Pak may yield to Islamists
Washington, Aug. 4: Pakistan faces the peril of succumbing to an Iranian-style Islamic revolution, an official US study has warned, saying that mushrooming fundamentalism in the nation is finding support from the army and intelligence.
Pakistan slipping into an Iranian-style Islamic revolution is described as one of the biggest threat to the world, the Quadrennial Defence Review (QDR) independent panel has told the US Congress in its final report submitted last week.
It has expressed serious concern over increasing Islamic fundamentalism in the country that has its support in its army and the intelligence.
“Some ‘associated movements’ will pursue lesser and more local goals, with the biggest danger to Pakistan, where the ruling elite (including the army and intelligence services that helped create, continue to tolerate and aid such groups) is vulnerable to an Iranian-style revolution that Islamists would exploit,” the report said.
Appointed by the Congress, the QDR independent panel is mandated with conducting an assessment of the assumptions, strategy, findings, and risks described in the department of defence’s QDR.
The QDR, a report required by law and provided by the defence department to Congress, is intended to assess the national security environment over the next 20 years and identify the defence strategy, forces and resources required to meet challenges.
After the department of defence issued this year’s QDR on February 1, 2010, the secretary of defence, Mr Robert Gates, and Congress constituted an independent panel to review the report as part of the National Defence Authorisation Act of 2010.
“Salafist ‘jihadi’ movements, wedded to the use of violence and employing terror as their primary strategy, will remain both an international threat to the global system and a specific threat to America and its interests abroad. This remains true even as current Al-Qaeda leaders age and their goal of a restored caliphate becomes ever more impractical,” it said.
According to the report, some of these groups will set their sights on the United States, as recent attacks linked to Yemen prove.
“The greatest risk to the United States is that weapons of mass destruction or the materials and expertise to produce them will find their way into the hands of fanatical, murderous jihadists,” it said.
Post new comment