Zardari Admits Pakistan Nurtured Islamic Terrorism

It's a candid admission and one that isn't likely to make Asif Ali Zardari many friends in Pakistan's fractured political scene.

For the first time, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has admitted that militants and extremists were "created and nurtured" in the country as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives.

But they began to haunt the country in the post-9/11 era, Zardari said in a candid admission during an interactive meeting with former senior civil servants at the presidency last night.

Militants and extremists emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised, but because they "were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives," he said.

"Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities," Zardari said.

"The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryears until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well," he added.

Labelling Pakistan as a frontline state in the war against terrorism, Zardari pledged to eliminate this scourge from society. "I have taken charge at a difficult time and will come up to the challenges the country is facing."

His remarks came days after his comments in an interview that the Pakistan Army would even target militants it had backed in the past for use as a proxy force against India.

That's right folks, Pakistan has admitted that they created and nurtured terrorists as a planned political objective. Of course, this fact shouldn't come as a surprise to my readers. The Syrians, Saudis, Iranians, and Iraqis under Saddam Hussein among others all used terrorists as proxies for their foreign and domestic policy goals. The Syrians, Saudis, and Iranians continue to do so to this day.

Now that they've accepted this, Zardari has to do something about it. That means standing up to the ISI which fostered the policy and clean house of the Islamists who find nothing wrong supporting jihadis against the West, India, and those who aren't as Muslim as they want.