Time to punish Pakistan as a global terror hub
On April 16, Pakistani Army Chief General Asim Munir delivered a provocative and communally charged address that raised serious concerns at the time.
Five days later, The Resistance Front (TRF)—a proxy of the UN Security Council-designated terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT)—claimed responsibility for the terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir that killed 26.
The attack specifically targeted civilians on religious grounds. In response, India has been exercising its 'Right to Respond' by taking decisive counterterrorism action aimed at foiling further cross-border terrorist infiltration and dismantling the infrastructure of internationally designated terrorist organizations, including LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).
Internationally designated terrorist organizations and their operatives are not only politically shielded but also financially supported by the Pakistani state. This political support originates primarily from the Pakistani Army—commonly referred to as the 'Establishment'—and radical religious elements within Pakistan's political spectrum.
The Establishment leverages these terror networks to wage proxy wars against India, compensating for its inability to engage in conventional military conflict due to economic and strategic limitations.
Moreover, by continuously attempting to destabilize the Indian state through acts of terror, the Establishment seeks to retain its dominant role in Pakistan's internal decision-making, deflecting attention from governance failures by fueling religiously driven nationalist sentiment among the populace.
On the other hand, extremist political actors support these groups to consolidate their vote banks as their communal rhetoric aligns with ideologies that resonate with certain voter segments.
The financial support for these activities is indirectly sustained through the loans, grants and aid that Pakistan receives from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other multilateral institutions.
This is evident from Pakistan's repeated placement on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list due to its consistent failure to demonstrate adequate enforcement against terror financing and to prosecute or convict UN-designated terrorists operating within its territory.
Through informal financial channels like the hawala system, terror networks operating from Pakistan facilitate the illicit trafficking of arms and ammunition across the so-called 'Golden Crescent', a region encompassing Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
These arms networks often extend into the Middle East, Africa and beyond, reaching extremist non-state actors and designated terrorist groups such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda and other jihadist outfits.
The threat is not limited to weapons alone. Violent extremist ideologies are also actively propagated from this region. A recent example includes the reported meeting between Hamas leaders and Pakistani terrorist organizations, which took place shortly before the Pahalgam attack—highlighting how radical networks collaborate across borders and fuel terrorism.
These interconnected and transnational networks ultimately undermine political stability, pose a grave threat to secularism and civil liberties, and often serve as the ideological foundation for lone-wolf terrorist attacks.
In a nutshell, the consequences of inaction are both direct and indirect—political, social and economic—and the global community cannot afford to turn a blind eye.
Multilateral institutions such as the IMF and World Bank must exercise heightened diligence when approving financial assistance to states like Pakistan, which has a well-documented history of enabling terrorism.
This includes implementing stringent pre-sanction checks to assess whether any portion of previously disbursed funds may have been diverted—directly or indirectly—for terror financing or activities that undermine regional and global security.
Robust international cooperation at bilateral, regional and multilateral levels is essential to counter this ongoing threat of state-supported terrorism.
Jaimin Parikh is a young peacebuilder and a UN SDSN Pathways Fellow. The views expressed are the author's alone.
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