Politics Of Terrorism: Did Pakistan DOOM Itself? | Dr. Hazrat Bahar

Did Pakistan lose control of the terrorism it created in the name of the USA or is the escalation of recent days part and parcel of how the politics of regional terrorism is conducted? To discuss all this, today I'm talking to Dr. Hazrat Bahar. Dr. Bahar is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for Communication and Media Studies at Leipzig University in Germany. His research focuses on the transformation of Afghanistan's media system over the past two decades and he was recommended to me by a close friend as the right person to discus the ongoing Inida-Pakistan Crisis from the Afghan side, since the politics of the region is inextractably interlinked.

The world is shocked by the outbreak of military clashes between India and Pakistan last night. In addition to the already tense global situation, this new conflict between two nuclear powers represents another flashpoint that could quickly escalate into a global catastrophe. Several people were killed and at least a dozen injured in air strikes by the Indian army during the night in Pakistan. Pakistan immediately announced retaliation and is said to have already begun shelling India. Politicians around the world are calling for immediate calm and an end to hostilities.

Although the immediate trigger for the conflict was the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, India, in April, in which 25 Indians and one Nepalese were killed, the roots of the conflict go back decades. Before Pakistan became a state, the Indian subcontinent was considered the ‘pearl’ of the British Empire – a bloody and humiliating period in the history of these peoples. When Great Britain was finally forced to leave India in 1947, it left behind the partition of India and Pakistan, triggering decades of religious tensions. But that was not all. The British Empire's ‘Great Game’ against the Soviet Union and the compliant subservience of its American allies turned the region into a hotbed of extremist and militant activity in the 1970s and 1980s. When asked about the presence of terrorism in Pakistan on 24 April, Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said: ‘We have been doing this dirty work for the US and the West, including Britain, for three decades. That was a mistake, and we have suffered for it. Had we not joined the war against the Soviet Union and the war after 9/11, Pakistan's record would be spotless.’

DAILY (07.05.2025)