[10][11] Pakistan's northwestern tribal regions along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border have been described as an effective safe haven for terrorists by Western media and the United States Secretary of Defense,[12][13][14] while India has accused Pakistan of perpetuating the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir by providing financial support and armaments to militant groups,[15][16] as well as by sending state-trained terrorists across the Line of Control and de facto India–Pakistan border to launch attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir and India proper, respectively.
[23] In 2018, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, suggested that the Pakistani government (see The Establishment) played a role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks that were carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist group.
[4] In fact, many consider that Pakistan has been playing both sides in the fight against terror, on the one hand, demonstrating to help curtail terrorist activities while on the other, stoking it.
[32][33] Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid and author Ted Galen Carpenter have accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of providing help to the Taliban[34] and terrorists in Kashmir.
[35] Author Gordon Thomas states that whilst aiding in the capture of Al Qaeda members, Pakistan still sponsored terrorist groups in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, funding, training and arming them in their war of attrition against India.
Journalist Stephen Schwartz notes that several terrorist and criminal groups are backed by senior officers in the Pakistani army, the country's ISI intelligence establishment and other armed bodies of the state.
[36] According to Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, without the active support of the government in Islamabad, it is doubtful whether the Taliban could ever have come to power in Afghanistan.
Pakistani authorities helped fund the militia and equip it with military hardware during the mid-1990s when the Taliban was merely one of several competing factions in Afghanistan’s civil war.
Only when the United States exerted enormous diplomatic pressure after the 11 September attacks did Islamabad begin to sever its political and financial ties with the Taliban.
[40] He also said Pakistani spies in the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) cultivated the Taliban after 2001 because Karzai's government was dominated by non-Pashtuns, who are the country's largest ethnic group, and by officials who were thought to favour India.
[55] Based on communication intercepts, US intelligence agencies concluded Pakistan's ISI was behind the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul on 7 July 2008, a charge that the governments of India and Afghanistan had laid previously.
[75] Pakistan Army and Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) have long considered Lashkar-e-Taiba to be the country's most reliable proxy against India and the group still provides utility in this regard as well as the potential for leverage at the negotiating table.
Documents captured from the Abbottabad compound generally show that bin Laden was wary of contact with Pakistani intelligence and police, especially in light of Pakistan's role in the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
"[86] In response to America's exposure of bin Laden's hiding place, Pakistan moved to shut down the informant network that led the Americans there.
[61] Pakistan has denied any involvement in the terrorist activities in Kashmir, arguing that it only provides political and moral support to the so-called "secessionist" & jihadist groups.
[103] Zaki ar-Rahman Lakhvi, the leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba and allegedly the planner of 26/11 Mumbai attacks was released in Pakistan which caused condemnations in India.
[108] The normally reticent United Nations Organization (UNO) has also publicly increased pressure on Pakistan on its inability to control its Afghanistan border and not restricting the activities of Taliban leaders who have been declared by the UN as terrorists.
After the Pulwama terrorist attack, All Indian Cine Workers' Association announced a total ban on Pakistani artists and actors from working in India.
The bill HR 6069[129] requires the US president to issue a report within 90 days detailing Pakistan's role in supporting international terrorism followed by discussion from the US Secretary of State.
He called the 2016 Uri attack the latest consequence of Pakistan’s longstanding irresponsible policy of supporting and providing operational space for jihadi terrorist groups.
[137] Citizenship and Immigration Minister of Canada Chris Alexander called Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism that threatens world security in 2014.
Its Sunday, 25 July 2010 article by Declan Walsh states: "But for all their eye-popping details, the intelligence files, which are mostly collated by junior officers relying on informants and Afghan officials, fail to provide a convincing smoking gun for ISI complicity.
A retired senior American officer said ground-level reports were considered to be a mixture of "rumours, bullshit and second-hand information" and were weeded out as they passed up the chain of command".
[139] Afghanistan–Pakistan relations have become more strained after the Afghan government began openly accusing Pakistan of using its ISI spy network in aiding the Taliban and other militants.
[153] According to The New York Times, Afghan tribal leaders said that the Pakistani military waved a surge of new fighters across the border from sanctuaries inside Pakistan.
Even the normally reticent United Nations (UN) has also publicly increased pressure on Pakistan on its inability to control its Afghanistan border and not restricting the activities of Taliban leaders who have been declared by the UN as terrorists.
[168] Former Pakistani army chief Mirza Aslam Beg in an interview embraced jihad against India and opportunity to use Kartarpur corridor to assist Khalistan movement.
[171] In two separate incidents officials of the Pakistani High Commission in Dhaka, were alleged to be financing the terrorist activities of the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) organization.
Diplomatic official Mazhar Khan was charged by Bangladesh's foreign ministry of running an illegal Indian currency business in Dhaka beside alleged links with militants.
[172] In December 2015, Pakistan decided to withdraw second secretary Farina Arshad after the Bangladeshi authorities asked the diplomat to leave for reportedly having extended financial support to a suspected militant who faces spying charges.