Pakistan has routinely targeted various terrorist groups operating within its borders, but its overall strategy, argues Bill Reggio in recent congressional testimony, is to support several other jihadist organizations both at home and in Afghanistan. Among the most prominent of these is Jaish-e-Mohammed, which was involved in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, and its ally Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT):

LeT operates openly inside Pakistan and has offices throughout the country. . . .[Its] headquarters, [located] near Lahore, is a sprawling complex that is used to indoctrinate future jihadists before they are sent off for military training. . . .

[LeT’s] terrorist infrastructure was used to conduct . . . terrorist attacks in India and Afghanistan. The most prominent attack took place in Mumbai, when a suicide assault team fanned out across the city and targeted multiple locations, including a theater, a train station, hotels, and a Jewish center, killing 164 people. The attack lasted for three days.

Indian intelligence traced phone calls back to handlers in Pakistan as the assault was ongoing. The handlers directed its fighters to execute non-Muslims, often brutally, and laughed when their instructions were carried out. After the attack, Interpol issued arrest warrants for two serving senior Pakistani army officers and a retired major.

Despite LeT’s overt ties to al-Qaeda and its campaign of terror in India and Afghanistan, the Pakistani government refuses to crack down on this group.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.