Ashhar Alam

Is Hamas in cahoots with Pakistan-based terrorist organisations?

It seems so, as a video posted online and widely liked and re-posted on X shows a Hamas Commander attending a function of the Lashkar-e-Toiba in Gujranwala, Punjab, Pakistan.

Hamas commander attended Lashkar terrorist function in Gujranwala, Pakistan

Israel will be watching this 😎pic.twitter.com/LYW81D9ZAL

— Frontalforce 🇮🇳 (@FrontalForce) January 6, 2026

The post identified the Hamas leader as Naji Zaheer, and he is shown meeting a person identified as a Lashkar commander, Rashid Ali Sandhu, in Gujranwala during an event organised by the Pakistan Markazi Muslim League (PMML), widely regarded as a political front for LeT.

An undated video has surfaced showing Zaheer and Sandhu sharing the stage, with Zaheer attending as the chief guest. 

Sandhu’s presence, under the cover of his PMML role, points to the deepening engagement between these two US-proscribed terrorist organisations.

Naji Zaheer is no stranger to Pakistan. 

According to the reports, in February 2025, just weeks before the Pahalgam terror attack, he visited Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) with other Hamas officials, where he addressed an anti-India rally alongside commanders from Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Zaheer’s engagements in Pakistan go back years. In January 2024, he addressed the media at the Karachi Press Club. In April 2024, he visited Islamabad and was felicitated by the Islamabad High Court Bar Association. 

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On October 14, 2023, a week after the October 7 attacks in southern Israel, Zaheer met Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman, head of Pakistan’s largest Islamist political party, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, and spoke at the Mufti Mahmood Conference in Peshawar, where Khaled Mashal participated via video link.

Zaheer also attended the "Al-Aqsa Storm" conference in Quetta on October 29, 2023, and in November 2023, he appeared alongside Mashal again at the "Toofan-e-Aqsa" event in Karachi.