Pakistan under Asim Munir has become an even more precarious security state, appeasing world powers, clashing with its neighbors and overseeing internal turbulence, a report details, while highlighting that the roots of the current crisis in the country lie in the foreign and security policies implemented by its military leadership.
Highlighting the February 6 suicide attack that targeted a Shiite mosque in Islamabad and killed 36 people, a report by leading British political and cultural news magazine ‘The Spectator’ claimed that Pakistan’s current security crisis is a direct consequence of the state’s support for jihadist groups.
“While courting Donald Trump may have given Islamabad the diplomatic spotlight on the world stage in recent months, continued insecurity would mean that any long-term investment – economic or political – would continue to elude Pakistan. For prolonged stability and any semblance of prosperity, Pakistan would need to undo the Islamist hegemony imposed by the omnipotent and self-serving military and start taking seriously the interests and well-being of its people,” Kunwar Khuldune Shahid, Pakistan correspondent for The Diplomat, he wrote in ‘El Espectador’.
The report mentions that last week’s Islamabad mosque bombing was the deadliest attack in Pakistan’s capital since 2008. On November 11, another attack outside the Islamabad court killed 12 people and injured more than 36.
“These successive terror attacks in the capital – already on high alert and packed with security – mean that militancy, largely confined to the country’s western border in recent years, is now competing for the heart of Pakistan,” Shahid wrote.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for last week’s attack in Islamabad and released a blurred image of the suspected attacker. The jihadist group has attacked Shiite Muslims on multiple occasions, calling them “heretics.” The group’s South Asian faction, Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), has launched several attacks against the region’s Shiite community.
“The Islamic State’s apostasy and its attack on the Shia sect echoes the sectarianism and religious discrimination codified in the Pakistani penal code. Although Pakistan does not officially outlaw Shia Islam, the state has strengthened anti-Shia groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba, which have since allied themselves with the TTP and ISKP. The political wings of these jihadist organizations regularly participate in elections,” says the opinion article. in ‘El Espectador’ details.
Pakistan also recently witnessed deadly attacks in Balochistan province when Baloch fighters launched ‘Operation Herof-2’ against Pakistani security forces.
“While Munir has apparently tried to stop jihadists attacking Pakistan by claiming that only the state can declare jihad and using terms such as khawarij – meaning ‘outside the fold of Islam’ – to discredit these groups, he has also embraced inflammatory and racially discriminatory rhetoric that echoes his own Islamist vision,” Kunwar Khuldune Shahid opined.
