'9/11 Architects Were Not Hiding In Caves': India Targets Pakistan At UNSC Over Terror Safe Havens

· Free Press Journal

India targeted Pakistan at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), saying the “architects” of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks were found in settled communities rather than remote hideouts and alleging that the same “permissive environment” continues to provide support and impunity to terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

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Addressing a UNSC meeting on Afghanistan on Wednesday, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Harish Parvathaneni, recalled where several senior al-Qaeda figures involved in the 9/11 attacks were eventually found.

“The international community supported the global campaign to counter terrorism in the wake of 9/11. Let us not forget, however, that al-Qaeda’s terror ecosystem established its strategic depth beyond Afghanistan through its affiliates,” Parvathaneni said.

‘Not Fugitives Hiding In Caves Or Badlands’

Parvathaneni said the al-Qaeda leaders who planned and directed the 9/11 attacks had not escaped justice in remote, ungoverned territory.

“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.

Parvathaneni 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 also cited senior al-Qaeda operative Walid bin Attash, who helped select and prepare several hijackers, and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a key financial and logistical facilitator of the operation.

“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.

Bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad in 2011, while Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi in March 2003 and is detained at Guantanamo Bay. Binalshibh and bin Attash were captured in Karachi, while al-Hawsawi was arrested in Pakistan in March 2003.

India Flags LeT, JeM At Security Council

Parvathaneni said, “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.”

“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,” he said.

His remarks came days after Security Council members, including Pakistan, visited the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan as the world marked 25 years since the attacks.

“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,” Parvathaneni said.

Pakistan is currently a non-permanent member of the Security Council, and its UN envoy Asim Iftikhar Ahmad was among the ambassadors who visited the memorial.

The Security Council also adopted a Presidential Statement on the 25th anniversary of the attacks, reaffirming its “unequivocal condemnation” of the 9/11 terror attacks.

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India Raises Plight Of Afghan Returnees

India also expressed concern over the humanitarian situation facing Afghans returning to the country.

Citing the UN Secretary-General’s report on Afghanistan, Parvathaneni said 2.9 million Afghans were returned in 2025, while another 1.15 million had returned by August 22, 2026, with most of the returns involuntary.

“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 reiterated that returns should be voluntary, safe and dignified and that reintegration efforts should receive sustained international support.

New Delhi is working with UN agencies and Afghan authorities to provide housing, food and other essential supplies to ease the hardship faced by returnees.

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India Condemns ‘Trade And Transit Terror’

India also strongly condemned the “trade and transit terror inflicted” on Afghanistan, saying it violated UN declarations concerning Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs), World Trade Organization (WTO) norms, provisions of the UN Charter, international law and “the tenets of basic human compassion”.

India said it continues to support Afghanistan’s economic development through measures including tariff-free access for Afghan goods, the India-Afghanistan Air Freight Corridor and gratis long-term business visas for Afghan traders.

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