Global terror engineering: How Pakistan tuned its war machine to create a network of terrorism

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29-04-2025

Behind Pakistan's denials is a stark reality, a military and intelligence network that has turned soldiers into jihadist trainers fuelling decades of terror across South Asia read more
(File) Pakistani commandos from the Special Services Group march during a military parade to mark Pakistan National Day, in Islamabad, Pakistan on, March 23, 2019. AP
Investigations into the recent Pahalgam massacre in Jammu and Kashmir that claimed 26 innocent lives have confirmed that Hashim Musa, the identified perpetrator, is a former para commando of the Pakistan Army's elite Special Services Group (SSG). Now a hardened terrorist affiliated with the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Musa was reportedly dispatched to Jammu and Kashmir by LeT masterminds to execute terror attacks targeting both non-locals and security personnel, according to The Times of India.
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Pakistan continues to project a contradictory identity on the global stage—presenting itself as an ally in the so-called 'war on terror,' while simultaneously fostering and sheltering terrorist groups. Central to this duality are the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and certain elements within the SSG, both of which have faced credible accusations of aiding and abetting terrorism.
Pakistan's 'terror factory': An overview
The term 'terror factory' has become an apt descriptor for Pakistan's long history of supporting, enabling and exporting terrorism. The US State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism 2019 identified Pakistan as a country that " continued to serve as a safe haven for certain regionally focused terrorist groups.
It allowed groups targeting Afghanistan, including the Afghan Taliban and affiliated HQN (Haqqani Network), as well as groups targeting India, including LeT(Lashkar-e-Taiba) and its affiliated front organizations, and JeM(Jaish-e-Mohammed), to operate from its territory."
SSG: Pakistan's elite warriors
The SSG is Pakistan's most elite military unit, specialising in direct action, special reconnaissance, counter-terrorism and unconventional warfare. Comparable to the US Navy SEALs or the British SAS, the SSG's prowess in covert and hybrid warfare has long been redirected toward training non-state actors operating in jihadist networks.
The use of regular military forces, such as the SSG, for irregular warfare through proxies provides Pakistan's deep state with 'plausible deniability.' While officially disavowing any links to militant activities, Pakistan covertly controls and guides such groups in the service of its geopolitical objectives.
SSG-ISI nexus: Military units or terror enablers?
True to this troubling pattern, several individuals with connections to the SSG have been key facilitators of Pakistan's terror strategy.
One among them was Colonel Sultan Amir Tarar, known as 'Colonel Imam,' who was a former SSG officer and senior ISI operative. According to Steve Coll's Pulitzer Prize-winning book Ghost Wars, Colonel Imam was instrumental in training the Afghan Taliban during the Soviet-Afghan War and later remained an influential figure in nurturing the Taliban leadership. In Cathey Schofield's book Inside Pakistan Army, Colonel Imam admitted meeting Osama Bin Laden in 1986.
Lt Gen Hamid Gul, although not known to be linked with the SSG, headed the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency from 1987 to 1989. He was a notorious figure who publicly expressed admiration for Osama bin Laden and often criticised US actions in Afghanistan. His tenure marked an era of open support for anti-Indian and jihadist organisations.
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Gul played a key role in raising the first militant groups to fight Pakistan's proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir, a move that drastically and diabolically altered the Indian subcontinent. He was instrumental in starting the militancy in Jammu and Kashmir in 1989 by diverting mujahideen who had participated in the Soviet-Afghan war to the Kashmir Valley. He was also accused of providing funds and weapons to these militants.
He is considered the brain behind Pakistan's proxy war with India, first in Punjab and later in Kashmir. Gul is often referred to as the 'godfather' of the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which India holds responsible for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and numerous other terror strikes in the country. His reach among terror organisations was so extensive that, according to his online autobiography, 'the unruly mujahedeen commanders obeyed and respected him like no one else'.
Gul openly shared stages with jihadists like Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed, frequently spewing venom against India and the United States. He was also a key leader of the Defa-e-Pakistan Council, a coalition of 40 terrorist and extremist groups, including Jamaat-ud-Dawah, which are considered close to Pakistan's security establishment.
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At one point, the United States proposed Gul's name, along with three other former ISI officers, for inclusion in the list of international terrorists submitted to the United Nations Secretary-General. However, China vetoed the move, shielding him from international sanctions.
Brigadier Ijaz Shah, a former ISI officer, has long faced allegations of facilitating the protection of terrorists. As reported by The Guardian, Shah was accused of helping provide safe havens for extremists and played a significant political role under successive Pakistani administrations.
Brigadier Shah, who served as an ISI officer from 1999 to 2002, was reportedly directly responsible for overseeing jihadist groups operating in Pakistan's Punjab, according to a News18 article.
Later, he was appointed as Pakistan's Interior Minister by then prime minister Imran Khan, a role in which he continued to attract controversy. Notably, Shah played a role in the acquittal of Omer Sheikh, the terrorist whose death sentence was commuted in the Daniel Pearl beheading case.
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In September 2019, Brigadier Shah made a startling admission during a national television interview on Pakistani private news channel Hum News. Speaking to journalist Nadeem Malik during a talk show, Shah confessed that Pakistan had spent millions of rupees on the terror outfit Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) in an effort to mainstream the group.
During his tenure as interior minister, Shah also admitted that Pakistan failed to garner international support for its narrative on Kashmir. Furthermore, during his earlier tenure as Director-General of the Intelligence Bureau of Pakistan (2004–2008), Brigadier Shah was alleged to have played a role in providing protection to Osama bin Laden, who was kept in an ISI safe house in Abbottabad.
The complicity of Pakistan's security establishment in supporting extremist activities has been highlighted by several accounts. Security expert B Raman, who served as additional secretary in India's Cabinet Secretariat, wrote in an article for The Economic Times in January 2013, saying that when General Pervez Musharraf was Pakistan's chief of army staff under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999, Huji (Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami), which operated from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), became known for using beheading as a tactic. Huji in PoK was then headed by Ilyas Kashmiri, a former officer of Pakistan Army's SSG, the same elite commando unit where Musharraf himself had served as a commanding officer.
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According to reports in the PoK media at the time, Ilyas Kashmiri and some of his Huji militants targeted an Indian Army post in Jammu and Kashmir, beheaded an Indian soldier and presented the severed head to Musharraf.
Musharraf praised and rewarded Kashmiri and his men, indicating an approval of such brutal tactics by the Pakistan Army leadership. Later, Musharraf publicly admitted to supporting militants.
In an interview, Musharraf acknowledged that Kashmiris were 'trained in Pakistan' as mujahideen to fight against the Indian Army in Jammu and Kashmir. He went further, describing jihadi terrorists as Pakistan's 'heroes' and even naming global terrorists Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Jalaluddin Haqqani among those considered 'heroes' by Pakistan.
SSG's operational role in terrorism
The operational role of the SSG in terror-linked activities is corroborated by major geopolitical events and intelligence findings.
During the Kargil War of 1999, Pakistani forces disguised regular soldiers, including SSG operatives, as 'mujahideen' infiltrators in Jammu and Kashmir. General VP Malik's detailed work Kargil: From Surprise to Victory confirmed that SSG commandos were deeply embedded among infiltrators. The Indian government's Kargil Review Committee Report also highlighted the involvement of SSG-trained operatives.
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The 26/11 Mumbai attacks in 2008 exposed deeper military-style training provided to LeT operatives. FBI investigations, based on David Headley's testimony, revealed that Pakistani handlers — many allegedly ex-SSG or ISI — provided specialised commando training for marine operations, surveillance and hostage situations.
In his testimony before the Statement Before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Donald Van Duyn, Chief Intelligence Officer, Federal Bureau of Investigation mentioned that 'the surviving Mumbai attacker (Ajmal Kasab, now dead) has claimed that the Pakistan-based terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Tayyiba provided him training and direction for the attack'.
He also added that 'in the last few years, US courts convicted several followers of the 'Virginia Jihad' Network of providing material support to terrorism relating to their training at an LT-sponsored training camp in Pakistan'.
'Another lesson learned from the Mumbai attacks is that terrorist groups that appear to be primarily a threat to their surrounding localities can sometimes have broader aspirations. Although LT has historically focused its attacks against Indian forces in the Kashmir region, the Mumbai attacks reinforce the reality that LT has the capability to operate outside its home base,' Duyn said.
'The group did so in 2001 with an attack on the Indian Parliament building in New Delhi and is suspected of having been involved in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings. These actions highlight the need to examine other groups that appear to be active only locally and determine whether they have the operational capability and strategic intention to undertake a more regional or global agenda,' Duyn testified.
According to a Reuters report, the 2008 Mumbai attackers belonged to the LeT and were trained in Pakistan. The advanced level of training displayed bore the unmistakable imprint of SSG-style tactics.
The Pathankot Airbase attack in 2016 demonstrated similar patterns. According to the National Investigation Agency, evidence suggested that JeM attackers underwent advanced tactical training consistent with Pakistani SSG protocols.
In February 2016, a piece in The Indian Express also referred to the 1965 India-Pakistan war, where Pakistan went ahead with a bold and unconventional plan to neutralise the Indian airbases of Adampur, Pathankot and Halwara by inducting around 180 SSG commandos although the planned badly.
In the 2016 attack, the JeM attackers of the base showed training that can only match the gruelling training of the SSG before they were neutralised after much effort by the Indian security forces.
Academic and policy analyses
Major think tanks have systematically documented Pakistan's terror strategy. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published a report detailing how Pakistan cultivates proxies as a 'hedge' against India.
In its Annual Report 2015, the thinktank said that 'India plays an increasingly important role on the world stage. New Delhi's strained relationship with nuclear-armed Pakistan, and a history of Indo-Pakistani conflicts, suggest that India's potential response to terrorist attacks originating in Pakistan could set off a crisis that could lead to nuclear war.'
In his piece, Strengthening Counter Terrorism Cooperation Against Growing Turmoil, published on January 20, 2015, for Brookings, Bruce Riedel stated that Pakistan continued to sponsor the most dangerous terror group in South Asia, LeT, which had attempted to disrupt Prime Minister Narendra Modi's inauguration in May 2014 by attacking the Indian consulate in Herat, Afghanistan, just hours before the swearing-in ceremony.
He noted that the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, was still providing support to LeT and that its leader, Hafez Saeed, was living freely in Lahore, Pakistan, under the protection of the ISI.
In a report titled Pakistan Army and Terrorism: An Unholy Alliance, the European Foundation for South Asian Studies highlights a deeply entrenched relationship among Pakistan's military establishment, its intelligence agency—the ISI—and radical religious leaders. This longstanding collaboration has significantly fuelled the spread of extremist ideologies, contributing to the nation's persistent inclination toward Islamist radicalism.
The report characterises the militant outfits that emerged from these religious factions as uncontrollable entities—likened to Frankenstein's Monsters. It also notes that any hope for lasting peace within Pakistan or a reduction in the state-sponsored militancy affecting neighbouring regions remains bleak. T
his pessimism stems from the prevailing belief within segments of the Pakistani Army and ISI that militant groups still serve a strategic purpose, particularly with regard to the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir.
A deadly tie-up
The allegations against Pakistan's military arms like the SSG and the ISI for fostering terrorism are deeply rooted in a large and credible body of evidence. These claims are not merely political rhetoric but are documented through government reports, independent investigations, captured terrorist confessions, academic studies and direct public admissions by Pakistani leaders.
Pakistan's hybrid warfare model — combining regular forces like the SSG with terrorist proxies — reflects a strategic doctrine that seeks to maintain plausible deniability while achieving tactical advantages in Jammu and Kashmir. However, this approach has simultaneously fuelled internal radicalisation, diplomatic isolation and increasing international pressure.
The narrative of Pakistan as both a victim and sponsor of terrorism is one of the defining contradictions of modern geopolitics. The world continues to grapple with the challenges posed by Pakistan's deep state apparatus.