Wednesday, May 22, 2002
Wednesday, May 22, 2002 |
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By Sridhar Krishnaswami
``Pakistani support for Kashmiri militant groups designated as Foreign Terrorist Organisations waned after September 11. Questions remain, however, whether Musharraf's `get tough' policy with local militants and his stated pledge to oppose terrorism anywhere will be fully implemented and sustained,'' says the State Department's Report on Patterns of Global Terrorism for 2001. The report, which focuses on the global response to the terror attacks on the U.S. on September 11, also takes note of the steps Pakistan has taken not only with respect to its cooperation with the U.S. in Afghanistan but also on the domestic front in coming to grips with extremist outfits. It mentions the arrest of over 2,000 people, including the leaders of the Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Laskhar-e-Taiba, the freezing of terrorists' assets worth $ 300,000 and the proposal to rein in the `madrasas'. The annual report says some ``clear and important signs'' of ``fresh thinking'' are already apparent in South Asia on the issue of terrorism. ``Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf, made significant changes to Pakistan's policy and has rendered unprecedented levels of cooperation to support the war on terrorism.'' Overall, as far as South Asia is concerned, the report says that the region ``remained a central point for terrorism directed against the United States, and its friends and allies'' around the world with Foreign Terrorist Organisations committing several acts of murder, kidnapping and destruction ``including the vicious December 13 attack on India's Parliament''. ``All countries in South Asia have strongly supported the coalition effort against terrorism. The challenge from here is to turn that support into concrete action that will, over time, significantly weaken the threat posed by terrorists in and from the region,'' it says. ``India was itself a target of terrorism throughout the year but unstintingly endorsed the U.S. military response to the September 11 attack and offered to provide the U.S. with logistic support and staging areas,'' the report says. ``The Indian Government continued cooperative bilateral efforts with the United States against terrorism, including extensive cooperation between the U.S. and Indian law enforcement agencies.'' The report, which was slightly delayed, is different from the past ones as the focus has been to put September 11 in perspective both by way of response from the international community and on the domestic response of the Republican administration — diplomatic, legislative, law enforcement, intelligence, military and economic. ``Country by country, region by region, we have strengthened law enforcement and intelligence cooperation and we have tightened border patrols to make it harder for terrorists to move about, communicate and plot. One by one we are severing the financial bloodlines of terrorist organisations,'' the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said in his preface to the report.
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