Dubious Claim

In his UNGA address last month, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif asserted that "Had these terrorists [in Pakistan] not been encountered by us, they would have been roaming on the streets of New York and London and God knows, the Far East." He also attempted to portray Islamabad as a global “bulwark” against terrorism.
It appears that Sharif was well aware that his claims of waging a war against terror in all its forms and manifestations would find no takers. Why else would he have placed a cheering team in the gallery for repeatedly interrupting his uninspiring statements by its continuous applause in response to hand signals given by Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar?

Anti Grey-Listing Ploys

However, Sharif wouldn’t have been unduly upset as this message was for the international money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog, Financial Action Task Force [FATF]. With its next Plenary and Working Group meetings scheduled from October 26 to 30th, Islamabad is [like always] busy putting up appearances and cleaning up its backyard to escape being ‘grey-listed’.
To impress FATF, Pakistan has recently increased the bounty for any information leading to the arrest of UN designated global terrorist Jaish-e-Mohammad [JeM] chief Masood Azhar from PKR 2 million to PKR 7 million. It has also ordered the ‘snakes’ in its backyard to go into temporary hibernation thereby creating an illusion that Pakistan has no truck with terrorists.
Pakistan may have suffered the ignominy of being grey-listed by FATF for four years [2018-2022] but perturbed because it has mastered the art of eating the cake and having it too by playing the terror-victim card. And the icing on the cake is that Islamabad is currently in the good books of the very same extremely influential benefactor it had annoyed in 2018.
Readers would recollect President Trump’s 2018 curt New Year tweet accusing Pakistan of giving the US “nothing but lies and deceit,” and providing “safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan.” Pakistan was put in the Grey-List the same year couldn’t be a mere coincidence.
But the situation today has completely changed. As Sharif never tires of heaping praise on Trump, he considers the Pakistani Prime Minister to be a “terrific man.” And by acting as a faithful page as well as making sweet deals with Washington, Pakistan’s de facto ruler Field Marshal Asim Munir has become the US President’s “favourite field marshal.”
Washington exercises extraordinary influence over FATF member states- a fact endorsed by the 2020 revelation of the then Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s that Islamabad had approached Washington to help it exit the FATF Grey-list. And it’s no secret that US influence did help Pakistan in getting out of the Grey-list in 2022.
While it’s not yet clear whether Islamabad has hired lobbying firms for this purpose but given its past history of doing so during pre and post Operation Sindoor period [ when it spent a whopping $600,000 a month before Operation Sindoor], as revealed by mandatory disclosures by these firms, soliciting services for lobbying firms to influence US lawmakers in backing Pakistan’s bid to protect itself from FATF grey-listing wouldn’t come as a surprise.
Another reason why Islamabad’s is likely to escape Grey-listing is the FATF’s perfunctory approach to terrorism financing. An example- its official website mentions that “The FATF notes with grave concern and condemns the brutal terrorist attack in Pahalgam on 22 April 2025,” and accepts that “This, and other recent attacks, could not occur without money and the means to move funds between terrorist supporters.” However, by failing to name Pakistan despite irrefutable evidence of its involvement, FATF has only further emboldened Rawalpindi.

Repercussions for India

Thanks to a political and internal security crisis exacerbated by Field Munir’s over-obsession with using brute force to subdue dissent, Pakistan is on the brink, and if its harried population isn’t provided a suitable diversion, the situation can well take a very ugly turn.
So, in order to placate public anger and conceal his own army’s failure to restore normalcy in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa [KP] and Balochistan, Field Marshal Munir has conveniently made his people believe that Kabul and New Delhi are sponsoring TTP and armed Baloch groups respectively. And to live up to his "Allah has made me the guardian of this nation” claim, he has assured Pakistanis that the Pakistan army will not spare terrorists or their “facilitators”.
By dubbing armed groups of Baloch freedom fighters as Fitna-al-Hindustan [Evil/discord originating from India], Field Marshal Munir may have successfully exploited the significant anti-India sentiment in Pakistan. However, the people are now asking that if New Delhi is indeed Fitna-al-Hindustan’s “facilitator,” then why is the Pakistan army not targeting India?
Most importantly, Pakistanis would like to know that when Sharif claims that the Pakistani armed forces “silenced the enemy [India], repulsed its attack and taught it a lesson it shall never, ever forget” during Operation Sindoor/ Bunyan al-Marsoos, then why not teach it a similar lesson as punitive action for sponsoring armed Baloch groups?

India’s Response

If Pakistan army’s proxy war in J&K is currently at a low key, it’s just because of FATF’s Plenary and Working Group meetings scheduled later this month. Once it’s over, and Pakistan is not Grey-listed, one can expect a surge in Pakistan sponsored terrorist activities as being in a desperate situation, Pakistan’s ‘failed’ marshal has to do something across the Line of Control to save face. Therefore it would be puerile to place too much hope on FATF. This winter in J&K is likely to be hot.
By stating in his UNGA address that “our right to defend ourselves against terrorism will be exercised” and that “friendship and goodwill cannot co-exist with terrorism,” as well as the caveat that “it is for the perpetrator of terrorism to mend its ways,” Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has sent out an unambiguous message to Pakistan.
New Delhi therefore needs to explore using a wide range of effective deterrents against any misadventure orchestrated by the Pakistan army and its proxies. These actions should not only be restricted to retributory kinetic operations but also include economic, political and diplomatic measures to enhance its impact, because the harsh reality is that come what may, Rawalpindi will never mend its ways.

Email:-----------------------nileshkunwar.56@gmail.com