Asia One: Pakistan’s new propaganda weapon against India

In an era where battles are fought as much through narratives as through conventional means, Pakistan has opened a dangerous new front in its state-sponsored information warfare against India. On 28 July 2025, Pakistan launched Asia One News Channel, its first self-styled “international” news network, modelled deliberately after Qatar’s Al Jazeera and Turkey’s TRT media. Far from being just another entrant in the global media market, Asia One is an instrument of strategic influence designed to shape global perceptions about Pakistan’s disputes with India, most notably over Jammu and Kashmir.

Asia One is headquartered in Karachi and owned by Pakistan365 Media Group, a subsidiary of the Jang Media Group, Pakistan’s largest media conglomerate. The Jang Group, run by the Kashmiri-descendant Mir family and currently overseen by Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman, has been at the centre of domestic narrative building for decades. Its flagship platforms, Geo News and various newspapers, have consistently reflected a pro-establishment, anti-India editorial line. The launch of Asia One marks an escalation, taking that domestic propaganda playbook global and packaging it in slick, Western-style production to influence audiences far beyond Pakistan’s borders.

Asia One’s rollout was planned with precision to achieve rapid, multi-platform penetration across continents. Instead of focusing merely on Pakistani audiences, the channel uses satellite broadcasting to beam its signal across South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Europe, allowing it to target both Muslim-majority states and Western democracies. In addition, it has secured early cable and OTT carriage deals in diaspora-heavy zones of the UK, Canada, the US, and Australia. Its digital-first strategy relies on a globally accessible website, dedicated mobile apps for iOS and Android, and geo-targeted advertising aimed at audiences in the West, the Gulf States, Malaysia, Indonesia, and other regions in West Asia where Pakistan’s narratives are likely to find sympathy.

Complementing its satellite and cable presence, Asia One aggressively leverages digital platforms, aiming to maintain a strong presence on Instagram, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter), where its content is distributed with multilingual captions, primarily in English, to appeal to younger, urban audiences. Its Western-style presentation, combined with a constant feed of viral clips, is aimed at making it an attractive option for those seeking quick, easily digestible “international news,” even as it systematically seeds anti-India narratives. The channel’s goal is not limited to South Asia as it seeks to maximise penetration into Western democracies with large South Asian communities, and into Muslim-majority countries where anti-India rhetoric is likely to be warmly received.

What makes Asia One far more than just a news network is the profile of its leadership and editorial staff. Its director, Naved Qamar (alias Naveed Khan Baloch), is a former senior editorial figure at TRT World, Turkey’s state broadcaster, and is known for his close links with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). He is regarded as a “long-term ISI narrative operative” who worked as an offshore propaganda handler during his TRT World tenure, coordinating closely with ISI’s Media Operations Wing. His appointment ensures that Asia One’s editorial direction remains closely aligned with Pakistan’s military priorities, especially in the areas of Kashmir coverage, Indian defence policy, and political counter-narratives.

The channel’s editor, Mansoor Waheed Malik, previously headed ISPR-funded Fauji Foundation media operations until 2019 in Pakistan, where he was tasked with producing psychological warfare content targeting both domestic and international audiences. In his current role, he sets Asia One’s editorial tone and enforces the ISPR’s narrative discipline within the newsroom. The Input Editor and Prime-Time Lead Anchor, Rabea Khalid, plays a dual role by controlling both story intake and on-air delivery, giving her extraordinary influence over how narratives are shaped. Having previously worked with the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) Pakistan, she brings experience in global communications protocols and uses them to frame political messaging in a way that appears neutral and sophisticated to international viewers.

Each of these personnel choices ties Asia One directly to Pakistan’s 5th Generation Warfare doctrine, which prioritises psychological operations, perception management, and narrative dominance alongside direct and covert kinetic conflict.

Asia One’s strategy is clearly inspired by Al Jazeera, Qatar’s state-funded channel, and TRT World, Turkey’s state-backed media outlet. Both have been instrumental in reshaping the media landscape in the Middle East and beyond. Al Jazeera in particular earned global recognition as a voice of the Arab world but was also accused of providing disproportionate airtime to extremist Islamist figures, framing Western counter-terror operations as imperial aggression, and amplifying the Palestinian cause to the point of legitimising violence and terrorism against Israel and the West.

Pakistan hopes to replicate this model, using Asia One to rebrand its cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir as a so-called “freedom struggle.” Like Al Jazeera and TRT World, Asia One aims to export Pakistan’s domestic narratives globally, bypassing internal scepticism and embedding them into international discourse. Its editorial line seeks to exploit the language of human rights, minority protection, and decolonisation to frame India as an aggressor. Kashmir is presented not merely as a bilateral territorial dispute but as a global justice issue, deliberately linked to Palestine, apartheid-era South Africa, and Western colonial history to evoke moral outrage.

Asia One’s methodology for discrediting India is multi-layered and carefully calibrated. The channel frequently hijacks real events such as UN resolutions, protests, or security incidents involving Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, repackaging them with selective visuals and misleading context to portray India as an oppressor. Small-scale anti-India rallies organised by Pakistani-sponsored diaspora groups abroad are amplified to create an illusion of massive global opposition to India’s Kashmir policy.

One of the more sophisticated aspects of the strategy is the use of foreign anchors such as Timothy Obiezu from Nigeria, Tom Philpot from the UK, and Angel Murphy from the United States. These anchors lend the network an appearance of global credibility and reduce suspicion that it is simply a mouthpiece for the Pakistani state. Their international identities help launder ISI-scripted narratives, presenting them as neutral journalism. In reality, none of these chosen anchors have credible journalistic backgrounds and are mostly recognised as hired mouthpieces.

Asia One also seeks to deliberately and falsely link the so-called Kashmir conflict with other global causes, framing it as part of a broader pattern of colonial oppression. By tying Kashmir to Palestine and African struggles, it taps into powerful emotional reservoirs, particularly in the Global South and among progressive Western audiences. Its digital strategy relies heavily on short-form, emotionally charged content circulated on platforms where moderation is weaker, allowing the network to bypass algorithmic scrutiny and takedowns.

The channel also practices what experts call “narrative recycling”. Claims made in Asia One broadcasts are designed to be picked up later by sympathetic NGOs, activists, and even foreign lawmakers, creating a self-reinforcing cycle in which propaganda is eventually cited as fact by independent third parties.

Even the channel’s history has been curated for strategic advantage. Asia One’s LinkedIn profile claims that the organisation was founded in 2015, but public records show that its domain was registered as recently as June 2025 and its YouTube account created in late June of the same year. This discrepancy suggests a deliberate attempt to create an illusion of legacy and credibility, an age-old tactic intended to build trust among international journalists and policymakers who might otherwise dismiss it as a brand-new propaganda outlet.

Interestingly, Asia One has chosen not to maintain an official YouTube channel, where takedowns are frequent and algorithmic scrutiny stronger. Instead, it prioritises closed platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, where content spreads rapidly through shares and reposts in diaspora networks, making it harder for counter-disinformation teams to react in real time.

Asia One represents a serious strategic threat to India’s information ecosystem. By combining the editorial muscle of the Jang Media Group with global distribution capacity, Pakistan has effectively created a megaphone capable of influencing policymakers, international journalists, human rights forums, and South Asian diaspora youth. The network is likely to escalate its campaigns around key flashpoints such as anniversaries of Article 370’s abrogation, major incidents along the Line of Control, sessions of the United Nations General Assembly, and high-profile cooperation between India with Israel and the global West.

Its long-term goal is to normalise Pakistan’s illegal claims on Jammu and Kashmir, justify its own military oppression in its provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa—where it is accused of brutally suppressing the just political rights of the people by systematically killing civilians through military operations and enforcing state-backed disappearances of political activists. Furthermore, it aims to portray India as a rogue state that violates human rights in Jammu and Kashmir, manufacturing sympathy for what Pakistan calls a so-called “freedom struggle”—a struggle that in reality India and much of the international community recognise as Pakistan-backed cross-border terrorism.

Asia One’s launch is not just a media story but a national security challenge. It marks the beginning of a new phase in Pakistan’s hybrid war against India, where the battle for global opinion will be fought with equal intensity as military standoffs along the Line of Control. By combining Western production values with foreign anchors and digital-first strategies, Pakistan aims to erode India’s standing in the world and give legitimacy to terrorism in Kashmir and beyond.

Much like Al Jazeera and TRT World, which amplified the Arab and Palestinian narratives to global prominence, Asia One seeks to become the voice of Pakistan’s deep state in the international arena. The challenge for India will not only be to counter this disinformation but also to proactively project its own story with credibility, sophistication, and equal reach before Asia One’s messaging becomes embedded in global narrative-building circles that influence policymakers worldwide.

Raja Muneeb is an independent journalist and columnist. He tweets @rajamuneeb. The views expressed in this article are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of Firstpost.