Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
Post-Iraq, would-be militants eye Pakistan
The flow of foreign militants to Pakistan worries Western governments, which fear the south Asian country has replaced Iraq as the place to go for aspiring Islamists planning attacks on the West.
The camps will probably be smaller and the skills on offer less photogenic to al Qaeda’s online video audience, but that is no deterrent to Arabs, Central Asians and Europeans making their way to the turbulent northwestern tribal areas.
Those arrivals are in addition to a steady flow of Britons of Pakistani descent who have visited the area for many years, security sources say. The assumption among many Western officials is that U.S. success in Iraq since 2006 has diverted some recruits for the anti-Western cause to the Pakistan-Afghan theatre.
While Iraq rarely provided the range of commando-style training available in the 1990s at sprawling al Qaeda camps on the border with Afghanistan, Iraq’s draw as a battlefield in 2003-2006 diverted potential jihadi trainees away from Pakistan.
The goal today for these young men is to fight U.S. forces in neighbouring Afghanistan or to gain the skills to carry out attacks back home in the Middle East, Africa or the West.
Now, porous borders, corrupt officials and inventive smugglers mean a determined foreigner has little problem simply entering Pakistan, experts say, although reaching a camp in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas can be harder due to U.S. drone attacks and tougher security checks by militant groups.
Why is it that these so called “terrorists” are always fighting against corrupt governments? I mean it doesnt take a genius to recognise the pattern, all they ever seem to be trying to do is liberate themselves from some corrupt or foreign power. But they do not have this right because that corrupt power is always an ally of the west.. When is the world going to recognise that there are much worse crimes than terrorism, and those crimes are usually what these “terrorists” are fighting against.
The invasion of Iraq for example, was a much worse crime than any terrorist attack in history.. and what was the response?
The creation of a jewish state in Palistine is another example, and look what has happened since.
The backing of Saudi dictators is a great example considering the multitudes of “terrorists” who have emerged from Saudi Arabia including the majority of the 911 hijackers.
The list goes on endlessly but in the west we are the powerful.. we have always written the history pages according to their usefullness, truth to us comes 2nd because it is often unpatriotic.
Where would hitler have been without patriots.