In Cold Blood: A Rise in State-Sponsored Killings Abroad

Countries increasingly carry out assassinations abroad, often using criminals in the process. With no end in sight, the consequences of this could be severe.

Protests in Toronto, Canada following the revelation of evidence linking the Indian government to the killing of Canadian Sikh activist, Hardeep Singh Nijar. Image source

On March 8, a Canadian investigative series released security footage of a fatal attack in 2023 on Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Unidentified gunmen shot Nijar, a prominent activist who advocated for creating an independent Sikh state from India, in the parking lot of a Sikh temple in the West Coast city of Surrey. On September 18, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revealed "credible allegations" that Indian government agents had orchestrated the killing.

Other suspicious incidents began to emerge. On November 29, U.S. authorities unsealed an indictment revealing an alleged plot by an Indian government agent to kill a Sikh activist and American citizen on U.S. soil. In December, the family of late U.K.-based Sikh activist Avtar Singh Khanda – who died suddenly in a Birmingham hospital on June 15 at age 35 – called on the U.K. Home Office to investigate his death. Singh Khanda – who was seeking asylum in the U.K. – claimed to have been verbally harassed by Indian police, including threats to his family in Punjab before his death. Although British doctors and academics have since confirmed that Singh Khanda died of a sudden illness and not poisoning, the incident nonetheless indicates rising levels of paranoia around potential assassinations.

India is not the first country to be implicated in extrajudicial killings abroad. Other countries, such as Russia, Iran, and North Korea, have also been accused of such actions in overseas jurisdictions in recent years, and it is a regular practice of countries such as the United States and Israel. Although assassinations, including overseas killings, have long been a tool of statecraft, incidents by new actors appear to be on the rise. Moreover, there is a growing trend of state institutions using non-state actors, including known criminal groups, to carry out killings abroad, possibly as a means of attaining plausible deniability. 

Assassinations as a tool of statecraft

States typically carry out assassinations in relation to strategic aims, including influencing policy in a given country through regime change and tactical ends. For example, Israel has used direct targeted killings for decades to deter state aggressors, degrade their scientific capabilities, eliminate jihadists, and even exact revenge. In his definitive account of Israel's assassination program, titled Rise and Kill First, Ronen Bergman writes:

"[This has allowed] with a nod and a wink from the government, highly problematic acts of assassination, with no parliamentary or public scrutiny." 

He further notes:

"The Mossad and Israel's other intelligence arms have done away with individuals who were identified as direct threats to national security and killing them has also sent a bigger message: If you are an enemy of Israel, we will find and kill you, wherever you are." 

Since 9/11, the U.S. has also expanded its use of targeted killings on foreign soil. Aside from killing Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the U.S. has eliminated other prominent leaders of the group, including Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan, Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, and Abu Jihad al-Masri in Pakistan, among others. Meanwhile, authoritarian states like Russia have pursued and killed dissidents and perceived turncoats on Western soil. In one example of this, suspected Russian intelligence agents poisoned a former Russian spy and his daughter in the U.K. using a nerve agent in 2018, although both survived. Finally, the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamaal Khashoggi by agents of the Saudi government in Istanbul, apparently on the orders of the country's Crown Prince, demonstrated that such attacks may be carried out with relative impunity.

Attacks such as these have emboldened other countries to embark on overseas assassination programs. For example, an investigative report by The Guardian found that India's assassination program only began in 2019. The report also suggests that Indian intelligence agencies proposed the program to pursue enemies abroad, the Khashoggi assassination as a template. The Indian government also perceives the program as a form of power projection, with Indian ministers openly celebrating the country's perceived entry into an exclusive club.

Pakistan may also be taking cues from cross-border assassinations elsewhere. In December 2020, a Canada-based Pakistani Baloch dissident named Karima Baloch was found dead, submerged in the Toronto waterfront. Baloch was a prominent critic of the Pakistani military for its alleged role in enforced disappearances in the country's Balochistan province. Although the police found no signs of foul play in her case, Baloch's family said that she had received death threats and was allegedly killed at the behest of Pakistan's intelligence services. A journalist and government critic who fled Pakistan in 2012 died under similar mysterious circumstances in Sweden that year.

According to Rory Cormac, an international relations lecturer and leading expert on covert actions by intelligence organizations, the adoption of state-sponsored assassinations by a growing number of countries is probably the product of changing international norms. Amid growing concerns over India's use of targeted killings, Indian nationalists have lashed out at the apparent hypocrisy of Western countries decrying covert actions when they have carried out such measures for years. This rift over who can use such coercive actions will likely encourage other rising powers to use them. A February report from Freedom House claims that over 20% of the world's governments engage in what it defines as "transnational repression." Between 2014 and 2023, the organization recorded 1,034 incidents of physical repression in 100 countries by over 44 perpetrator countries. As targeted killings become more normalized, these transnationally repressive states may also engage in the practice.

Saudi Arabia’s 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamaal Khashoggi (pictured) represented a turning point in global assassination, emboldening other states to initiate similar programs. Image source

The use of non-state actors in killings

A growing number of countries now increasingly use non-state actors, especially criminal syndicates, to carry out assassinations. For example, in 2022, Iran hired members of an Eastern European criminal ring to murder a U.S.-based human rights campaigner. New York City Police Department (NYPD) foiled the plot when they arrested one of the assailants outside the alleged target's home while in possession of an AK-47 assault rifle. Iran has allegedly used criminal gangs and drug cartels in multiple attempts to kill dissidents abroad. In several of India's alleged assassinations in Pakistan, the suspects arrested were local jihadists or criminals whom Indian agents hired to eliminate targets.

The use of non-state actors to carry out assassination plots is likely due to state institutions seeking plausible deniability – or the ability to deny prior knowledge about the actions committed. This desire for plausible deniability is likely because publicly claiming responsibility for these acts carries many risks, including damaged relations with other states, loss of international reputation and creditability, and even coercive actions such as economic sanctions and military escalation.

There is a growing synergy between many intelligence agencies and global crime syndicates. For example, Chinese security agencies have established deep business links with transnational organized crime groups such as the Triads, which they use for money laundering and other purposes. China has also reportedly recruited triad members to intimidate Chinese citizens living in the U.S. as part of Operation Foxhunt, a concerted campaign to control national security threats abroad. Beijing even offers open bounties on dissidents living abroad. Moreover, using criminals to carry out or facilitate state-sponsored activities directly is even easier in countries where criminal elements are integral players in state functions, such as Russia, Belarus, and North Korea.

Targeted assassinations have become so sophisticated that state actors can recruit unwitting civilians to carry out attacks for them. For example, in 2017, two women who believed they were appearing on a prank television show smeared a nerve agent on Kim Jong Nam, the elder brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, killing him within minutes. The incident, which occurred in an open space at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, was later revealed to be facilitated by North Korean handlers on the scene. The women involved had so little knowledge of the events that transpired that neither even washed their hands or changed their clothes after the attack.

CCTV footage reveals that Kim Jong Nam was killed by North Korean agents using unwitting suspects at a busy terminal in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in broad daylight. Image source

Conclusion

The normalization of assassinations on foreign soil could have disastrous consequences, especially if states decide to retaliate over such violations of their sovereignty. The risks are even higher in the case of nuclear-armed adversaries. However, there is little evidence that countries are deterred from carrying out such attacks, given the general lack of consequences for orchestrated killings thus far. The situation could become even more volatile as states become involved with criminal elements with varied motives and questionable reliability moving forward. Finally, this spate of assassinations coincides with a rise in global criminal activity, which may increase the chances that states will continue to recruit these organizations for further activities of this kind.