“We will take over the rivers and dams in Jammu & Kashmir, one day the entire Jammu & Kashmir will be ours and we will avenge for strikes on Pakistan” ranted Saifullah Khalid, directly threatening India. Saifullah Khalid (aka Saifullah Kasuri), who is the general secretary of Pakistan Markazi Muslim League (PMML), said this on 17 September 2025, in Bahawalpur during a flood relief event. PMML, which is a political party in Pakistan, has been conducting flood relief programs in Pakistan. Little does the common man outside Pakistan know that PMML is the new political avatar of its predecessor, the Milli Muslim League (MML), which was proscribed the US government in 2018. Saifullah Khalid who was then leader of MML was also designated as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) along with six other MML leaders, all of whom are presently in PMML.

The US government’s 2018 designation targeting MML and its leaders came in the wake of confirmation that MML served as a political front of terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). This transitive relationship between LeT, MML, and PMML buttress the fact that PMML and its leaders, including Saifullah Kassuri, are linked to the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is suspected to be behind the Pahalgam attacks.

New Delhi’s punitive strikes that followed Pahalgam attacks severely damaged terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and in Eastern Pakistan, forcing terrorist groups such as LeT, Jaish E Mohammed (JeM), and Hizbul Mujahideen to relocate to Kyber Paktunwa (KPK) region located on Pakistan’s western flank, possibly fearing future Indian strikes. LeT’s infrastructure in POK stands decimated and its headquarters at Muridke turned to rubble resulting in severe casualties. Other terrorist groups under pressure have been forced to relocate, including Hizbul Mujahideen’s which is believed to be constructing new premises named “HM313” in Bandaai area of Lower Dir, KPK recently. So has JeM, which is believed to be conducting largescale recruitment in KPK region.

Shifting Risk Perceptions in Pakistan

However, these setbacks do not appear to have deterred terrorist leaders in Pakistan as they continue to issue threats against India. Despite India and Pakistan almost reaching the nuclear crescendo, these threats have carried on unabated, risking the future of both the terrorist groups and Pakistan itself. The Pakistan military is also reported to have suffered setbacks in the short conflict with India. Intriguingly, terrorist groups and Pakistan appear to continue from where they have left since Pahalgam attacks.

A plausible motivation behind these continued threats is to bring the two sides to the brink of nuclear war, forcing an international intervention which India has long avoided. Opinions of some senior leaders of LeT appear to support this. In May 2025, immediately after the end of the conflict between India and Pakistan, Talha Saeed, son of the founder of LeT, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed (both of whom are banned by the United States), claimed in an article that the international attention quickly turned to the core issue of Kashmir in wake of the Operation Sindoor. He goes on to add that, “for decades, India has tried to downplay the Kashmir conflict as an internal matter, using the rhetoric of terrorism to justify crackdowns, demographic changes, and widespread human rights violations. But Pakistan’s composure in this crisis reignited global awareness about the unresolved status of Kashmir and the urgency of addressing it.”

This stance coming from a senior LeT leader only reinforces the belief that terrorist groups will continue to target India with an objective to draw India and Pakistan close to a nuclear war, eventually leading to international mediation. Any future terrorist attack in India would eventually put Pakistan in a quandary, as Pakistan may be sanctioned if evidence of its involvement comes to light. Pakistan would not like to go back to 2018, when it was placed under the “Grey List” of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) until its removal in 2022.

A New Terrorist Playbook Emerges

Given the mounting risk associated with terrorist events against India, from being sanctioned to suffering a loss on the battlefield, Pakistan-sponsored terrorist groups are more likely to change their approach to targeting India in the following ways:

Firstly, terrorist groups will be inclined to employ proxy groups to carry out attacks inside India, especially in Jammu & Kashmir. LeT and JeM have adopted this in the past. In an attempt to rebrand militancy in Jammu & Kashmir, terrorist groups in Pakistan propped up The Resistance Front (TRF) and People’s Anti-Fascist Force (PAFF) in 2019, in wake of the revocation of Article 370 by the Indian government, claiming that these were indigenous revolutionary groups fighting against Indian occupation. This was done at a time when Pakistan was placed under the “Grey List” by the FATF. Hence proxies were created to ensure that Pakistan does not slide into the FATF “Black List,” which could have spelt doom for the Pakistan’s economy.

Similar plans appear to be afoot now. Immediately after the Operation Sindoor, a hitherto unknown group calling itself Tehreek e Taliban Kashmir (TTK) issued a statement targeting India. This outfit is suspected to be run by an individual Shehzad Ghazi who is known to be a facilitator for moving terrorists across the line of control in the early 2000s. Ghazi was later captured by Indian security forces and then released in a prisoner exchange program. After his release, he was operating from Rawalkot in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK). He is believed to be part of the pro-independence “Khudmukhtar” lobby which seeks to unite both the POK and Indian part into an independent country, going against Pakistan’s and India’s stance of integrating it into their respective states. As a result, his group members were hunted down by Pakistan security forces and he was briefly jailed in POK, only to be released later. Post-release, Ghazi maintained a low profile till his latest statement, using the TTK banner to threaten jihad against India. Surprisingly, the same statement accuses the Pakistan army of preventing jihad and acting against groups such as TTK. This accusation appears to portray that Pakistan as being against anti-India terrorist groups. Consequently, this allows small terrorist groups who carry out terrorist attacks inside the Indian side of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) to claim responsibility in the name of TTK, providing Pakistan with a perfect alibi to deny collusion.

Secondly, there is also an increased possibility that terrorist groups will carry out attacks outside the J&K theater. Major cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, and South Indian cities could be possible targets for terrorist groups, who could employ local citizens to carry out the attack. Any terrorist event inside J&K is generally presumed to have been carried out by terrorist groups sponsored by Pakistan. On the contrary, terrorist events outside J&K are less likely to be directly attributed to Pakistan. Though some major attacks like the Mumbai attacks in 2008 and Mumbai train blasts in 2006 were later tracked to LeT handlers in Pakistan, these incidents have always been laced with a degree of ambiguity, resulting in twin failures of not able to pressure Pakistan diplomatically or prosecute the LeT kingpins.

Additionally, outside J&K theater, there is a possibility of local cadres being recruited and exploited using cutouts so as to obscure the true identity of the group conducting terrorist attacks. There have been instances in India in recent times, where the concept of Caliphate and Ghazwa-e-Hind have been used to brainwash youngsters who were made to believe that they were working for establishment of Caliphate in India, while in fact they were being manipulated by handlers working for LeT in Pakistan. This is a ruse adopted by Pakistan based terrorist groups using Indian handlers to create a smokescreen to shield Pakistan from any potential pushback. For example, as highlighted by the Geopolitical Monitor in 2022, Farhatullah Ghori (aka Abu Sufiyan) who is on India’s most wanted list and presently believed to be in Pakistan is one such handler who calls on Indian Muslims to wage jihad to establish a Caliphate. However, in reality, Farhatullah Ghori is believed to be linked to Pakistani intelligence.

In the end, this latest threat from Saifullah Kasuri appears to be significant as it comes at a time amid the tense standoff between India and Pakistan, in which New Delhi has redefined the way it reacts to terrorist attacks. Indian military response against terrorist infrastructure, as well as Pakistani military targets, is the new normal now. Despite facing heavy losses due to the Indian kinetic actions, terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba are still trying to put up a brave face threatening attacks in India in the future. Any terrorist attack in India is likely to trigger a ferocious response from New Delhi against terrorist groups and Pakistan possibly leading to international intervention in Jammu & Kashmir which is exactly what the terrorist groups are hoping for.