Pakistan’s Taliban claimed responsibility for a pair of bombings this past week that targetted Shiites and killed more than 90 people.
Archive for the ‘Pakistan’ Category
Bombings in Pakistan Target Shiites
Saturday, September 4th, 2010Fears That Pakistan Flooding Will Further Destabilize an Already Unstable State
Friday, August 20th, 2010Go to video piece aired by PBS on August 18 with links to other materials: PBS NewsHour, August, 18, 2010 .
More Evidence of Pakistani Collusion With Taliban
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010The lead editorial of today’s New York Times “Pakistan’s Double Game” contains a good summary of the problems surrounding the behavior of Pakistan’s intelligence service (ISI) over the course of the last few decades, problems we have been discussing in this course since its inception in 2000. Pakistan has long used the Taliban as a proxy: its overall aim is to build and maintain influence over what happens in Afghanistan, thus preventing Afghanistan from falling into orbit around India, Pakistan’s biggest enemy.
Sectarian Attack in Pakistan
Friday, July 2nd, 2010At least 42 are dead following a militant attack on Data Darbar, a Muslim Sufi shrine in Lahore, the burial site of the Persian Sufi saint, Abul Hassan Ali Hajvery. Sufis and Shiites have been frequent targets of Sunni militant violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Deobandi Sunnis, among whose ranks are the Taliban, regard praying in shrines as apostasy.
Additional Analysis and Background from Professor Juan Cole
Major Militant Attacks in Pakistan During the Past Year
28 May 2010 – 93 people killed in attacks on two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore
19 Apr 2010 – At least 23 die in suicide bombing at market in Peshawar
1 Jan 2010 – A bomb at a volleyball match kills about 100
28 Oct 2009 – At least 120 die in car bomb attack on packed market in Peshawar
15 Oct 2009 – About 40 die in a series of gun and bomb attacks
9 Oct 2009 – At least 50 die in Peshawar suicide blast
Source: BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/south_asia/10486925.stm, July 2, 2010
More Evidence That Pakistan Provides Support to the Taliban
Monday, June 14th, 2010For years experts have been claiming that Pakistan supports jihadist movements in South Asia to advance its foreign policy interests and that the state bureaucracy chiefly responsible for the mission is the nation’s intelligence apparatus, “Inter-Services Intelligence” (ISI). A new report out of the London School of Economics suggests ISI support runs deeper than previously thought.
The Deep Roots of Pakistani Jihadist Militancy
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010Pakistan’s Interior Minister has admitted that the roots of Islamic jihadist militancy in his country run deep:
Jane Perlez, “Official Admits Militancy Has Deep Roots in Pakistan,” New York Times, June 3, 2010.
Attack on Two Pakistani Mosques Raises Questions About Separation of Religion and State
Saturday, May 29th, 2010The attack on two Ahmadiyya mosques in Lahore, Pakistan this past week in which at least 80 people died has raised anew the question of whether Pakistan should take serious measures to separate “mosque and state.”
Juan Cole offers some thoughts on this question.
The lead editorial in today’s New York Times (“Dealing With Pakistan”) suggests what the U.S. can be doing to help Pakistan become a stable state.
Is Pakistan Exporting Jihad?
Monday, May 10th, 2010Fareed Zakaria, who spoke at NMH several years ago, says yes.
Fareed Zakaria, “Why Pakistan Keeps Exporting Jihad,” The Washington Post, May 10, 2010
Excerpts:
“The British government has estimated that 70 percent of the terror plots it has uncovered in the past decade can be traced to Pakistan. That country remains a terrorist hothouse even as jihadism is losing favor elsewhere in the Muslim world…
The Pakistani scholar-politician Husain Haqqani tells in his brilliant history Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military how the government’s jihadist connections date to the country’s creation as an ideological, Islamic state and the decision by successive governments to use jihad both to gain domestic support and to hurt its perennial rival, India.”
Background on Mawlana Mawdudi, Pakistan’s ideological architect of Jihad
Times Square Bomb Plot
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010This morning’s New York Times has extensive coverage. An American citizen born in Pakistan, Faisal Shahzad, is under arrest. Shahzad’s father is a retired senior Pakistani military officer.
See also CNN’s interview with Fareed Zakaria (May 5, 2010). Excerpt:
“It should remind us that even when looking at the war in Afghanistan, ultimately the most important place where jihadis are being trained and recruited is not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan. And there’s no other part of the world where you have quite the same concentration of manpower, resources and ideology all feeding on each other.”
