ON 11 August 2025, the US Department of State declared the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and the Majeed Brigade as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).
Earlier, on 07 April 2006, Pakistan had already designated the BLA as a terrorist organization, while the British Government followed suit on 17 July 2006 by listing the BLA as a “proscribed group.” Since its inception in 2000, the BLA has been responsible for numerous terrorist attacks, killing thousands of security personnel and civilians. From 2018 onwards, the BLA stepped up its activities and increased terrorist attacks, particularly targeting security forces, development projects and Chinese nationals working on CPEC projects.
Pakistan has been presenting irrefutable evidence at all forums that these organizations were raised, supported and consistently funded by the Indian state intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). In this regard, the confessions of serving Indian Navy Commander Kulbhushan Yadhav, a RAW operator arrested in Balochistan in 2016, along with the accounts of several arrested or surrendered BLA leaders, exposed direct Indian involvement in providing intelligence, finances, training, arms, ammunition and logistic support to these elements. So much so that a report published by The Hindu in 2019 revealed BLA commanders were receiving medical facilities and treatment in Indian hospitals.
Ironically, India has been using cross border terrorism as the instrument of its state policy to crush political dissent in other countries. Indian RAW was caught red handed being involved in exporting terrorism to NATO member countries including Canada, UK, Australia and the USA. Indian government officials were indicted in November 2023 by the American Justice Department for a plot to kill a US citizen Gurpat want Singh Pannun on the US soil. While, the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau levelled allegations against the Indian government’s involvement in the murder of its citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar and described the incident as ‘violation of Canadian sovereignty’.
In the same regards, Governments of Canada, Australia, Italy, the US and the UK had to caution their Sikh nationals that the Indian authorities may crush their political dissent by killing them. Similarly, in August 2022, eight Indian navy officers were arrested in Qatar on charges of espionage and subsequently sentenced to death. In April 2024, ‘The Guardian’ reported that the Indian government ordered assassination of upto 20 individuals in Pakistan since 2020. RAW’s interference in Bangladesh’s internal affairs suffered a setback in the popular uprising against Sheikh Hasina’s puppet government in August 2024. In June 2025, Iran apprehended scores of Indian nationals in the aftermath of war against Israel while on 10 September 2025, Qatar arrested two Indian nationals on the charges of spying for Mossad and espionage. Ironically, the list of Indian transnational state sponsored terrorist acts goes on and on and on.
In another significant event of utter disregard to the international order and global peace and security, Indian Strategic Forces Command (SFC)test-fired its Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) ‘Agni 5’ from the Integrated Test Range, Chandipur in Odisha on August 20, 2025.’Agni 5’ reportedly is a hypersonic ICBM capable of carrying 1000 kg of conventional or nuclear warhead up to more than 5000 KMs. According to Indian media reports, Indian SFC is on track to conduct trial fire of dual purpose Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Agni-6 with a phenomenal range of 9000-16000 kilometers rather sooner than later. In addition to being Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD), Agni-5/6 by virtue of having the vertical range of over 600 km, also poses significant threat to the global satellite systems of USA, EU, Russia and China. India’s ambitious pursuance of long/very long-range WMD is not only provocative and inviting arms race in the region but also potential threat to the global peace and security, as capability matters the most while intentions may change.
Owing to geopolitical and geo-strategic compulsions of the USA led West, India has been enjoying exceptionalism even for breaching the global order and violating the UN charter. Nevertheless, results of four days of war with Pakistan from 6/7 to 10 May 2025, have not only exposed India’s geostrategic fault lines and limitations but also put India on geopolitical backsliding. The USA President Trump has realized that despite all out economic, technical and military support, if India has failed to face off Pakistan, then containment of China through US Indo-Pacific Strategy, in all its probabilities remains an insurmountable task. Moreover, owing to India’s continuous involvement in transnational terrorist acts at regional and global levels, President Trump seems to have withdrawn exceptionalism to India and taken bold steps towards the right direction. He has vowed to stop India becoming conduit to the Russian oil through imposition of tariffs and declared Indian sponsored and funded BLA as FTO.
To conclude, it can be stated that especially since BJP’s rise to power, Prime Minister Modi has tried to portray India’s false image in multiple domains. On one hand, India attempted to take advantage of the US led Global War On Terror (GWOT) and tried not only to play the victim card but also bracket legitimate freedom struggle of the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIJO&K) as the terrorism. In reality, Indian role as the epicenter and exporter of terrorism cannot be shrugged of and put under the carpet. It is therefore, time to discipline India through imposition of military and economic sanctions and placing India on the FATF blacklist for financing terrorism.
—The writer is a retired Air Officer from the PAF and currently serving at the DHA Suffa University (DSU), Karachi.
