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Pakistan puts southern provinces on alert as Taliban threat grows |
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News Watch
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Saturday, 27 June 2009 |
The Pakistan government is putting the southern provinces of Punjab and Sindh on alert amid growing concerns that Taliban militants could spread south.
Rehman Malik, Pakistan's interior minister, told the Financial Times his department had analysed 1,148 terrorist threats in the country in the past four months.
"Now, for example, we suspect something similar [to the Swat valley] situation may arise in south Punjab. We are sharing the information with the Punjab," he said.
Pakistani cities have been rocked by militant attacks over the past nine months that have killed or wounded hundreds, including bombings at five-star hotels in Islamabad and Peshawar, and an assault on a visiting Sri Lankan cricket squad in Lahore as well as several military installations.
"You know lashkar-i-jhangvi , jaish-e-mohammad [two groups of Islamic militants associated with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda]?" Mr Malik said in an interview in Islamabad. "All those people basically hail from that area. What we suspect [is] perhaps all those terrorists who fled from Waziristan or Swat might take refuge in south Punjab."
Eight would-be suicide bombers were recently arrested, including two this week who were targeting the parliament in Islamabad and the offices of a security service.
In the past two months, Pakistan has stepped up its attacks on pockets of militant activity, mostly in the North West Frontier Province. Mr Malik said a military offensive in the Swat valley was in its final phase and had killed more than 3,500 Taliban militants. Gearing up for the next phase, the military in the past two weeks has stepped up its operations in the Waziristan region along the Afghan border.
Mr Malik also emphasised the need for the Afghan and Pakistan governments to develop a joint strategy to combat the common threat of the Taliban.
"Unless the two governments sit together and make a road map of how to deal with these terrorists, this will not work. I think to save Pakistan is to save Afghanistan and to save Afghanistan means to save Pakistan," he said.
He cited concerns that too much weaponry was crossing the border from Afghanistan and the country needed to take stronger action to monitor the movement of arms more closely.
"Every bullet, every Kalashnikov is coming across the border from Afghanistan," he said.
Mr Malik also said China had agreed a multi-million- dollar loan -to Pakistan to help set up electronic scanners to check all road traffic entering its main cities.
"We have $280m in soft loans from China," the minister said. "They have given another $10m in grants."
China has been Pakistan's biggest supplier of military hardware for well over four decades, keeping supply lines intact even when the US and others embargoed such sales.
China has been trying to suppress separatist movements in its own Islamic western region for years.
Meanwhile, the US Senate this week approved a -tripling in annual aid to Pakistan to about $1.5bn (£900m), including annual military support of $400m.
FT
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