By Uzay Bulut, Jns
Pakistan’s military-intelligence complex has developed a normalization and even celebration of jihadist violence as a tool of statecraft.
Pakistan has recently been appointed as vice chair of the U.N. Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee and chair of the Taliban Sanctions Committee. Yet the country continues using Islamic terrorism as a strategic tool to further its own regional interests, and its enablement of Islamic terror groups goes on unabated.
The recent appearance of Malik Muhammad Ahmed Khan, speaker of the Punjab Provincial Assembly in Pakistan, on a public stage alongside the U.N.-designated terror outfit, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), including leading members Saifullah Khalid and Talha Saeed, has reignited concerns over Pakistan’s longstanding policy of using terror proxies against India. The May 28 event came just weeks after India named Khalid as a key planner of the April terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir, in which 26 Hindu pilgrims were killed.
Moreover, Khan has refused to condemn known terrorist figures and defended Khalid, who has since been killed by unknown assailants, as a “wrongfully accused” individual. It conveys a troubling message that support for terrorism runs deeper than most people realize.
Far from being an isolated incident, this political endorsement reflects a persistent strategic posture cultivated by Pakistan’s military-intelligence complex over the past four decades: the normalization and even celebration of jihadist violence as a tool of statecraft.
Pakistan’s support for terrorist groups targeting India is rooted in its military’s long-standing doctrine of “strategic depth.” Initially developed in the 1980s during the Soviet-Afghan War, this doctrine justified the use of Islamist militias to gain influence in neighboring Afghanistan and to counterbalance India’s conventional military superiority.
By the late 1980s and early 1990s, this strategy was redirected toward Jammu and Kashmir. Groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Hizbul Mujahideen emerged with active support from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.
These banned terrorist groups were armed, trained and sheltered in Pakistani territory even as they continued high-profile attacks inside India, including the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the 2016 Pathankot airbase assault, the Pulwama suicide bombing in 2019 and the attack earlier this spring.
After India’s "Operation Sindoor" on May 7, which targeted nine terror infrastructure sites and hideouts in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, top brass from the Pakistani Army, police and local political representatives attended the “state funerals” of dead terrorists. In one such brazen incident, a viral image showed Hafiz Abdur Rauf, a senior LeT figure and U.S.-designated global terrorist, leading funeral prayers.
In an unexpected defense, Pakistan’s military claimed Rauf was merely a “local cleric.” Notably, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned him, claiming in a statement that “few individuals are more integral to LeT’s fundraising than Hafiz Abdur Rauf.”
However, the U.S. designation of Rauf as a terror financier did not stop Pakistan’s military establishment from openly supporting him and his organization, LeT. This indicates that Pakistan is unconcerned about Western terror sanctions on its citizens or the possibility of it being “gray-listed” by the Financial Action Task Force, an international body aimed at combating money laundering and stopping terror financing. Pakistan had been gray-listed in 2018, but was removed in 2022.
What is particularly concerning about the recent public rally in Punjab and “state funerals” for dead terrorists is that it shows the brazen convergence of political and terror figures on the same stage.
Worryingly, LeT is holding rallies across Pakistan under the banner of the Pakistan Markazi Muslim League, an Islamic political party, to garner public support, raise funds and plan future terror attacks against India. Known terrorists are seen openly in these public gatherings, many carrying holders and billboards of senior Pakistani army official Syed Asim Munir and LeT chief Hafiz Saeed. In some rallies, terror representatives and politicians openly threatened India and said Munir would take revenge for the Indian strikes on its infrastructure.
In the past, the Pakistan military often acted from the shadows, denying its connections to Islamist extremist groups for fear of economic consequences, while giving them operational support against India. But in recent years, especially after "Operation Sindoor," the Pakistan Army establishment has come out in open support for U.N.-proscribed terror outfits operating on its soil. Munir has even given hate speeches against Hindus, India and the Indian government.
Meanwhile, Hamas has joined hands with Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence to destabilize India in the West and to extend its footprint to Bangladesh in India’s northeast, reported ETV Bharat on May 6. The report added that several Hamas leaders attended meetings in Bangladesh to instigate anti-India propaganda and radicalize youths.
As the Western community is largely focused on the Russia-Ukraine war, the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and an unpredictable global economic scenario, Pakistan sees an opportunity to create instability in the region. Unfortunately, despite decades of state support for terrorism in Pakistan and countless human casualties, the West largely continues to show complacency and ignorance toward the blatant display of terror events there.
Note, though, that terrorism emanating from Pakistan will not be confined to the Indian subcontinent; it will likely spread internationally unless halted by a coordinated effort from Western countries and organizations.
