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Pakistani Taliban emerging as a major threat, says IISS
The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the Kashmir region between India and Pakistan are the worst militancy-affected areas, with a total of 65 terrorist groups in operation, according to a report released in London on Tuesday. The 2008 Military Balance report issued by the International Institute for Security Studies (IISS) sees a growing threat from Al Qaeda and the Taliban movement. According to Nigel Inkster, director of transnational threats and political risk at the institute, as quoted by Reuters, the findings reflect the changing nature of conflicts over the past 10 to 15 years. Were seeing less and less inter-state conflict and more and more intra-state conflict involving a wide variety of armed groups the number just keeps on spiralling. He said while the roots of these groups lay in localised issues, very recently they had shown an inclination to link themselves to a wider agenda. Global struggle: Led by Baitullah Mehsud, the Waziristan-based group has recently expanded to align itself with global struggles. Because of the wider ramifications of unrest in the region, the Pakistani neo-Taliban, as it is called, has become a potent and growing threat, he warned. Mehsud has linked himself formally with the Afghan Taliban and has been quoted about the need to annihilate the United States and Britain, so he is adopting a wider political agenda, Inkster added. He said the fastest growing threat came not from Al Qaeda or any of its offshoots in Iraq, but probably Tehreek-e-Taliban the Pakistani Taliban movement. In South Waziristan they are actually pretty well established and the Pakistani army cant really take them on full frontal, Inkster told Reuters. Posted by: Fred 2008-02-06 |
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