From US soil, Asim Munir threatens to blow up Indian dam on Indus and ‘take half the world down’

Pakistan Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir - File Photo

Pakistan’s de facto military ruler, Army Chief Asim Munir, has once again spewed venom against India, this time not from Islamabad, but from the American soil.

Speaking at a closed-door event in Tampa, Florida, hosted by businessman Adnan Asad, Munir vowed to destroy any dam or water infrastructure India might build on the Indus water channels, following New Delhi’s decision to place the Indus Waters Treaty into abeyance after the April Pahalgam terror attack.

“We will wait for India to build a dam, and when it does so, phir das missile sey faarigh kar dengey (we will destroy it with 10 missiles)… The Indus River is not the Indians’ family property. Humein missilon ki kami nahin hai, al-hamdulillah (we have no shortage of missiles, Praise be to God),” Munir reportedly declared, claiming India’s move could put 250 million Pakistanis at risk of starvation.

ALSO READ: Asim Munir's 'crude analogy' invites brutal trolling: 'India a shining Mercedes, Pakistan a dump truck'

From there, the general escalated his rhetoric to an unprecedented nuclear threat -- the first such threat known to have been issued against a third country from US territory. “We are a nuclear nation. If we think we are going down, we’ll take half the world down with us,” Munir said, in what analysts are calling one of the most reckless public statements ever made by a Pakistani leader.

The Tampa event, attended by around 120 members of the Pakistani diaspora, reportedly barred cellphones or digital devices. A representative of the Israel Defence Forces was also said to be present.

Munir, who is on his second visit to the US in just two months and previously lobbied President Donald Trump for a Nobel Prize during a White House luncheon in June, also devoted part of his Florida speech to Pakistan’s recent four-day military clash with India. He urged New Delhi to “accept its losses” and accused it of hiding casualty numbers, before referencing a provocative social media post targeting Indian industrialist Mukesh Ambani with a Quranic verse implying divine retribution.

In a moment of striking candour, the conservative general, reportedly the first Pakistan Army chief with a seminary education, compared India to a luxury car and Pakistan to a battered, overloaded truck. “India is shining, a Mercedes coming on a highway like a Ferrari, but we are a dump truck full of gravel. If the truck hits the car, who is going to be the loser?” he said, in what many observers saw as an inadvertent admission of Pakistan’s lagging economic and strategic position.

Amid speculation that he may have political ambitions, Munir also defended deeper military control over Pakistan’s governance, remarking: “They say war is too serious to be left to the Generals, but politics is also too serious to be left to the politicians.”