On 7 May, India launched an accurate missile strike campaign ‘Operation Sindor’, targeting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan-prashed Kashmir and Punjab provinces. Operation focused on the nine prominent places included in Lashkar-e-Tabiba’s (Late) Headquarters, Marx Taiba, Muridke, about 50 km from Lahore and Jish-e-Mohammed (Jame) Subhan Allah Masjid included in Bahawalpur. Both sites are known for training, radicalization, recruitment and weapon storing by anti-India organizations. Emerging reports suggest that the Operation Use BrahMos Air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMS).
“In the last three decades, Pakistan has systematically built a terrorist infrastructure – a complex web of recruitment and frightening centers, training fields for both initial and refresher courses, and pads for handlers,” Wing Commander Vyomika Singh said from 1:05 am to 10 pm after the strike. Around Kashmir, the targeting of Punjab province marked the first example since 1971 that military action was taken in the largest province of Pakistan.
Punjab as a recruitment
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), who work in the peripheral provinces of Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, often dominate the headlines in Pakistan due to their current operational tempo. However, he has also served as a distraction from long -standing architecture of support that benefits anti -India groups such as late, gem and hezbul Mujahideen.
Historically, Punjab has been a heartburn for the recruitment and bigotry of anti -India terrorists working in Kashmir. Jame head Masood Azhar, a nominated terrorist, also publicly addressed the followers in the Bahwalpur Mosque in December 2024, who invokes historical complaints, strengthening the ideological and operational importance of these sites in maintaining anti-India terrorism. In statements reported by Azhar after the Indian strike, 10 members of his family and four close partners were killed in the attack; However, there is no official confirmation about the death of Abdul Rauf Azhar, brother of Masood Azhar and the military head of Jame. The Director General of India’s Military Operations (DGMO) said that Markz Taiba in Muridke served as a training ground for Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist who survived during the 2008 Mumbai attacks. In 2000, a report of financial donations from al-Qaeda head Osama bin Laden for the establishment of the campus was also revealed. Collectively, these revelations are likely to resonate deeply with the Indian public, strengthen the support for retaliatory attacks and shape the national story on anti -terrorism. Separately, Kasab was known from Faridkot village in Punjab, Pakistan, indicating the history of recruitment from the state.
Institutional memory of Pakistan’s proxy war
Pakistan’s terrorist ecosystems did not emerge in isolation. It was reared through Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) during the 1980s Afghan Jihad, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the French support of Saudi Arabia. After 1989, Pakistan rednamed these assets towards its border with India. The rebellion in Kashmir offered a new theater during the 1990s. Over the years, late and gem sophisticated military-social hybrid organizations, independently operational training camps, arms depots and relief organizations developed, with ideological affiliation with ideas, Deobandi and AHL-A-Hedith schools.
In the early 2000s, the terrorist infrastructure was mature in the state -led mechanisms of the Pakistani intelligence, especially targeting India and Afghanistan. Many countries indicate the years of dosier and dephilized intelligence that these groups received safe havens, military-level training and logistic assistance. Despite the designations by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Crackdowns on their real estate holdings, banking channels and recruitment operations were rarely constantly or effective.
The same strategy, different strategy
In 2022, the removal of Pakistan from the FATF gray list was explained as a sign of compliance by some sections. However, this progress failed to monitor the underlying strategic choreography, where major terrorist data was imprisoned briefly, the linked charity wings of the outfits were renamed, and the financial trails were interrupted, not dissected. Eventually, the state enough to protect international relief without structurally breaking architecture to support the back of the militant screen.
Changes have become more fine in recent years. After the spread of TTP attacks in Pakistan after the acquisition of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2021, the operation of military has increased rapidly. While Pakistan has been a victim of terrorism for a long time, it has greatly reduced to break relations with India-centric proxy. For example, India is currently looking into the reshuffle of the recurrence of Pakistan’s military-jahadi campus.
Kashmir: A silent but active theater
Despite an unprecedented attack on tourists in Pahgam on 22 April 2025, the extremism in the Kashmir Valley has been relatively inactive in recent years. However, this is not equal to peace. Incense, unlike large-scale operation, has attempted to convert to a local movement with loans-wolf operations, targeted murders and online publicity. This leaves a place for Pakistan to overcome the military growth while maintaining admirable rejection.
Records of inquiry records, arms and recovery of Pakistan-made materials, and digital forensic trails in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) have consistently linked these new modules with handlers in Pakistan. Seriously, institutions such as Resistance Front (TRF) and Peoples Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF) are considered as new fronts for old actors, which reproduce to influence confusion and raise the story of indigenous dissatisfaction.
The use of such curtains lies in the argument of asymmetric war, where weak states compensate for traditional loss by employing non-state actors, admirable deformity, and enhancement-control strategy. When a resourcefully faced by better opponent, these states often resort to the back of the screen to carry forward revisionist goals, which increases the cost of the preventive.
Why proxy is used
India and Pakistan have never been military equal – a difference that has widen only during GDP, defense spending, diplomal clouts and global participation. For Pakistan’s security establishment, this imbalance requires alternative strategies for project equality. Proxy is often used to employ strategic benefits, distribution and struggles under the radar of international investigation. This incident is not exclusive to India and Pakistan. A similar global pattern is clear in the Iran-Israel struggle. The Middle East faced the military superiority of Israel and its American colleagues, Iran has cultivated non-state curtains such as Hizbullah in Lebanon and Shia militia in Iraq and Syria, which is to project and maintain regional effects.
The approach aligns with the principle of “Bleeding India” by the former Pakistan Army chief Zia-ul-Haq, which is a strategy allegedly cheated by the country’s current army chief, Asim Munir. Pakistan’s nuclear theory has further preserved it by limiting the scope of traditional action by India. This was clear after the 1999 Kargil War, refraining from the Indian Parliament attack in 2001, and the Mumbai attacks in 2008, when India, despite public outrage, avoided starting full -scale enmity.
However, under the current administration, India’s military campaigns, such as Balakot strike in 2019 and air strikes in major cities such as Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad, pointed to a shifting red line.
(Author is research analyst, Pakistan Desk, Taxila Institute)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
