Pakistan’s terror duplicity is unraveling, and its own leaders are pulling the thread

In a stunning public admission that should reverberate across international capitals, the Chief Minister of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has pulled back the curtain on Pakistan’s long denied but widely known double game with terrorism. Speaking at a press conference, the CM laid bare what many global observers have said for years, that Pakistan’s military intelligence establishment is actively sheltering and supporting designated terror groups under the guise of “Good Taliban,” while sacrificing its own citizens to the flames of extremism.

The revelations are as damning as they are unsurprising. The CM openly stated that provincial police arrested a number of wanted militants, only for the ISI and Military Intelligence to intervene, claiming those individuals were their “men.” In other words, these were operatives being protected, not prosecuted, by Pakistan’s own security establishment. Even more chilling was the suggestion that if these “Good Taliban” are such assets, they should be sent to fight in Kashmir.

Let that sink in: a sitting provincial head has effectively confirmed that Pakistan’s deep state not only tolerates terrorists but sees them as geopolitical tools. This is not counterterrorism; it is state sponsored sabotage, masquerading as strategy.

The Myth of the “Good Taliban”

For decades, Pakistan has employed a dangerous binary: “Good Taliban” who align with the military’s foreign policy interests, particularly in Afghanistan and Kashmir, and “Bad Taliban” who challenge the state internally. This categorization is not only morally bankrupt but strategically suicidal. The same groups Pakistan nurtured to bleed Afghanistan and India have, time and again, turned their guns inward. The Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is a direct product of this duplicity, an unintended consequence of playing god with jihadist factions.

But now, the contradictions are erupting in the public sphere. The Chief Minister’s candid comments expose a state apparatus that is no longer able to hide its Frankensteinian creation. When provincial leaders can no longer protect their own citizens because federal agencies shield terrorists, the system is not just corrupt, it is collapsing.

A Pattern of Implosion

This isn’t an isolated moment. Just months ago, police officers in KP were protesting, albeit quietly, about the growing threats they face from TTP elements who are often released or protected under vague security directives. Officers have been ambushed, districts have been overrun, and security personnel continue to die in encounters with militants who appear to enjoy unofficial immunity. Even the security forces are losing faith in the very system meant to protect them.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani Interior Minister admitted earlier this year that the TTP poses a grave and growing threat, yet no coherent national strategy has been offered beyond vague statements and hollow condemnations. The silence of Pakistan’s military leadership, historically never shy of issuing statements or asserting dominance in civilian affairs, is deafening.

Kashmir: The Eternal Obsession

The most alarming part of the CM’s statement is the suggestion that these so called “Good Taliban” could be deployed to Kashmir. It lays bare the enduring obsession of Pakistan’s security establishment — to export militancy across the border as a means of keeping the Kashmir issue alive. This strategy has failed time and again, bringing international condemnation, economic isolation, and decades of internal instability. Yet, instead of course correction, Pakistan’s military seems committed to repeating the cycle.

If these are the kind of policy ideas being floated at the provincial level, with full knowledge of the intelligence agencies, it suggests not just complicity but a total collapse of moral and strategic coherence in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

The Global Community Must Wake Up

Pakistan has long escaped serious international scrutiny by playing both victim and enabler. It portrays itself as a frontline state in the war on terror while quietly harboring and weaponizing terror groups to achieve its regional aims. The US and its allies have largely looked the other way, needing Pakistan’s logistical routes into Afghanistan or its cooperation in intelligence sharing.

That era is over. The withdrawal from Afghanistan, Pakistan’s deepening economic crisis, and now open acknowledgements of its terror links from within its own leadership, all present an opportunity for the world to stop treating Pakistan as a misunderstood ally and start seeing it for what it is: a state where terrorism is not an external threat but an internal instrument of power.

Pakistan’s House of Cards Is Collapsing

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa CM’s explosive revelations should be a wake up call, not just for Pakistan’s dwindling democratic institutions, but for the international community that has enabled this duplicity for decades. The Pakistan Army’s obsession with strategic depth, its use of jihad as foreign policy, and its systemic undermining of elected civilian authority have pushed the country to the brink.

This is not a state fighting terrorism. This is a state unravelling under the weight of its own terror machinery. The world can no longer afford to look away.