New Delhi, September 5, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Pakistan has been recalibrating its strategy of supporting terror activities against India, with its handlers increasingly seeking to conceal links to the country and make attribution more difficult, according to Indian security officials cited in the report.
The shift, officials said, followed the abrogation of Article 370 and was further accelerated by Operation Sindoor, launched by India in response to the Pahalgam terror attack in May 2025.
An official said Pakistan has sought to establish home-grown terror outfits in India while simultaneously changing how its handlers communicate with potential recruits. Earlier, instructions were allegedly issued directly from locations such as Islamabad, Karachi and Rawalpindi. The report claims that handlers are now operating from abroad, including Syria and Iraq, with assistance from networks associated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
The objective, officials said, is to ensure that investigations into terrorist attacks do not lead directly back to Pakistan.
During Operation Sindoor, India had declared that any future terror attack would be treated not merely as a cross-border terrorist incident but as an act of war against the country.
An Intelligence Bureau official said Pakistan would be reluctant to face another operation of a similar scale, claiming that Operation Sindoor exposed its security establishment and inflicted significant damage on terror infrastructure.
Another major change, according to officials, is the alleged abandonment of operational manuals associated with Pakistan-based groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Hizbul Mujahideen. Investigators are familiar with those methods, making them easier to trace, officials said.
Instead, handlers operating abroad are allegedly using ideological material associated with the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda and encouraging lone-wolf attacks in India. Such attacks require fewer resources and less organisational coordination, while their perpetrators may have no formal connection with a structured terror module.
Officials said targets are increasingly identified through social media, followed by online recruitment, radicalisation and attack planning.
The strategy, they said, is aimed at maintaining deniability while continuing to target India. International scrutiny, including pressure linked to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), was also cited as a factor behind the alleged shift.
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