Vance asks Pak to cooperate with New Delhi on hunting terrorists while urging restraint from India

TOI correspondent from Washington: US Vice President JD Vance on Thursday hoped India's response to the Pahalgam terrorist attack would not lead to an all-out war, while urging Islamabad to cooperate with New Delhi to hunt down terrorists operating in Pakistan and put an end to terrorism emanating from its territory.

In nuanced comments on Fox News, Vance essentially put Pakistan on notice while suggesting a calibrated response from India not leading to a broader war. "Our hope here is that India responds to this terrorist attack in a way that doesn't lead to a broader regional conflict," he said, adding, "And we hope, frankly, that Pakistan, to the extent that they're responsible, cooperates with India to make sure that the terrorists sometimes operating in their territory are hunted down and dealt with."

Asked if Pakistan bears responsibility for the Pahalgam attack, and what role should the US play in de-escalating the situation,
Vance said, "we know that there are terrorist elements that sometimes operate out of Pakistan," but to what extent the Pakistani government is directly responsible, "is still under investigation."

Pakistan's civilian leaders have often acknowledged that the country's military and spy agencies use terrorist proxies against India without government oversight, citing, among other instances, the Kargil misadventure and the 26/11 terrorist carnage in Mumbai. Quasi-military terrorists like Sajid Mir and Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, and leaders of technically defunct terrorist groups like Lashkar and Jaish, Hafiz Saieed and Masood Azhar, remained protected by the Pak military after token action, while the US extracted from Pakistan terrorists like Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Momammed, who were responsible for the World Trade Center bombings.

Still, Vance essayed platitudes about the post-Pahalgam situation, saying, "The US role here is to encourage both sides to focus on justice for the victims while avoiding a larger conflict that could destabilize the region." He noted though that the Pahalgam attack took place when he was in India with his family "experiencing the beauty of the country... so it hit close to home."

While the Trump administration has been circumspect on the diplomatic front, with Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging restraint while appearing to accept the possibility of limited punitive action by India, the Pentagon, military arm of the US, which is now a major weapons supplier to India, was more direct in its unqualified support for New Delhi.

"I offered my strong support. We stand with India and its great people," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a short, blunt comment on X about his phone conversation with his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh, without any entreaties about restraint.

Once a valued military ally to Washington, Pakistan has rapidly lost salience after the American exit from land-locked Afghanistan, access to which Islamabad used to extract money and military supplies from the US, earning for itself the reputation of being a "rentier state."

Although the US continues to bankroll some of Pakistan's legacy military requirements -- such as President Trump approving a $397 million package in January for maintenance of US-supplied F-16s -- the Pentagon has the means to kneecap military action by Pakistan, particularly on the air front.

This is on account of conditions attached to the supply of US F-16s, which mandate, among other things, that the jets be used exclusively for counterterrorism and counterinsurgency (COIN) operations, such as combating militant groups like the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or al-Qaeda. Offensive use against foreign adversaries, particularly India, is explicitly prohibited.

Pakistan is also required to house the F-16s and their associated American-made missiles like the AIM-120 AMRAAM at two designated air bases—Shahbaz and Mushaf—to facilitate US oversight and prevent unauthorized deployment. Relocating jets to unapproved forward operating bases is a violation of the agreement. According to recent reports from Pakistan, its air force relocated half its F-16 Block 52+ fleet to Pasni Airfield In Gwadar to avoid India’s S-400 radar coverage.

The Biden administration chose not to take action against Pakistan's use of F-16s during the brief skirmish after the Pulwama terrorist attack and India's Balakot response, although a state department official, Undersecretary of State Andrea Thompson, wrote to Pakistan’s Air Chief expressing concern over F-16s being relocated to unapproved bases and used in ways “inconsistent” with the agreement.