Institute for Economics & Peace, Global Terrorism Index 2022, p.

22; Global Terrorism Index 2025; Global Terrorism Index 2026, pp.

Institute for Economics & Peace, Global Terrorism Index 2026, pp.

“O Prophet Muhammad [PBUH], they ask you about the use of psychoactive [intoxicating] substances and easy money [gambling, etc.]. Tell them these have short-term gains which are far less than their long-term harmful effects. They also ask how much to spend in the way of Allah. Tell them whatever is ‘surplus’ [whatever they can spare]. In this way Allah makes His message clear to you so that you may reflect in this world and the next.” — Al-Qur’an (2:219–220), interpretive rendering.1

This verse supplies the test that Pakistan and its patrons refused to apply. It recognises immediate benefit but asks whether it exceeds injury. The anti-Soviet jihad brought foreign money and a defeated superpower. The post-9/11 bargain brought debt relief and international legitimacy. The gains were spent. Heroinisation, militarisation, debt and terrorism survived their paymasters.

The Global Terrorism Index (GTI) now delivers the balance sheet. The often-repeated sequence of seventh, fourth, second and first needs correction from the primary reports. Pakistan stood tenth in the 2022 Index, sixth in 2023, fourth in 2024, second in 2025 and first in 2026. The corrected record is worse: deterioration continued through five successive reports, not four.2

In 2025, Pakistan recorded 1,139 deaths, 1,595 injuries and 1,045 terrorist incidents. Deaths reached their highest level since 2013 and increased for the sixth consecutive year. The GTI counted 17,668 deaths from terrorism in Pakistan since 2007. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan accounted for 97 per cent of the country’s terrorism deaths in 2025.3

The figures do not measure every form of political violence or warfare. They do establish failure against the State’s declared objective. Six consecutive annual increases are not a temporary spike. Pakistan reached first place because its system kept reproducing armed capacity after individual formations were dispersed.

The attack on a police post in Hangu on July 30, 2026, made that capacity visible. Attackers used explosive-laden quadcopters before ambushing the post. Eleven police officers were killed and 28 injured. The weapon had changed; the target had not. Police serving on the frontier again absorbed the cost of strategies designed far above their rank.4

Military operations were necessary when armed groups occupied territory and murdered citizens. They cleared Swat and the Waziristans at immense human cost. Their limitation lay in what followed.........

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