Pakistan's terrorist challenge

Since its independence from British rule in 1947 Pakistan has suffered from, and been implicated in, rising levels of terrorism and sectarian violence that have impacted both it and its region. At over 200 million people, Pakistan is the world’s fifth most populous country and the only Muslim majority state to have a nuclear weapons capability. Since the 1947 division of the Indian Subcontinent into the two culturally related but antagonistic states of Pakistan and India, Pakistan’s domestic security and foreign relations have been dominated by complex and hostile relations with its larger neighbour, as well as the actions of outside powers such as Russia, the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia looking to use Pakistan as a staging board for influence in South Asia and beyond. Pakistan and India have fought three wars over the contested region of Kashmir plus a series of border skirmishes. While maintaining a conventional militarised line of control (LOC) through the disputed mountainous region, each has also accused the other of at times employing non-state proxies and terror groups to wage unconventional warfare within one another’s borders, and to gain leverage in Kashmir and neighbouring Afghanistan.