning is not luck; it is a gift from the men in the shadows who stayed awake so you could sleep.

On Sunday, January 4, our Intelligence Agencies (ISI, MI, IB), Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), and Law Enforcement Agencies executed a masterpiece of counter-intelligence in Baldia Rais Goth. They didn’t just make an arrest; they neutralized an apocalypse.

During the press conference, CTD officials modestly credited the country’s “premiere intelligence agency” for the lead, sparking whispers across the room. But let us be clear: those who understand the shadow war didn’t need to guess. This operation has the distinct, brilliant signature of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) written all over it. Once again, our quiet guardians have outmaneuvered the enemy, utterly dismantling the sinister blueprints drafted by India’s Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) before they could spill a single drop of blood.

Let us look at the magnitude of this horror. We are not talking about a handgun or a hand grenade. We are talking about 2,000 kilograms of explosives. An intelligence-based operation (IBO) uncovered a mini-truck rigged as a Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED), carrying 60 plastic drums filled with explosives and five LPG cylinders to maximize the fireball. Hidden beneath piles of clothing, ready to be detonated in a high-density area—reports suggest the crowded public venues—this vehicle was a death machine meant to turn Karachi into a graveyard.

This is the 100% success rate the world rarely talks about. For a week, our intelligence apparatus monitored suspicious movements within a 30 to 40-kilometer radius, tracking a “Fitna” that had bled in from across the border. They pinpointed the hideout, tracked the suicide bomber, and dismantled the mechanism before the switch—installed ominously close to the truck’s gears—could be flipped.

This operation rips the mask off the so-called “missing persons.” To the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), Mahrang Baloch, and those who relentlessly pedal the narrative of “deprivation” (mehroomi) in Balochistan: I ask you directly, is this your definition of deprivation? Is assembling 2,000 kg of explosives to vaporize innocent laborers and children in Karachi your way of seeking rights?

We have heard enough propaganda about “Missing Persons.” Today, we must confront the uncomfortable reality: the suicide bomber arrested in this raid is exactly the kind of profile often touted as a “missing person.” When these individuals disappear into training camps in Afghanistan and return as human bombs for the Bashir Zeb group of the BLA, they are not victims; they are terrorists. The propaganda machinery cries for them, but it falls silent when they are caught with two tonnes of explosives meant to kill our people.

This leads us to the puppet masters. Investigations confirm these terrorists belong to the Bashir Zeb network, a faction rightfully termed by officials as Fitna-ul-Hindustan. Let us not mince words. The BLA does not have the sophisticated logistics to transport, house, and assemble a 2,000 kg VBIED without significant foreign state sponsorship. That sponsorship has a specific address: the eastern border. It is becoming blindingly obvious that Indian intelligence is using Afghan soil as a launchpad. While the leaders of these banned outfits sip coffee in European capitals, they send local youth to die for Indian interests.

To our neighbor, Afghanistan, the message from Islamabad has been patient, but that patience has now run its course. Our patience has given way. Terrorists like the BLA, BLF, and TTP act with impunity from safe havens on your soil, crossing over to kill Pakistanis. If Kabul cannot control them, they are complicit.

A massive salute is due to our Intelligence and LEAs. Had they not acted on that precise lead, we would be digging mass graves today. However, the job is not finished. We have caught the suicide bomber, but now we must hunt the “big fish.” You cannot move 2,000 kg of explosives through Karachi without a network of facilitators, financiers, and local handlers. Who provided the safe house in Baldia? Who transported the drums?

We need to dismantle the supply chain, not just the detonator. It is time to crush the head of the snake, not just the tail. We must expose to the world how India acts as the banker for this terror, and how European nations harboring these terror chiefs are complicit in the violence in Karachi.

So, the next time someone asks, “What do our agencies do?”, tell them this: They stood between you and 2,000 kilograms of destruction. They saved Karachi. And for that, they deserve nothing less than a nation’s gratitude.