New Delhi: As per exclusive details, photographs, videos and satellite imagery accessed by The Sunday Guardian, Pakistan’s largest state-sponsored terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is constructing a new training and residential hub just 47 kilometres from the Afghan border in Lower Dir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The under-construction facility, Markaz Jihad-e-Aqsa, covers 4,643 square feet in the Kumban Maidan area and stands adjacent to LeT’s newly built Jamia Ahle Sunnah mosque.
Satellite imagery dated 22 September shows the first floor already in place and reinforced concrete roofing underway. Construction began in July, only weeks after India’s Operation Sindoor destroyed Lashkar’s Bhimber-Barnala fidayeen camp.
The new hub is commanded by veteran LeT operative Nasr Javed, co-mastermind of the 2006 Hyderabad blasts and former head of the Dulai camp in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Javed now operates through Khidmat-e-Khalq (earlier Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, banned by the UN). He is joined by Muhammad Yasin alias Bilal Bhai, tasked with doctrinal indoctrination, and Anas ullah Khan, a Garhi Habibullah-trained fighter overseeing weapons instruction.
Once complete—expected by December—the centre will host advanced Daura-e-Khas and Daura-e-Lashkar programs and serve as the new base for LeT’s Jaan-e-Fidai suicide squad.
In a sign of urgency, Lashkar has diverted men and material away from finishing the adjoining seminary, which remains only 80% complete, to fast-track the terror complex.
The Lashkar camp is part of a coordinated movement deeper into KPK. Hizbul Mujahideen is simultaneously setting up “HM-313” just four kilometres away in Bandaai Maidan, while Jaish-e-Mohammed is expanding Markaz-e-Shaudha in Mansehra.
Lashkar is also reviving older camps at Garhi Habibullah and Batrasi, replacing those destroyed by Indian strikes in Kotli, Shwai Nala, Bhimber-Barnala and even its Muridke headquarters.
Official source told The Sunday Guardian that despite the new camps being constructed away from the Indian border, the defence establishment retain the capability to strike such distant targets if these facilities are linked to future attacks.
Lower Dir had not been a Lashkar or Hizbul base before Operation Sindoor. The district was dominated by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Al-Badr. When Lashkar tried to establish a camp here in 2011, a TTP suicide bomber struck the funeral of a commander, killing 20 people.
The shift became possible only after June 2025, when the Pakistan Army launched a “cleanup drive” that killed more than two dozen TTP operatives. Within a month, Lashkar began work on Markaz Jihad-e-Aqsa.
Since June, Pakistani forces have killed more than 40 civilians in airstrikes, officially branding them counter-terrorism missions. In practice, these operations have removed anti-state militants while creating space for groups aligned with Pakistan’s interests against India.
This strategy—tolerating “good terrorists” like LeT, JeM and HM while eliminating “bad terrorists” like TTP—was tacitly acknowledged by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Ameen Gandapur in August. He admitted that donor funds meant for counterterrorism were being used to selectively target groups hostile to the state.
For the global community—especially nations that continue to fund Pakistan’s counterterrorism programs—the contradiction is glaring: while international aid agencies pour millions into Islamabad and the FATF commends its ‘anti-terror’ steps, Lashkar and other UN-designated groups are quietly building sprawling new camps which will, inevitably, in the future used to spread terror in India.
