The Looming Jihadization of Pakistan

I’m sure I’m not the only one who breathed a heavy sigh of relief when it was learned that the idiot who bombed Sweden this week, Taimour Abdulwahab, has no ties to Pakistan. For once, let it be someone else’s burden.

But my relief was short lived when the headline on The News caught my eye this morning – “Growing Pakistanization of al-Qaeda”. The article, which confirms the urgency described in yesterday’s post, reports that al Qaeda is getting more Pakistani in its leadership. That’s not good news.

According to the article,

…Ilyas Kashmiri, who is also the Ameer of the Azad Kashmir chapter of the Harkatul Jihadul Islami (HUJI), had been made the chief of al-Qaeda’s military operations for the region…

Now, you may be thinking, this is a guy who is tasked with organizing attacks against the West, not Pakistan, so again this is someone else’s problem. But I hate to tell you that it’s not. First, read the headlines:

Attack on shrine in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa kills three

Teachers and students in the crosshairs in Balochistan

Bomb blast wounds woman in Peshawar

Militants kill two Pakistani soldiers, injure six

Believe it or not, but while Ilyas Kashmiri and his al Qaeda terrorists plan attacks against the West, they are attacking Pakistan also. And they are not attacking because of drones or American troops in Afghanistan, they are attacking girls schools and Sufi shrines. They are attacking our own people and culture because they are an invading force.

Consider this paragraph from the report in The News:

Kashmiri is also a prime example of the increasing partnership between Osama-led al-Qaeda, Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and the Jihadi groups active in the Indian-administered Jammu Kashmir — all of whom have assembled in the Waziristan region on the Pak-Afghan tribal belt. And Kashmiri is believed to be well placed to exploit this growing cooperation, which has augmented al-Qaeda’s capacity to launch major terror attacks against the US and its Western allies.

There is a growing partnership between all of these jihadi groups like a hydra headed monster. Their goal is not simply getting the Americans out of Afghanistan. You honestly believe that if the Americans leave, all these jihadi groups are going to put away their guns and bombs and go back to the tea stalls?

No. These are all backwards brainwashed extremists who want to keep our sisters uneducated and locked away. They want to remove our access to fashion, film, music, and the arts. They want to hang people in the streets like dogs. They have no respect for our history, our culture, or our own desires for our country. They don’t even believe that our country should exist.

Please read again the words of S Iftikhar Murshed:

It is time for Pakistan to come to terms with the problems that it confronts. The challenges are internal and the foremost among these is the threat to the country’s survival from terrorist violence. Furthermore the state has yet to fully reclaim its writ in the tribal region. This cannot be achieved so long as foreign militants and groups including those from Afghanistan remain in the area.

They should be asked to leave or face military action. It should be made clear to the Afghan groups including the Haqqani network that the road to Kabul is not from the tribal areas of Pakistan but through participating in President Karzai’s reconciliation initiative.

What we are facing is not the growing Pakistanisation of al Qaeda. What we are facing is the growing jihadization of Pakistan. If we don’t face the facts and act to stop it, it will soon be too late.