A new intelligence dossier accessed by NDTV has blown the lid off Pakistan’s expanding terror infrastructure – revealing a covert alliance between Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), engineered and funded by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The revelation underscores how Pakistan’s military establishment continues to weaponise terror groups as instruments of statecraft, now turning its focus towards Balochistan and beyond.
According to the classified Indian dossier, ISKP – long dismissed as un-Islamic even by the Afghan Taliban – is being repurposed by Pakistan’s deep state to wage a hybrid war against Baloch nationalists and anti-Islamabad elements within Afghanistan’s Taliban regime. Recent editions of ISKP’s propaganda magazine Yalgaar reveal plans to expand operations into Kashmir, signaling an alarming new phase of terrorism designed to destabilise South Asia under the cloak of plausible deniability.
The most damning evidence comes in the form of a recently surfaced photograph showing ISKP’s Balochistan coordinator, Mir Shafiq Mengal, handing a pistol to Rana Mohammad Ashfaq, the powerful Nazim-e-Ala of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Intelligence sources believe the image captures the formalisation of operational cooperation between the two terror groups, an alliance crafted under ISI’s direct supervision.
Mengal, son of former Balochistan Chief Minister Nasir Mengal, has long been an ISI asset, notorious for running a private death squad targeting Baloch nationalists. Since 2015, he has acted as ISKP’s key facilitator, providing funding, weapons, and safe houses. His name appeared in Pakistan’s Joint Investigation Team (JIT) report in 2015. Under ISI patronage, Mengal established ISKP bases in Mastung and Khuzdar – used to suppress Baloch resistance and launch cross-border attacks into Afghanistan.
Following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, ISI revamped ISKP’s structure in Balochistan. When Baloch fighters attacked ISKP’s Mastung base in March 2025, killing 30 terrorists, the ISI turned to Lashkar-e-Taiba to fill the vacuum. By June 2025, LeT chief Rana Mohammad Ashfaq and deputy Saifullah Kasuri had convened a Jigra in Balochistan, pledging jihad against “anti-Pakistan” forces.
The collaboration marks a dangerous evolution in Pakistan’s proxy warfare strategy – merging ideologically distinct terror groups into a single, state-backed machinery. Analysts warn this LeT-ISKP nexus could reignite terrorism in Kashmir while deepening instability across Balochistan and Afghanistan. As evidence mounts, Islamabad’s denials grow increasingly hollow, revealing a nation whose intelligence agency has blurred every line between governance and terror.