Pakistani Defence Minister Khwaja M Asif has admitted that Islamabad has been doing the “dirty work” for the US and the West when a foreign journalist asked him if Islamabad has a history of funding and backing terror groups.
He commented after a Sky News journalist asked him: “Do you admit, sir, that Pakistan has had a long history of backing and supporting and training and funding these terrorist organizations?”
He replied: “Well, we have been doing this dirty work for the United States for about 3 decades… and the west, including Britain.”
However, Asif said doing it was a ‘mistake’ and Pakistan has suffered for it.
Asif said his country’s track record would have been “unimpeachable” if Islamabad had not joined the West during the Soviet-Afghan war and the US-led war against the Taliban after 9/11.
The Pakistani Minister made the remarks at a time when a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22 left at least 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, dead, an episode marking one of the deadliest strikes in the region since India scrapped Article 370 in 2019.
The Pahalgam attack was carried out by a hardened group named The Resistance Front (TRF) affiliated with the proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror organisation, comprising mostly foreign terrorists, with support from local militants, overground workers from the Valley and under the control of 26/11 attacks mastermind and Lashkar chief Hafiz Saeed, NDTV reported.
India-Pakistan ties further deteriorate
The Modi government has taken tit-for-tat diplomatic steps against Pakistan, suspending the decades-old Indus Waters Treaty, closing the Attari-Wagah border with an immediate effect, cancelling Pakistani visas under SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme, asking the Pakistani advisors to leave India within a week and reducing the overall strength of High Commissions to 30 from the existing 55 effective from May 1, 2025.
Modi promises strong retaliation
Promising a strong retaliation against Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the terrorists and their backers will pay unimaginable costs for the attack on innocent tourists.
Addressing a rally in Bihar’s Madhubani, Modi said: “From the soil of Bihar I tell the whole world that India will identify them and punish every terrorist and their backers. We will pursue them to the end of the earth. India’s spirit will never be broken by terrorism. Terrorism will not go unpunished.”
Pakistani Deputy PM calls terrorists ‘freedom fighters’
Pakistan’s Deputy PM Ishaq Dar has described those terrorists who attacked and killed tourists in Pahalgam as ‘freedom fighters’.
“Those who carried out attacks in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam district on April 22 might be freedom fighters,” Dar, who is also the Pakistani Foreign Minister, was quoted as saying by News 18.
