The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is tenuous but remains in effect. With the guns silent, Israelis now start to look at how the October 7, 2023, attacks could have happened. On January 21, 2025, Israeli Army Chief Herzi Halevi announced he would resign in March, several months short of his expected tenure. Yaron Finkelman, the Israel Defense Forces general in charge of the Southern Command, also said he would resign.
As Israelis consider what went wrong and how Hamas took them by surprise with such a sophisticated and large-scale assault, they should not limit themselves to the roles of Iran and Turkey. Sarah Adams, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst and former special advisor to the U.S. House Select Committee on Benghazi, suggests a nexus between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban in planning, training, and orchestrating the October 7 attacks.
Adams suggests anti-Israel cooperation across the Sunni-Shi’ite sectarian divide, as well as geographically among West and South Asian jihadist groups. While Israeli experts are skeptical about the involvement of Pakistan-sponsored terror groups in West Asia, evidence mounts that the Israeli blind spot toward South Asian Sunni extremists is unwarranted.
Evidence mounts that the Israeli blind spot toward South Asian Sunni extremists is unwarranted.
During my field research in Jammu and Kashmir, terrorists and their militant sympathizers lumped India, the United States, and Israel together as enemies of Islam. Israelis may believe their back channels to Pakistan’s army and intelligence guarantee that the Jewish state trumps any promise to cooperate. Israel should not ignore more than two decades of U.S. experience in Afghanistan, in which Pakistan and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) repeatedly betrayed their promises and commitments to support the U.S. fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. As Pakistani military and intelligence leaders feigned cooperation, the ISI’s “Directorate S” armed and strengthened the Taliban. Pakistan diverted U.S. aid to the Taliban to kill American soldiers.
The convergence of West and South Asian terror networks should worry both India and Israel. It would open a new front for Israel with radical jihadis from Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, and Bangladesh. Hamas could train in Al Qaeda and Taliban training camps designed to survive air raids, while tough terrain could make ground operations difficult.
For India, the commingling of West and South Asian jihadists poses a major security threat, especially with growing polarization and radicalization of Muslims in the Indian hinterland. Today, Indian Muslims embrace global Islamic issues like the Israel-Palestinian conflict. They despise the growing ties between Delhi and Jerusalem. Against this backdrop, the local jihadist elements of India will draw inspiration from the ideology, and tactics of West Asian and African groups.
From a jihadi point of view, Israel and India are the next logical targets to bring down.
Just over two weeks after the October 7 attack, senior Hamas leader Khaled Mashal lectured a huge gathering of Muslims in Kerala organized by Solidarity Youth Movement, the youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, in which the audience interspersed pro-Palestinian slogans with attention to local issues. India’s domestic Islamist organizations like the Popular Front of India and Jamaat-e-Islami have espoused the same causes, ideals, and values that Al Qaeda and Taliban support. Several former Popular Front cadres joined the Islamic State. Kerala has sent the largest number of Indian recruits to the Islamic State. In addition, former Jamaat-e-Islami cadres have joined Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, and Hizbul Mujahideen. Lashkar and Jaish fighters have fought alongside the Taliban against the U.S.-led coalition forces.
The ISI is riding high, has successfully embarrassed two superpowers in Afghanistan, causing them massive losses in men, money, morale, and material. From a jihadi point of view, Israel and India are the next logical targets to bring down. While Adams suggests some involvement and foreknowledge of the October 7, 2023, attack, increasing ISI ties to Hamas and other anti-Israel groups is inevitable.
The days where Israel can ignore Pakistan’s terror factor are over. India and Israel must work together militarily and with intelligence sharing to stop both Pakistani Sunni groups and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ South Asian affiliates, many of which were present along Israel’s borders prior to the Assad regime’s fall and seek to be active in Kashmir.
The United States should not allow distance to fuel disinterest or create an illusion of security. Washington must adopt an approach of “First, do no harm.” While there is a knee-jerk reaction of many diplomats to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, the Taliban diverts such funds to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups who will not limit their terror to Afghanistan. Money provided to Kabul will translate into terror in Gujarat, Gaza, and the Galilee. Previous U.S. strategy that the first Trump administration embraced of differentiating between Al Qaeda and the Taliban was a disaster. Jihad drives all terrorist organizations. The nuances diplomats highlight are often distinctions without a difference.
