Deniability shifts rescue onto expendable individuals
A state that runs covert operatives keeps the option to disown them. When agents are captured, officially admitting a rescue attempt would confirm the espionage.
The Bard of Blood
2 ideas
Proxy battlefields run on transactional alliances
In a contested region like Balochistan, national intelligence services, militant groups and separatist movements each pursue their own interests. Any cooperation between them is a temporary trade of goals, not a shared loyalty. Reading every actor by what they want right now explains a betrayal better than reading them by their stated side.