Turkey-Pakistan axis |
Operation Sindoor was fought as much through propaganda and misinformation as it was through military action across the border. The moment India launched its strikes in response to the Pahalgam terror attack last year another battle began unfolding across the television screens, social media timelines, YouTube channels and international media networks. Within hours Pakistan’s propaganda machinery went into full action. What made this operation different was how openly Turkey joined that campaign and helped amplify Pakistan’s version of events across the world.
It bought to the fore something much bigger than just wartime propaganda. It showed how deeply Turkey and Pakistan have aligned themselves politically, militarily, and ideologically over the last decade. More importantly, it also revealed how both countries now increasingly use misinformation, emotional manipulation, and carefully manufactured narratives as strategic weapons alongside the drones, military hardware, and the proxy groups that they support and nurture. The speed at which the propaganda operation started after India’s strikes made it very clear that it was a coordinated preparation. As soon as India targeted terror-linked infrastructure during Operation Sindoor, Pakistani social media accounts began flooding the internet with dramatic claims. Videos started circulating showing destroyed buildings, injured civilians, burning neighbourhoods and supposed Indian military losses.
Many of those clips were later found to be old footage taken from conflicts in Syria, Gaza and even Ukraine. But that did not matter in the first few hours because the purpose of spreading fake propaganda was never about accuracy; instead, it was to emotionally overwhelm the information space before facts could catch up. This is where Turkey entered the picture. Turkish state-backed media networks and commentators immediately began amplifying Pakistani claims almost word for word. Channels and platforms linked to Ankara pushed the narrative that India had launched indiscriminate attacks on civilians. The original terror attack that triggered Operation Sindoor slowly disappeared from the conversation. Instead, the focus was shifted entirely towards portraying Pakistan as the victim and India as the aggressor.
That shift was deliberate as Pakistan has been using this model for decades. Every time terrorist incidents linked to Pakistan-based groups trigger a regional crisis, Islamabad attempts to redirect the........