Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism, and the West
Friday, April 25, 2025Journalist prefaced her question to Pakistani official by stating that Pakistan has a lonh g history of supporting terrorism. In response, the Pakistani Minister of Defense replied:
"We have been doing this dirty work for the United States and the West — including Britain — for about three decades."
He is referencing Pakistan's role in training the "mujahideen" of Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union, who later, under al-Qaeda leadership, one of the Mujahideen groups, attacked US on 9/11, and that started the war on terror, which Pakistan joined again, under the request of the West.
The crisis in Kashmir has been just one element that created the alliance between Saudi Arabia, United States, and Pakistan to "radicalize", which means, to wahhabitize Muslims, to fight the "good" war against the Soviet Union, and Pakistan hoped that it can use them to control all of Kashmir, too. It turned out that using religion for political gains did not work well for all three partners in the long run.