Pak Govt. should act against ‘ominous’ jihadists: Editorial

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Islamabad, July 10: Referring to recent media reports stating that jihadists in Pakistan are openly raising funds and recruiting fighters, an editorial in a Pakistan daily has said that the ominous gathering of jihadists calls for a response from the government.

One media report covered Rawalpindi, where Al-Badr Mujahideen and a faction of Hizbul Mujahideen organised a shuhada (martyrs) conference meant for raising funds and recruiting new militants in a collapsing Pakistani economy where people can no longer find jobs.

Al-Badr leader Bakht Zameen told 1,000-plus supporters that ‘his commanders were seeking resources to keep the jihad going in Kashmir and Afghanistan’. He had supporters from Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Azad Jammu and Kashmir thronging stalls, selling propaganda CDs and jihadi literature.

One can, however, predict that the government, weakened by the judiciary, the army through the memogate case and the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary opposition, will make lame excuses. The fact is that Islamabad is already crawling with ‘banned organisations’ and controlling hundreds of illegal mosques in the capital, the editorial said.

Al-Qaeda’s Taliban have already declared that they will attack NATO trucks as they start plying again. The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government is quaking in its shoes at what will happen when the Torkham route gets going, carrying 70 per cent of the NATO supplies, it added.

The army apparently is not committed to the security of the caravans and any other force is bound to stand aside and watch the supplies being burned or looted, their heads full of media brainwashing, it concluded. (ANI)