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Militant outfits clinch deal with Musharraf

Several major Islamic fundamentalist and militant outfits, which were openly carrying out recruitment and fund-raising drives in different parts of Pakistan, have now "agreed" to the Musharraf regime's appeals to be discreet about their activities with the government promising not to actively pursue them.

Pakistani media reports say that jehadi outfits had "prolonged negotiations" during the past few weeks with Pakistani security agencies and decided to carry out their activities without getting into media focus.

"After prolonged negotiations with the government agencies, the mainstream religious organisations (sic) involved in armed struggle against Indian armed forces in Kashmir, have agreed to be discreet in their drive to collect donations and recruit volunteers," Pakistani daily The News said in a recent article.

"In return, the government has decided not to pursue - too aggressively - its pledge to force the closure of all such activities," it added.

Even former premier Benazir Bhutto said in a recent article that the main agenda of these groups was "to gain time and create a parallel armed force. One that can take on the regular armed forces should a slowdown be called for."

In her article in The News, Bhutto said, "The militants already field an irregular force of 150,000. In ten years, they hope to have half a million armed men."

A foreign journalist Yvette Claire Rosser wrote in The Friday Times that the possibility of an armed uprising by "half-million strong, gun-toting, madrassa (Islamic school) trained, conservative militant jehadis... is more frightening and imminent than an American or European can fathom."

According to Bhutto, "Pakistani madrassas have a doctrinaire curriculum. Their graduates are singularly focussed on the sectarian nature of their studies. Independent thinking is prohibited."

In the same vein, senior leader of the Awami National Party Asfandyar Wali writes in The News that there was "complete Talebanisation" of several areas of the Federal Areas, Quetta, Bannu, Hangu and Laki Marwat.

"Where is the state authority when private homes are broken into and their television sets taken away? If the state continues to keep its eyes closed, there will be complete anarchy. If state authority collapses, the only armed forces would be of the fundamentalists and no force in the country will be able to take them on," Wali wrote.

An article in The Nation has estimated that number of armed militants could range even up to 300,000.

It says that while the army can at present "certainly take them on, but there is also the justified fear that the militants have sympathisers in the army at every level. Some 20 per cent of the army are fundamentalists, even though we are constantly informed that the army is a highly disciplined force."

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