India's UN Envoy Exposes Pakistan's Permissive Environment for Terror Groups

India's UN Envoy Exposes Pakistan's Permissive Environment for Terror Groups\n\nAt a recent UN Security Council meeting, India's Permanent Representative Harish Parvathaneni delivered a scathing attack on Pakistan, highlighting the country's permissive environment that supports terror groups.\n\nParvathaneni invoked the history of the September 11, 2001 attacks, pointing out that al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were eventually found in settled communities rather than remote hideouts.\n\nHe listed the names of al-Qaeda leaders who had planned and perpetrated the September 11 attacks and were captured in Pakistani cities.\n\nBin Laden, who ordered and financed the 9/11 plot, was tracked down and killed in a fortified compound within a settled, guarded community under Operation Neptune Spear.\n\nMohammed, the principal architect of the operation, was found sheltering in an ordinary residential house.\n\nRamzi Binalshibh, who coordinated the hijacker cell after being denied a visa to join them, was sheltering in an urban centre.\n\nSenior al-Qaeda operative Walid bin Attash, who helped select and prepare several hijackers, was captured separately.\n\nMustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a key financial and logistical facilitator of the 9/11 operation, was captured under similar circumstances.\n\nParvathaneni emphasized that these individuals were not fugitives hiding in caves or badlands, but men who had long evaded detection.\n\nHe stressed that the same permissive environment that sheltered the architects of 9/11 has continued to provide space, support, and impunity to affiliates of al-Qaeda such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.\n\nThe international community must join hands to address the continuity of such sanctuary to ensure that more such individuals are not thrust upon any country or its citizens.\n\nIndia has reaffirmed its deep concern at the humanitarian plight of the Afghan returnees.\n\nThe Secretary General's Report on Afghanistan mentions that in 2025, 2.9 million Afghans were returned, and until August 22, 2026, another 1.15 million Afghans were returned, most of which were involuntary.\n\nParvathaneni emphasized that a forcible return of this nature that is neither safe nor dignified, of over three million individuals, in any other part of the world would have elicited a political outcry in this Council, urgent provision of large-scale humanitarian support and efforts to ensure better re-integration and assimilation.\n\nIndia is cooperating with the UN agencies and the Afghan authorities to make provisions for housing, food, and other essential items for the returnees.\n\nIn conclusion, India's stance underscores the need for collective action to address sanctuary for terror groups and ensure that the international community works together to prevent the spread of terrorism.