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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistani Islamists call for renewed jihad |
| 2008-06-19 |
| NEW DELHI: Pakistan’s Islamist press has thrown its weight behind a group of mid-level and senior officers in the armed forces, who have been pressuring Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant-General Pervez Ashfaq Kiyani to terminate counter-terrorism operations in the North West Frontier Province and resume support for the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir. Last week’s air-strike on a Pakistan border post in the Mohmand Agency, in which several soldiers were killed, led jihadist leaders and commentators to call an end to Islamabad’s cooperation with the United States and to demand that it wind down the détente process with India, which they claim is working to exterminate Pakistan. Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, chief of the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s parent religious body, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, called on June 12 for Pakistan to give a tit-for-tat reply to the United States. It could do this, he suggested, by dissociating itself from the war on terror and joining the mujahideen to fight in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Saeed’s deputy and key Lashkar military tactician, Abdul Rehman Makki, speaking to a congregation at Islamabad’s Jamia Masjid Quba the same evening, went one step further, asking that the Pakistan government should snap ties with the U.S. and Europe and wage an open jihad against them. In similar vein, the Daily Jasarat’s Friday Special released on the same day as Mr. Makki’s speech called for Pakistan to abandon the war on terror and concentrate on the liberation of Kashmir through jihad. “The money that the U.S. provides us for fighting the war on terror,” the newspaper editorially argued, “is nothing compared to the losses we have suffered. By fighting the war on terror, we only compounded our miseries.” Pakistani jihadists have been telling their audiences the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir is essential to the nation’s survival. Nawa-i-Waqt, for example, complained that India was seeking to choke Pakistan’s water sources, India has eaten the mother of our rivers Kashmir, it said. “We should stop talking peace with India, it proceeded, We should strengthen the mujahideen. We should wage jihad against India, otherwise it will turn Pakistan into a barren land.” Positions like these are not new. Just last month, for example, Saeed claimed that the enemies of Islam are giving India unlimited resources so that it can construct dams on Pakistani rivers. He asserted that the Crusaders, the Jews, and the Hindus all have united against the Muslims, and launched the war on terror which is in fact a pretext to impose a horrible war to further the nefarious goals of the enemies of Islam. Saeed demanded that Pakistani rulers should restore the trust of the Kashmiris by adhering to the policy of jihad. “Kashmir is not an integral part of India. It is an integral part of Pakistan! The nation will not allow the sacrifices of more than a hundred thousand Kashmiris to be disregarded and overlooked.” Nida-i-Millat, another influential Islamist newspaper, called in its May 22, 2008, issue for an end to the growing popular culture exchanges which have characterised the détente process. So long as India does not end its “illegal occupation” of Kashmir, the newspaper said, there should be no trade, economic and cultural ties with it, a criticism of People’s Party of Pakistan chairman Asif Ali Zardari, who has made clear he wishes to enlarge bilateral trade and people-to-people contact independently of dialogue on the conflict. India has been subjugating Kashmir for the last 60 years, the Nida-i-Millat argued, and is committing atrocities against our Kashmiri brothers. “Around 52 dams are being constructed on the waters of occupied Kashmir. This will turn our land into a barren desert. India is conspiring to destroy us, but we are importing their cheap culture.” Islamist polemic of this type is targeted at mid-level officers in the Pakistan army, who have been worn down by their gruelling counter-terrorism campaigns in the North West Frontier Province. Products of the new-model army constructed during the regime of General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, with the aid of neoconservative religious organisations, many of the officers see themselves as guardians not just of the state of Pakistan, but Islam itself. President Pervez Musharraf’s decision to side with the U.S. after the events of September 11, 2001, was seen as a betrayal of the anti-India, pro-jihad postures which bound the army to him during his coup against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Islamists within the Pakistan army also have the tactical support of influential old-school nationalists, including several retired Directors-General who believe President Musharraf’s policies have opened up existence-threatening fault-lines which can only be healed by an accommodation with the religious right. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #1 No surprise here - IMO to protect their pan-Islamist NUCLEARIZATION efforts, they need to either defeat NATO + Pakis Govt, or more likely keep the local situation in wilful sectarian flux/chaos, i.e. "CONTAIN/ISOLATE" NATO-PAKI GOVT FORCES ALA ISRAEL + HIZBULLAH, HAMAS, ETC. *NEWS > CANADIAN, US INTEL are warning that HIZB HEZB OPERATIVES have left Lebanon-ME for cells in CANADA proper, AFRICA, + ASIA in order to initiate new TerrorOps in retaliation for the MUGNIYEH killing. MOVEMENT IN POSSIB COORDIN WID IRAN'S IRGC > MAY NOT ATTACK US TARGETS DUE TO THE CURRENT SITUATION IN THE ME VV IRAN. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-06-19 23:41 |