The Ghazi Force: Vengeful New Militant Group Emerges In Pakistan
"The military and the ISI have given importance to these militants as assets. But those who have openly declared war, and there is no chance of them returning back to the state, the army is going after them," said Manzar Jameel, a terrorism expert and researcher on the growth of extremism in Pakistan. "Yet they still believe that some are still assets and that they can keep control of the assets. It's a failure of strategy."
Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas denies any assistance to militant groups, saying past ties have long since been severed. He says the Ghazi Force is among the groups the 120,000 Pakistani soldiers waging war in the tribal regions are fighting.
Yet Anatol Lieven, a terrorism expert with the Department of War Studies at London's King College, said it's clear that the ISI continues to protect some militant groups, even if it has broken with others.
In a June report, the Rand Corporation think tank also alleged that Pakistan's military and intelligence still support some militant groups "as a tool of its foreign and domestic policy."
"A key objective of U.S. policy must be to alter Pakistan's strategic calculus and end its support to militant groups," the report said.
Christine Fair, a co-author of that report and an assistant professor at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies, said the battle against extremists in Pakistan is mired in layers of subterfuge by Pakistani intelligence and a "mystifying" acceptance by the CIA of Pakistan's "good-militant, bad-militant" policy.
She said U.S. intelligence knows Pakistan protects one group – Lashkar-e-Taiba, which India blames for the 2008 Mumbai assault and Afghanistan accuses of masterminding deadly attacks.
Link:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq-american-junk-20100701,0,6667436.story
No comments:
Post a Comment