Pakistan’s image as a sponsor of terrorism returned to sharp focus when France solemnly recalled the killing of 11 French nationals in Karachi on 8 May 2002. These citizens, employed on a French-Pakistani submarine project, were murdered in a bombing carried out by terrorists linked to a nexus of Pakistani generals, politicians, and middlemen angered by not receiving the bribes they had been promised.
Although Pakistan was swift to label the bombing an al-Qaeda attack, French investigators later unearthed clear evidence of the ISI’s direct involvement.
On 20 and 21 May this year, Le Monde published a damning two-part exposé on the Karachi attack, confirming the ISI’s role. The revelations have placed Pakistan in a tight corner, exposing how a powerful cabal of non-state actors, shielded and supported by the state—most notably the Army—has sustained terrorism not only in the region but also across the world.
It is now evident that, under the guise of supporting the global “war on terror”, Pakistan was simultaneously creating a rogue state within a state: one that used terrorist groups to punish its own citizens, sow violence across its neighbourhood, and blackmail the international community.
In France, the attack devastated families, shattering lives and dreams. Nineteen years on, the wound remains raw; for families of the dead, there is no closure. They continue to grieve with anger in their hearts, furious that not a single person has ever been held accountable for wilful murder in a plot that stretched from Paris to Karachi. The two “terrorists” arrested and tried in Pakistan were released by a local court for lack of evidence—a sham that deepened the families’ pain.
The truth, uncovered by a handful of dogged French investigators, was even darker. The attack had been masterminded by a cartel of Pakistani military officials, arms dealers, and French political elites, driven by quarrels over commissions promised from the submarine deal. For the bereaved families, it was like tearing open a barely healed wound; for the wider world, it was a chilling glimpse into the depths of Pakistan’s corruption and duplicity.
The background is telling. In 1994, France sold three Agosta-class submarines to Pakistan for about one billion euros. Some €50 million were earmarked as commissions for politically connected Pakistanis and senior military officers who had “managed” the deal. Beneficiaries included Asif Ali Zardari—then husband of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto—former naval chiefs Admirals Mansurul Haq and Saeed Khan, a former naval intelligence director, and several defence agents. The most notorious of these was Amir Lodhi, brother of a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States and a close associate of Zardari.
What, then, of the Army’s role? The Express Tribune, in an editorial dated 27 November 2010, observed:
“An attack of this nature could take place only with the involvement of the military and the agencies. No one else is capable of enacting it. This is all the more true as it took place during the height of power of a military regime.”
Since Zardari was in exile at the time, he could not have orchestrated the attack. So who did? A secret 2008 report, codenamed Nautilus, pointed directly to the ISI. According to Le Parisien, which reported on Judge Marc Trévidic’s French investigation, the involvement of Pakistan’s intelligence services was “no longer in doubt”. The same report also linked the Karachi bombing to the January 2002 murder of American Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl—a case in which the Pakistani Army’s role has long been established.
As the families of the victims continue to demand answers, the Karachi attack stands as compelling proof of Pakistan’s sponsorship of terrorism as a matter of state policy. The world’s reluctance to confront this reality has come at a steep price—paid not only by the French families whose grief remains unresolved, but also by global peace and order.