| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Sindh Liberation Army: myth or reality? |
| 2005-02-11 |
| Even as the federal government is trying to make sense of the Balochistan Liberation Army and deal with the situation in that province, a shadowy outfit calling itself the Sindh Liberation Army has emerged in Sindh, another province with longstanding problems with Islamabad. While rumours about the existence of the organisation have been making the rounds in government circles, including intelligence agencies, for some time now, senior officials refuse to give the SLA much credence and say the outfit by no means poses a 'serious' security threat to the province. Critics disagree and say Cheema and his team are being too complacent when they claim that the SLA poses no 'real' threat to security. Recent events also prove otherwise. Through anonymous phone calls to police officials and journalists, the SLA has claimed responsibility for several attacks and bomb blasts in the recent past. These include two bomb explosions near the district headquarters of Rangers in Larkana and blasts at two electricity towers in the Sibi district of Balochistan in which about 12 people were injured. The Sibi attack plunged Quetta and much of the province into darkness. It also shows that the SLA might be operating outside Sindh also and perhaps in collusion with the BLA. While authorities have so far only speculated about groups and individuals responsible for these attacks, it is the first time that they have publicly declared in the media that the SLA is involved in the aforementioned blasts. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #6 During the seventies there was a popular Pashtun secessionist movement which was leftist in ideology. It has since been made almost defunct by the rise of the Taliban and pan-Islamism amongst the Pashtuns. |
| Posted by: Paul Moloney 2005-02-11 11:20:43 PM |
| #5 The central gov't never really controlled the frontier provinces, from what I understand. The tribal territories straddle the Afghan/Pakistan border. Back in the day, the British Empiracles negotiated that the tribals would allow central gov't to administer national stuff -- like registering births and marriages, handling international diplomacy and wars -- that the tribes didn't care about anyway, while the tribal council continued to run all the local stuff. That's why the tribal jirgas (drums and all) are the ones to hunt out foreign terrorists, and not Pakistani Regular Army troops. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-02-11 8:17:37 PM |
| #4 Is there a province in Pakistan that doesn't have a secession movement? The frontier provinces, I think, but mainly because the central government gave up on them years ago. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-02-11 1:11:51 PM |
| #3 SLA? Nope sorry guys, that one was trademarked back in the 1970's. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-02-11 12:34:10 PM |
| #2 Is there a province in Pakistan that doesn't have a secession movement? |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-02-11 11:51:36 AM |
| #1 Funny. In Islamrealm one has to bomb indiscriminately right and left to gain credibility. |
| Posted by: Sobiesky 2005-02-11 10:39:38 AM |