The International Jihad Factory

J Chidambaran& S Rao

Pakistan is not simply a threat to itself–it is a geopolitical time bomb ticking at the heart of South Asia.

Pakistan’s military views insurgency in Kashmir not as a crisis but as a currency–a justification for budget allocations, public reverence, and geopolitical manoeuvring. Thus, terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad are not outlaws–they are assets. They are the Army’s outsourced foot soldiers, providing a low-cost, high-impact method of waging asymmetric war against India while maintaining plausible deniability.

This policy of weaponised Islamism extends far beyond South Asia. Multiple 9/11 hijackers were radicalised and trained in Pakistan. The infamous Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the operational mastermind behind the September 11 attacks, found both refuge and logistical support in Pakistan, where he was eventually captured in 2003.

Islamic State, too, found support networks within Pakistan’s borders. While ISIS flourished in Syria and Iraq, its Khorasan branch–ISIS-K–established cells in Pakistan’s tribal belts, drawing from the same well of disillusioned terrorists trained and hardened under state-sponsored jihadist doctrine.

Nowhere is Pakistan’s proxy terror policy more clearly exposed than in its relentless attempts to destabilise India. In December 2001, five armed men stormed the Indian Parliament in New Delhi, killing nine people and bringing two nuclear powers to the brink of war.

The attack was orchestrated by Jaish-e-Muhammad, operating with ISI backing. The aim was clear: ignite Indo-Pak tensions, sabotage dialogue, and reaffirm the military’s grip on national security. It worked. The resulting standoff froze diplomacy and once again justified the Army’s claim to supreme authority over Pakistan’s foreign policy.

Seven years later, the massacre of Mumbai unfolded over sixty hours of coordinated bloodshed. Ten men from Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Taiba, trained in commando tactics and armed with sophisticated equipment, carried out a massacre that killed over one hundred and seventy people, including foreign nationals.

Military officers were not just trained in combat–they were indoctrinated in fundamentalist Islamist doctrine. Mandatory Tablighi Jamat sessions became part of military culture, turning barracks into madrassas and soldiers into zealots. It was not simply the army that was islamised–it was Pakistan’s entire strategic psyche. The consequences reverberate today: suicide bombers moulded in Pakistani madrassas have struck across the globe, from Kabul to London to Srinagar.

When peace returns in Kashmir, tourists flock, and local economies revive, but Pakistan’s military panics. Normalcy is an existential threat to the Pakistani Army’s justification for shadow wars in Jammu & Kashmir. Terrorists reappear, weapons smuggled across borders, sometimes with the same arms used by Pakistan’s elite commandos. Each attack is a reminder that Pakistan’s strategic doctrine isn’t merely flawed–it is suicidal.

Deniability remains Pakistan’s favourite shield. No matter how damning the evidence–whether it is a terrorist’s confession, a captured weapon, or a satellite image–Islamabad denies, distracts, and deceives. This isn’t ignorance; it’s calculated duplicity.

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Frontier
Vol 57, No. 50, June 8 - 14, 2025