Author:
Publication: Daily Times
Date: April 22, 2009
URL: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\04\22\story_22-4-2009_pg1_12
* Report says fragile state institutions,
weak leadership and inadequate resources limit ability of Islamabad to fight
militancy
If Talibanisation of Pakistan continues at
the current pace, the next generation of the world's most dangerous terrorists
will be born, indoctrinated, and trained in Pakistan, the Council on Foreign
Relations, an American think tank, warned on Tuesday.
"Today, Al Qaeda's top leadership is
most likely based in Pakistan, along with the top Taliban leaders," the
report - titled From AfPak to PakAf: A Response to the New US Strategy for
South Asia - said.
The report by Daniel Markey says that the
'Talibanisation' of Pakistan's Pashtun belt is moving eastwards, creating
new terrorist havens in once-tranquil places.
It adds that "Pakistan's non-Pashtun
extremist and sectarian groups, some of which were historically nurtured by
the state as a means to project influence into India and Afghanistan, also
have the potential to prove deeply destabilising."
Groups like the banned Jaish-e-Muhammad and
Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, according to the report, are well resourced and interconnected
and some of these appear to retain influence in state institutions and enjoy
public sympathy on account of social services.
It says over the past two years, the security
environment in Afghanistan and Pakistan has taken a significant turn for the
worse destabilising the Pashtun belt in southern and eastern Afghanistan as
well as western Pakistan.
"At the same time, a range of other violent
actors from Punjabi anti-Indian extremists to Central Asian warlords-operate
in the non-Pashtun areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan," according to the
report, adding Pakistan and Afghanistan offer these groups an unusually hospitable
environment, one that complicates and magnifies the danger.
The report by Daniel Markey also says that:
"The geographic proximity of Pakistan's nuclear programme to these sophisticated
terrorists and the recent history of illicit transfers of material and know-how
pose a unique threat."
The report concludes that fragile state institutions,
weak leadership, and inadequate resources limit the ability of Islamabad and
Kabul to fight militancy in the near term or to foster moderation.
