Do Pakistani authorities really need this encouragement to back jihad? “Pak faces threat if stopped backing Jihadis,” from PTI, June 8:
Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin has vowed to turn the guns on Pakistan if it stops backing jihadis in Jammu and Kashmir who, he claimed, were fighting “Pakistan’s war”.
“We are fighting Pakistan’s war in Kashmir and if it withdraws its support, the war would be fought inside Pakistan,” said Salahuddin, who also heads the Muttahida Jihad Council, a grouping of terrorist organisations based in Pakistan.
Salahuddin made the remarks during an interview with Arab News while referring to a reduction of tensions in Jammu and Kashmir following several rounds of talks between India and Pakistan.
He said he was “desperate and agitated” with the new approach adopted by Pakistan in the peace process with India.
The report said the Pakistani political leadership’s new approach for normalising relations with India had “stunned” Kashmiri leaders.
“Kashmir has been the key issue but now it has become peripheral as all claims of supporting our struggle politically, diplomatically and morally are nothing but lip service,” Salahuddin claimed.
He said he believed that militancy alone is the solution to the Kashmir issues.
“All those who were involved in the so-called peace talks eventually admitted that India is not serious and that it gained more and more time to implement its own design for the region,” he claimed….
These are the same claims that jihadis make about Israel: that it is not serious about negotiating peace. By “serious,” they mean “ready to surrender unconditionally.”
“Pakistan is doing all this without keeping its own interest as prime due to foreign and Western pressures without analyzing its disastrous consequences,” he claimed.