Last week I noted that the new statement of al Qaeda claiming responsibility for the kidnapping of a 70-year-old US aid worker was bad news for Pakistan. I asked then, “If we don’t respect our own sovereignty when it comes to militant groups, why should the affected countries respect it?” This question deserves to be revisited today with regard not to America, who by all counts is packing up to go home, but our neighbors who aren’t going anywhere.
Extremist militants killed 55 Shia in Kabul this week. This might not have made as much of a headline since Afghanistan has its own population of militants, except for one small problem – they weren’t Afghan militants.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al Almi is a small faction based in Pakistan’s tribal area and is considered an even more radical offshoot of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, (LeJ), a murderous anti-Shia group founded in 1996.
If you will remember, this is the same group that carried out deadly bombings in Hangu one year ago. And it’s not just Afghanistan that is affected, it is China also.
Homegrown Pakistani terrorists who practiced on killing our own citizens are not exporting their terror to our neighbors. Perhaps we are happy to bury our heads in the sand and let militants to go one killing sprees, but do we really expect our neighbors to also? If we don’t respect our own sovereignty when it comes to militant groups, why should the affected countries respect it?
If we don’t respect our own sovereignty when it comes to militant groups, why should the affected countries respect it? When we export terror, we’re going to import foreign interference. It’s as simple as that.
