India holds Pakistan's army and intelligence service responsible for thirty-five years of attacks on Indian soil by groups that were founded in Pakistan, recruit there and whose leaders live there. Pakistan denies directing them, says India has never produced proof that would stand in a court, and accuses India in turn of financing the separatists and Pakistani Taliban who kill Pakistanis. In May 2025, after gunmen killed twenty-six tourists in Kashmir, India bombed sites in Pakistan and the two fought for four days. India has said any future attack will be treated as an act of war.
The wider conflict and each side's full account: India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Where it stands · September 2026
Pakistan transferred the head of the ISI internal wing, Maj Gen Faisal Naseer, to Nacta. Pakistan listed Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as a fugitive and raised the reward for him ahead of a review of its record on terrorist financing by the Financial Action Task Force. India's Ministry of External Affairs dismissed the bounty as a hollow gimmick. The BRICS summit in Delhi condemned the Pahalgam attack and stated that no act of terror is justified.
What the dispute is about
State or non-state. Whether the groups act on the orders of Pakistan's army, with its tolerance, or against its wishes. The answer has differed by group and by decade.
Evidence. India says the pattern is proof enough and that sharing intelligence with Pakistan only warns the culprits. Pakistan says accusations made within hours, with no inquiry, are politics.
The reply. India has moved from restraint after Mumbai in 2008, to a raid in 2016, an air strike in 2019 and missile strikes on Pakistani cities in 2025. Each step was a precedent. Pakistan has answered each and says it will answer the next.
