Pushp Saraf
pushpsaraf@yahoo.com
One of the most persistent ironies in South Asian geopolitics is Pakistan’s contradictory approach to terrorism. Nowhere is this paradox more visible than in its current confrontation with Afghanistan. In recent days, Pakistan has launched artillery strikes, cross-border raids, and air attacks inside Afghan territory targeting the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella organisation of militant groups responsible for numerous attacks within Pakistan.
Islamabad accuses the Afghan Taliban Government of allowing the TTP to operate freely from Afghan soil and of turning a blind eye to its operations against Pakistan, particularly in the volatile border provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Pakistan argues that these actions constitute legitimate self-defence. No sovereign state, it contends, can allow armed groups to use neighbouring territory as a sanctuary from which to attack its citizens, soldiers, and institutions. From Islamabad’s perspective, the Afghan Taliban’s failure to restrain the TTP has left Pakistan with little choice but to strike across the Durand Line to neutralise the threat.
The reasoning Pakistan invokes in Afghanistan reveals a striking contradiction in its posture toward India. While Islamabad asserts the right to pursue militants beyond its borders when its own security is threatened, it refuses to recognise a similar right for India when confronted with cross-border terrorism originating from Pakistani soil.
For decades, India has accused Pakistan of harbouring, training, and supporting militant organisations that operate against it, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir. Groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) have been linked to some of the most devastating attacks on Indian civilians and security forces.
A well-documented pattern
The pattern is well documented. In December 2001, militants attacked Parliament in New Delhi, bringing India and Pakistan to the brink of war. The assault was traced to networks associated with JeM and LeT operating from Pakistan. In November 2008, ten heavily armed terrorists carried out coordinated attacks across Mumbai, targeting hotels, a railway station, and a Jewish centre. Investigations later revealed that the attackers were members of LeT trained and directed from Pakistan.
The cycle repeated itself again in 2019 when a suicide bomber linked to JeM attacked a convoy of Indian paramilitary forces in Jammu and Kashmir, killing forty personnel in what became known as the Pulwama attack. In response, India carried out air strikes against a militant training facility in Pakistan during the Balakot operation, marking the first time since 1971 that India had struck targets deep inside Pakistani territory.
More recently, in 2025, terror struck Pahalgam in Kashmir. Pakistan-backed militants stormed a tourist resort, reportedly asking victims their religion before killing them. Twenty-six people died in what appeared to be a deliberate attempt to inflame communal tensions. In response, India launched Operation Sindoor.
Later that same year, a car bomb explosion near the Red Fort in New Delhi – identified as a suicide attack – killed around fifteen people and injured more than thirty. The attackers were suspected to have links with groups such as JeM and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, an Al-Qaeda affiliate. Over the years, assassinations of some of the finest sons of the soil in J&K and massacres in the Jammu hills have stood as harrowing reminders of Pakistan’s blatant interference. Among the most striking pieces of evidence have been the detailed accounts provided by top militant leaders such as Yasin Malik and Abdul Ahad Waza, who spoke openly about how Kashmiri youth were recruited, trained and armed across the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan. During the insurgency in Kashmir in the 1990s, militant groups received varying degrees of support, training and sanctuary from across the LoC.
Whenever India has attempted to respond to such attacks, Pakistan has reacted with indignation, accusing New Delhi of aggression and violations of sovereignty, while consistently denying any role in sponsoring or facilitating militant actions. The reality, however, is that India’s stakes in Pakistan are far deeper than Pakistan’s claims against India. Pakistan continues to control a portion of the erstwhile princely state of J&K, and therefore any Indian response aimed at neutralising threats emanating from across the LoC cannot be viewed merely through the narrow prism of retaliation against armed groups alone.
Pakistan’s own internal experience with militancy reveals a troubling pattern. For years, it has drawn a distinction between militants who serve its strategic interests and those who challenge its authority. Several strategic experts have long pointed to this selective approach-often described as the distinction between “good” and “bad” militants. This policy allowed the TTP, formed in 2007, to consolidate itself. Over time, the TTP began pursuing its own agenda and turned against the Pakistani state, demanding the imposition of Sharia law. It launched a brutal campaign of suicide bombings and repeated attacks on civilians and security establishments. One of the most horrifying incidents attributed to it occurred in 2014 during the Peshawar school massacre, when militants stormed an army-run school in Peshawar and killed more than 140 people, most of them children.
Blood ties outweigh shadow alliance
The TTP, like Pakistan itself, maintained close connections with the Afghan Taliban. Both had supported the Afghan Taliban during its long struggle against the United States-backed Afghan Government. While Pakistan was officially aligned with the United States during the war in Afghanistan, it has long been widely believed that elements within the Pakistani establishment provided varying degrees of support, sanctuary or logistical assistance to the Afghan Taliban. This complex web of alliances, denials and shifting loyalties has had profound consequences for regional security and continues to shape the strategic landscape of South Asia today.
After the Afghan Taliban returned to power in 2021, its tribal and familial ties with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) appear to have prevailed over its desire to maintain cordial relations with Pakistan. Kabul has shown little willingness to restrain the TTP, in contrast to its far more forceful campaign against the Islamic State.
This exposes a fundamental contradiction in Pakistan’s security policy. Terrorism cannot be compartmentalised or selectively condemned depending on who the targets are. The infrastructure of militancy, once created and tolerated as a strategic instrument, eventually rebounds against the very state that nurtured it. Pakistan’s ongoing struggle with the TTP illustrates this dynamic with stark clarity.
Unless Islamabad confronts this contradiction and decisively dismantles all militant networks operating from its soil, the region is likely to remain trapped in cycles of instability. Pakistan’s escalating confrontation with Afghanistan is itself a manifestation of this dilemma. Cross-border strikes have reportedly extended even to the Afghan power centres of Kabul and Kandahar, where senior Taliban leaders are based, while the border regions of the two countries have descended into chaos.
The humanitarian consequences are mounting. The United Nations has reported dozens of civilian deaths in Afghanistan and warned that the fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people, with estimates suggesting that around 100,000 Afghans may already have been uprooted. In a country already grappling with acute hunger and economic distress, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has lamented that the conflict is piling “misery on misery”. Though overshadowed in global headlines by the war involving Iran, the turbulence in Afghanistan’s neighbourhood remains a significant strategic concern – and a reminder that India must remain alert to the evolving regional security landscape.
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