With the spectacular rise of the Islamic State (IS) in Levant, Al-Qaeda is on back-foot to prove its relevance in a changing world. To avoid any direct confrontation with IS, Al-Qaeda has now chosen another front to work upon — the Subcontinent. ‘Why is there no storm in your ocean?’ this was the question put to Indian Muslims by the Amir of recently established franchise of Al-Qaeda in the subcontinent. Asim Umar, a Pakistani ideologues was named by Al-Qaeda’s chief, Ayman Al-Zawahiri to lead the jihadists in India, Bangladesh and Myanmar (Burma). Maulvi Umar was educated in religious seminaries of Karachi and Akora Khatak in Pakistan, worked with Punjabi Taliban before joining the ranks with Al-Qaeda.
Religious parties and organisations coordinating seminaries activities in Pakistan have long claimed that neither of their institutes are involved in promoting terrorism. I just fail to understand what else proof is required to link the seminaries with the ongoing mayhem in Pakistan and Afghanistan, now being extended to other countries in the subcontinent. Pakistan Army has been fighting terrorists for a long time — South Waziristan, Swat and a host of other tribal areas and now fully engaged in evicting Taliban from the North Waziristan. Don’t you think they are still fighting the symptoms, not the disease itself? Unless and until we defeat the ideology which is brainwashing hundreds of thousands of seminary students, we are just running behind the shadows in the tribal areas. All efforts and sacrifices will go down the drain as armies of religious zombies are getting ready to replace the downed comrades. Now it’s up to us to make a sensible choice, otherwise the subcontinent will keep bleeding for the years to come.
MASOOD KHAN
Jubail, Saudi Arabia