When Ubaid Salarzai waved goodbye to Maulana Khan Zeb, who was heading off in a different direction to invite people to a peace rally, he had no idea it would be their final farewell.
The two had stood shoulder to shoulder for years, working tirelessly to promote peace and security in Bajaur, a Pakistani tribal district on the Afghan border with a heavy presence of Islamic State and Pakistani Taliban members.
Just 20 minutes later, Salarzai’s phone rang with a devastating message: “Maulana Khan Zeb and his driver had been shot and killed.”
Khan Zeb's death highlights the risk peace activists in Pakistan face amid ongoing violence and political instability in tribal regions. It also has raised accusations the country’s intelligence agencies are propping up various militant outfits for their strategic purposes and foreign policy goals.
“Khan Zeb was not the first and sadly, he won’t be the last to lay down his life in the struggle for peace and security in this region,” Salarzai told RFE/RL by phone.
Khan Zeb, like many other peace activists in the restive tribal region, which once was called the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), had been a vocal advocate for stability in his home district of Bajaur, located about 250 kilometers from Pakistan’s central capital Islamabad.
There has been no claim of responsibility in the shooting, but mourners and activists gathered at Khan Zeb’s funeral on July 11 chanted in Urdu “Ye Jo Na Maloom Hain - Ham Sab Ko Maloom Hain” (The ones called unknown - we know them well).
Pakistani peace activists allege the country’s intelligence agencies are propping up various militant outfits for their strategic purposes and foreign policy goals.
The Awami National Party said last week that it is filing a case against the government for Khan Zeb's murder with provincial leader Mian Iftikhar Hussain saying the killing was an attack "on Pashtun consciousness, peace, and resistance politics."
The allegation is not new. The United States, a key partner of Pakistan’s in the global war on terror, has accused Pakistani security agencies in the past of trying to play both sides of the coin.
“You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors,” former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Pakistan during a trip to Islamabad in 2011.
Pakistan’s tribal areas stretch along the Afghan border in a crescent shape from east to west.
Historically, the border zone was viewed by British colonial authorities as a strategic buffer between the British Empire and the Iron Curtain before the division of British India into two independent states – India and Pakistan in 1947.
Pakistan’s northwest region, including the tribal areas, is predominantly inhabited by ethnic Pashtuns, divided by the colonial-era Durand Line that separates Afghanistan from Pakistan.
The 9/11 attacks on the United States that killed thousands, highlighted the area's reputation as a hub of Taliban militancy.
Pakistan’s tribal region, comprising seven districts -- Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram, North Waziristan, and South Waziristan, has long been a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Following the US invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, many members and leaders of the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda sought refuge in this region.
The Pakistani government has launched multiple military operations to eliminate militant groups from the region, though most were either unsuccessful or achieved only limited results while displacing nearly 1 million residents, who were forced to seek shelter in tented camps, rented accommodations, or with relatives in urban areas.
Although the military declared success, claiming it had pushed the militants back across the Afghan border, the threat never fully disappeared.
Since the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021, the Pakistani Taliban have bounced back, carrying out daring attacks on the Pakistani security forces.
In an interview with RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal, the Governor of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province admitted that armed Taliban militants control certain areas of the region during nighttime.
Maulana Fazlur Rahman, a prominent religious scholar and leader of Pakistan’s largest Jamiat Ulema-e Islam party, concurred, telling Radio Mashaal that the state’s authority effectively vanishes in Waziristan and some neighboring districts after dusk.
“The state is complicit,” said Mohsin Dawar, another peace activist, political leader, and former member of Pakistan’s Parliament or the National Assembly from the Waziristan tribal region.
Dawar was seriously injured and two activists lost their lives when police fired on a rally he was leading in North Waziristan in February 2024.
Dawar is one of the founding members of the rights movement PTM or Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (Pashtun Protection Movement) along with two other leading figures, Ali Wazir and Manzoor Pashteen.
Wazir, also a former MP from the tribal region, and a harsh critic of Pakistan’s anti-Taliban policies, has been in jail on charges of sedition for nearly two years.
Pashteen, who held dozens of rallies across Pakistan demanding peace and security in the tribal region, has been avoiding public appearances since December amid serious threats to his life.
“Public mobilization is not acceptable because Pakistan’s security establishment has different strategic objectives than peace,” according to Dawar.
He added that peace activists face an “extreme” level of threats because “they are seen as obstacles to those objectives.”
The Pakistani military maintains that it is fully committed to combating terrorism. Officials note dozens of soldiers have been killed in attacks by militants as the government tries to curb their activities.
While the TTP and groups like Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) continue to target security forces, government officials, religious leaders, and political opponents, peace activists allege that state security agencies are targeting them.
Aftab Shinwari, district coordinator for the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) in the Khyber tribal district, told RFE/RL that he's been jailed for trying to organize events and that activists routinely receive threatening calls and text messages from unknown numbers.
Pakistani authorities say they don't target activists, but they add that individuals who “malign” the military or act “against the state” will not be tolerated.
In January 2025, Pakistan’s National Assembly passed amendments to existing laws, granting state agencies the power to imprison individuals for up to three years for spreading “disinformation” on social media.
Despite those challenges, peace activists remain defiant.
Salarzai says his struggle is focused on peace and security.
“We will continue our peaceful struggle. There is no backing down. We will resist any attempt to disrupt peace whether it comes from the state or nonstate actors.”
