Growing anti-Pakistan sentiment is taking root in Western and Middle Eastern capitals, driven by alarm over Pakistan’s export of radical Islamist ideology and its permissive attitude toward extremism and other criminal activities under the current military leadership.
Since General Syed Asim Munir became Pakistan’s army chief in late 2022, observers note a marked shift towards religious conservatism in Islamabad’s posture.
Pakistan’s government and military have openly embraced hardline positions, with parliament praising “armed resistance” against Israel and generals professing solidarity with Gaza-based terrorists. Under Munir, a Quran-memorizing general known to pepper speeches with scripture, Pakistan’s military doctrine has been reengineered around religion.
This state-enabled radicalization, targeting Israel, India, the West, and religious minorities, is fueling a backlash abroad.
A pattern of Pakistan-linked extremist incidents has rattled Western nations in recent years. In early 2025, Spanish police broke up a cell of 11 Pakistani nationals suspected of belonging to the Pakistani Taliban terrorist organization.
The cell was accused of promoting violent jihadist actions, including murders and beheadings, via encrypted online channels. In 2024, North American authorities foiled a similar plot: a 20-year-old Pakistani man living in Canada was arrested for planning a mass shooting at a New York City synagogue, aiming to “slaughter as many Jewish people as possible” on the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack. U.S. prosecutors say he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and intended to attack in the terror outfit’s name.
Furthermore, the long-running ‘grooming gangs’ scandal in the United Kingdom has become another sensitive but unavoidable factor shaping the growing global backlash against Pakistan. A disproportionate number of convicted offenders were men of Pakistani origin, particularly in towns such as Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford, and Oxford, who have targeted vulnerable white British girls.
This issue is framed as part of a broader debate about integration, imported patriarchal attitudes, and the influence of conservative religious and cultural norms from Pakistan. These examples underscore Western fears that violent extremism and other criminal activities incubated in Pakistan, often infused with virulent antisemitism and anti-Western dogma, are being exported abroad, endangering lives in liberal societies.
In the UK and Europe, officials have also warned that Pakistan’s security services may be abetting transnational repression and extremist plots. Pakistani nationals critical of the military establishment living in Western countries continue to fear state-sponsored assassination plots.
Compounding these concerns is a wave of anti-Western, antisemitic, and sectarian propaganda traced to Pakistan’s social media ecosystem. Many international analysts accuse Pakistan’s military establishment and affiliated Islamist outfits of orchestrating sophisticated online disinformation campaigns against the West and other faith communities.
Investigations reveal that Pakistan’s infamous “digital warfare” units have even impersonated Western citizens and experts on platforms like X (Twitter) to spread hate-filled narratives. Several AI-generated deepfake videos and audios have been shared from Pakistan-based social media accounts in a planned manner on the latest terror attack in Australia to create confusion and distract the international community’s attention from factual evidence.
Western observers warn that Pakistan’s digital disinformation campaigns are sowing discord abroad, inciting hatred against Jews, Hindus, Christians, and Americans, and poisoning Pakistan’s own relations with other countries.
In effect, Pakistan’s social media sphere has become a haven for anti-Western agitprop and sectarian fervor, fueled by bots and troll farms tied to its “deep state.” This has not gone unnoticed: it reinforces the view in Washington, London, and other capitals that Islamabad is unready or unwilling to curb extremist rhetoric.
As a result, many influential social media personalities and government officials from Western nations are now openly calling for either limiting the entry of Pakistani nationals or their removal from the country.
Even Muslim-majority nations in the Middle East are growing wary of Pakistan’s trajectory. The United Arab Emirates, traditionally a top destination for Pakistani expatriate workers, has recently imposed stringent visa curbs on Pakistani nationals amid security and law-and-order worries.
As of late 2025, the UAE has stopped issuing most visas to Pakistani citizens – a ban revealed by Pakistani officials and reportedly triggered by concerns that many Pakistanis “were getting involved in criminal activities” and even organized begging after arriving in the Gulf. In fact, in December 2024, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and several other Gulf states collectively imposed an indefinite freeze on visas for residents of 30+ Pakistani cities following a spike in crimes and smuggling cases linked to Pakistani migrants.
In Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, there is a palpable resolve to shield their societies from the spillover of Pakistan’s turmoil – whether it be street crimes or the ideological zealotry taking hold under General Munir’s watch. International commentators increasingly contend that Pakistan under Asim Munir is turning into a bastion of radicalism, and this is directly undermining its global standing.
Rather than decisively clamping down on Islamist extremists, Pakistan’s state has often seemed to tacitly empower them as tools of foreign policy or domestic politics. The result is “ideological warfare” radiating outward: Pakistan is “exporting militancy across borders,” championing groups like Hamas and linking them with the jihadist proxies it harbors.
Consequently, Western governments are openly skeptical of Pakistan’s reliability in counterterrorism, and some lawmakers have pressed for conditioning or cutting off aid due to Islamabad’s indulgence of extremist elements.
Key Middle Eastern partners are either distancing themselves from Pakistan or demanding stricter vetting of Pakistani nationals. Anti-Pakistan sentiment, once confined to occasional media criticism, is now manifesting in visa restrictions, security alerts, and diplomatic rifts.
The world’s patience with Pakistan’s spiral into religious extremism is wearing thin. Under Munir’s stewardship, Pakistan has pivoted sharply toward a more theocratic and combative identity – glorifying Islamist “resistance” abroad while failing to rein in radicals at home. From London to New York to Dubai, the consequences are being felt in bloodshed and backlash.
The new normal is that Pakistani-origin militants, sex offenders, and social media propaganda are viewed as a security hazard in capitals worldwide.
The mounting aversion to Pakistani travelers and the criticism voiced by international observers are symptoms of a broader realization: Pakistan’s unchecked radicalization is no longer just its own problem, but a growing menace to global peace and multicultural harmony.
