Pakistan and Iran might continue to use terrorist groups to mount attacks on other countries out of a strong sense of insecurity in the next 18 years, says a new report by the US intelligence community.Every half-decade, the National Intelligence Council's "Global Trends" series produces analysis considered to be the best long-range geopolitical forecasting conducted by the US government. The 140-page "Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds" report has a chapter titled "Future of Terrorism" which calls Pakistan what it is -- a state supporter of terrorism.
"States such as Pakistan and Iran feel threatened by what they perceive as stronger, threatening powers in their regions or globally. Therefore, they seek asymmetric options to assert power and deter attack; using terrorist groups as proxies and pursuing nuclear weapons are two such asymmetric tools," says the report.
US intelligence experts are now echoing what India has always maintained. Pakistan trains Islamic terrorists to launch attacks on India as part of its claim on Kashmir. Anti-India jihadist groups were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve short-term Pakistani tactical objectives. These Islamic terrorist groups were not thrown up because of Pakistani government weakness, but as a matter of policy.