How can jihadis termed as heroes now be arch-enemies, asks Pak paper

Islamabad, July 10 (ANI): A leading Pakistani daily has asked how is it possible to rationally explain to the people of the country that militants who were termed as heroes of yesteryear by the state are the arch-enemies today.

Speaking about the root cause of Pakistan's problems, President Asif Ali Zardari said that the military's erstwhile 'strategic assets' were the ones against whom military operations were now required, The Dawn says.

And in a meeting with retired senior bureaucrats in Islamabad on Tuesday, Zardari again said that "militants and extremists had been deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives."

The paper asks Zardari that if the policy of creating militants was wrong earlier, then it is wrong now. It cannot be any other way.

It would be not possible to explain to Pakistani people 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 now have turned their guns on the state and its allies.

The paper asks 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 Talibanisation in Pakistan because we created the climate and opportunity for them to run amok, it adds.

It further says that fault is of course not of Pakistan alone and the US obsession with the Soviet enemy, happily colluded in the creation of Muslim warriors.

Pakistan's Middle Eastern and Gulf allies were happy to create a Sunni army to counter the 'threat' from post-revolution Shia Iran, but at the end of the day it was Pakistani soil on which they were primarily nurtured.

The jihadis were raised in our midst we should have always been wary of the extreme blowback we are now confronted with, the Dawn says. (ANI)