It's also available in Iraq, a place where PayPal is yet to set foot, with the growing small business sector there, it'll be interesting to see how it unfolds.

I remember being able to buy PIA tickets from USA in 2014 using my credit card somehow - I think some Pakistani bank had contracted with Verified by VISA

Credit cards aren’t the problem. Just companies like stripe and PayPal don’t operate there. You can use Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, etc.