For years, a tired and intellectually dishonest narrative has resurfaced whenever Pakistan delivers a decisive blow against terrorist networks: that Islamabad somehow “times” arrests of high-value militants to extract diplomatic concessions from Washington. This claim, recently recycled by biased commentators including a former Afghan intelligence chief, is not only factually hollow but morally grotesque. It trivializes a war in which Pakistan has paid an extraordinary price in blood, stability, and economic survival.
Pakistan’s counterterrorism campaign is not a public relations exercise. It is a prolonged, grinding war fought across rugged terrain, porous borders, and deeply entrenched militant ecosystems. Since 2001, more than 80,000 Pakistanis soldiers, police officers, intelligence personnel, and civilians have lost their lives to terrorism. The country has absorbed economic losses running into tens of billions of dollars while dismantling terrorist sanctuaries, choking financial networks, and neutralizing operational leadership across multiple groups.
These are not statistics produced for diplomatic theatre. They are scars of a nation on the frontline of global terrorism.
The recent arrest of Sultan Aziz Azzam, the chief propagandist of Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), illustrates this reality. His capture was not a “last-minute” move orchestrated for foreign consumption, but the culmination of sustained intelligence-led operations along Pakistan’s western border. ISKP’s propaganda arm plays a central role in recruitment, radicalization, and transnational outreach; dismantling it requires months—often years—of surveillance, human intelligence cultivation, and operational patience. Such outcomes cannot be manufactured on a calendar.
The same applies to the apprehension of Muhammad Sharifullah, one of the key planners behind the 2021 Kabul airport bombing that killed 13 US servicemen and scores of Afghan civilians. Arrested in February 2025 and subsequently handed over to the United States, Sharifullah’s capture was the result of relentless counterterrorism cooperation and precise intelligence work. Even US President Donald Trump publicly acknowledged Pakistan’s role in bringing the perpetrator to justice an acknowledgment that directly contradicts claims of theatrical maneuvering.
The suggestion that Pakistan arrests terrorists merely to “earn brownie points” in Washington collapses under the weight of operational reality. Counterterrorism does not work on diplomatic timelines. Intelligence breakthroughs emerge unpredictably; actionable leads mature when they mature. To imply otherwise is to betray either ignorance of how counterterrorism functions or a deliberate attempt to mislead.
Equally misleading is the insinuation that Pakistan’s military leadership engages the United States for symbolic optics. Army Chief General Asim Munir’s engagements with US officials have centered on concrete security challenges, particularly the evolving threat posed by ISKP and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). These discussions reflect shared concerns, not staged alignments. In August 2025, the US State Department itself publicly acknowledged Pakistan’s “continued successes” against terrorist groups during bilateral counterterrorism dialogue hardly the language used for a state accused of duplicity.
At home, Pakistan’s counterterrorism approach has moved beyond kinetic operations alone. Operation Azm-e-Istehkam represents a comprehensive framework that integrates intelligence coordination, border management, financial tracking, and counter-radicalization efforts. Alongside it, the National Narrative seeks to challenge extremist ideology, disrupt recruitment pipelines, and prevent the social reproduction of militancy. These initiatives are neither cosmetic nor externally driven; they are responses to lessons learned through painful experience.
Those who propagate the “pattern” narrative conveniently ignore a simple truth: Pakistan’s actions against ISKP, TTP, and allied networks have directly undermined the operational space of groups that threaten not just Pakistan, but regional and global security. That is precisely why such propaganda emerges. Terrorist sympathizers and their enablers resent seeing entrenched networks dismantled, leadership captured, and narratives disrupted.
In the end, Pakistan’s war on terror does not require validation from hostile commentators or self-styled moral arbiters. It is validated by the graves of its fallen, the disrupted plots that never made headlines, and the international acknowledgment however grudging that Pakistan remains one of the world’s most consequential counterterrorism actors.
This is not a war fought for applause. It is a war fought because the alternative is national disintegration and global instability. No shortcuts. No diplomatic tricks. Just sacrifice, persistence, and results.
