Tel Aviv, Feb 13 (IANS) Pakistan is currently grappling with a multi-front security crisis of its own making, accusing the Afghan Taliban of sheltering the Tehreek‑e‑Taliban Pakistan (TTP) despite the Pakistani establishment having earlier celebrated the Taliban’s 2021 return to Kabul as a triumph of “strategic depth”.

While Islamabad held former Prime Minister Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) responsible for domestic unrest, it has exploited the security apparatus to manipulate the political landscape, deepening the stalemate, a report said on Friday.

“The devastating suicide bombing at the Khadija-tul-Kubra mosque in Islamabad on February 6, 2026, which claimed 32 lives and left nearly 170 injured, serves as a grim indictment of a security policy that has long prioritised geopolitical leverage over domestic stability,” an article in the ‘Times of Israel’ detailed.

“While the Pakistani establishment has characteristically pivoted toward a carousel of external culprits — alternating between allegations of an Indian link, Afghan complicity, and even the internal machinations of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) — the international consensus among regional experts is coalescing around a more uncomfortable truth,” it added.

The blast, the report said, is not merely an isolated act of foreign interference but the inevitable consequence of a decade-old “nurture-and-neglect” strategy of Pakistani authorities towards terrorism.

“Since its inception, the Pakistani military establishment has viewed militant proxies as instruments of ‘strategic depth’. From the mobilisation of tribal militias to invade Kashmir in October 1947 to the institutionalisation of the Kashmir insurgency in the 1990s, the state has consistently traded long-term security for short-term tactical disruption,” it mentioned.

“This legacy of patronage is most visible in the continued survival of UN-designated terrorist entities like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM),” it added.

According to the report, despite international pressure and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey-listing era, the Pakistani “deep state” has rarely gone beyond symbolic action, often sheltering terrorists Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar under the guise of “protective custody”.

The immediate move by the Pakistani Defence Ministry to link the February 6 blast to India or the Afghan Taliban is widely perceived by the global community as an attempt to deflect attention.

The report further said: “The Islamabad Mosque bombing is a reminder that ‘strategic depth’ is a hollow concept when the state cannot secure its own federal capital. Until the Pakistani establishment stops viewing militants as ‘assets’ and begins treating them as the existential threats they are, the cycle of violence will continue.”

“The blood on the carpets of the Khadija-tul-Kubra Mosque is not just the result of a security lapse; it is the inevitable outcome of a century-long policy of flirting with the fire of extremism,” it added.

–IANS

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