Pakistan’s defense minister has made one of the most candid acknowledgements by a senior Pakistani official about Islamabad’s role in Afghanistan’s decades of conflict, saying Pakistan’s involvement was driven by political legitimacy and the pursuit of backing from global powers rather than religious motives.
Speaking during a session of Pakistan’s National Assembly on Monday, Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said Pakistan’s participation in wars linked to Afghanistan, beginning during the Cold War and continuing after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, was a strategic choice made to secure international support, particularly from the United States.
“We did not enter these wars to defend Islam or for jihad,” Asif told lawmakers. “We entered them for political legitimacy and to secure the support of a superpower.”
Asif said Pakistan’s policies towards Afghanistan since independence had been shaped by shifting geopolitical calculations, adding that what was widely described as jihad during the Soviet-Afghan war was in fact a proxy conflict involving major powers.
“That was not jihad. It was the war of a superpower,” he said. “And for that war, we changed our education system. Even today, that curriculum has not been fully corrected.”
He said Pakistan rewrote its history to align with the conflict narrative, referring to the long-term social and ideological consequences of those policies. “We reshaped society, politics and religion to fit that so-called jihad,” Asif said.
The defense minister said Pakistan failed to learn from the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal and again aligned itself with Washington after the 9/11 attacks, remaining involved in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan for nearly two decades.
“For not one decade, but two decades, we rented ourselves out,” he said. “The only objective was to gain American support.”
Asif said none of the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks were Afghans and that Afghanistan as a country was not responsible, yet Pakistan became deeply involved in the subsequent war.
“Afghanistan did not carry out 9/11,” he said. “None of those involved belonged to Afghanistan’s ethnic groups.”
He said Pakistan’s leadership had repeatedly failed to acknowledge past mistakes. “Until we admit our mistakes, nothing will improve,” Asif said, adding that he had personally apologized for the political choices of earlier generations.
“In Pakistan, no politician has apologized for the past. I have,” he said.
Asif also addressed Pakistan’s ongoing security dispute with the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan, saying Taliban officials had acknowledged the presence of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) fighters on Afghan soil but had declined to provide security guarantees to Islamabad.
“In meetings with Taliban leaders, they said they would eliminate or relocate the TTP,” Asif said. “But they asked us for money to do so.”
He added that Pakistan was prepared to provide financial assistance but was unwilling to do so without concrete guarantees. “They never gave us a security guarantee,” he said, referring to talks held in Doha, Istanbul and Riyadh.
The Taliban have repeatedly denied hosting or supporting the TTP, despite multiple United Nations monitoring reports documenting the group’s presence and operational freedom in Afghanistan. Taliban officials have not publicly responded to Asif’s latest remarks.
Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in militant attacks over the past year, particularly in Balochistan and the northwest, with Islamabad accusing Afghan-based militants of orchestrating the violence. The Taliban reject those accusations.
Tensions have further escalated following a recent suicide bombing at a Shi’ite mosque in Islamabad and earlier deadly attacks in Balochistan. Pakistani security officials have blamed Afghan-linked militants for the attacks and warned of consequences if the violence continues.
President Asif Ali Zardari recently said conditions in Afghanistan had become “worse than before September 11,” accusing the Taliban of turning the country into a safe haven for militant groups.
Pakistan has also alleged that India supports proxy militant groups targeting Pakistani interests, claims New Delhi denies.
Asif’s remarks mark one of the most explicit public acknowledgements by a sitting Pakistani defense minister of the political calculations behind Islamabad’s involvement in Afghanistan’s wars, a subject long debated within Pakistan but rarely addressed so directly by senior officials.