Thoughts & some documented facts on Taliban in Punjab
Originally Posted by Jedburgh
Lord Curzon, the viceroy of India, created the NWFP by removing it from the Punjab's administration in 1901. Todays Punjab is both in Pakistan but also in India, overlays both Pakistan and India across their common border.
Punjabis historically are viewed by many Pukhtuns as landlords and business userpers who took and take advantage of Pukthuns and the NWFP. Allegations are endless and some, no doubt, are true, but clearly not all.
The Taliban, who are Sunnis and Pukhtuns, began under that name around 1978 when the last King of Afghanistan was overthrown as a prelude to and a part of the USSR invasion of Afghanistan. *The old USSR saw Afghanistan as a stepping stone to warm water ports on the Arabian Sea, among other objectives and goals. I wrote about this in a 1985 paper for my Air Force Command and Staff College as best I can recall.
Now: It is my opinion, as I cannot be the know-it-all, now or ever, my opinion that the Taliban are not a numeric threat in Punjab today, but do have cells which may amount to some 3,000-6,000 members of a hard core nature, together with a few, not a huge number of madrassas and a hospital or two they run for public charity and image purposes in the Lahore area...Lahore area is where the Taliban inside Pakistan "were founded or began from."
In today's Pakistan (Lahore area), across the border into Indian Punjab/Gujirat State and up into Pakistan Administered Kashmir, back across the Durand Line into Afghanistan, there and in related Northern Pakistan areas delineated in some of the included Internet references herein, as well as in the City of Karachi [where around 1.5 million Pukhtuns reside, some of whom may well be joining the Taliban today...but these are mainly the poorest of the poor Pukhtuns who are within Karachi which is a city of over 14 million today population.
What I see since studying this area closely ever since 9/11, based in large part on feedback in the form of responding open letters to the editors of both DAWN but more particularly the Peshawar FRONTIER POST, as well as interpersonal e-mails to me (my e-mail address is on every letter published in Pakistan by me, which now number around 200, majority in the FP, about 40+ in DAWN)...is a blame game of Pukhtuns as the essentially have nots against Punjabis, who are clearly the wealth "haves" of Paksitan. The Taliban benefit from, propoganda wise and feeds off of all acrimony from Pukhtuns against Punjabis. In general much confusion to us as outside observers as to which Pukhtuns are revolutionary nationalists [separatists who want to found a Pakhtuwananland comprised of parts of Pakistan and most all of Afghanistan] vs. which Pukhtuns are hardcore murderous terrorist Sunni Muslim extremists.
All this said, I suggest a careful...but selective of the topic of Pukhtuns in Punjab to fit against the topic of this thread...reading of all the attachments.
I don't see a huge "army" of Taliban organized in and in control of the Punjab area of Pakistan. I do see a quasi-urban guerilla attempt to falsely, my opinion, create this impression.
Concluding this short intro note to some cited research background reading for those of you interested in this thread please note that the Northern/Frontier areas of Pakistan have never been under effective central government control, nor do I think they ever will be under such control.
What I do see is the Taliban and al Qaida stirring up propaganda alleging violation of Pakistan's "soverignty" when drones and such are used to knock out the Taliban wherever they may be. Even the Government of Pakistan, first Musharraf, now Guiliani, pretend to resent and oppose such strikes...when in fact it serves their security purposes even more than those of NATO.
Thus, I tend to ignore and blow off the baloney Pak media tirades about drone strikes, and say more power to more drone strikes!
As for the masses, the majority of Pakistanis who are not Pukhtuns, about 85% (these statistics are arguable) other identities, really don't like the Pukhtuns nor their "areas" of Pakistan and only wish they would dry up and blow away. Those Pakistanis who claim differently are either easily freightened or in fact Pukhtuns who reside largely in Karachi, where they are a large but still distinct minority.
Good reading and I will look for discussion from you guys and gals now.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-Pakistan.html
http://www.france24.com/en/20081204-...FRKAxgoddjFwpg
http://www.foreignaffairscommittee.o...fghanistan.pdf
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...5072152AAkpNwz
"The vast majority of Pashtuns can be found in an area stretching from western Pakistan to southwestern Afghanistan. Additional Pashtun communities are found in Northern Areas, Azad Kashmir, and Sindh province of Pakistan as well as throughout Afghanistan. There are smaller communities in Iran, India, and a large migrant-workers community in the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. Important metropolitan centers of Pashtun culture include Peshawar and Kandahar. In addition, Quetta and Kabul are ethnically mixed cities with large Pashtun populations. With 1.5 million ethnic Pashtuns, Karachi is the largest Pashtun city in the world.
Pashtuns comprise over 15.42% of Pakistan's population or 25.6 million people. In Afghanistan, they make up an estimated 42% of the population or 12.5 million people. The exact measure of these figures remains uncertain, particularly those for Afghanistan, and are affected by approximately three million Afghan refugees (of which 81.5% or 2.49 million are ethnic Pashtuns) that remain in Pakistan. An unknown number of refugees continue to reside in ****Iran. A cumulative population assessment suggests a total of over 40 million across the region."
**** Iran/UN suggest about 300,000-500,000 non indiginous to Iran Pukhtuns remain inside Iran, with Iran having a pushy plan in effect to move them out and back into Afghanistan as fast as they can. During 2008 I think between 60,000 and 100,000 Pukhtuns were resettled back into Afghanistan from Iran, while maybe 400,000 Pukhtuns were resettled from refugee camps inside Pakistan back into Afghanistan also during 2008.
www.wiscnetwork.org/getpaper.php?id=224
http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/20...n-western.html
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