ISLAMABAD, April 25 — Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has acknowledged his country’s involvement in backing, funding, and training terrorist groups during the Cold War and post-9/11 era, calling it a “mistake” done at the behest of Western powers.
“We were doing this dirty work for the United States and the West, including Britain, for almost three decades,” Asif told Sky News journalist Yalda Hakim in an interview aired overnight. “That was a mistake, and we suffered from that.”
Asif’s remarks come in the wake of a deadly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, India, earlier this week, which claimed 26 lives.
The Resistance Front, believed to be affiliated with the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), has claimed responsibility.
Hakim directly questioned Asif about Pakistan’s historic ties to terror networks, asking, “You do admit, sir, that Pakistan has had a long history of backing and supporting and training and funding these terrorist organisations?”
Asif replied by tracing the roots of Pakistan’s involvement back to the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s and reiterated that the West played a central role in shaping those dynamics.
“When we were fighting the war on their side… all these terrorists of today were wining and dining in Washington,” he said.
He pointed to Pakistan’s participation in both the Cold War and the post-9/11 war on terror as missteps.
“If we had not joined the war against the Soviet Union and later the war after 9/11, Pakistan’s track record was unimpeachable,” he stated.
Asif framed Pakistan’s role during those decades as one of being exploited by global powers. “Our governments made a mistake. We were used as proxies,” he said.
Pressed on the claim that Lashkar-e-Taiba’s offshoot, The Resistance Front, may have ties to Pakistan, Asif firmly denied the group’s presence.
“Lashkar-e-Taiba doesn’t exist in Pakistan anymore. It is extinct,” he said. “If the parent organisation does not exist, how can the offshoot take birth here?”
On the potential for escalating tensions with India following the Pahalgam attack, Asif warned that Pakistan would match any hostile move.
“We will measure our response to whatever is initiated by India,” he said.
“If there is an all-out attack or something like that, then obviously there will be an all-out war.”
Asif’s comments mark one of the more candid admissions by a sitting Pakistani official regarding the country’s entanglement in regional militancy, a legacy that continues to strain its relationships both regionally and globally.
