Pakistan militants preparing for Afghanistan civil war

sayareakd

Mod
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
17,734
Likes
18,951
Country flag
Militants in Pakistan's most populous province are said to be training for what they expect will be an ethnic-based civil war in neighboring Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw in 16 months, according to analysts and a senior militant.
In the past two years the number of Punjab-based militants deploying to regions bordering on Afghanistan has tripled and is now in the thousands, says analyst Mansur Mehsud. He runs the FATA Institute, an Islamabad-based think tank studying the mix of militant groups that operate in Pakistan's tribal belt running along much of the 1,600-mile Afghan-Pakistan border.
Mehsud, himself from South Waziristan where militants also hide out, says more than 150 militant groups operate in the tribal regions, mostly in mountainous, heavily forested North Waziristan. Dotted with hideouts, it is there that Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri is thought by the U.S. to be hiding, and where Afghanistan says many of its enemies have found sanctuary.
While militants from Punjab province have long sought refuge and training in the tribal regions, they were fewer in number and confined their hostility to Pakistan's neighbor and foe, India.
All that is changing, say analysts.
"Before, they were keeping a low profile. But just in the last two or three years hundreds have been coming from Punjab," said Mehsud. "Everyone knows that when NATO and the American troops leave Afghanistan there will be fighting between Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns."
And the Punjabi militants will side with the Afghan Taliban, who are mostly Pashtun, Afghanistan's dominant ethnic group and the majority ethnic group in Pakistan's northwest region that borders Afghanistan. Like many in the Taliban, the Punjabi militants share a radical and regressive interpretation of Islam.
"We will go to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban as we have done in the past," said a senior member of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), a militant Sunni Muslim group, who goes by a nom de guerre, Ahmed Zia Siddiqui.
In an interview with The Associated Press in Pakistan, he said the Taliban haven't yet requested help, but when asked whether Punjab-based militants were preparing for war in Afghanistan after the foreign withdrawal, he replied: "Absolutely."
Despite being outlawed in Pakistan, Siddiqui's group is among the most active and violent, providing a cadre of suicide bombers for attacks both in Pakistan and in Afghanistan. It has taken responsibility for dozens of attacks that have killed hundreds of minority Shiites in Pakistan.
It has also been implicated in some of the most spectacular attacks in Pakistan, including the 2008 bombing of a five-star hotel in the capital and an assassination attempt on former dictator and U.S. ally Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Zahid Hussain, whose books plot the rise of militancy in Pakistan, said at least two dozen militant groups are headquartered in Punjab province, while in Waziristan their numbers are growing as mainstream religious parties such as Jamaat-e-Islami recruit young men to the militant cause.
"Even if a settlement occurs in Afghanistan there are still a lot who will continue to fight and those who are most likely to resist a settlement are Pakistani militants," Hussain said. He said that during a recent trip he made to North Waziristan, local tribesmen spoke of the influx of Punjab-based militants into their area. Foreign journalists are not allowed in the tribal regions.
Pakistan's new elected civilian government has promised a strategy to tackle the militants whose actions, says Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, are a scourge that has killed upward of 40,000 Pakistanis in recent years.
In a televised speech last month, he lamented Pakistan's inability "to restrict the culprits or even identify them, to spot their hideouts and take them to task."
"Pakistan cannot tolerate this anymore," he said.
While Sharif suggested that "incompetence or insensitiveness" were to blame, analysts accuse the government of lacking the political will to go after the militants. They say Sharif's conservative Pakistan Muslim League rules Punjab province, where militant headquarters are easy to spot and are left undisturbed.
In the south Punjab city of Bahawalpur, the al-Qaida linked Jaish-e-Mohammed is expanding its headquarters and building bigger religious schools for its adherents, said Ayesha Saddiqa, a defense analyst from Bahawalpur. The militant group has radicalized locals, and its leader, Azhar Masood, freed from an Indian jail in 1999 in exchange for a hijacked Indian Airlines plane, moves about freely, she said.
Punjab "is infested with numerous jihadi outfits that support the Taliban based in the tribal areas from time to time," said Saddiqa. "The Punjabi jihadis are critical of the war in Afghanistan and Western presence in the region. This is not just an objection to foreign presence in a Muslim country but is part of a larger war they hope to fight in establishing supremacy of Islam according to their interpretation and imagination."
Omar Hamid Khan, the Interior Ministry spokesman, says violence has escalated since the Sharif government took office in June, with 68 attacks in 60 days.
In a recent interview he acknowledged the difficulties the new government faces in meeting its stated goals of creating a counter-terrorism authority and competent police force, and finding experts to translate its national security blueprint into action.
Dr. Simbal Khan, a regional security expert with the Islamabad Policy Research Institute in Islamabad, said Pakistan doesn't want to see Afghanistan return to the 1990s, when civil war destroyed the country and gave rise to the repressive Taliban regime which in turn strengthened Pakistan's militants. Yet Pakistan's options are few, and according to Dr. Khan exclude an all-out assault on militant hideouts in Punjab that would turn the full force of militancy against Pakistan.
"We know where they are. We could bomb the whole area, flatten it. That would solve Afghanistan's problem but what would that leave for us?" she asked. "We might solve the Afghan problem but our problem would be far worse. We would suffer for the next 40 years."


Read more: Pakistan militants preparing for Afghanistan civil war | Fox News
 

sayareakd

Mod
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
17,734
Likes
18,951
Country flag
Terrorists are terrorists, after US exit of Afghanistan they want to go into civil war and side by side try to do similar thing in Kashmir and rest of India
Coming dates after US exit will be difficult for us, we need to play it smart and take those guys in both side of Pakistani border by all means.
 

Tshering22

Sikkimese Saber
Senior Member
Joined
Aug 20, 2010
Messages
7,869
Likes
23,209
Country flag
Terrorists are terrorists, after US exit of Afghanistan they want to go into civil war and side by side try to do similar thing in Kashmir and rest of India
Coming dates after US exit will be difficult for us, we need to play it smart and take those guys in both side of Pakistani border by all means.
Which makes it all the more important for a clear cut regime change in the coming elections. We cannot afford to have this regime militarily or economically.
 

roma

NRI in Europe
Senior Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2009
Messages
3,582
Likes
2,538
Country flag
the experience they gain in destabilizing afghanistan ( or even if they fail to do so - as i would prefer )

will be absolutely invaluable when they turn their sights onto packland next
 

bennedose

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2013
Messages
1,365
Likes
2,169
Terrorists are terrorists, after US exit of Afghanistan they want to go into civil war and side by side try to do similar thing in Kashmir and rest of India
Coming dates after US exit will be difficult for us, we need to play it smart and take those guys in both side of Pakistani border by all means.
No. They must take each other out. Invest in beer and popcorn. Those morons have been trying to invade India for 65 years so there is nothing new they can do. We must help anyone who will battle the Paki army. Let the buggers tear each others guts out.
 

Ray

The Chairman
Professional
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Messages
43,132
Likes
23,834
More the confusion and turmoil in Afghanistan after the US departs, better is it for India since the terrorists will be busy there and not in India!
 

bennedose

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2013
Messages
1,365
Likes
2,169
More the confusion and turmoil in Afghanistan after the US departs, better is it for India since the terrorists will be busy there and not in India!
It was in that very confusion and turmoil that the attacks of 9-11 were planned. Ironically, my own cousins and other relatives, US citizens who used to visit India before 9-11 used to remark - "How stupid security is in India. You know I simply check in my baggage at the entrance to O'Hare airport and walk on to the aircraft with 5 minutes to spare"

Pakistan and their Taliban allies changed all that for America.
 

sayareakd

Mod
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
17,734
Likes
18,951
Country flag
Pakistan is utter stupid to play game, at two different border at the same time. Its energy and manpower will get divided and it wont get what it want. On the other hand both India and Afghan will joined hands then not much Pakis can do.
 

naseem

Regular Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2013
Messages
98
Likes
9
Pakistan is utter stupid to play game, at two different border at the same time. Its energy and manpower will get divided and it wont get what it want. On the other hand both India and Afghan will joined hands then not much Pakis can do.
You are forgetting china
 

sydsnyper

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 20, 2013
Messages
1,736
Likes
3,873
Country flag
Again, India does not have any nuke can attack China.
Dude, do you seriously think we will enter a nuke war with you and let you just have a go at it...... he he he he. You have never seen the face of vengeance .... pray you dont have to..
 

CCTV

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 31, 2013
Messages
678
Likes
24
it would be good idea to check your statement.
Well, tell me what is the yield of India's nuclear tests.
If no one of those test can be consider as a successful thermonuclear test ,then what do you suppose India can put on it missile?
Finally, check your missiles payload according to ranges, see how can those missiles can do with out thermonuclear warhead.
 

sayareakd

Mod
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
17,734
Likes
18,951
Country flag
Well, tell me what is the yield of India's nuclear tests.
If no one of those test can be consider as a successful thermonuclear test ,then what do you suppose India can put on it missile?
Finally, check your missiles payload according to ranges, see how can those missiles can do with out thermonuclear warhead.
they are fine for China.
 

sydsnyper

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 20, 2013
Messages
1,736
Likes
3,873
Country flag
You and us will find out the yield of our nukes when we send it express delivery to Beijing.

Well, tell me what is the yield of India's nuclear tests.
If no one of those test can be consider as a successful thermonuclear test ,then what do you suppose India can put on it missile?
Finally, check your missiles payload according to ranges, see how can those missiles can do with out thermonuclear warhead.
 

Global Defence

New threads

Articles

Top