From global jihad to glocal terror: Ex-DGP Anju Gupta on why the threat is now harder to detect

Your book is being published at a moment when the concept of a “global jihad” feels both anachronistic and urgently contemporary. You document how external ideological crusades were grafted onto local Afghan grievances, creating a hybrid threat. Four years into Taliban 2.0’s rule, with Al Qaeda seemingly dormant but ISKP expanding, does the “glocal” model still hold, or does what we are witnessing now represent the mutation of that phenomenon into something far more diffuse and harder to track?

Anju Gupta: The caliphate as a territorial entity does not exist anymore, but there are pockets where local groups rule and still call themselves Al Qaeda or ISIS affiliates or branches. The nature of the global threat has changed, but the threat is as serious as it was—in fact, harder to detect because it has diffused. Hence, the glocal model absolutely holds: the terror infrastructure in our region, for instance, remains intact.

Pakistan itself is facing massive blowback from pursuing the wrong strategy for decades. Look at ISKP modules and the Punjabi groups such as Harkat and Salafi groups based in Pakistan. They continue to mount complex, coordinated attacks. We saw it in Afghanistan against a Chinese restaurant in January. We saw it in Pahalgam. The attacks in Iran and Russia claimed by the so-called ISKP in 2024 have also thrown up linkages to this region.

Glocal actors—David Headley, Sajid Mir, Hafiz Saeed, the 1993 World Trade Center mastermind Ramzi Yousef—are some examples who are alive and kicking as role models and much more. They were built as heroes.

The Pakistan deep state emerges in your narrative as the original double agent: Washington’s indispensable ally and simultaneously the godfather of terrorist proxies. Upon the Taliban’s return, we have seen Pakistani warplanes bombing Afghan soil and border skirmishes. Is this a genuine rupture, or is it a public divorce masking a private reconciliation?

There are very solid reasons why this rupture has happened. The target killing of top Taliban and Haqqani leaders in recent times—anyone who has handled counter-terrorism would tell you—is a sign of serious rupture.

In the past, consider the arrest of Mullah Baradar, now one of the senior-most Taliban leaders. In 2010, when Baradar was actively engaged in peace talks with the Afghan government, Pakistan arrested him overnight to prevent those talks from succeeding. There is also a history of the Taliban becoming uncomfortable with Al Qaeda’s actions against Americans. I document it in detail in the book.

If a Black Swan event takes place—for instance, if the Taliban regime breaks or is removed—part of it could realign with Pakistan, but it would be transactional. Any warmth between the Taliban and Pakistan’s establishment? From everything in the public domain, I don’t feel it.

ISKP has gone from a splinter faction to a global threat actor, striking Iran and Russia while expanding its footprint. Your book raises the unsettling possibility that it could be cultivated as the “next Al Qaeda,” a transnational bogeyman. Given recent reporting about possible operational links between Pakistan’s established proxies and ISKP in Balochistan, is this group an organic outgrowth of local extremism, or is it being shaped by state actors who believe they can direct its violence toward their own geopolitical ends?

Anju Gupta: First, claiming attacks in the name of a group does not mean that group is behind it. But if you are asking whether it is this or that, my answer is: it is both.

There are cadres available in this region trained in the ideology of jihad. The question the Pakistani establishment should be asking itself is: how do you use them? And how do you stay relevant in this game?

They have used proxies as instruments of state policy for so long. Moreover, how do they pacify a domestic audience that sees security forces getting killed day in and day out? The casualty rate in Pakistan is 2,000 to 3,000 per year—their own admissions. They need to create an enemy. India and Afghanistan are external enemies in their propaganda.

You list several “black swan” scenarios. Which of these scenarios keeps you awake at night, and what would its first shockwave mean for a region already holding its breath?

Anju Gupta: What keeps me awake: an India-Pakistan war. If any Black Swan event leads to that, I’d be deeply concerned. The first shockwave would likely be a spectacular terror attack in India—one not claimed by traditional groups like LeT and Jaish. I hope it does not happen. The world is already passing through tense geopolitical churning. We’re a developing nation, an aspirational nation. We don’t want anything to derail our path of growth.

Glocal Terror in South Asia: Tracing the Roots in Geopolitics and the Tragedy of Afghanistan is available in stores. (Simon & Schuster India)

India now finds itself in an extraordinary position: conducting diplomatic outreach to the same Taliban it once opposed, while watching Pakistan’s relations with both Afghanistan and India deteriorate simultaneously. Is this a tactical hedge, New Delhi simply buying insurance against Islamabad’s influence in Kabul, or does it represent a deeper strategic acceptance that the Taliban are here to stay, ideology and all?

Anju Gupta: I think it is a mix of both. On ideology: in geopolitics, as long as interests align, ideology doesn’t matter, really. By the criterion of ideology, we should not have relationships with some Arab countries either.

We have very long civilisational links with Afghans. Before the British, before Pakistan, India was always a direct neighbour for thousands of years. When the Taliban’s foreign minister came, he visited Deoband because that is where the Deobandi jurisprudence they follow originates. Afghans have great goodwill towards India. So why not help a country reeling under violence for four decades? Why not create more goodwill and build on it? I think it is a great move.

Your book is being published at a moment of apparent recalibration in Washington’s relationship with Islamabad. Just last week, a senior US official told Congress that Pakistan remains a “key partner” in the region, with expanding security and counterterrorism cooperation under the Trump administration. After years of estrangement following the Afghanistan withdrawal, how should we read this tilt? And for a region already watching the US-China rivalry play out across South Asia, what message does this send?

Anju Gupta: The Pakistan-US relationship has always been transactional. In 1979, the US lifted nuclear sanctions because they needed Pakistan as a base against the Soviets. When the Soviets left, sanctions returned. Then 9/11 happened, and Pakistan became an ally again. When the withdrawal happened, Pakistan was no longer needed because the US had a direct relationship with the Taliban.

In Trump 2.0, they brought a private member’s bill against Pakistan’s army chief in March last year. Within weeks, he began praising Pakistan. This tilt is transactional and is about Afghanistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. There is no “rebalancing” in South Asia. The optics may help Pakistan against India, but that’s all.

Bangladesh has just delivered a seismic electoral verdict. The BNP has swept to power with a two-thirds majority, but beneath that national mandate lies a more complicated geography: Jamaat-e-Islami, a party with a contested history, has consolidated control across sensitive border districts facing India’s northeast. What does this mean for India’s northeastern states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram?

Anju Gupta: The troubling part is the consolidation of Jamaat. For them to do this well was not expected. It tells us that Jamaat has created a constituency. Translating political heft into seats is a big thing. The space vacated by the Awami League has also helped Jamaat.

But without state machinery support, it is not easy to cause serious damage to India. Unless the BNP plays a double game, I doubt Jamaat can do much right now. India should be watchful—and perhaps engage with Jamaat too in the future. India has great diplomatic heft and the capacity to do things that look impossible today.

China has moved quickly to engage the Taliban, driven by concerns over Xinjiang, the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, and access to critical minerals. In your framework of external powers shaping the region’s militant landscape, how transformative could a sustained Chinese security and economic presence in Afghanistan be, and what would it mean for India?

Anju Gupta: Despite talk about China getting mineral rights, I do not see them getting into everything in Afghanistan. The Taliban-US dialogue is solid and continues. Today, China’s presence is not at all solid. But they have made peace with Taliban 2.0 irrespective of Pakistan; this is how a superpower behaves.

I do not think China and India have any reason to clash in Afghanistan. Both of us are following more or less the same policy: stay engaged and wait and watch. The Chinese were never ready to replace the Americans, and I don’t think they are now.

The recent strategic pact between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and the prospect of renewed US access to Pakistani bases, places India in an uncomfortable position. Is Washington positioning Pakistan as a frontline state against Iran, and if American military assets return to bases Islamabad controls, how should New Delhi read that signal?

Anju Gupta: Pakistan may lend clandestine support, but open support against Iran? I doubt it. If the US bombs the Taliban tomorrow, Pakistan will happily lend open support. But bases against Iran? No.

Iran today is at the centre of Middle East discourse, where many states are deeply engaged in diffusing tensions between the US and Iran. Iran is part of the Middle East calculus, not of South Asia.

What we should worry about is if US sanctions against Iran affect our businesses and people-to-people contacts—which are historically deep. Chabahar is an example. That’s a greater worry.

India has absorbed major security shocks in 2025—the Pahalgam attack, Operation Sindoor—and the temptation is always to respond tactically, operationally, in the moment. But Afghanistan offers strategic lessons that transcend any single crisis. What is the one your book argues New Delhi must institutionalise, even as the next crisis demands its attention?

Anju Gupta: Everything looks like a security issue, but at its core, it is geopolitics. India is a robust state. We are a peace-loving people. I do not think we will allow geopolitics to wreck us.

We need to strengthen counter-terrorism and counter-extremism responses. What leads to extremist discourse—far right as well as far left? We need to be careful. Counter-terrorism requires laborious work. It doesn’t happen on social media. Someone talking tough, arresting someone—that doesn’t neutralise networks.

As a citizen, I am encouraged by how the Indian state responded after Pahalgam and Red Fort. They treated them as dots, not triggers for full-blown wars leading to destabilization and destruction. Our internal public discourse was balanced.

You open with Einstein’s warning about solving problems with the same thinking that created them. Looking across the arc of intervention in South Asia, from the CIA’s mujahideen funding to the drone war to the present moment, what is the single error the international community keeps repeating, decade after decade?

Anju Gupta: Disproportionate tactical response settling scores and not a strategic response to hit at the root of the problem. A strategic response requires patience, hard thinking, and wisdom. The global community many times does not think about the blowback that would come in the medium to long term and does not put people at the centre of decision-making.

You argue that Pakistan’s Kashmir project failed because it never understood the territory’s distinct identity, that the Afghan model could not be transplanted. Yet the attacks continue, the proxies remain active. Has Islamabad abandoned the project of winning Kashmiri hearts and minds, settling instead for a strategy of pure disruption? And if so, what does that mean for the people?

Anju Gupta: The Kashmir jihad failed long ago. That’s why they had to usher in Pakistani fighters from the Afghan jihad, and fighters trained with groups created in Punjab province of Pakistan. It became cross-border terrorism.

Pakistan never attempted to win Kashmiri hearts and minds, and they never can. Kashmiris don’t trust Pakistan—not even this much. Some individuals may have transactional relationships, but they don’t have even a bit of trust.

Over the decades, we have perhaps used security as the principal lens to look at Kashmir. That may be why it has dragged on so long. I’m not saying security isn’t an issue, but if it becomes the principal lens, we may lose sight of everything else. Still, we have come a long way in Kashmir.

You have spent years studying the intersection of internal security and communal politics, both as an analyst and from your experience in the Uttar Pradesh police. How do you see the relationship between domestic political discourse and ground-level internal security? When you look at Indian policing today, what urgent police reforms are not being discussed?

Anju Gupta: Domestic discourse can be extremist, divisive, violent, and undemocratic. With the reach of media today—social media, print, TV, online—it leads to serious law-and-order problems. It can lead to bad action by police under pressure. The response becomes firefighting. That’s tactical. We have seen it at play internationally too. That’s what my book is about—how lives are wrecked by bad ideas and how it became firefighting for years.

On policing reforms: they don’t mean reforms by the police department alone. It concerns everyone who is part of the delivery system for justice, security, public order, and administration.

Four points for now. One: make policing people-centric. Victim or accused—they are people. A fundamental shift is required in our attitude. Two: bring in transparency without hurting the privacy of people—of both victim and accused. Three: ban public trials on television, print, and social media. Stop talking about evidence in public. It destroys policing, destroys the criminal justice system, and destroys victims and accused. Four: strengthen executive magistrates in settling civil matters. Land disputes, drainage issues, etc.—they may lead to criminal actions if not resolved in time or in a just manner. This hurts poor and disempowered people most. When the system fails, might becomes right. Good policing is not ‘might is right.’ Society needs to self-reflect about these issues.

Glocal Terror in South Asia: Tracing the Roots in Geopolitics and the Tragedy of Afghanistan by Anju Gupta
Simon & Schuster India
256 pages
Rs 699