Pakistan's Terror Ecosystem Evolves with Women's, Maritime Wings

According to a report in Sri Lankan media outlet Ceylon Wire News, terror financing has gone digital, with encrypted cryptocurrency transactions supplementing traditional hawala networks. These are not the "death throes of a weakened enterprise" but the "evolutionary steps" of Pakistan-nurtured industry.

Marking the one-year anniversary of the Pahalgam terror attack carried out by Pakistan-based terrorist outfit, the report described the assault as "calculated, choreographed, and coldly executed", noting that it came just months after successful assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir.

It added that the attack signalled a shift in terror groups' strategy aimed at disrupting the region's growing tourism sector and contesting the claims of normalcy.

"When a region begins to stabilise, when investment flows in and hotels fill with families on holiday, terrorism becomes the ultimate spoiler. This is precisely what Pakistan's deep state has long understood: that the most effective weapon against India's economic integration of Kashmir is not a conventional army but a proxy militia with plausible deniability," the report detailed.

The report noted that evidence establishing Pakistan's direct involvement in the terror attack is "irrefutable".

"On July 28, 2025, Indian security forces killed three terrorists involved in the Pahalgam massacre in the Harwan jungles near Srinagar. Their identity cards told the story plainly - one was Habib Tahir, from the village of Koiyan near Khaigala in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The second was Bilal Afzal. These were not stateless rogue actors. These were men from across the border, trained, armed, and deployed by a state apparatus that has refined terrorism into a foreign policy instrument," it mentioned.

Asserting that Pakistan's international conduct reflects the consistent pattern, the report cited documents showing that the country currently ranks at the top of the Global Terrorism Index 2026. It also referred to a US Congressional Research Service report from March 2026 which explicitly identified Pakistan as a base of operations for several long-active terrorist groups.

"The cases pile up: Asif Merchant, a Pakistani national, was found guilty in March 2026 of plotting to assassinate US politicians. A Pakistani-origin individual, Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, pleaded guilty to an ISIS-inspired plot targeting a Jewish centre in New York. A Pakistani LeT member was arrested in South Korea in August 2025 after entering the country illegally. The geography of Pakistan's terror export spans continents," it stated.

For India, the report said, Pakistan's strategy in Jammu and Kashmir seeks to ensure that any move towards normalcy in the region is met with bloodshed on its most scenic meadows.

- IANS