Why Did Pakistani Proxy Militants Kill Tourists in Pahalgam, India?

Since 1978, Pakistan has increasingly shifted toward becoming a regional hub for terrorism, supported by its military and intelligence apparatus. Initially, this strategy appeared to serve two main objectives: first, to weaken and destabilize Afghanistan; and second, to secure financial and political support from the United States and the international community. Over time, this approach expanded, turning Pakistan into a commercial center for the training, maintenance, and outsourcing of militant groups. The recruitment and deployment of fighters became a lucrative industry for military and intelligence officials.

To sustain this militant infrastructure, large segments of the Pashtun population in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southern Pashtun-majority regions were forcibly displaced from their homes and systematically denied access to education. This marginalization served not only to suppress potential Pashtun resistance and demands for autonomy but also facilitated the radicalization and recruitment of Pashtun youth into militancy. This allowed Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies to exploit the region’s mineral and strategic resources while establishing operational depth for activities against Afghanistan. The plan has largely succeeded and continues to be implemented.

Since 1947, the Kashmir conflict has been used by Pakistani politicians and military leaders as a populist tool to consolidate domestic support and deflect attention from internal crises. However, with the outbreak of the Afghan conflict in 1978, Pakistan’s “strategic and operational focus”—once framed in Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s vision for the Pashtuns—shifted almost entirely toward Afghanistan. This continued until 2021, when, with the support of global powers—particularly the United States—the Taliban returned to power through the Doha Agreement, and the Afghan government collapsed. Many consider this collapse the outcome of Pakistan’s long-term proxy warfare.

As a result, Afghanistan was no longer Pakistan’s primary concern. With the collapse of Afghanistan’s progress, the educational system dismantled, and basic human rights eroded, Afghanistan’s national identity was undermined, its national flag and official symbols erased, and the prospects for a democratic state eliminated—fulfilling Pakistan’s regional agenda. Pakistan achieved a central pillar of its strategic depth policy. Thus, Pakistan redirected its focus toward India and the Kashmir issue.

India, well aware of Pakistan’s longstanding political tactics, responded swiftly and decisively by reorganizing Jammu and Kashmir into federally administered territories. The international community offered Pakistan little to no significant support, further weakening Islamabad’s traditional stance.

At the same time, the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) emerged as a grassroots resistance against Pakistan’s policy of using Pashtuns as proxies in its militant network. PTM directly challenged the military-intelligence establishment’s practice of training, harboring, and outsourcing militants in Pashtun regions. For the first time in modern history, Pakistani citizens publicly held protests, engaged in civil disobedience, and directly accused the military of supporting terrorism and persecuting civilians. National symbols such as the Pakistani flag and anthem were rejected in demonstrations, with instances of flag-burning and slogans such as “where there is terrorism, the army is behind it.” Even Pakistani soldiers were pelted with stones by angry youth.

Facing growing domestic opposition and international diplomatic pressure, Pakistan’s military and intelligence institutions-initiated efforts to revive their militant enterprise. This included expanding regional cooperation, rebranding the militant infrastructure, and redirecting public dissatisfaction toward India through religious intermediaries. The Pahalgam attack, which was held by Pakistani proxy militants —in which innocent Indian civilians and tourists were killed—is viewed by many analysts as a deliberate attempt to provoke a military retaliation from India. This, in turn, allowed Pakistan to reframe the conflict as part of a broader religious war narrative, referred to in radical circles as Ghazwa-e-Hind.

Such framing serves to revive the ailing militant economy and distract public anger from domestic failures by channeling it toward external conflict. It also enables the mobilization of support from conservative religious factions and disenfranchised communities. Among the most vulnerable are underprivileged and undereducated Pashtun youth, who are easily radicalized into militancy—providing fresh recruits to sustain Pakistan’s declining militant infrastructure.

In conclusion, this conflict is unlikely to escalate into a prolonged war. Rather, it is seen as a tactical maneuver: a means to suppress movements like PTM, weaken Baloch nationalist fighters, and generate new financial and political capital for the maintenance of Pakistan’s militant apparatus. At its core, this strategy is not about war itself, but about leveraging war narratives to regain lost influence, suppress dissent, and eliminate ideological and ethnic awakening through manipulative and low-cost means.

پاکستانی نيابتی جګړومارو ولې د هند په پهَلگام کې ګرځندویان ووژل