Government of Pakistan in the context of "Pakistan and state-sponsored terrorism"

Azad Jammu and Kashmir (Urdu: آزاد جموں و کشمیر, romanised: Āzād Jammū̃ o Kaśmīr, lit. 'Free Jammu and Kashmir'), abbreviated as AJK and colloquially referred to as simply Azad Kashmir (/ˌɑːzæd kæʃˈmɪər/ AH-zad kash-MEER), is a region administered by Pakistan as a nominally self-governing entity and constituting the western portion of the larger Kashmir region, which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947. On its eastern side, Azad Kashmir is separated from the Indian–administered territory of Jammu and Kashmir by the Line of Control (LoC), which serves as the de facto border between the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir. Azad Kashmir borders with the Pakistani–administered Gilgit–Baltistan to the north; it shares borders with the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the south and west, respectively. Geographically, it covers a total area of 13,297 km (5,134 sq mi) and has a total population of over 4.045 million as per the 2017 national census.

The territory has a parliamentary form of government modelled after the British Westminster system, with the city of Muzaffarabad serving as its capital. The President of AJK is the constitutional head of state, while the Prime Minister, supported by a Council of Ministers, is the chief executive. The unicameral Azad Kashmir Legislative Assembly elects both the Prime Minister and President. The territory has its own Supreme Court and a High Court, while the Government of Pakistan's Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan serves as a link between itself and Azad Jammu and Kashmir's government, although the autonomous territory is not represented in the Parliament of Pakistan.

Islamabad (/ɪzˈlɑːməbæd/ ; Urdu: اسلام‌آباد, romanised: Islāmābād, lit. 'City of Islam', [ɪsˈlɑːmɑːbɑːd] ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's tenth-most populous city with a population of over 1.1 million, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital Territory. Built as a planned city in the 1960s and established in 1967, it replaced Karachi as Pakistan's national capital. Islamabad is located north of the city of Rawalpindi, with which it forms a metropolitan area of over 5.7 million inhabitants.

The Greek architect Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis developed Islamabad's master plan, in which he divided it into eight zones; the city comprises administrative, diplomatic enclave, residential areas, educational and industrial sectors, commercial areas, as well as rural and green areas administered by the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation with support from the Capital Development Authority. Islamabad is known for its parks and forests, including the Margalla Hills National Park and the Shakarparian. It is home to several landmarks, including the country's flagship Faisal Mosque. Other prominent landmarks include the Pakistan Monument and Democracy Square.

The Islamabad Capital Territory is a federal territory of Pakistan, centred around Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. It is located on the northern edge of the Pothohar Plateau, at the foot of the Margalla Hills, in the northwestern Punjab region. The Territory shares borders with the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the west and the province of Punjab in the remaining directions. It covers an area of 906.5 square kilometres (350.0 sq mi) and, according to 2023 census, has a population of over 2.3 million.

The area was separated from Rawalpindi District in 1967 to form a separate territory administered by the federal government. The territory is represented in the National Assembly by NA-52, NA-53, and NA-54 constituencies and by four seats in the Senate.

The Ministry of Kashmir Affairs, Gilgit-Baltistan, and States & Frontier Regions (Urdu: وزارت امور کشمیر، گلگت بلتستان و ریاستیں و سرحدی امور, romanized: vizārat-e-umūr kaśmīr, gilgit baltistān va riyāsateṅ va sarḥadī umūr) is a ministry of the Government of Pakistan. It handles the regional affairs of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan as both territories of Pakistani-administered Kashmir do not have regular provincial status within Pakistan due to political circumstances revolving around the long-running Kashmir conflict. In 2025 the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions, which handled the tribal and frontier regions of the country was merged into it.

Afghans in Pakistan are migrants from Afghanistan—some of whom are registered in Pakistan as refugees and asylum seekers. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) provides limited protection to them. Many of them were born and raised in Pakistan during the last four decades. Additionally, there are also Special Immigrant Visa applicants awaiting to immigrate to the United States.

The Pakistani government began admitting Afghans after the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979; by the end of 2001, there were over four million of them on the Pakistani side. While some have returned to Afghanistan many decided to stay in Pakistan.

Cantonments in Pakistan (Urdu: چھاؤنی، پاکستان) are permanent bases of the Pakistan Armed Forces, which are administered by Cantonment Boards under the control of the Military Lands & Cantonments Department (ML&C), Ministry of Defence, Government of Pakistan. Cantonments are established under and governed by the Cantonments Act 1924.

In recent times, the demographic character of most independence-era cantonments has changed, as they are no longer primarily "garrison" areas, and include significant civilian populations and private businesses. Based on the strength of civil population, the cantonments have been divided into three classes. Class I Cantonments, in which the civil population is 100,000 or more; Class II Cantonments, in which the civil population is 50,000 or more but less than 100,000; and Class III Cantonments, in which the civil population is less than 50,000.

The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) (Urdu: پاکستان ادارہ شماریات) is a federal agency under the Government of Pakistan. It is an attached department of the Ministry of Planning, Development & Special Initiatives. It works for collecting statistics in the country.

The 1998 Census of Pakistan was the fifth Pakistani national census. It provided a detailed enumeration of the population of Pakistan at the time it was conducted under the authority of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, an agency of the Government of Pakistan. According to the 1998 census, the population of Pakistan proper (excluding disputed territories) stood at 130,857,717 people. With the inclusion of the population of Azad Jammu & Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, the population stood at 134,714,017 people. Despite being mandated by the Constitution of Pakistan to be held every 10 years, this was the first census to take place in Pakistan after the 1981 census that took place 17 years earlier, and the next census would not be held for another 19 years, until 2017. The inconsistencies in Pakistan's national elections are due in part to political turmoil and instability within the country.

The Fairy Meadows, locally known as Joot, officially the Fairy Meadows National Park, is an area of grassland near one of the base camp sites of Nanga Parbat, located in Diamer District in the Gilgit-Baltistan region in Pakistan. At an altitude of about 3,300 metres (10,800 ft) above sea level, it serves as the launching point for mountaineers summiting Nanga Parbat by the Rakhiot face. In 1995, the Government of Pakistan declared Fairy Meadows a National Park.

Larkana District (Sindhi: لاڙڪاڻو ضلعو; Urdu: ضلع لاڑکانہ) is a district of the Sindh province of Pakistan. Its largest city is Larkana, which sits on the banks of the Indus River.

Other towns in the district include Ratodero, Dokri, Bakrani, and Naodero. In 2005, the Government of Pakistan under Pervez Musharraf bifurcated the district, forming a new district called Qamber and Shahdadkot, with the two towns of Qambar Khan and Shahdadkot.

Pakistani English or English (Pakistan) (Paklish, Pinglish, PakEng, en-PK) is a group of English-language varieties spoken in Pakistan and among the Pakistani diaspora. English is the primary language used by the government of Pakistan, alongside Urdu, on the national level. While being spoken natively by only a small percentage of the population, it is the primary language used in education, commerce, administration, and the legal and judicial systems.

It was first recognised as a distinct variety of South Asian English and designated in the 1970s and 1980s. Pakistani English, similar and related to Indian English, is slightly different from other varieties of English in respect to vocabulary, accent, and other features.

The Pakistan Army or Pak Army (Urdu: پاک فوج, romanized: Pāk Fauj, pronounced [ˈpaːk fɔːdʒ]) is the land service branch and the largest component of the Pakistan Armed Forces. The president of Pakistan is the supreme commander of the army. As of the 2025 reforms, the Pakistan Army is commanded by the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), a position held concurrently by the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is typically a four-star general. The Army was officially established in August 1947 after the Partition of India. According to statistics provided by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in 2025, the Pakistan Army has approximately 660,000 active duty personnel, supported by the National Guard and the Civil Armed Forces.In accordance with the Constitution of Pakistan, Pakistani citizens can voluntarily enlist in military service as early as age 17, but cannot be deployed for combat until age 18.

The primary objective and constitutional mission of the Pakistan Army is to ensure the national security and national unity of Pakistan by defending it against external aggression or the threat of war. It can also be requisitioned by the Pakistani federal government to respond to internal threats within its borders. During national or international calamities or emergencies, it conducts humanitarian rescue operations at home and is an active participant in peacekeeping missions mandated by the United Nations (UN). Notably, it played a major role in rescuing trapped American soldiers who had requested the assistance of a quick reaction force during Operation Gothic Serpent in Somalia. Pakistan Army troops also had a relatively strong presence as part of a UN and NATO coalition during the Bosnian War and the larger Yugoslav Wars.

The Federally Administered Tribal Areas, commonly known as FATA, was a semi-autonomous tribal region in north-western Pakistan that existed from 1947 until being merged with the neighbouring province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2018 through the Twenty-fifth amendment to the constitution of Pakistan. It consisted of seven tribal agencies (districts) and six frontier regions, and were directly governed by the federal government through a special set of laws called the Frontier Crimes Regulations.

On 24 May 2018, the National Assembly of Pakistan voted in favour of an amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan for the FATA-KP merger which was approved by the Senate the following day. Since the change was to affect the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, it was presented for approval in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on 27 May 2018, and passed with majority vote. On 28 May 2018, the President of Pakistan signed the FATA Interim Governance Regulation, a set of interim rules for FATA until it merges with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa within a timeframe of two years. The 25th Amendment received assent from President Mamnoon Hussain on 31 May 2018, after which FATA was officially merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The One Unit Scheme (Urdu: ون یونٹ; Bengali: এক ইউনিট ব্যবস্থা) was the reorganisation of the provinces of Pakistan by the central Pakistani government. It was led by Prime Minister Muhammad Ali Bogra on 22 November 1954 and enacted on 30 September 1955. The government claimed that the programme would overcome the difficulty of administering the two non-contiguous, unequal polities of West and East Pakistan separated from each other by more than a thousand miles. To diminish the differences between the two regions, the 'One Unit' programme merged the four provinces of West Pakistan (West Punjab, Sind, the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan) into a single province to parallel the province of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

The One Unit program met with great resistance and grievances were raised by the four provinces after its establishment. As per scholar Julien Levesque, the One Unit project had mainly been pushed by the Punjabi elite of West Pakistan since 1953 with the aim of preventing politicians from East Pakistan from gaining power at the centre. The National Awami Party successfully sponsored a bill in the National Assembly calling for its dissolution and providing for regional autonomy. This led to the military takeover of the national government. The One Unit programme remained in effect until 1970. Finally, President General Yahya Khan imposed Legal Framework Order No. 1970 to end the One Unit program and reinstate the provisional status of the Four Provinces as of August 1947.

The President of Pakistan is the head of state of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The president is the nominal head of the executive and the federal parliament, the first citizen of the country, and the supreme commander of the Pakistan Armed Forces. Serving as the ceremonial head of the federation, the president is bound to act on advice of the prime minister and the federal cabinet. Asif Ali Zardari is the 14th and current president, having assumed the presidency on 10 March 2024.

The office of president was created upon the proclamation of Islamic Republic on 23 March 1956. The then serving governor-general, Major General Iskander Mirza, assumed office as the first president. Following the 1958 coup d'etat, the office of prime minister was abolished, leaving the Presidency as the most powerful office in the country. This position was further strengthened when the 1962 Constitution was adopted. It turned Pakistan into a Presidential Republic, giving all executive powers to the president. In 1973, the new Constitution established Parliamentary democracy and reduced the president's role to a ceremonial one. Nevertheless, the military takeover in 1977 reversed the changes. The 8th Amendment turned Pakistan into a semi-presidential republic and in the period between 1985 and 2010, the executive power was shared by the president and prime minister. The 18th Amendment in 2010 restored Parliamentary Democracy in the country, and reduced the presidency to a ceremonial position.

The prime minister of Pakistan is the head of government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister-led and appointed cabinet, with the president of Pakistan serving as the nominal head of executive and state. The prime minister is often the leader of the party or the coalition with a majority in the lower house of the federal parliament, the National Assembly, where he serves as leader of the House. Prime minister holds office by virtue of their ability to command the confidence of the National Assembly. The prime minister is designated as the "chief executive of the Islamic Republic".

Pakistan's prime minister leads the executive branch of the federal government, oversees the state economy, leads the National Assembly, heads the Council of Common Interests as well as the Cabinet, and is charged with leading the National Command Authority over Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal. This position places its holder in leadership of the nation and in control over all matters, both internal affairs and foreign policy. The prime minister is elected by the members of the National Assembly and is therefore usually the leader of the majority party in the parliament. The Constitution of Pakistan vests executive powers in the prime minister, who is responsible for appointing the Cabinet as well as running the executive branch, taking and authorizing executive decisions, appointments, and recommendations that require prime ministerial confirmation.

The Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (Urdu: وزارتِ ریاستی و سرحدی امور, wazarat-e- reyasti o sarhadi umoor; abbreviated as SAFRON) was a federal ministry in Pakistan.

The main responsibilities of the ministry were the administrative affairs and development activities in the tribal areas of Pakistan, including Frontier Regions of Pakistan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).