India at UN says Pakistan sheltered 9/11 plotters, warns on LeT and JeM

India launched a sharp attack on Pakistan at the UN Security Council, saying the “architects” of the 9/11 attacks were not hiding in “caves or badlands” but had long evaded detection in settled communities. It said the same “permissive environment” has continued to give space and support to terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Speaking at a UNSC meeting on Afghanistan on Wednesday, India’s Permanent Representative Harish Parvathaneni also raised concern over the humanitarian plight of Afghan returnees. He said returns must be voluntary, safe and dignified, and also condemned the “trade and transit terror inflicted” on Afghanistan.

Recalling the September 11, 2001 attacks, Parvathaneni said the international community had backed the global campaign against terrorism after 9/11, but added that al-Qaeda’s terror ecosystem had established its strategic depth beyond Afghanistan through its affiliates. “Let us not forget, however, that al-Qaeda’s terror ecosystem established its strategic depth beyond Afghanistan through its affiliates,” he said.

Listing al-Qaeda leaders linked to the 9/11 attacks who were captured in Pakistani cities, Parvathaneni said, “The leaders of al-Qaeda who conceived and directed these 9/11 attacks did not escape justice in the wilderness of some ungoverned frontier.” He said Osama bin Laden, who ordered and financed the plot, was “tracked down and killed in a fortified compound within a settled, guarded community under Operation Neptune Spear.” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, “the principal architect of the operation, was found sheltering in an ordinary residential house. Ramzi Binalshibh, who coordinated the hijacker cell after being denied a visa to join them, was sheltering in an urban centre,” he said.

Parvathaneni said senior al-Qaeda operative Walid bin Attash, who helped select and prepare several hijackers, was captured separately, while Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a key financial and logistical facilitator of the 9/11 operation, was captured under similar circumstances. “In each case, these were not fugitives hiding in caves or badlands, they were men who had long evaded detection. Draining this swamp that provided an enabling environment for such monsters of humankind to prosper is important,” he said.

He added that “the same permissive environment that sheltered the architects of 9/11 has, in the years since, continued to provide space, support, and impunity to affiliates of al-Qaeda such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed and their like, acquiring different identities to escape this Council’s sanctions framework and whose leadership and terror training infrastructure have been shielded from consequence.” He said the international community “must join hands to address the continuity of such sanctuary to ensure that more such individuals are not thrust upon any country or its citizens and no one loses family and loved ones”.

Last week, as the world marked 25 years of the 9/11 attacks, Security Council members, including Pakistan, visited the 9/11 memorial in Lower Manhattan. Pakistan’s envoy Asim Iftikhar Ahmad was among those present. Parvathaneni said, “Last week, we honoured the memory of those taken mercilessly away by the scourge of terrorism 25 years ago in this very city. Earlier this month, the Council members visited the site of this horrible tragedy. May the memory of these victims always remain a motivation to not only fight against all such individuals who are the worst of humanity, but also those who aid, abet, finance and support their crimes.” US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz, who took fellow ambassadors to the memorial, said, “We reinforced our shared commitment to peace, security, and a world free from terror.” On the 25th anniversary of the attacks, the Security Council also adopted a Presidential Statement reaffirming its “unequivocal condemnation” of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Adopted under the French presidency, it was the Council’s first presidential statement on counter-terrorism in five years.

India also highlighted the situation of Afghan returnees, citing the UN Secretary General’s report that 2.9 million Afghans were returned in 2025 and another 1.15 million were returned until August 22, 2026, most of them involuntarily. “A forcible return of this nature that is neither safe nor dignified, of over three million individuals, in any other part of the world would have elicited a political outcry in this Council, urgent provision of large-scale humanitarian support and efforts to ensure better re-integration and assimilation. That there is no such reaction is a sad reflection on the times,” Parvathaneni said. India said it was cooperating with UN agencies and Afghan authorities to provide housing, food and other essential items, while reiterating that returns must be voluntary, safe and dignified. It also strongly condemned the “trade and transit terror inflicted” on Afghanistan in violation of UN declarations on Landlocked Developing Countries, WTO norms, the UN Charter, international law and basic human compassion.

In sum, India used the Security Council meeting to link the legacy of 9/11 to what it called continuing sanctuaries for terror groups, while also pressing for greater international attention to the condition of Afghan returnees and to Afghanistan’s wider humanitarian difficulties.