New evidence shows that terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of India could increase as a result of US support to Pakistan, according to the Asia Pacific Foundation (APF). The foundation, a London-based research group, says militant activity will increase substantially as a result of the evacuation of Taliban, Pakistani and Al Qaeda fighters by Pakistan.
‘The portents of this secret evacuation are not good for other nations in the region because these several thousand hardcore Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters will join hands with the terrorist groups based in Pakistan and intensify jehadi activity in Kashmir, Chinese Xianjiang, Uzbekistan and Chechnya,’ it said in a report. ‘They can also, of course, commence cross-border terror activity against the new government in Kabul and incite the local Afghan Pushtuns with whom they have close links and we could find ourselves back to square one again in the war against terrorism,” APF president M J Gohel said.
The report follows new evidence revealed by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker magazine where he details how Pakistan airlifted thousands of Pakistani and Al Qaeda men from Kunduz after they were surrounded by the Northern Alliance. The men were airlifted with US knowledge and support,
Mr Hersh said on the basis of eyewitness
reports and interviews with CIA officials. Mr Hersh’s revelations were
followed Friday by comments by a senior Pakistani leader, Sardar Sikandar
Hayat Khan, that there has been no crackdown by president Pervez Musharraf
on any of the known militant groups operating from Pakistan on the line
of control (LoC) that divides Kashmir between New Delhi and Islamabad.
- IANS