ABSTRACT
The relocation of Al-Qaeda (AQ) and the Taliban remnants to the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (ex-FATA) region, now merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, tore apart Pakistan’s social fabric and destroyed the tolerant religious ethos. The ethnic differences soon emerged as to whether Urdu or Bengali should be the national language. The Bengali grievances grew in East Pakistan and ultimately led to the disintegration of Pakistan in 1971. Pakistan has one of the largest concentrations of terrorist groups in the world. The global jihadist groups use Pakistan as a base for recruitment and radicalization to achieve their long-term goals of creating the self-style global Muslim caliphate or the Islamic rule. Pakistan inherited a security dilemma vis-a-vis India at the time of its independence in 1947. The fundamental flaw in Pakistan’s counter-narrative messaging is the theory–practice gap.
