A US Congressional Research Service assessment has reinforced New Delhi’s longstanding position that armed groups targeting Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country continue to operate from Pakistani territory, renewing attention on a security issue that has shaped relations between the two neighbours for decades. The CRS report, listed as revised on March 25, says Pakistan remains home to multiple militant organisations, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Harakat-ul Jihad Islami, Harakat ul-Mujahidin and Hizbul Mujahideen. The report places those outfits in its category of India- and Kashmir-oriented militants and says several United Nations- and US-designated groups continue to operate from Pakistani soil despite military operations, policy measures and earlier commitments to curb militancy. That framing is significant because it comes from Congress’s non-partisan research arm rather than from a political campaign or a diplomatic exchange, giving the findings added weight in Washington even if CRS reports do not constitute executive policy.
For India, the document largely validates what officials in New Delhi have argued across successive governments: that cross-border militant infrastructure has not been dismantled in any durable way, even when international pressure on Islamabad has intensified. The names highlighted in the report are not marginal. Lashkar-e-Taiba is identified as responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, while Jaish-e-Mohammed is linked to the 2001 attack on Parliament. The report says Lashkar-e-Taiba has been based in Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and that Jaish-e-Mohammed has operated from Punjab and Azad Kashmir while pursuing the annexation of Indian-administered Kashmir into Pakistan.
Harakat-ul Jihad Islami and Harakat ul-Mujahidin also feature prominently in the CRS text. It says HUJI, formed during the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan, redirected its efforts towards India after 1989 and seeks annexation of Indian-administered Kashmir into Pakistan. Harakat ul-Mujahidin, designated earlier by Washington, is described as operating mainly from Azad Kashmir and some Pakistani cities, and as the group behind the 1999 hijacking of an Indian airliner that helped secure the release of Masood Azhar, who later founded Jaish-e-Mohammed.
Hizbul Mujahideen remains a particularly sensitive case because of its long history in the Kashmir insurgency. The CRS report describes it as one of the largest and oldest militant groups operating in Indian-administered Kashmir, with cadres composed mainly of ethnic Kashmiris seeking either independence for Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan, while also noting that the organisation has key funding sources in Pakistan. That distinction matters because it underlines how militancy in Jammu and Kashmir has involved both indigenous and cross-border elements, a reality often flattened in political debate.
The wider backdrop has become more volatile, not less. CRS said in its publicly available text that terrorism deaths in Pakistan had climbed sharply after the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, while the latest Global Terrorism Index has ranked Pakistan as the country most impacted by terrorism, with 1,139 deaths recorded in 2025. That deterioration complicates the picture: Pakistan is presented simultaneously as a victim of militant violence and as a territory from which anti-India groups continue to function.
That duality has long shaped international responses. The CRS text notes that the US State Department said Pakistan took steps in 2022 to counter terror financing and restrain some India-focused groups, but had yet to fulfil its pledge to dismantle all terrorist organisations without delay or discrimination. It also records that the Financial Action Task Force removed Pakistan from its grey list in late 2022 after judging that technical deficiencies had been addressed. Those developments show that Islamabad has taken actions that won international notice, even as concerns over selective enforcement have persisted.
Pakistan has consistently denied backing militants who attack India and has rejected accusations that it shelters anti-India organisations, including during the sharp crisis that followed the April 2025 attack on tourists in Pahalgam, which killed 26 and triggered the worst fighting between the two countries in decades. Reuters later reported that India’s anti-terror agency filed formal charges against Lashkar-e-Taiba and The Resistance Front over that assault, while Islamabad denied involvement. That episode has kept cross-border militancy at the centre of bilateral tensions and ensured that any fresh US assessment would be scrutinised closely in both capitals.