What Al Qaeda’s Support Says About Pakistan

Pakistan has been claiming to have severed itself from the past where it had associated with groups that fomented terror. Its defence minister, Khawaja Asif, for instance, had recently stated that the country trained terrorist organisations for long and is suffering because of it. On the other hand, terror groups seem to have no hesitation in still seeing that connection as active and coming in support of Pakistan. Al Qaeda, the group responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks, has jumped in on the side of Pakistan after India’s strikes to avenge the Pahalgam massacre. It even announced a jihad against India.

Its media wing, Al-Sahab, issued a release titled, ‘Indian Aggression on the land of Pakistan’ asking for people to join in a holy war. The statement, as reported by MEMRI, an organisation that tracks jihad and terrorism threats across the world, said, ‘It is a duty upon us to engage in this struggle to raise the Word of Allah, defend Islam and Muslims, and support the oppressed people of the Subcontinent.’

While such support indicates the terrorist ecosystem of Pakistan, it does not mean much in terms of impact where India is concerned because Al Qaeda is an echo of what it once was when Osama bin Laden was alive and conducted the attack on the United States. After the killing of Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the group has not much of a central leadership. It is now a series of splinters scavenging off conflict-ridden countries like Yemen. A major factor for its decline was also the rise of the ISIS which overshadowed it before also meeting the same fate.

In India, Al Qaeda had no traction even at its height. Now, in its weakened state, such calls for jihad mean nothing. What it does tell is a story of Pakistan, the kind of terrorist rabble drawn to it, and who feed off each other.

Al QaedaIslamic supremacistsOperation SindoorPahalgamterror attack