Islamabad, Feb 19 (IANS) The suicide bombing at a mosque in Islamabad on February 6 is a grim indictment of Pakistan’s security policy that has prioritised geopolitical leverage over domestic stability, a report has stated.
“While the Pakistani establishment has characteristically pivoted towards a carousel of external culprits – alternating between allegations of an ‘Indian link’, Afghan complicity, and even the internal machinations of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) – the international consensus among regional experts is coalescing around a more uncomfortable truth,” a report stated in Greece-based ‘Directus’.
“The blast is not an isolated intrusion of foreign malice but the predictable harvest of a ‘nurture- and-neglect’ strategy towards extremism that dates back decades. Since its inception, the Pakistani military establishment has viewed militant proxies as instruments of ‘strategic depth.’ From the mobilisation of tribal militias to invade Kashmir in October 1947 to the institutionalization of the Kashmir insurgency in the 1990s, the state has consistently traded long-term security for short-term tactical disruption,” it added.
Pakistan’s legacy of patronage can be seen in the continued survival of UN-designated terrorist entities like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). Despite facing pressure from international community and Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey listing, Pakistan has often provided high-profile shelter to terrorists like Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar under the guise of “protective custody.”
The most recent evidence of the ongoing nexus surfaced just days before bomb blast in Islamabad. Jaish-e-Mohammed held a public rally in Rawalkot area of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) that was conducted with the transparent cooperation of Pakistan’s security apparatus.
“During the event, senior Jaish commander Ilyas Kashmiri reportedly addressed a crowd, invoking the rhetoric of ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind’ and suggesting that Army Chief General Asim Munir viewed the current confrontation with India as a holy war. This was not a clandestine meeting in a remote cave? it was a choreographed display of strength in an area where the military maintains total control,” the Directus report stated.
Several reports revealed an initial disbursement of Pakistani Rupees (PKR) four crore to LeT for “flood relief” a funding given for rebuilding command-and-neck centers. The State, by providing financial and physical space to groups like JeM to recruit and raise funds in Rawalkot, does not have right to express surprise when the same radicalisation infrastructure eventually turns its sights inward.
Pakistan defence ministry’s attempt to connect February 6 blast to India and Taliban is seen as a diversionary tactic by international community. Even leaders like Maulana Fazlur Rehman have rejected Pakistan’s claims, stressing that if the borders are secure enough to stop trade, they should be secure enough to stop militants — unless the militants are already inside.
“The reality is that Pakistan is currently fighting a multi-front war of its own making. It blames the Afghan Taliban for sheltering the TTP, yet it was the Pakistani establishment that celebrated the Taliban’s return to Kabul in 2021 as a victory for ‘strategic depth’. It blames the PTI for domestic unrest, yet it has used the security apparatus to manipulate the political landscape to the point of paralysis.
“The Islamabad blast is the latest data point in a downward spiral where the state’s obsession with regional proxies has left its own capital vulnerable to the very ‘Takfiri’ elements it once considered useful. The Islamabad Mosque bombing is a reminder that ‘strategic depth’ is a hollow concept when the state cannot secure its own federal capital. Until the Pakistani establishment stops viewing militants as ‘assets’ and begins treating them as the existential threats they are, the cycle of violence will continue,” the A Directus report stated.
–IANS
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