Modern terrorist attacks no longer end when the shooting stops. Increasingly, a second battle starts soon after: the fight over who gets the credit.
In an age of coded communications, instant messaging, and digital propaganda, attaching an organization’s name to an attack can be almost as valuable as the strike itself.
of assassination of the District and Sessions Justice 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 Justice Kakar and his police guard. Additional Sessions Judge Tariq Lashari was seriously injured.
Soon after, reports emerged that the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province (ISKP), based in neighboring Afghanistan, had issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack. Suspicions within Pakistan, meanwhile, focused largely on Baloch separatist militants because of their presence and recent activity in the region.
ISKP’s reported claim has not been independently verified, nor has a completed public investigation conclusively identified those responsible for planning and executing the attack and its possible motivation.
The insecurity reflects a transformation in the way militant organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan compete for influence. Violence is now often followed by a dispute over attribution, allowing various actors to dominate early reporting, amplifying fear and complicating investigations before forensic evidence becomes available.
The new information economy of terrorism
Modern terrorist organizations compete not only for territory but also for attention, making visibility a strategic asset.
An organization’s successful association with a high-profile attack can magnify its perceived capabilities far beyond its actual operational scope, bolstering recruitment, fundraising, and media influence, regardless of who actually carried out the operation.
In the past, statements of responsibility mainly demonstrated capabilities and reinforced an organization’s standing among supporters. However, today they serve a much broader purpose.
They can intimidate opponents, inspire sympathizers, attract financial support, and shape diplomatic debate. By the time investigators determine the facts, the first story may already have shaped public understanding and influenced political reactions.
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 beyond Pakistan. Across multiple, overlapping conflict zones militant networksshifting alliances and decentralized support structures have increasingly blurred the distinction between those who carry out attacks and those who benefit from their claim.
Responsibility may reflect direct command, ideological inspiration, opportunistic appropriation, or some combination thereof. The result is a security environment in which identifying gunmen may be easier than identifying the organization ultimately responsible.
Mastung as a case study
Against this background, the Mastung assassination is significant 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 country’s counter-terrorism system. They oversee trials, evaluate evidence and support the legal process through which terrorist violence is prosecuted. Targeting judges can impede prosecutions, intimidate witnesses, and undermine public confidence in the rule of law.
The killing also came amid wider violence affecting civilian transport, infrastructure and security personnel in Mastung. It remains unclear whether these incidents formed a coordinated campaign. Together, however, they demonstrate how persistent insecurity can put pressure on governance, limit 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 with different implications for investigators and policymakers.
ISKP may have actually carried out 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 various militant actors.
Neither of these possibilities has been substantiated by publicly available evidence. However, each would require investigators to follow a different chain of responsibility.
Why is bounded convergence possible?
Counterterrorism analysis has traditionally classified militant organizations by ideology. Operational relationships, however, can be significantly more complex.
The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) is an ethno-nationalist separatist movement. The Islamic State’s Khorasan Province (ISKP) belongs to the Islamic State operating regional subsidiary mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Their ideological objectives differ greatly, yet ideological incompatibility does not automatically eliminate the possibility of limited tactical interaction.
Contemporary militant networks often 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 without a shared political vision.
Temporary cooperation may arise simply because it serves an immediate operational objective. These conditions do not indicate that any such interaction occurred in Mastung. They simply illustrate why investigators should avoid assuming that ideological differences preclude any form of operational contact.
Planning, logistics, financing and propaganda no longer need to reside within the same organization. Different actors may perform distinct functions while pursuing different strategic objectives. A group may even publicize an attack in which it played no direct operational role if it boosts its reputation or redirects attention.
Therefore, the central question is not simply who fired the shots. It’s also who selected the target, who enabled the operation, who funded it, and who benefited from being associated with it.
Credit killing
Governments design security responses to terrorist 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 can all be affected by how responsibility is assigned during the earliest stages of an investigation.
When attribution becomes contested, any subsequent policy decisions become more difficult. Misattribution can distort threat assessments, misdirect investigative resources, and complicate international counterterrorism cooperation long after an attack has occurred.
The killing of Mastung does not prove a formal BLA-ISKP alliance. However, it exposes a wider transformation in contemporary terrorism.
The most important battlefield revealed by the attack may not be the roadside where Judge Abdul Hakeem Kakar was killed. Rather, it may be a battle over who owns the narrative.
In an age of decentralized militancy and algorithm-driven propaganda, identifying gunmen is only the first step. Increasingly, the most important question is not simply who carried out an attack, but who benefits politically, strategically, and psychologically from claiming it.
Saima Afzal is a scholar specializing in South Asian security, counter-terrorism and wider geopolitical dynamics in the Middle East, Afghanistan and the Indo-Pacific. She is currently a research scholar at the Justus Liebig University, Germany.
