Step 1: Identify the structure. The dense white-matter band wedged between the basal ganglia and thalamus is the internal capsule.
Step 2: Classify its traffic. It carries cortico-spinal, cortico-bulbar, and thalamo-cortical axons, all of which travel between the cortex and distant structures below it, the definition of projection fibres.
Step 3: Use the shape clue. On a horizontal cut it forms a V with a genu, anterior limb, posterior limb, plus retrolenticular and sublenticular parts that carry optic and auditory radiations.
Step 4: Eliminate the others. Association fibres stay within a hemisphere and commissural fibres cross between hemispheres, neither of which describes the internal capsule.
$cortex \leftrightarrow subcortical\ targets = projection\ fibres$
\[\boxed{Projection\ fibres}\]