Militants in Pakistan are employing a deadly new tactic. And Pakistan’s beleaguered security forces are struggling to come up with a counter.

Picture this: A suicide bomber or IED detonates in a crowded market or alternatively militants assault a security facility. Within minutes security forces, bomb disposal squads and first responders rush to the aid of the wounded. Only to be trapped in well planned ambushes by a secondary militant team, IED/suicide bomber or even explosives dropped by a drone.

This is the "double-tap" attack: designed for dramatically increasing casualties and sowing a sense of alarm and helplessness in the masses..

The phenomenon was examined in detail by the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, which reported that increasingly the heaviest losses suffered by Pakistan security forces did not occur in militant raids or even the initial assault, but during  a secondary attack on the first responders . 

Dawn reported that militant groups are evolving their tactics and strategies to exploit predictable patterns of Pakistan  particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, have refined their tactics to exploit predictable reinforcement patterns and maximise the military and psychological impact of every attack.

So, what’s the rationale behind the Double Tap?

The objective here is to go after a secondary set of victims: Elite units who respond to an attack, bomb disposal teams, senior commanders and medical responders. The militants are exploiting the predictable response of the military units who rush to the aid of their comrades. They are thus able to delay casualty evacuation and reduce the chances of survival of the wounded. Furthermore, the high number of casualties amongst the first responders undermines public confidence in authorities and perpetuates a sense of helplessness in general.

According to reports, these tactics claimed the lives of over 16 police personnel, including 3  deputy superintendents of police (DSPs), in just the last year. 

Most recently, on July 29, 2026, militants attacked a police post in Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. When reinforcements arrived to the aid of the police personnel, militants in ambush killed nine police officers, including DSP Diyar Khan and injured 28 others.

In January 2023, DSP Sardar Hussain of Khyber Pankhtunkhwa Police and two of his bodyguards were hit by an IED when they rushed to the Sarband police station near Peshawar.

Earlier in  March 2023, the Saddar police station in Lakki Marwat was attacked by militants and DSP Iqbal Momand along with three constables were killed when an IED struck their  reinforcement convoy.

The situation is further complicated by the advent of drone warfare. In Khyber Pankthunkwa, militants have used quadcopters for enhanced situational awareness and to drop explosives as the first responders attempted to evacuate casualties.

This tactic, while it may be new to Pakistan, has been historically used as a guerilla tactic used by insurgents against superior forces. One of its earliest examples in modern history is the Warrenpoint ambush in Northern Ireland in 1979. In this case the Irish Republican Army first killed a group of British soldiers with a roadside bomb and when reinforcements arrived they were taken out by a secondary explosive. The double tap was also used by the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and  Al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Closer home, Indian forces witnessed such tactics during security operations against naxals in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha. 

Rethinking Response Doctrine

The double tap has forced security forces globally to rethink how they approach such a scenario. To begin with one of the most elemental military instincts is to rush to the aid of your peers and to never leave anyone behind. Militants exploit precisely this behaviour. Counter-terrorism forces have therefore been obliged to come up with new procedures and countermeasures.

Forces should no longer take the fastest, most direct route to the scene. Commanding officers are advised to stay at secure staging areas and the battle zone is surveyed carefully before reinforcements are committed. There must be more reliance on on technology. Drones armed with infra-red cameras should be employed to scout the path of approach before troops advance, bomb-proof armoured vehicles and counter-IED systems are deployed.

In Pakistan’s case, many of these measures will no doubt be employed sooner rather than later. But will that be able to stem the rising tide of militant attacks against the Pakistani state. 

That’s a question that may need more than just better tactics and equipment.

Deepak Bhadana

Over the past decade, Deepak Bhadana has built expertise in multimedia storytelling, with a focus on military conflicts, insurgencies, international relations, the defence industry, and occasionally, wildlife and environmental issues.