Pak Created And Nurtured Terrorists, Admits Zardari

Pak created and nurtured terrorists, admits Zardari

http://www.ptinews.com/news/162321_P...admits-Zardari

Islamabad, Jul 8 (PTI) For the first time, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari admitted that militants and extremists were "created and nurtured" in the country as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives.

But they began to haunt the country in the post-9/11 era, Zardari said in a candid admission during an interactive meeting with former senior civil servants at the presidency last night.

Militants and extremists emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised, but because they "were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives," he said.

"Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities," Zardari said.

"The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryears until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well," he added.

Pakistan ‘created, nurtured’ terrorism: Zardari

http://www.sindhtoday.net/news/1/28312.htm

Islamabad, July 8 (IANS) In the first candid admission of its kind by any Pakistani ruler, President Asif Ali Zardari has conceded that terrorist elements were “created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives” by Islamabad.

“The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryear until 9/11 (terrorist attack on America) brought things into a new light,” Zardari said in what he called “a candid admission of the realities” in an interactive meeting with former bureaucrats Tuesday night at the presidency.

“Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities… Militancy and extremism emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised, but because they were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives,” he said.

“We intend to keep all the political forces together in a harmonious relationship as we cannot afford political games and confrontational politics. We are at the brink and we must realise that political games for personal gain can no longer be played,” the Daily Times quoted him as saying.

India has long been accusing Pakistan of sponsoring terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir by providing arms and ammunition training and funds to guerrillas who have been fighting a two-decade old separatist war in Kashmir.

The Pakistan Army is currently engaged in a war with Taliban militants in the northwestern Swat valley of the country.

Earlier, Zardari while shifting focus from seeing India as the foremost threat to the country towards the domestic danger posed by extremist groups had said: “I don’t think anybody in the establishment supports them (militants) any more … I think everybody has become more wise than this.”

“Military operations are all across the board against any insurgent whether in Karachi, Lahore or … in any part of Pakistan,” he said in an interview to The Daily Telegraph.

Zardari drops bombshell, admits Pak ‘created militancy for short term tactical gains’

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/...100214938.html

Islamabad, July 8 (ANI): Pakistan now seems to be feeling the heat of the fire it had lighted years ago, with President Asif Ali Zardari admitting that the menace of extremism and militancy were created by Islamabad itself to attain some tactical goals.

Addressing a gathering of retired federal secretaries and senior bureaucrats here, Zardari asked the officials to admit the reality.

“Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities. Militancy and extremism emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised, but because they were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives,” The Daily Times quoted Zardari, as saying.

Referring to the political turmoil in the country, Zardari said Pakistan cannot afford political brick batting at present, as the state is on the verge of collapse due to the impending threat from the Taliban and other terror organizations.

“We intend to keep all the political forces together in a harmonious relationship as we cannot afford political games and confrontational politics. We are at the brink and we must realize that political games for personal gain can no longer be played,” he said.

Zardari also stressed on the need of dispersing power to different hands for effective governance.

“Too much power, when concentrated in one hand lasts only for a short time. For power to be effectively used for long-lasting public good it must be diffused and dispersed as widely as possible,” he added.

Heroes until 9/11: Zardari

http://www.hindu.com/2009/07/09/stor...0955181000.htm

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD: “The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryear until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well,” Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said on Tuesday night.

According to a report of the meeting a group of retired federal secretaries and senior bureaucrats had with the President, by the State-run Associated Press of Pakistan, Mr. Zardari said: “Militants and extremists emerged on the national scene and challenged the State not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised but because they were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives.”

He made the statement apparently in response to an observation that the weakness of civil bureaucracy had resulted in the emergence of militants and militancy.

While such a bold admission by a civilian leader in Pakistan is usually fraught with the risk of antagonising the all-powerful military, Mr. Zardari appears to have made the remarks with great political confidence.

One reason could be the civilian leadership’s conviction that the security establishment is now fully on board in the fight against militancy and extremism.

Three meetings in quick succession by Pakistan’s “troika” – President, Prime Minister and the Army Chief – within seven days have also fostered the belief of far greater coordination between all “stakeholders” on this grave national issue.

That belief was also apparent in remarks by Mr. Zardari to The Daily Telegraph last week that groups once regarded as “strategic assets” no longer had any backing in Pakistan.

Pakistan created and nurtured terrorists, admits Zardari

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124705009979010945.html

For the first time, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari admitted that militants and extremists were "created and nurtured" in the country as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives.

But they began to haunt the country in the post-9/11 era, Zardari said in a candid admission during an interactive meeting with former senior civil servants at the presidency last night.

Zardari's reported admission surprises

http://www.upi.com/Emerging_Threats/...5111247246447/

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, July 10 (UPI) -- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari reportedly admitted this week that his country created extremists groups to achieve short-term tactical objectives.

The statement made Tuesday before a group of retired bureaucrats in Islamabad comes only days after Zardari's June 22 op-ed piece in The Washington Post saying: "If the Taliban and al-Qaida are allowed to triumph in our region, their destabilizing alliance will spread across the continents."

In Tuesday's comments in Islamabad, Zardari said the extremist groups did not come about because of government weakness but were deliberately "created and nurtured" as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives, London's Daily Telegraph reported.

"Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities. The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryears until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well," the Telegraph report quoted the president as saying.

Newspapers in neighboring India gave wide coverage to the remarks as New Delhi for years has said Pakistan has been supplying arms, ammunition and providing training to militants to stage cross-border attacks on Kashmir, a charge Pakistan has always denied. These militant groups also are seen using their sanctuaries in Pakistan for cross-border attacks on U.S.-led NATO troops in Afghanistan.

The Times of India, calling Zardari's comments an astonishingly candid admission and the first such by a Pakistani president, published the story on its front page headlined: "Terror is Pak baby: Zardari."

"Militants and extremists emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralized but because they were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve short-term tactical objectives," the Indian newspaper quoted Zardari as saying.

The newspaper wondered about the remarks' impact on the powerful Pakistani military, which was described as historically setting the tone of Pakistan's India policy.

The Daily Telegraph report said Zardari's remarks echoed similar ones he had made in an interview with the newspaper. In the interview, Zardari also was quoted as saying no one in the Pakistani establishment now supports these extremist assets. The report said groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed have long been regarded as Pakistan proxy forces by diplomats and intelligence services but that Pakistan in the past had always denied any links.

An editorial in Dawn, Pakistan's leading English-language newspaper, referred to Zardari's reported remarks and said: "The president is right, and we would add the policy was wrong then and it is wrong now. It cannot be any other way. How is it possible to rationally explain to the people of Pakistan that the heroes of yesteryear are the arch-enemies of today? The militants' religious justifications remain the same; what's changed is that the militants were fighting the state's 'enemies' yesterday but have turned their guns on the state and its allies today."

The editorial said it is the Pakistani security establishment's inability to admit grave mistakes were made in the past that more than anything else is impeding the defeat of the militants today.

"Should we have ever used jihadi proxies to fight the Russians in Afghanistan? Should we have ever supported the idea of armed jihad in Kashmir? Should we have ever sought to retain our influence in Afghanistan through the Taliban? If any of those choices ever made sense, then we should have no complaints about the rise of Talibanization in Pakistan because we created the climate and opportunity for them to run amok," the editorial said.

Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs reportedly sought to clarify Zardari's remarks, saying the president was only referring to the period prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States.

But for India, no clarification was needed.

Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna told both houses of Parliament Thursday that Zardari's admission had validated India's stand about state-sponsored terrorism from Pakistan.

"As regards Pakistan, we have got some kind of confession from the highest authority of Pakistan. To that extent, India's stand has been vindicated in the eyes of the world," Krishna said, adding, "I hope, hereafter, Pakistan will make a determined bid to curb terrorism," media reports said.

The London Daily Telegraph quoted India's Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor as saying that Zardari's statement had clarified what India had long believed -- that Islamabad had armed and trained terrorists to launch cross-border attacks.

Zardari moves on links with militants

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20...707119898/1135

Isambard Wilkinson, Foreign Correspondent
Last Updated: July 12. 2009 12:02AM UAE / July 11. 2009 8:02PM GMT

ISLAMABAD // A claim made by President Asif Zardari last week that Pakistani security forces will end a decades-old strategic alliance with militants has been strongly challenged by analysts.

To the delight of his US ally, Mr Zardari has attempted to force a “strategic shift” in Pakistan’s covert military doctrine by saying that security forces will hunt down their former jihadist proxies.

Mr Zardari said he would launch operations against militant leaders until now considered by the military to be “strategic assets” that have been used against Pakistan’s archrival, India, and for projecting Pakistani influence in Afghanistan.

The Indian government believes links between Pakistan authorities and Islamabad Islamic militant groups such as Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed remain intact and the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has accused elements within Pakistan’s security apparatus of aiding them to conduct a commando attack on Mumbai last November.

Last week, Mr Zardari reinforced his message when speaking of former military rulers who forged strong links with militants. He said he would “banish dictators’ strategic partners, in the form of militants and religious extremists”.

“I don’t think anybody in the establishment supports them anymore. I think everybody has become more wise than this. It is politically incorrect to use this format of interaction. Now everybody talks of dialogue,” he said in a recent interview.

Then the president told a meeting of former senior civil servants in Islamabad that it was time to be honest about their deployment. “The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryears until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well.”

He added that these groups emerged not because of government weakness “because they were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives”.

Najam Sethi, a leading Pakistani political analyst and the editor of the broadly pro-ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was optimistic about Mr Zardari’s ambitious drive to assert a civilian-led policy on the all-powerful military.

“President Zardari has a lot of guts. He has also had the courage to speak up on normalising relations with India. Three factors are compelling a rethink in the military establishment about the demerits of the Taliban as future assets in Afghanistan,” said Mr Sethi.

He said that the three factors were: an American intent to stay for the “long haul” in Afghanistan; the recent troop surge in Helmand and intensification of US drone attacks in the border, tribal area of Waziristan; and Mr Zardari’s friendship with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, whom the Pakistani military establishment had previously viewed as an “Indian asset”.

Last weekend, the Pakistani army chief Gen Ashfaq Kiyani made an unprecedented statement announcing that the “immediate internal threat” of Taliban militancy was greater than any “external threat” – military-speak for India.

The military launched an operation in Swat valley and two neighbouring districts over two months ago when Taliban fighters advanced to within 100km of Islamabad. They had flouted a peace deal that had allowed for Sharia law to be implemented in the Malakand division in North West Frontier Province.

The army claims to have killed more than 1,700 militants in the area and has now begun preliminary operations against the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, in the tribal area of South Waziristan.

Washington, which is pumping billions of dollars of civilian and military aid into Pakistan in return for counter-terrorism operations, has been working hard to defuse tension between Islamabad and New Delhi following the terrorist attacks on Mumbai last year that were blamed on Pakistani terrorists.-However, several military analysts and retired senior officers pointed out that there were immediate indicators that could be used to assess the strength of Mr Zardari’s claims.

One retired lieutenant-general, who did not want to be named, said there was no as yet serious move to wrap up jihadi groups operating in Indian-held Kashmir.

He also said the army continued to use the centuries-old policy of using tribal militants against other militants.

“But the policy is not a risk-free one as the ‘good’ Taliban have so often turned ‘bad’ and sometimes several times, as in the case of Baitullah Mehsud and neighbouring commander Maulvi Nazir,” he added.

Unusually for a Pakistani president, Mr Zardari said Pakistan had no interest in Afghanistan, where the Pakistani establishment wishes to retain influence through the Taliban to promote a non-hostile government in Kabul.

He said, without irony: “What the US does in Afghanistan is its own business, it is a sovereign state.” Asked whether he will act against Sirajuddin Haqqani, a major Afghan Taliban commander with links to the Pakistani military who is based in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan, he replied: “Our operation is across the board, any miscreant, anybody who uses Pakistani soil against ourselves or against anybody else is unacceptable.”

Mr Zardari, the widower of the assassinated prime minister Benazir Bhutto, has riled many of the military establishment’s old guard with his remarks.

In an interview with The National, the retired head of the Pakistani army, Gen Aslam Beg, said: “Who is Mr Zardari to take away Pakistan’s strategic assets? That is for the people of Pakistan to decide. He is not even elected.”

Gen Beg contended that there were two types of militant. “There are the freedom fighters in Afghanistan and Kashmir and there are the so-called militants which the Pakistan army is now fighting in Swat and the tribal areas who were created by foreign involvement,” Mr Beg said.

“The military has been engaged with the militants for years – in the ’80s they were also hand-in-glove with the CIA. How can you disengage when such links exist between the Pakistan armed forces and the militants?” he added.

Farhatullah Babar, a presidential spokesman and senior member of the PPP, preferred to underscore Pakistan’s historic links with militants rather than dwell on the president’s remarks being construed as an admission that modern Pakistan has been a “jihadi factory”.

“What President Zardari has been saying is that the extremists and jihadis were financed, armed and helped by the international community in their quest to drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan in the decade of the ’80s,” said Mr Babar.

“Remember the meeting of half a dozen turbaned leading Afghan -jihad leaders sitting across from President [Ronald] Reagan in the White House and the US president hailing them as the ‘moral equivalents of George Washington’,” he added.

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