December29, 2006:
For over a decade, Pakistan has sponsored (but denied doing so)
Islamic terrorist activity in Kashmir (an Indian province that Pakistan claims
as its own). Increasingly, those Kashmiri terrorist groups have been found
operating deep inside India. On December 19th, three Moslem men were arrested
in the Indian capital. Found with the three was bomb making materials (7 pounds
of RDX and detonators). These three men had been found via information provided
Bangladeshi Islamic terrorists who were arrested last October, also in the
capital. The Bangladeshi men were also caught with explosives.
The
Islamic terrorists operating in Kashmir have been recruiting and training
Bangladeshi Moslems, as well as Indian Moslems. The Pakistani based terrorists
are taking advantage of a growing Islamic militant movement in Bangladesh, and
ongoing (for decades) unrest in northeast India (which abuts Bangladesh). Most
of the violence in the northeast is tribal, with demands that illegal migrants
from Bangladesh, and legal migrants from the rest of India, be kept out, and
the tribes be given more autonomy. The northeast states are especially corrupt,
with criminals and terrorist groups running extortion rackets and other illegal
activity to finance their operations. Overall, the terrorist violence in the
northeast is only about a third of what goes on in Kashmir, but the unruly
atmosphere has enabled Islamic terrorists to establish a pathway from
Bangladesh, deeper into India.
Pakistan
has always denied any connection with this Islamic terrorism. But the terrorism
in Kashmir is widely popular in Pakistan, for it strives to retrieve a province
many Pakistanis believe India "stole" when the colonial power Britain departed
in 1948, creating Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka in the process. Thus the
Pakistani government officially condemns the Islamic terrorists camped out in
northern Pakistan, where they train themselves, and then sneak into Kashmir.
But in reality, the terrorist camps are tolerated, and any foreign reporter who
can get into the region (which is not easy, or safe, to do) can see the camps.
Pakistan also tolerates Islamic terrorist activity along the Afghan border,
mainly because shutting it down would involve a militarily and politically
messy war with the Pushtun tribes there. Thus, Pakistan has become the home of
the most energetic Islamic terrorist organizations on the planet. All this,
despite Pakistan's official status as a staunch U.S. ally in the war on terror.