(Arif Yousafzai)
When the Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) stepped up for his latest press briefing, it was evident from the outset that this was not going to be a routine year-end security update. Beyond the statistics, maps, and operational summaries, the briefing carried a sharper political tone, a harder regional posture, and a new vocabulary that deserves serious reflection. Two phrases in particular stood out: criminal–terror nexus and political–terror nexus. These were not casual expressions; they were deliberate signals of how Pakistan’s security establishment now interprets the internal and external threats facing the state.
At one level, the press conference was an institutional exercise. The DG ISPR presented a comprehensive overview of counterterrorism operations carried out during 2025, detailing tens of thousands of intelligence-based operations across the country, with a significant concentration in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The figures were meant to demonstrate resolve, reach, and operational continuity. Pakistan, the message suggested, remains at war with militancy, and that war is being fought relentlessly. Yet numbers alone do not tell the full story. What mattered more was the narrative framing of those numbers and the political conclusions drawn from them.
For the first time in years, India did not occupy the central place in Pakistan’s security discourse. Instead, Afghanistan specifically the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan emerged as the principal challenge to Pakistan’s stability, peace, and internal security. This shift is not accidental. It reflects accumulated frustration, failed expectations, and the collapse of a policy that once believed ideological proximity and diplomatic engagement could neutralize cross-border militancy.
The DG ISPR’s tone toward Kabul was unambiguously tough. Afghanistan was portrayed as a territory under armed domination, governed by force rather than consent, and increasingly serving as a sanctuary for militant groups hostile to Pakistan. This framing is significant because it marks a departure from earlier caution. In the past, Pakistan’s military narrative focused on Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as the primary antagonist, often separating the group from the Afghan Taliban. That distinction now appears blurred, if not entirely abandoned.
The roots of this hardening lie in Pakistan’s own policy choices. What began as a local insurgency problem was deliberately internationalized. Islamabad took the TTP issue to global and regional capitals Doha, Ankara, Tehran, Riyadh, Beijing, Washington — in the hope that friendly states could mediate or pressure the Afghan Taliban into restraining the group. Instead, the process conferred unintended legitimacy on both the TTP and the Islamic Emirate. Negotiations failed, expectations collapsed, and the result was a more assertive and emboldened militant ecosystem.
History offers little comfort here. Every phase of engagement with militant actors whether under the banner of reconciliation, dialogue, or strategic patience has ended the same way: with violence intensifying rather than receding. The DG ISPR’s frustration is therefore understandable. What is more concerning, however, is how that frustration is now being translated into domestic political narratives.
The introduction of the political–terror nexus concept is particularly sensitive. The idea that political actors, directly or indirectly, enable extremist groups is not entirely new in Pakistan’s history. Criminal gangs have long operated under political patronage, enjoying protection, legal relief, and impunity. What is new is the explicit association of a major political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) with militancy at an institutional level.
This is where the narrative becomes internally contradictory. If PTI is indeed part of a terror nexus, then fundamental questions arise. Who facilitated its rise? Who invested political capital in it since 2010? Who enabled it to form governments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and at the federal level? Who supported its leadership, its electoral victories, and its prime ministership? These questions cannot be brushed aside by simply shifting blame downward.
The reality is more complex. PTI’s public rhetoric has consistently opposed large-scale military operations and drone strikes, advocating dialogue instead. Yet during its tenure under Pervez Khattak, Mahmood Khan, Ali Amin Gandapur, and even at the federal level under Imran Khan military operations never stopped. Intelligence-based operations continued daily. Drone strikes occurred. Displacement happened. Today, under the current provincial setup, entire populations in areas like Tirah are once again becoming internally displaced persons (IDPs), facing registration hurdles, inadequate facilities, and administrative confusion.
This gap between rhetoric and reality underscores a deeper problem: the absence of a coherent, credible counterterrorism policy across civilian and military domains. Justice, accountability, and negotiation are invoked selectively, often as political slogans rather than operational frameworks. Committees are formed, briefings are given, but concrete alternatives to force are rarely articulated. If negotiations are the preferred route, then who negotiates, with whom, under what mandate, and with what red lines? These questions remain unanswered.
The DG ISPR’s remarks on Article 245 further highlight this imbalance. By asserting that the presence and operations of the army in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are not contingent on provincial decisions, the military has effectively closed the door on civilian oversight in security matters. Whether one agrees with this position or not, it reinforces the perception that counterterrorism in Pakistan is governed more by institutional imperatives than democratic consensus.
Beyond Pakistan and Afghanistan, the DG ISPR briefing and the subsequent discussion around it cannot be separated from the deteriorating situation in Iran. Economic hardship, public unrest, and external pressure have combined to push Iran into a prolonged crisis. What is unfolding there is not merely an internal matter. It is part of a broader regional contest involving regime change narratives, proxy conflicts, and geopolitical brinkmanship.
The war-like exchanges between Iran and Israel, the role of the United States, and the shifting tactics from direct confrontation to internal destabilization all signal a dangerous phase. Regime change, once attempted through overt force, now appears to be pursued through sustained pressure and internal fragmentation. History shows that such strategies rarely remain contained within borders. For Pakistan, which shares a long and sensitive border with Iran, the implications are serious: refugee flows, sectarian spillover, economic disruption, and security vacuums.
Taken together, the DG ISPR’s briefing reflects a state under pressure externally, internally, and regionally. The identification of criminal and political terror nexuses is an acknowledgment that militancy in Pakistan is no longer just an armed phenomenon; it is embedded in social, economic, and political structures. Yet naming the problem is only the first step. Without introspection, policy coherence, and genuine civilian–military alignment, the danger is that these concepts will become tools of blame rather than instruments of reform.
Pakistan today stands at a crossroads between the gun and the ballot, between force and legitimacy, between regional isolation and regional responsibility. Afghanistan cannot be wished away, Iran cannot be ignored, and internal contradictions cannot be managed indefinitely through rhetoric. The DG ISPR’s briefing has opened an important debate. Whether the state has the political courage to see it through remains the real question.
