Pakistan's involvement in state-sponsored terrorism, especially as a part of its foreign policy
Pakistan and state-sponsored terrorism refers to the involvement of Pakistan in terrorism through the backing of various designated terrorist organizations. Pakistan has been frequently accused by various countries, including its neighbours Afghanistan, Iran, and India, as well as by the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, of involvement in a variety of terrorist activities in both its local region of South Asia and beyond. 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, while India has accused Pakistan of perpetuating the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir by providing financial support and armaments to militant groups, 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. According to an analysis published by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in 2008, Pakistan was reportedly, with the possible exception of Iran, perhaps the world's most active sponsor of terrorist groups; aiding these groups that pose a direct threat to the United States. Pakistan's active participation has caused thousands of deaths in the region; all these years Pakistan has been supportive to several terrorist groups despite several stern warnings from the international community. Daniel Byman, a professor and senior analyst of terrorism and security at the Center For Middle East Policy, also wrote that Pakistan is probably 2008's most active sponsor of terrorism. 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. In July 2019, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, on an official visit to the United States, acknowledged the presence of some 30,000–40,000 armed terrorists operating on Pakistani soil. He further stated that previous administrations were hiding this truth, particularly from the United States, for the last 15 years during the War on Terror.
The United States' State Sponsors of Terrorism designation list describes Pakistan as a terrorist safe haven where individual terrorists and terrorist groups are able to organize, plan, raise funds, communicate, recruit, train, transit, and operate in relative security because of inadequate/supportive governance, political will, or both. Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda and mastermind behind the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs during Operation Neptune Spear at his compound near the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
Background.
Until Pakistan became a key ally in the War on Terrorism, the US Secretary of State included Pakistan on the 1993 list of countries which repeatedly provide support for acts of international terrorism. 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. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid and author Ted Galen Carpenter have accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of providing help to the Taliban and terrorists in Kashmir.
Allegations of state-sponsored terrorism.
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. 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. Even now it is not certain that key members of Pakistan’s intelligence service have repudiated their Taliban clients.
Afghanistan is not the only place where Pakistani leaders have flirted with terrorist clients. Pakistan has also assisted rebel &amp; jihadist forces in Kashmir, having committed terrorist acts against civilians. A disproportionate number of the extremist madrassa schools funded by the Saudis operate in Pakistan. Pakistan's former ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani has said Pakistan sponsors terrorism.
Author Daniel Byman states, "Pakistan is probably today's most active sponsor of terrorism." Writing in an article published by The Australian he stated, "Following the terror massacres in Mumbai, Pakistan may now be the single biggest state sponsor of terrorism, beyond even Iran, yet it has never been listed by the US State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism".
Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has conceded that his forces trained militant groups to fight India in Indian-administered Kashmir. He confessed that the government turned a blind eye because it wanted to force India to enter into negotiations, as well as raise the issue internationally. 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.
Pakistan has been included in the FATF greylist many times for its financial support to terrorist activities, and the last removal from it until 2022.
Inter-Services Intelligence and terrorism.
The ISI, has often been accused of playing a role in major terrorist attacks across India including terrorism in Kashmir, the July 2006 Mumbai Train Bombings, the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, the 2006 Varanasi bombings, the August 2007 Hyderabad bombings, and the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
The ISI is also accused of supporting Taliban forces and recruiting and training mujahideen to fight in Afghanistan and Kashmir. 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.
The Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, is believed to be aiding these organisations in eradicating perceived enemies or those opposed to their cause, including India, Russia, China, Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom and other members of NATO. Satellite imagery from the FBI suggest the existence of several terrorist camps in Pakistan, with at least one militant admitting to being trained in the country as part of the going Kashmir Dispute, Pakistan is alleged to be supporting separatist militias Many nonpartisan sources believe that officials within Pakistan's military and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) sympathise with and aid Islamic terrorists, saying that the ISI has provided covert but well-documented support to terrorist groups active in Kashmir, including the al-Qaeda affiliate Jaish-e-Mohammed.
President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai has regularly reiterated allegations that militants operating training camps in Pakistan have used it as a launch platform to attack targets in Afghanistan. He has also urged Western military allies to target extremist hideouts in neighbouring Pakistan. In response to the militants from Afghanistan hiding in the mountainous tribal region of Pakistan, the US and Pakistan agreed to allow US Drone Strikes in Pakistan.
Several detainees at the Guantanamo Bay facility told US interrogators that they were aided by the ISI for attacks in the disputed Kashmir Region.
Alleged Pakistani Army support of terrorists.
Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has admitted that Pakistan supported and trained terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in 1990s to carry out militancy in Kashmir. "From 1979 Pakistan was in favour of religious militancy. The Kashmiri "freedom fighters" including Hafiz Saeed and Zaki ar-Rahman Lakhvi were our heroes at that time. We trained Taliban and sent them to fight against Soviet Union. Taliban, Haqqani, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri were our heroes then (during the Soviet-Afghan war). Later they became 'villains'", says Pervez Musharraf.
According to Pervez Hoodhboy, "Bin Laden was 'The Golden Goose' that the army had kept under its watch but which, to its chagrin, has now been stolen from under its nose. Until then, the thinking had been to trade in the Goose at the right time for the right price, either in the form of dollars or political concessions".
Pakistan was also alleged to be responsible for the evacuation of about 5000 of the top leadership of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda who were encircled by Nato forces in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. This event known as the Kunduz airlift, which is also popularly called the "Airlift of Evil", involved several Pakistani Air Force transport planes flying multiple sorties over a number of days. However, the validity of these claims have been questioned by the Pentagon. Both United States and Pakistan have rejected that any such airlift took place. General Richard Myers, chief of staff, claimed that Kunduz airfield has been "disabled" by United States attacks. Although part of airfield could be used, the runway was not long enough for transport aircraft to take off or land. Donald Rumsfeld, US defense secretary, claimed that he received no such report that validate or verify these claims of aircraft moving in or out of the city. He further said that he doubted these claims. According to a 2001 article titled "Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism" issued by the US Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, 
"In South Asia, the United States has been increasingly concerned about reports of Pakistani support to terrorist groups and elements active in Kashmir, as well as Pakistani support, especially military support, to the Taliban, which continues to harbor terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan." In 2011, American troops reportedly recovered Pakistani military supplies from Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.
 LeT began carrying out operations in Indian-controlled Kashmir in the 1990s. It actively infiltrated militants across the Line of Control (LoC) from Pakistan to carry out sabotage activities with the help of the ISI and the Pakistan Army. 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.
Al Qaeda leaders killed or captured in Pakistan.
Critics had accused Pakistan's military and security establishment of protecting Osama bin Laden, until he was found and killed by US forces. This issue was expected to worsen US ties with Pakistan. Bin Laden was killed in his residence of more than five years, in Abbottabad, Pakistan. It was an expensive compound, less than 100 kilometres' drive from the capital, Islamabad, probably built specifically for Bin Laden. The compound is southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA), a prominent military academy that has been compared to Sandhurst in Britain and West Point in the United States. Pakistan's President Zardari has denied that his country's security forces may have sheltered Osama bin Laden.
Steve Coll states that as of 2019 there is no direct evidence showing Pakistani knowledge of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. 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. According to Coll: "C.I.A. and other Obama administration officials have said they possess no evidence—no intercepts, no unreleased documents from Abbottabad—that Kayani or Pasha or any other I.S.I. officer knew where bin Laden was hiding. Given the hostility toward Pakistan prevalent in the American national security bureaucracy by 2011, if the United States possessed such hard evidence, it almost certainly would have leaked." 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.
In addition to Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Abu Zubaydah, Abu Laith al Libi and Sheikh Said Masri have all been captured or killed inside Pakistan.
In June 2020, then Prime minister of Pakistan Imran Khan called Osama bin Laden as a "martyr" (shahid) in Parliament.
Links to terrorist groups.
Pakistan is alleged to be a safe haven for terrorist