Pakistan continues to pursue a deliberate policy of fomenting instability in its neighbourhood through jihadist proxy groups — a strategy described in a report by the Afghan Diaspora Network as cheap, easily deniable, and structurally beneficial to the Pakistan Army, even as ordinary Pakistani citizens bear the ultimate social and economic costs.

A Strategy More Than Seven Decades Old

According to the report, Pakistan has been deploying proxy outfits as instruments of foreign policy for more than 70 years, with the approach now active on two simultaneous fronts — against India in Jammu and Kashmir and against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The report notes that top military leadership in Rawalpindi has consistently backed this approach, using it to preserve institutional power and defence budgets.

The Pahalgam Attack and Operation Sindoor

Events of 2025 underscored that the strategy remains operational. In April 2025, Pakistan-backed terrorists killed 26 civilians in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir. The Resistance Front (TRF), widely identified as a proxy of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), claimed responsibility. In response, India's armed forces launched Operation Sindoor in May 2025, carrying out what officials described as a focused, measured, and non-escalatory military action targeting high-value terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). The depth of the Pakistan military-militant nexus became visibly apparent in the aftermath, with photographs showing coffins of killed militants draped in Pakistan's national flag and senior uniformed army officers attending the funerals.

Pakistan's Proxy War in Afghanistan

The report also details Pakistan's long history of proxy engagement in Afghanistan. Islamabad helped create the Afghan Taliban and backed the Haqqani network over decades. The director of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was in Kabul within days of the Taliban's seizure of power in 2021. However, relations have since deteriorated sharply. Afghanistan's Ministry of Defence recently stated that its forces killed 28 fighters and captured 32 others in Nuristan, accusing Pakistani security forces of financing and training those individuals. A Taliban spokesperson separately alleged that a faction within Pakistan's military was actively working to destabilise the region and accused Islamabad of sheltering the Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) rather than combating it.

Why External Pressure Has Diminished

Rahmatullah Achakzai, a journalist based in Balochistan, is quoted in the report explaining the strategic calculus: 'Pakistan continues using this strategy of creating instability in the neighbourhood through proxy groups because it is cheap, easy to deny, and benefits the military. It helps the Pakistan Army keep its budget and political power intact, while the local population bears the ultimate costs. International sanctions have mostly targeted individuals and terrorist outfits, not the Pakistan Army itself.'

The report further warns that Pakistan's removal from the FATF grey list — achieved, critics argue, through regulatory paperwork changes rather than substantive reforms — and renewed US-Pakistan ties since 2025 have collectively stripped away the last meaningful levers of external pressure. 'South Asia now faces increasing chances of instability, aided by the Pakistani military, that may lead to major military conflicts and possibly mass-casualty events,' the report states.

What This Means for Regional Security

The convergence of these dynamics — a resurgent proxy network, weakened international accountability mechanisms, and a diplomatically rehabilitated Pakistan Army — represents a compounding risk for South Asia. With India having already demonstrated military escalation readiness through Operation Sindoor and Afghanistan now openly accusing Islamabad of backing fighters on its soil, the proxy strategy that once operated in the shadows is increasingly drawing direct state responses. How regional powers and multilateral bodies respond to the accountability gap will shape the security calculus in the months ahead.