Living next door to terrorists.

last updated 8 January 2015

Afghanistan

S. Ziarnal

“Wherever there is a terrorist attack,” said S. Ziarnal in Kabul’s Anis, “Pakistanis are involved.” Pakistan’s military government may think it can deceive the entire world by ostentatiously joining the international war on terror. But everyone knows it is secretly “training and supporting” terrorists in its madrasas. The London explosions and the attack on the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh, for example, were the work of Pakistanis. Most of the terrorists that come from Pakistan’s “terror factory,” though, don’t venture quite so far afield. They just cross the border into Afghanistan. It’s no secret anymore that the tribal areas of Pakistan harbor Osama bin Laden “and most of his friends,” including Afghan rebels such as Mullah Omar and the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Pakistan’s extremist mullahs and its corrupt intelligence service “support and encourage” these enemies of Afghanistan “and send them to our country to carry out destructive acts.” If this sponsoring of terror continues, Afghanistan will slide back into anarchy and war—and the conflict won’t be contained within our borders. “We hope that our neighboring countries will think a little about this and realize that they too will burn in the fire they lit in Afghanistan.”