Given the absence of consistently verified annual fatality data for Balochistan alone, is it appropriate to use nationwide all-over Pakistan conflict-related death totals as a proxy for estimating casualties specifically in Balochistan?
The Wikipedia page “List of ongoing armed conflicts” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts covers all active insurgencies in Pakistan.
Pakistan is a federation composed of several diverse regions, many of which experience different forms of unrest, including insurgencies, militancy, sectarian violence, and border incidents with Afghanistan and India.
Despite this, some market creators such as @Panfilo appear to focus heavily on the conflict in Balochistan while lacking reliable data on annual fatalities specific to groups like the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA).
Available long-term estimates suggest roughly 2,000 militant deaths over two decades (not a year), in addition to civilian casualties. That makes it a local conflict, not a minor war.
Meanwhile, Pakistan faces multiple other insurgencies and terrorist incidents across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh, and nationwide, which collectively may exceed 1,000 deaths in some years.
https://manifold.markets/Panfilo/which-of-these-military-conflicts-w-qZOApZpQCU
Is it fair to use nationwide conflict data to represent Balochistan specifically?
Short answer: No - using whole-country casualty numbers to describe one province is not methodologically sound or fair.
Here’s the poll, please vote.
1. Different conflicts ≠ one conflict
Pakistan has multiple, distinct forms of violence:
Balochistan insurgency
TTP and ISIS-affiliated militancy
Sectarian violence across several provinces
Tribal, ethnic, and political clashes
Border skirmishes with Afghanistan and India
Aggregating all deaths ignores the location, actors, and causes of each incident.
2. Misrepresentation risk
Using nationwide totals to describe Balochistan:
Overstates the scale of the conflict there
Misleads bettors into thinking the province accounts for all violence
Distorts analysis and public understanding
3. Data uncertainty requires caution
If no reliable Balochistan-specific yearly data exists, the correct approach is:
avoid filling them with unrelated national statistics
acknowledge that Balochistan Liberation Army conflict isn't the global scale minor war (the term related to wars with over 1000 deaths per year)
4. Fairness requires accuracy. Misleading estimates should not be accepted, even if someone attempts to overstate the scale of the conflict in Balochistan. https://manifold.markets/Panfilo/which-of-these-military-conflicts-w-qZOApZpQCU
1,000People are also trading
> The creator bought heaps of cheap Balochistan shares and is now trying to rig the market by inventing a “war in Balochistan.”
It looks like they’re passing wishful Indian bloggers videos as reality - relying solely on Indian bloggers, not real facts. It's not the prediction.
And now creator wants go shenanigans to cash out by making up a war that doesn’t even exist and pulling the MANA from us, who simply do not trust those bloggers
The attacks were concentrated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (six incidents) and Balochistan (five), followed by two each in erstwhile FATA, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Sindh. The incidents included tactical assaults, kidnappings, IED blasts, targeted attacks, and a mortar strike. In response, security forces intensified operations, conducting eight intelligence- based operations that killed 42 militants and captured nine others, though 12 security personnel—including a lieutenant colonel and two majors—were also martyred, reflecting continued militant resistance. Major operations in Orakzai, Dera Ismail Khan, and Khuzdar resulted in the neutralization of key militant elements from TTP and BLA factions.
Wiki quote: "The issue is not over the reliability of ACLED, which is used by some commentators. ACLED publishes pure data (as admitted here by an editor using it) apparently by country (despite repeated requests I have yet to be given specific instructions as to how any of the claimed totals have been obtained, forcing me to make educated guesses) not by conflict. Attempting to match up countries with conflicts is a clear case of WP:SYN, as I will show.
At #Korean conflict numbers don't match it was pointed out by a temporary account that there have been no recent deaths in the Korean conflict, despite our article claiming 30 deaths in 2024 and 1 death in 2025. I speculated that these figures had come from Number of reported fatalities by country-year (registration required, but see directly below). This is a spreadsheet in the following format for the relevant years/country."
@24norwayElimSolberg
No one really know the exact number of deaths in a big conflict, but ACLED is probably the best we can get.
Wikipedians rely on ACLED, and I don't think they will change this criteria before 2026.
The market will resolve as per the Wikipedia article, as specified in the description and clarified many times by the market creator.
Wikipedia has tens of thousands of articles about wars and conflicts, and a very healthy culture of open discussions when something is unclear. The talk section of the articles is full of questions, clarifications and flaws identified and fixed. No surprise you can find them.
But in the particular case of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts I don't see any open discussion for the Pakistani insurgencies.
@MiguelLM we can both agree on that Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) is considered a credible and legitimate resource for security data in Pakistan. Let's rely on their data
@AlvaLindqvist ACELD Asia-Pacific update. Filter Battles + Balochistan + 2025
More info in the comments of the original market: https://manifold.markets/Panfilo/which-of-these-military-conflicts-w-qZOApZpQCU
@MiguelLM ACELD data reflects the total number of all reports we were able to find online. Wikipedia’s classification, however, only counts confirmed deaths , not every reported case that are not confirmed.
That’s why the numbers may look different
@24norwayElimSolberg thanks for the input
Where do you distinguish in the data set the “yet to be verified” vs the “proven” fatalities? I didn’t get this column in the public access file.
@MiguelLM The provided list shows a severe loss of combatant's lifes, reporting over 2,200 deaths in Balochistan alone (if you feed the list to gemini app and ask to calculate), and also several thousand across Pakistan during only 2025.
In Wikipedia's classification, those figures are not used; instead, the numbers are adjusted by consensus for greater accuracy and reliability.
If you try to ask any chat bot for how Wikipedia shows the data usually:
Resulting Adjusted Figures (2025): By applying this adjusted methodology, the total number of deaths attributed to all Pakistani insurgencies across the country in 2025 is shown as fewer than 1,000.
Balochistan Specifics: For Balochistan this year, the adjusted figure is estimated to be around 300 deaths.
We must proceed with great care and scrutiny when analyzing this sensitive data, relying on consensus-based figures rather than raw tallies.