by Nilesh Kunwar

Kabul’s “Airstrike”

Kabul’s confirmation on ‘X’ that it had conducted a series of airstrikes against ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) hideouts in Pakistan's Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) provinces went largely unnoticed for two reasons. One, the Taliban didn't didn’t provide any further details of the attacks or casualty assessment details, and two, Islamabad not only maintained a stoic silence on the violation of its air space by Afghan “air force,” but didn’t even deny the existence of ISIS hideouts on its soil.

As Pakistan hasn’t yet officially retracted its unilateral declaration of “open war” against Afghanistan, Islamabad’s silence on this incident, though inexplicable, doesn’t come as a surprise. Presence of ISIS affiliate Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISPK) in Pakistan has been in the news for quite some time but this menacing development somehow doesn’t seem to have caught the attention of those who claim to be waging a global war on terror or express concern on the proliferation of this fundamentalist terrorist group.

While one had expected that denying ISKP presence on its soil would be the least Islamabad would do, probably the mandarins in Pakistan’s Foreign Office (FO) reckoned that any statement on this issue would draw global attention to ISKP sanctuaries in Balochistan and KP provinces and cause national embarrassment. And with almost no discussion or debate on the Afghan “air strike” targeting ISKP hideouts inside Pakistan, it’s apparent that the FO’s stratagem of maintaining silence has worked.

Pakistan Army’s ISKP Paradox

ISKP is a proscribed terrorist group in Pakistan and Islamabad has handed over some allegedly very high-profile ISKP terrorists to Washington. One such person is Mohammad Sharifullah whom US President Donald Trump described as “the top terrorist responsible” for the 2021 suicide bombing outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. Pakistan supporters cite this as proof that the Pakistan army has no truck with this terrorist group.

Furthermore, former CENTCOM chief Gen Michael Kurilla had told the US Senate Committee that Pakistan was America’s “phenomenal partner in the counter-terrorism world,” and recounted how “Field Marshal Asim Munir had called me to tell me that had captured one of the Daesh-K (ISKP) guys. Current US CENTCOM chief Admiral Charles Bradford Cooper has also told the US Senate Committee recently that “Pakistan is a key counterterrorism partner that plays a central role in the fight against ISIS-K (ISKP) in the region.”

It may therefore appear that Rawalpindi has no links with ISPK, but there’s credible evidence to the contrary that suggests otherwise. There’s no doubt that the Pakistan army has been apprehending and handing over ISKP terrorists to Washington, and Gen Kurilla even revealed that the Pakistan army had “gone after Daesh Khorasan (ISKP) killing dozens of them” after Washington had provided specific intelligence regarding their location inside Pakistan.

So, while Gen Kurilla and Admiral Cooper may have be smitten by Rawalpindi’s actions against ISKP, the moot point is that once US intelligence shared confirmed details regarding the location of ISKP terrorists, what other option but to act on this information was Rawalpindi left with? And the then US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Ratcliff’s disclosure is particularly revealing. Speaking to Fox News, Ratcliff revealed sharing information regarding Sharifullah’s location with DGISI Lt Gen Asim Malik, and telling him bluntly that if Pakistan wanted to work with President Trump and “have good relations with our country,” it needed to accord “a high priority” to the capture of this accused.

The rest is history.

Evidence of Nexus

The Pakistan army’s close links with ISKP is no secret. It has been mentioned by the Afghan Taliban, former US special representative to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, ex-TTP spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan and many others closely monitoring ISKP activities. In 2024, while speaking at the UN sponsored side event on “Human Rights Violation in Pakistan,” Baloch National Movement chairman Dr Naseem Baloch had also raised this issue. Sheikh Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost, a former ISKP founding member who subsequently defected to the Afghan Taliban disclosed that in 2015, Pakistan army sponsored terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had given Rupees 50 lacs to the then fledgling ISKP.

Even if one dismisses these claims of a Pakistan army-ISKP nexus on the grounds that these are unsubstantiated allegations made by people with vested interests, there’s no dearth of irrefutable evidence to confirm this well founded apprehension.

In May 2025, ISPK released a 36 minutes long video in Pashto language formally declaring war against armed Baloch groups, citing an alleged attack carried out earlier by Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) fighters on its camp in Mustang district of Balochistan. The Balochistan Post reported that in its video, “ISKP has warned civilians, especially the relatives of missing persons that they should not participate in the protests and rallies for Baloch rights because such gatherings have now become an important target for ISKP.”

As this warning parrots Rawalpindi’s language, it merits deliberation. Moreover, since this warning to family members of disappeared Baloch people has nothing to do with this terrorist group’s stated objective of establishing a caliphate and its condemnation of the Baloch armed struggle as un-Islamic as it is “secular, nationalist and pro-democracy “is irrefutable evident that ISKP is acting as Rawalpindi’s mouthpiece.

Most importantly, more than half of the ISKP video is devoted to denying that it's a proxy of the Pakistan army. Furthermore, ISKP's puerile attempt to convince the world that it was able to establish camps in Mustang due to lack/absence of government control and not under some covert arrangement facilitated by the Pakistan army has let the cat out of the bag and leaves no room for doubt that ISKP is indeed serving as Rawalpindi’s proxy in Balochistan.

Then there’s clinching evidence of a LeT-ISKP nexus. In October last year, a photo of ISKP’s Balochistan coordinator Mir Shafiq Mengal presenting a pistol to the LeT Nazim-e-Ala (supreme leader) Rana Mohammad Ashfaq appeared on social media. Since LeT seeks incorporation of J&K into Pakistan while ISKP harbours the global ambition of establishing a caliphate with Pakistan being a part of it, there’s no convergence of ideologies and so it’s obvious that this 'transactional' union has been orchestrated by Rawalpindi.

Rawalpindi’s Game Plan

Taliban is content having imposed sharia in Afghanistan while ISKP wants to establish a caliphate in the region and this creates a conflict of ideologies that makes both natural enemies which Rawalpindi seeks to exploit. The Pakistan army's logic is simple- if Kabul can use Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) against Pakistan, Rawalpindi can pay the Taliban back in the same coin through ISKP. Moreover, since the Pakistan army has long been using terrorist groups to wage proxy wars against its neighbours, getting ISKP into its fold is no big deal.

With a long history of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds, Rawalpindi is handling ISKP just as it had handled the Afghan Taliban before it seized power in 2021. Accordingly, ISKP leaders who toe the Pakistan army’s line and direct their operations against armed Baloch groups, as well Indian security forces in J&K and across the Durand Line would continue enjoying sponsorship of the ‘establishment’.

Conversely, those ISKP terrorists whom Washington perceives as a threat or those who refuse to cooperate with the Pakistan army would be either neutralised or handed over to the US to keep Uncle Sam happy and appreciative of Pakistan’s counter terrorism efforts. Though perverse, this stratagem is working well as Pakistan has now become a “great” country in the eyes of Trump and Asim Munir his “most favourite Field Marshal.”

The annoyance expressed by Trump in his 2018 tweet calling out Islamabad’s duplicity by stating that “they (Pakistan’s government and military) have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools” and specifying that “They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan,” is a closed chapter, thanks to Field Marshal Munir’s display of unconditional servility to POTUS.

And this is what’s called killing two birds with one stone!

Nilesh Kunwar is a retired Indian Army Officer who has served in Jammu & Kashmir, Assam, Nagaland and Manipur. He is a keen ‘Kashmir-Watcher,’ and after retirement is pursuing his favourite hobby of writing for newspapers, journals and think-tanks. Views expressed above are the author's own