President Donald Trump met Pakistan’s army chief Wednesday in Washington as the US considers supporting Israeli airstrikes on Iran, a country with a cooperative and complex relationship with the government in Islamabad.

As Israeli attacks on Iran, and Tehran’s retaliatory strikes, enter their sixth day, the deepening conflict is sparking fears in Islamabad, say analysts, rooted in its complex ties with Tehran and the even greater unease at the prospect of the Israeli military’s aerial influence extending close to the Pakistani border.

A video of a former Iranian general went viral on X, in which he claimed that should Israel attack Iran with nuclear weapons, Pakistan would retaliate via nuclear action on Israel. Whilst Pakistani