Pak claims of crackdown on terror infrastructure 'hogwash': Pak Editorial

Islamabad, Jan.3 (ANI): A leading daily in Pakistan has contradicted the statement of a Foreign Office spokesman which said that Pakistan has no terrorist infrastructure on its soil.

According to an editorial in 'The News' the statement of the official was no were near the reality. The fact that Pakistan provided a safe haven to the terrorist groups and that its territory is being used as a breeding ground of these outlawed groups can not be denied.

Quoting General Pervez Musharraf's public acceptance about the help that intelligence agencies offered to the extremists, the editorial said: "The possibility that some former members of the intelligence services were sympathetic to the extremists and the Taliban and were helping them in material and moral terms could not be ruled out."

In addition to it, several government officials, from time to time have accepted the fact that extremism is on a rise in the country due to the help offered to them by the military and intelligence agencies.

Terrorist groups have themselves proudly proclaimed -- that there exist even some places where suicide bombers are 'produced', through a regimen of indoctrination and training in the use of weapons, suicide vests and so on, the editorial said.

It added that training camps existed not only in FATA but also in parts of Azad Jammu and Kashmir where proxies sent to India to fight the 'jihad' were trained.

Claims of Pakistan of coming down hard on such terror camps is also rejected by the editorial, as it suggested that such camps continue to run by assuming a lower profile.

Questioning the credibility of the government, the editorial said that the existence of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and the stranglehold it enjoys over large swathes of FATA can not be denied.

People of Pakistan find it hard to consume the statement as they are fighting the evil of terrorism on their soil almost everyday, the editorial concluded. (ANI)