South Asia Intelligence Review

Red Fort Blast: A Singular Shock

On November 10, 2025, at least 10 civilians were killed and another 32 injured when a slow-moving car exploded near the iconic Red Fort in Delhi at around 6:52 pm [IST]. Two days later, on November 12, the Government officially termed the suicide blast a “terror attack”. In a press release, the Government stated,

The country has witnessed a heinous terror incident, perpetrated by anti-national forces, through a car explosion near the Red Fort on the evening of 10 November 2025. The explosion resulted in multiple fatalities, and caused injuries to several others… The Cabinet directs that the investigation into the incident be pursued with the utmost urgency and professionalism so that the perpetrators, their collaborators, and their sponsors are identified and brought to justice without delay.
In a related incident on November 14, 2025, at around 11 pm [IST], a blast occurred at the Nowgam Police Station in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), while authorities were extracting samples from a large cache of explosives confiscated from Faridabad, Haryana, in connection with an inter-State terrorist module suspected to be linked to the Delhi blast. J&K Director General of Police, Nalin Prabhat, stated,

Due to the sensitive and unstable nature of the recovered material, the sampling and examination were being carried out with extreme caution. Despite all precautions, an accidental blast occurred…
Prior to the incident near Red Fort, according to the SATP database, the national capital had recorded at least 35 terrorism-related incidents resulting in 134 deaths and 885 injuries, since 1997. The last terrorist incident occurred on October 20, 2024, when Khalistan Zindabad Force terrorists carried out a blast in Rohini, Delhi, though no casualties were reported. The last incident of Islamist terrorism occurred on January 29, 2021, when a low-intensity Improvised Explosive Device exploded near the Israel Embassy in New Delhi; no one was injured, though some vehicles were damaged. The last major (resulting in three or more fatalities) terrorist attack in Delhi occurred on September 7, 2011, when a blast at the reception area near Gate No. 5 of the Delhi High Court killed 13 people and injured 89, one of whom died later. The Hizbul Mujahideen was responsible for the attack.

Since the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008, which killed 175, including 144 civilians, six major terrorist attacks have taken place outside major conflict theatres – J&K, Punjab and the Northeast – before the November 2025 Red Fort blast. These included:

February 13, 2010: 16 civilians, including three foreigners (a Sudanese, an Italian, and an Iranian), were killed, in a terror attack at Pune in Maharashtra.
July 13, 2011: 19 civilians were killed in a terror attack at Mumbai in Maharashtra.
September 7, 2011: Nine civilians were killed in a terror attack at Delhi.
February 21, 2013: 17 civilians were killed in a terror attack at Dilsukhnagar, Hyderabad Urban District, Andhra Pradesh.
October 27, 2013: Eight civilians killed in a terror attack at Patna in Bihar. Lashkar-e-Taiba/Indian Mujahidin were responsible for the attack.
December 26, 2013: Five persons killed and several injured in a bicycle bomb blast in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, suspected to have been engineered by the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation, which observes its Martyrs’ Day on December 28.
The October 27, 2013, incident in which eight persons were killed in six serial blasts near Gandhi Maidan — the venue of then Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s rally in Patna, Bihar — remains the last major Islamist terror attack outside India’s principal theatres of conflict, since the 26/11 attacks.

Since October 2013, there have been 17 Islamist terrorist incidents (excluding the November 2025 Delhi blast) outside these conflict theatres, resulting in 30 fatalities — civilians: six; Security Force (SF) personnel: three; terrorists: 19; Not Specified: two. The last of these that resulted in a civilian fatality occurred on June 28, 2022, when Kanhaiya Lal Teli, a Hindu tailor, was murdered in Udaipur, Rajasthan, by two assailants reportedly linked to the Islamic State. The attackers filmed the killing and circulated the video online.

At peak, in 2008, 362 lives were lost in 39 incidents of Islamist terrorist depredations outside the principal theatres of conflict in India, including, 281 civilians, 29 SF personnel and 15 terrorists. Five of the seven years between 2002 and 2008 recorded over 100 fatalities in such incidents. In the 10 years between 2015 and 2024, five recorded zero fatalities.

The dramatic improvement in the situation was largely due to sustained pressure by the SFs throughout this period (October 28, 2013-November 9, 2025), which led to the neutralization of a large number of terrorist modules across the country. Crucially, the nationwide network of domestic facilitators in the Students’ Islamic Movement of India and its offshoot, the Indian Mujahideen, was completely dismantled by the security and intelligence agencies, crippling the operational capacities of terrorist groups operating out of Pakistani and Bangladeshi soil at that them. At least 918 terrorists/associates were arrested during this period, before the Red Fort blast, and several terrorist plots have been foiled before they reached the stage of execution.

Despite the shock of the Red Fort incident of November 10, a far greater catastrophe has been averted, as SFs recovered around 2,900 kilograms of explosives from Faridabad, Haryana. Though the investigations are ongoing, preliminary investigations indicate likely linkages between the Faridabad haul and the Red Fort blast.

The trail of this case began on October 17, 2025, Jaish-e-Mohammed propaganda posters were found pasted in Srinagar’s Nowgam area. Police arrested the persons who put up the posters, Nisar Ahmed Dar, a labour contractor from Nowgam; 19-year-old Yasir-ul-Ashraf from Bunpora; and 25-year-old Maqsood Ahmad Dar from Bunpora on October 19 in Nowgam. Their interrogations led to the detention of 24-year-old cleric Mufti Irfan Ahmad Wagay from Nadigam village in Shopian the same day, at the Nowgam mosque. Further probes exposed a 22-member terror module, resulting in the November 5 arrest of Doctor Adeel Ahmad Rather in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh; the November 8 arrest of Doctor Muzamil Ahmad Ganie in Faridabad, Haryana; and November 9-10 arrests of Doctor Shaheen Saeed in Faridabad, and Zameer Ahmad Ahanger, 29, from Wakoora village in Ganderbal, J&K. Additional detentions on November 11 in Pulwama included Tariq, Aamir, Umar Rashid, Ghulam Nabi, Doctor Sajjad Malla, and Shameema Begum, as well as the early November arrests of Hafiz Mohammad Ishtiyak in Mewat, Haryana, and an unnamed paramedic at Srinagar’s Government Medical College on October 19; Doctor Umar Mohammad Nabi is believed killed in the blast, while another Doctor Umar remains absconding. The plot, alleged intended to target multiple locations across six cities, but was thwarted when 2,900 kilograms of various explosive materials, including just under 360 kilograms of ammonium nitrate, were seized in Faridabad.

Separately, just days before the Faridabad recovery, on November 8, 2025, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) arrested three persons, including Doctor Ahmed Mohiuddin Saiyed – an MBBS graduate from China – for allegedly attempting to produce Ricin, a deadly organic toxin, to carry out a bio-terrorism attack. The Gujarat ATS also searched Saiyed’s residence in Rajendranagar, Hyderabad, on November 11, 2025, and seized several unidentified chemicals and raw materials packed in cartons.

The Government’s responses to the Red Fort blast have been uncharacteristically cautious, and it took three days for the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to announce that the incident was a terrorist attack. In the past, the top leadership and state agencies have been quick to identify the groups affiliations and state sponsors of alleged perpetrators, but there is evident reluctance to do so in the present case, principally due to the strategic and policy implications that would then bind the Government. In the wake of Operation Sindoor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had declared that “any future act of terror will be considered an Act of War against India,” and that Operation Sindoor was not over, but only in suspension, and would be reactivated by any future act of terrorism by Pakistan-linked groups. These statements, and subsequent declarations by various prominent ministers and the Defence, Home and External Affairs ministries, create an expectation of escalated retaliation against Pakistan in case of a terrorist attack linked to groups operating or directed from that country. Given the complex and ambiguous outcomes of Operation Sindoor, both in the military and diplomatic spheres, it is evident that the Government would be reluctant to hastily commit itself to such a course of action.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consequently declared, with great caution, that “those behind the conspiracy will be brought to justice”, but has scrupulously avoided reference to any possible linkages to Pakistan, as have other prominent members of his Government and Party. In an interesting contrast, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s knee jerk response to the Islamabad Court suicide bombing of November 11, 2025, just a day after the Red Fort bombing in New Delhi, was to blame India – even as his Defence Minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif identified the Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as the group involved, and accused the Afghan Taliban of providing support and safe haven to its leadership and cadres. Shebaz Sharif’s reaction to the Islamabad Court bombing is the more typical of the trajectory of the India-Pakistan discourse, where Islamabad and New Delhi have been quick to accuse each other in the wake of such incidents in the past.

It remains to be seen whether such evasion will remain sustainable as the investigations, now headed by the National Investigation Agency, India premier counter-terrorism investigator, proceed, and how the national political-strategic narrative evolves. It is clear that, despite the political rhetoric, a repeat or further escalation of a response on the model of Operation Sindoor is unlikely to serve India’s interests. The Government, however, appears to have painted itself into an infructuous corner, and needs to extricate itself from its current predicament. Terrorism will not magically disappear as the result of fitful ‘punitive’ strikes in Pakistan, and occasional terrorist strikes in India cannot negate tremendous counterterrorism successes forged by the country’s security and intelligence agencies. Terrorism is no longer an existential threat to the country, and a steady consolidation, and proportionate and covert punitive measures against Pakistan where its responsibility is established, would far better serve India’s national interests.

Capital Risks

On November 11, 2025, at least 12 people were killed and 36 injured in a suicide blast outside the District and Sessions Court building in the G-11 area of the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). While briefing the media outside the Court, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi gave details of the attack: “He first attempted to go inside the Court, but then targeted the Police vehicle after he was unable to do so.” The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a sub-group of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack.

Before this suicide bombing, Islamabad had faced a TTP-orchestrated suicide attack in 2022, as a vehicle with a man and a woman aboard detonated when the Police stopped their vehicle in I-10/4 sector on December 23. A Policeman was killed and at least six people – including four Police officers and two civilians – were injured in this incident. A TTP statement claimed responsibility for the attack, but shortly after, Sarbakaf Mohmand, a commander from the group, sent a WhatsApp messages insisting the group had not made any such claim.

Before 2022, the last suicide attack in Islamabad was on March 3, 2014, when at least 11 people, including Additional District and Sessions Judge Rafaqat Awan, a woman lawyer, and a Policeman, were killed and 25 were injured when militants attacked the courthouse complex in Sector F-8 on. Spraying bullets and hurling hand grenades, the terrorists later exploded their suicide vests. TTP ‘spokesman’ Shahidullah Shahid, while distancing the group from the attack, stated, “We have already declared a ceasefire and we strictly adhere to our deal with the Government. Our colleagues in the organisation also cannot violate this agreement”. Meanwhile, Asad Mansoor, the ‘spokesman’ of Ahrar-ul-Hind (AuH), a TTP splinter group, claimed responsibility for the attack.

However, occasional incidents of terrorism have persisted, though no year has crossed double digits in fatalities. Of the three terrorism-related incidents in 2025, so far, the November 11-sucide blast has been the only one to inflict fatalities. The two other terrorism-related incidents were:

On May 31, an official of the Frontier Corps (FC) was injured in a shooting by unidentified assailants in the Chatha Bakhtawar area under the Shahzad Town Police Station in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). According to Police, the FC official was sitting outside his house when the attackers opened fire on him, and then fled.

On January 3, a Police Station was targeted in a ‘rocket’ attack, subsequently claimed by TTP, in the I-9 area of ICT. Police later discovered a ‘mini-rocket’ on the station’s outer walls.

2024 recorded just one terrorism-related fatality in Islamabad. On January 5, 2024, the central deputy secretary general of the Sunni Ulema Council of Pakistan, and spokesman of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jama’at (ASWJ), Allama Masood-u-Rehman Usmani, was shot dead by unidentified assailants in the Ghori Town area of Islamabad. Another four incidents of terrorism – one each of recovery, extortion, arrest and abduction – were reported through the year.

However, two incidents in 2024 had created a sensation within security agencies, prompting heightened security measures in the national capital. On April 3, a newly emerged terrorist group, the Tehreek Tahaffuz Namoos-i-Pakistan (TTNP) sent threat letters to five judges of the Supreme Court. Then, on April 5, another five judges of the Supreme Court received threatening letters. All the letters had traces of arsenic powder on the envelopes to Supreme Court justices.

Nevertheless, conditions in the national capital were far better than the overall security situation in the country. The ICT Police Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) to manage the terrorist threat in the heavily securitized capital, conducted 52 intelligence-based operations (IBOs), 141 search operations, and blocked 565 social media accounts promoting linguistic, sectarian, and religious extremist content in 2024. At least 46 accused were arrested, 1.480 kilograms of explosives, 10 detonators, and 10 feet of safety fuse wire, two meters of prima cord, eight grenades, mortar shells, IEDs, one mine, 2.64 kilograms of ball bearings, nuts, bolts, five pistols, and a Kalashnikov with ammunition were recovered in these operations. CTD sent 2,161 social media reports to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for legal action against accounts involved in promoting linguistic, sectarian and religious extremist content. In 2024, CTD compiled a record of more than 12,400 Afghan citizens living in the Federal capital, while 92 illegal Afghan citizens were deported.

The identification of the Islamabad District Court suicide bomber as an Afghan national underlines the vulnerability of the National Capital as, according to a 2025 UNHCR report, approximately 41,520 Afghan refugees reside there. An entire Afghan-based cell involved in the Islamabad suicide blast, including its ‘commander’ and three cadres, was arrested by security agencies on November 13. The Federal Government, in an official statement, disclosed, on November 14, that a joint Intelligence Bureau-CTD operation arrested four cadres of a TTP cell linked to the suicide attack. The official statement, shared on X, added,

During interrogation, Sajidullah alias Sheena, the handler of the suicide bomber, confessed that TTP/FAK (Fitna al-Khawarij) Commander Saeed-ur-Rehman alias Daadullah (resident of Charmang, Bajaur, currently in Afghanistan, and serving as TTP’s Intelligence Chief for Nawagai, Bajaur) contacted him through the Telegram application to carry out a suicide attack in Islamabad to cause maximum casualties of LEAs (law enforcement agencies)… Daadullah sent pictures of the suicide bomber (SB) Usman alias Qari to Sajidullah alias Sheena for receiving him. SB (suicide bomber) Usman Qari belonged to the Shinwari tribe and was a resident of Achin, Nangarhar, Afghanistan. When he reached Pakistan from Afghanistan, Sajidullah alias Sheena arranged his stay in a residence near Islamabad… On the directions of Afghanistan-based TTP/FAK (Fitna al-Khawarij) Commander Daadullah, Sajidullah alias Sheena collected a suicide jacket from Akhun Baba graveyard in Peshawar and brought it to Islamabad. On the day of the blast at Judicial Complex G-11, Sajidullah Sheena set the suicide jacket on SB Usman alias Qari. The network was handled and guided at every step by the Fitna al-Khawarij/TTP high command based in Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on November 11 accused India of orchestrating the suicide bombing in Islamabad. In an official statement, Sharif called on the international community to “condemn India’s conspiracies,” saying that “the real face of India has been exposed.” He vowed that Pakistan would not allow “the blood of its citizens to go in vain” and promised to intensify efforts to eliminate terrorism from the country.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif attributed the attack to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, claiming that terrorist networks operating from Afghan territory continued to infiltrate Pakistan. Asif warned that Pakistan might conduct strikes against ‘terrorist sanctuaries’ inside Afghanistan, declaring, in an X post, “We are in a state of war. Anyone who thinks that the Pakistan Army is fighting this war only in the border areas along Afghanistan or in the remote regions of Balochistan should take the suicide attack in Islamabad as a wake-up call.” Further, speaking on the Geo News programme ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath’, Defence Minister Asif insisted that cross-border action inside Afghanistan could not be “ruled out”.

The Taliban regime denied all involvement, and expressed regret for the tragedy, but Asif rejected these statements, claiming that such expressions of regret could not “be taken as proof of sincerity.” Further, he asserted that “Those sheltered by the Afghan Taliban are repeatedly attacking us”, and “Pakistan will never initiate any military adventure,” but “We will not let any act of aggression go unanswered; we will respond forcefully.”

India unequivocally rejected as baseless Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s allegations linking the terrorist attack in Islamabad to New Delhi, dismissing the statement as a predictable tactic by the “delirious” leadership of that country to “concoct” false narratives. External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal added that the international community was well aware of the reality and would not be misled by Pakistan’s “desperate” ploys.

Despite the internal contradictions in Pakistan’s allegations, the court suicide blast can only further worsen the already fraught relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, as the 3rd round of peace talks between the two nations ended in deadlock at Istanbul on November 6-7, 2025. Pakistan’s primary demand was that the Afghan Government take action against the TTP and prevent the use of Afghan soil for attacks against Pakistan. Afghanistan accused Pakistan of making “unreasonable and impractical” demands and of attempting to shift the entire responsibility for its internal security problems on to the Afghan Government. Pakistani Defence Minister Asif declared that the talks were “over” and there was “no plan for any future meetings,” indicating an indefinite pause in the dialogue process. Meanwhile, Afghan Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid claimed that specific elements in the Pakistani military were “deliberately sabotaging” the Pakistan-Afghanistan peace process.

The Islamabad court attack underscores the resurgence and increased operational capabilities of the TTP and highlights failures in Pakistan’s counter-terrorism strategy and intelligence apparatus, which struggles to penetrate TTP networks operating from Afghan territory. It reiterates, moreover, the persistent contradictions of Pakistan’s foreign policy, long focused on creating terrorist mischief for its neighbours, and the blowback that has now resulted.

Weekly Fatalities: Major Conflicts in South Asia
November 10-16, 2025

Provisional data compiled from English language media sources.