Pakistan’s Long Arm: How the Military Exports Repression to Silence Dissidents in the West

Pakistan’s military establishment is running a dirty transnational repression campaign against dissidents in Western countries. This is not speculation; it is a pattern under which the Pakistani state critics are hunted, threatened, assaulted, and terrorized in their homes abroad, while their families inside Pakistan are squeezed as leverage.

The military’s goal is simple: break critics psychologically, force them into silence, and warn everyone else that exile does not protect them. It is an extension of Pakistan’s domestic coercion model into Western streets, using criminal proxies and deniable intimidation.

Since Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir took the Pakistan army command in November 2022, transnational repression has escalated from legal harassment to coordinated violence across Western capitals. The attacks involve firearms, arson, acid, and trained operatives who act with certainty that democratic governments will do nothing.

The most recent and clearest evidence is in the United Kingdom. In January 2026, the local media reported that Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command took over an investigation into “highly targeted” attacks on Pakistani dissidents living in the UK, including prominent supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan.

The attacks were violent and sustained, including assault, a firearm incident, attempted arson, and repeated property damage. One victim, Mirza Shahzad Akbar, a human-rights lawyer and former cabinet member under Khan, was attacked after the assailant confirmed his identity and then punched him repeatedly in front of his family.

Akbar, a former adviser to imprisoned Prime Minister Imran Khan and critic of Army Chief Asim Munir, had survived an acid attack in 2023. After the incident, he and his family went into hiding. This was not theft. This was political intimidation delivered as street-level violence by the Pakistan military paid criminal proxies in the UK.

This is not Pakistan’s first Western country-based case involving proxy targeting of critics. In late December 2025, former Pakistani army major Adil Raja, and a known critic of Field Marshal Munir, reported his London home was ransacked. Days later, journalist Moeed Pirzada described a suspected arson attempt at his U.S. residence.

These attacks followed Pakistan’s extradition request and came after both were convicted in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment for their alleged roles in the 2023 riots following Khan’s arrest. Roshaan Khattak, a Cambridge doctoral candidate researching enforced disappearances in Balochistan, received threats in December 2024 signed in the name of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.

One read, “Don't forget even in Cambridge, they can reach anywhere.” Cambridge University responded by revoking his accommodation, canceling meetings, and changing his locks.

More worryingly, the UK has emerged as the epicenter of transnational repression by Pakistan’s security agencies. In February 2022, The Guardian reported that UK police warned Pakistani dissidents that their “lives are in danger,” after a London-based hitman was found guilty of conspiring to murder a Pakistani dissident blogger and outspoken critic of Pakistani intelligence services, Ahmad Waqas Goraya, who was based in the Netherlands.

The report described how the hitman was offered £100,000 and noted fears about criminals linked to Pakistani drug gangs being contracted for attacks. That is not a random criminal story, but a well-planned operation wherein Pakistan uses criminal networks to do political targeting abroad while preserving deniability.

While Goraya survived the assassination bid, in October 2022, famous Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif, and Imran Khan’s big supporter, was shot dead in Kenya under mysterious circumstances. Initially described as “mistaken identity,” a Pakistani fact-finding team later concluded the killing was a planned assassination. The sequence suggests ISI orchestrated Sharif’s removal from Pakistan, his forced departure from Dubai, and his assassination.

While Pakistan has been using transnational repression to silence dissidents living outside the country, the frequency of these incidents has increased since Munir took the Army’s command in November 2022. Many analysts claim that he has personally driven this dangerous strategy and openly warned those close to Imran Khan.

During trips to Western capitals in 2024 and 2025, he openly derided Imran Khan, branding his supporters “agents of chaos” in London and accusing them of “foreign-funded propaganda” in Washington.

By framing opponents as existential threats, Munir legitimizes surveillance and violence against Pakistani citizens abroad. Pakistan’s 27th Constitutional Amendment, passed in late 2025, granted him lifetime immunity, created a puppet court, and stripped judicial oversight, giving him unchecked authority to pursue dissidents worldwide.

As a result of these incidents, the U.S. State Department’s 2024 Country Report explicitly states that Pakistan engages in transnational repression. Freedom House placed Pakistan on its watchlist in March 2024. Furthermore, the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights noted Pakistan has intensified these tactics since 2022, with MI5 revealing threats from foreign governments surged by forty-eight percent.

Despite growing evidence to prove the Pakistani state’s involvement in transnational repression, Western responses have been woefully inadequate. Britain’s Foreign Office declined comment on the Akbar attacks, citing the ongoing investigation. This is complicity.

When governments refuse to condemn coordinated gunfire and arson on their soil, they signal that transnational repression will be tolerated. Similarly, the United States has fared no better. Regardless of evidence that the Pakistani security agencies target Pakistani Americans through threats, family harassment, and asset seizures, the U.S. has taken no action.

Congress has passed symbolic resolutions while Pakistan continues receiving military training support, F-16 maintenance, and favorable IMF treatment. President Trump met Field Marshal Munir in June 2025 at White House, bypassing Pakistan’s civilian leadership, prioritizing security interests over human rights.

All these developments indicate that Pakistan would continue its violent activities in foreign countries to silence dissent and punish critics of the military establishment. The attacks on Akbar, Raja, Peerzada, etc, are recent test cases. Pakistan’s military is testing how much violence Western democracies will tolerate.

Every unanswered attack sends the message that transnational repression works. If Pakistan can beat dissidents in Cambridge, shoot at their homes, and burn their residences without consequences, the military, under Munir’s command, will feel emboldened to spread its repressive policies in Western countries.