Assets or liabilities - decide or suffer...

Another day and another loudly resounding terrorist attack committed in Pakistan, by religious extremists.

A group of 3 terrorists entered Police Training College in the provincial capital of Quetta at around 11:00 pm. The law enforcement agencies responded very swiftly, and some 3 hours down the line, all the terrorists were dead, but before dying they took lives of 61 people and injuring more than 100 people.

What was different about this terrorist attack, except for the location and composition of the attacking group? Nothing!

The official statements once again declared the name of the group responsible for this cowardly attack. It took them the same 4 hours to pin point the name of Lashkare Jhangvi as the culprit, based on the communications intercepts.

I have no problem accepting the state’s affirmation that this banned terrorist group might be behind this latest attack, because this religious extremist group has a mammoth history of committing acts of terrorism against the citizens of the country.

But the twist that the state actors have given to this episode of terrorism is shameful. While declaring the name of the religious extremist group responsible for killing 61 people, the officials used the name of “Lashkare Jhangvi Al-Alami (Lashkare Jhangvi International)”. This is, a deceitful way of covering up for the real culprits, who constitute and run the Lashkare Jhangvi, sectarian terrorist group.

Let me first tell you what “Lashkar” means. It is an Urdu word for “Troops” or “Army”. Lashkare Jhangvi means the Army named after one notable terrorist Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, who was the champion of sectarian violence in the 1980s.

Just see the following image to understand what I mean. The man in the foreground is Malik Ishaq, one of the founders of this splinter group, which parted ways with SSP (Sipah Sahaba Pakistan). The SSP was created by state authorities (although they never admit it), to counter the hypothetical Iranian influence, through the Shiite Muslims of Pakistan, following the Shiite revolution in Iran (1979).

The man in the foreground was killed in a police encounter in July 2015, but the man in the background is still alive and is a member of Pakistan’s Islamic Ideology Council (IIC). This man’s association with known terrorists needs no more proof. But, the state has closed its eyes, when it comes to prosecuting terrorist sympathisers.

Now, since Malik Ishaq is dead, but his LeJ is still alive and kicking, the state actors have invented a new name to divert the people’s attention from this real monster. The purpose is to protect the so-called “assets”. The list of these assets does not end with the names of the members of LeJ. This list also includes Hafiz Saeed, and many embryos bred in the labs of intelligence agencies in the 1980s, for purposes only known to them.

Those in Pakistan, who think that Pakistan has been fighting the American war on terror only since 2001, are naïve at best and ignorant in fact. Pakistan has been fighting the American war in this region since the 1970s. It was in early 1980s that the Pakistani authorities sanctioned the establishment and funding of extremist training centers in the country. The reason was once again to tackle the hypothetical threat of Soviet aggression.

Although, the Soviet era documents declassified by Russia, clearly show that the Soviet Union had no plans or designs of advancing into Pakistan. But, my dear readers, the real reason was to fight the proxy American war in Afghanistan.

Do you think that guerrilla training camps sprouted in Parachinar and other tribal areas of Pakistan as a result of monsoon rains?

All of the Lashkars in Pakistan were created for the purpose of countering hypothetical threats, but unfortunately the great minds in Zia era could not plan the elimination of these Lashkars following the achievement of goals.

Unfortunately enough, these religious extremists have a very strong support base among Pakistani rulers. And mind you I do not mean the puppet political rulers.

Many of the known terrorists like Hafiz Saeed are on first name basis with lots of high ranking officials. Sometimes information about planned anti-terror operations reach the targeted groups, before it gets to the official operatives.

We cannot just discard the claim that Indian intelligence is running training camps in Afghaistan. This is a fact confirmed by information from sources, which have nothing to do with Pakistani establishment. Increased Indian presence in Afghanistan since 2002 is designed to run operations out of Afghanistan. All the arms and ammunitions, supplied to groups like BLA and other separatist groups do come from Afghanistan through the porous international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

But who is feeding LeJ, and Lashkare Taiba? Who is protecting Hafiz Saeed, whose organization changes names every other day? Believe me it takes less than a minute to invent a new name for old tumours.

If we do not want any more casualties among Pakistani citizens, we have to eradicate all Hafiz Saeeds and we have to close down madrassas run using Saudi money. We have to eliminate the influence enjoyed by people like Tariq Jameel and Orya Maqbool Jan. We have to rid our army of characters like the late Hameed Gul. Once and for all we have to understand that Taliban are not an asset, but a liability.

Otherwise, we should be ready to mourn the deaths of many more Pakistanis. We should be ready to face international isolation and a dip into antiquity.