India has long charged Pakistan with cultivating terrorism as an instrument of statecraft. These allegations were met with denials – until Pakistan’s Defence Minister, Khwaja Asif, delivered a blunt admission on Sky News: ‘We have been doing this dirty work for the United States for about three decades… and the West, including Britain.’
Institutionalised terror
This wasn’t a slip. It was a candid acknowledgement that Pakistan institutionalised terror – first against Soviet forces, then across South Asia and beyond. Asif’s claim that it was ‘a mistake’ doesn’t wash; this ‘dirty work’ evolved into a full-blown national enterprise, driven by Islamabad’s deep state.
Terror as policy
Far from an aberration, state-sponsored terror has been Pakistan’s go-to foreign policy tool. The defence minister’s warning of an ‘all-out war’ with India in the same breath underscores a chilling pattern: when exposed, sponsor terror, deny involvement, then threaten escalation.
Old confessions
This frankness is nothing new. In 2001, General Pervez Musharraf admitted Islamabad backed militants in Kashmir as state policy. In 2019, prime minister Imran Khan acknowledged 30,000–40,000 armed radicals still roamed Pakistani soil. Former ISI chief Asad Durrani even boasted of covert operations in his memoir, The Spy Chronicles. And yet Pakistan clings to the victim card.
Bin Laden next door
Consider Osama bin Laden’s decade-long hideout in Abbottabad – mere kilometres from an army base – and Islamabad feigned ignorance. Likewise, Dawood Ibrahim, India’s most wanted fugitive, lives openly in Karachi, shielded by the very regime that professes shock at his deeds.
Unrest for relevance
The recent terror attack in Jammu & Kashmir came on the heels of peaceful elections and visible development – outcomes that directly undercut Pakistan’s proxy war strategy. As Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri noted, these cross-border linkages reveal Islamabad’s anxiety: a stable Kashmir eradicates its justification for interference.
India’s resolve
India has recalibrated its response. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath have made it clear: mitti mein mila denge. The post-Uri surgical strikes and Balakot air raids weren’t mere retaliation; they were doctrine in action. In Uttar Pradesh, Yogi’s crackdown on criminal-terror networks demonstrates zero tolerance at home.
The world can no longer look away
Khwaja Asif’s confession isn’t breaking news – it’s confirmation. Pakistan is not just a failing state; it is a faithless one, faithless to international norms, its citizens, and its neighbours. It builds and exports terror, then feigns innocence when its proxies strike.
The question has shifted: not whether Pakistan sponsors terrorism, but how long the world will allow a confessed terror-exporter to hide behind diplomacy.
