Pakistan Unveils New Counterterrorism Plan

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: Pakistan reinvigorates its counterterrorism strategy—likely with an eye to Chinese interests in the country, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks to strengthen engagement with his neighbors as he begins his third term, and the United Nations includes Taliban representatives in the latest Doha process talks.

Pakistan’s New Counterterrorism Strategy

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office announced a “reinvigorated” national counterterrorism strategy last Saturday, promising a combination of “kinetic efforts,” new legislation to bolster terrorism prosecutions, and steps to counter violent extremism.

On Tuesday, Sharif clarified that the strategy, which Islamabad emphasizes is not yet finalized, will focus more on intensifying existing intelligence-based operations than on launching new military offensives. Still, the shift marks one of the biggest steps yet to tackle an increasing terrorist threat in Pakistan, where attacks increased by two-thirds between 2022 and 2023.

Pakistan has held talks with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or the Pakistani Taliban, which presents the country’s main threat; pressured the Afghan Taliban to curb anti-Pakistan militant activity in Afghanistan; and staged cross-border strikes in Afghanistan. None of these policies has solved the problem.

Some analysts rightly attribute the timing of the decision to the political moment. After a long period of internal turmoil, some political and economic stability has returned to Pakistan, giving the powerful military the space to pursue this strategy, which could help it regain public support after recent hits to its public image.

However, there is also good reason to believe that China was a motivating factor driving the new plan—and that it might even play a role in the strategy once it is implemented.

China is Pakistan’s closest ally, and yet it faces serious terrorism risks in Pakistan today. The most active militant groups in Pakistan—the TTP, the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA)—have all targeted Chinese nationals or interests. Many Chinese investment projects are in western Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan, which is especially vulnerable to terrorism.

A string of attacks targeting Chinese interests in Pakistan in recent years has led Beijing to repeatedly call on Islamabad to provide better security. Tellingly, Pakistan announced its new counterterrorism plan soon after Sharif returned from a five-day visit to China.

The TTP is based in Afghanistan and closely allied with the Afghan Taliban, which have resisted Pakistani pressure to rein in the group. This is where there may be a potential role for Beijing. China has considerable leverage over the Taliban: a large amount of capital that it could deploy toward investments in Afghanistan if its terrorism concerns there are addressed. (Militants have struck Chinese targets in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan.)

Pakistan’s own leverage in Afghanistan has diminished since the Taliban takeover, as the group no longer requires Pakistani sanctuary. Islamabad may hope that Beijing will press the Taliban to take steps that reduce the TTP threat in Pakistan. This would additionally serve Chinese interests by reducing risks in Afghanistan: If cross-border terrorism decreases, Pakistan has less incentive to stage strikes in Afghanistan, where China is exploring investment possibilities.

One shouldn’t rule out the United States here: Increasing anxieties about the growing capacity of IS-K, which is also based in Afghanistan, to project a global threat have sharpened shared U.S.-Pakistan concerns about the group. The countries recently held a bilateral counterterrorism dialogue. But there are limits to their counterterrorism cooperation; most U.S. security aid to Pakistan has been suspended since 2018, and their primary concerns now differ.

Moreover, the Biden administration has largely moved on from Afghanistan nearly three years after its military withdrawal. The United States appears satisfied with the Taliban’s own operations against IS-K, which unlike the TTP is a Taliban rival. By contrast, China has an outsized investment presence in Pakistan and is exploring deeper engagements in Afghanistan.

At the end of the day, China now has more skin in the game in the region than the United States does, which may make Beijing a more viable counterterrorism partner for Islamabad going forward.

What We’re Following

India ramps up regional diplomacy. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is sending strong signals that stepped-up engagement in the neighborhood will be a foreign-policy priority as he begins his third term. He invited many regional leaders to his swearing-in ceremony this month, and in the last few days India has held high-level talks with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met Modi last Saturday, marking the first visit from a foreign leader to New Delhi in his third term. It was a substantive meeting, resulting in agreements to boost cooperation on maritime and water management issues, health, connectivity, and visas.

On June 20, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar traveled to Sri Lanka, meeting top leaders including Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe and emphasizing the importance of long-term economic cooperation. New Delhi extended more than $4 billion in financial support during Sri Lanka’s economic crisis in 2022 and 2023. Jaishankar also met with Sri Lankan opposition leaders, a move likely meant to ensure robust ties as Sri Lanka’s elections approach this fall.

Taliban to participate in U.N.-hosted talks. On June 30, the United Nations will convene two days of talks between global envoys to Afghanistan and Taliban leaders. This will be the third installment of the so-called Doha process—but it is the first time that the Taliban will participate. They were not invited to the first round of talks and declined an invitation to the second.

The Taliban’s participation this year is especially controversial because Afghan civil society, human rights, and women leaders have not been invited. U.N. officials say they want to use the talks as an opportunity for global leaders to speak directly to the Taliban about how to ensure that more financial assistance reaches Afghan people and businesses.

The U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan insists that the discussions of economic issues are intended to help Afghan women and others facing significant hardships. Additionally, U.N. authorities say that rights issues will be discussed, especially the regime’s bans on women’s education, and that Afghan civil society leaders will be able to consult with U.N. officials and global envoys.

However, the U.N.’s decision has sparked an uproar among many Afghans and global critics. Amnesty International warned that excluding Afghan women and rights leaders will leave the Doha process “in tatters.” The U.N. is likely trying to be pragmatic, but in the end, the Taliban are getting exactly what they want: participation in a high-level international negotiation without the involvement of those they don’t want at the table.

Modi won’t attend annual SCO summit. As he pushes forward on regional diplomacy, Modi appears to be taking a momentary step back from Central Asia. He has reportedly decided that he will not attend the annual Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit on July 3 and 4 in Kazakhstan, sending Jaishankar instead. Four SCO members are Central Asian states.

Although India initially indicated that Modi would go, it now says that he will not attend because the summit clashes with the first parliamentary session of his new term, which runs from June 24 to July 3. Still, Modi’s decision not to attend even part of the summit is striking; India is strongly committed to strengthening engagement with Central Asia.

This suggests that there are other considerations beyond scheduling. Modi may not want to engage with the leaders of Pakistan and China. New Delhi’s relations with Islamabad have grown more tense since a recent rash of terrorist attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir, and with Beijing since India facilitated a meeting last week between a U.S. congressional delegation and the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader.

Given the centrality of Central Asia in India’s foreign-policy calculus, one can’t rule out Modi having a last-minute change of heart and attending the summit after all.

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Under the Radar

Last week, Pakistani Ambassador to Russia Muhammad Khalid Jamali said that Islamabad accepted an invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin to join the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which, as envisioned, would stretch from Europe to Central Asia, the Middle East, and India. Jamali said that Pakistan “in principle has agreed” and is taking formal steps to join the project.

Russia and Pakistan have friendly ties and some shared interests, including curbing terrorist threats such as that of IS-K. Last year, Pakistan began importing Russian oil. But the relationship is not very substantive, especially compared to Moscow’s long-standing partnership with New Delhi.

Russia seems to be turning to South Asia to show the West that it continues to have friends and partners that are willing to work with it even amid its war in Ukraine. Indeed, Pakistan has good reasons to join the INSTC, given its long-standing desire to strengthen ties with Central Asia through cross-border connectivity projects.

India may not welcome this development, although it serves in a variety of multilateral entities with Pakistan, from the SCO to a long-elusive gas pipeline project that includes Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. In recent days, Moscow has also underscored its special relationship with New Delhi, with the two countries moving to approve a draft agreement that would strengthen interoperability between their militaries.