Taliban have spread out all over Pakistan: Malik

Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said the government plans ‘action’ against more than two dozen banned jihadi outfits operating in parts of Punjab and Sindh.

Speaking to the National Assembly here on Thursday, the minister added that fighters from most feared homegrown Taliban groups have now ‘spread’ in the country’s most populous areas after they were chased out of their hideouts in lawless tribal regions by a concerted military campaign.

“The TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) is all over Pakistan now,” Malik said and vowed  that law enforcing agencies working under him would ‘get them wherever they are’.

The comments from the Pakistan’s top civilian troubleshooter come a day after a military spokesperson said there are fears that Taliban are growing in influence in some parts of the country’s agricultural heartlands.

Major General Athar Abbas told British media on Wednesday there ‘needs to be a strong intelligence-led law enforcement action in Punjab’

“The militants are definitely growing in strength in the region,” Abbas said.

Rehman’s remarks, which he offered as defense to what opposition parliamentarians called huge budgetary allocations for his ministry, are being interpreted as an ambition within the security establishment to get tougher on hitherto untouched banned jihadis.

There have recently been intelligence reports that proscribed organisations like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) are raising funds for their activities in Punjab.

The federal authorities have been calling upon the provincial governments, which are responsible for maintaining law and order, to go hard on these outfits.

But the government of Pakistan Muslin League-Nawaz (PML-N) party in Punjab has so far been resisting such calls, presumably for political reasons and fears for a public backlash.

Malik said intelligence outfits forewarned provincial authorities in almost 90 per cent of terror attacks but there have been little action by them.

There are, however, growing signs of ‘change of heart’ among Punjab’s provincial authorities.

Earlier in the day, a key official of Punjab cabinet told the media the provincial government won’t hesitate to get ‘these jihadi and sectarian activists out’.

Rana Sanaullah said in Lahore that the intelligence and law enforcing officials are increasing their collaboration for a limited targeted operation in the province.

The military spokesperson said the army is looking for a go-ahead from the country’s political leadership for such an exercise.  “There needs to be a political decision to crack down on the jihadi organizations,” Gen. Athar told the BBC.

Rehman Malik, however, did not specify whether the military would be sent to the troubled areas of Punjab or the operation might be intelligence-based. The minister said some ‘hostile secret agencies’ are fueling Deobandi-Barelvi and Shia-Sunni divide to destabilize Pakistan. He did not specify any country though.

Malik said intelligence agencies are still under-equipped and under-trained to combat terrorism but praised them for doing ‘whatever they can  do within their limits’.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 25^th, 2010.