Terrorism in Pakistan has
become a major and highly destructive phenomenon in recent years. The annual
death toll from terrorist attacks has risen from 164 in 2003 to 3318 in 2009,
with a total of 35,000 Pakistanis killed since 9/11 as of 2010.According to the
government of Pakistan, the direct and indirect economic costs of terrorism from
2000-2010 total $68 billion.President Asif Ali Zardari, along with former
President ex-Pakistan Army head Pervez Musharraf, have admitted that terrorist
outfits were "deliberately created and nurtured" by past governments "as a
policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives" The trend began with
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's controversial "Islamization" policies of the 1980s, under
which conflicts were started against soviet involvement in Afghanistan. Zia's
tenure as president saw Pakistan's involvement in the Soviet-Afghan War, which
led to a greater influx of ideologically driven Muslims (mujahideen) to the
tribal areas and increased availability of guns such as the AK-47 and drugs from
the Golden Crescent.
The state and its Inter-Services Intelligence, in alliance with the CIA,
encouraged the "mujahideen" to fight a proxy war against Soviet forces present
in Afghanistan. Most of the mujahideen were never disarmed after the war ended
in Afghanistan and some of these groups were later activated at the behest of
Pakistan in the form of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and others
like the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The same groups are now taking on the
state itself, making the biggest threat to it and the citizens of Pakistan
through the politically motivated killing of civilians and police
officials.[citation needed]
From the summer of 2007 until late 2009, more than 1,500 people were killed in
suicide and other attacks on civilians for reasons attributed to a number of
causes – sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia Muslims; easy availability of
guns and explosives; the existence of a "Kalishnikov culture"; an influx of
ideologically driven Muslims based in or near Pakistan, who originated from
various nations around the world and the subsequent war against the pro-Soviet
Afghans in the 1980s which blew back into Pakistan; the presence of Islamist
insurgent groups and forces such as the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba; Pakistan's
thousands of fundamentalist madrassas (Islamic schools) which are thought by
many to provide training for little other than jihad.[who?] and secessionists
movements – the most significant being the Balochistan liberation movement –
blamed on regionalism, which is problematic in a country with Pakistan's diverse
cultures, languages, traditions and customsQuetta, the capital of Pakistan’s
southwest Baluchistan province, bordering both US-occupied Afghanistan as well
as Iran, was the site of a grisly market bombing that has killed over 80 people.
According to reports, the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has claimed
responsibility for the attack. Billed as a “Sunni extremist group,” it instead
fits the pattern of global terrorism sponsored by the US, Israel, and their Arab
partners Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The terrorist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group was in fact created, according to the BBC,
to counter Iran’s Islamic Revolution in the 1980′s, and is still active today.
Considering the openly admitted US-Israeli-Saudi plot to use Al Qaeda and other
terrorist groups across the Middle East to counter Iran’s influence, it begs the
question whether these same interests are funding terrorism in Pakistan to not
only counter Iranian-sympathetic Pakistani communities, but to undermine and
destabilize Pakistan itself.