Pakistan conflicted over targeting rising extremists in its heartland

[cory777]

Source: Washington Post

LAHORE, PAKISTAN -- Even as its army battles insurgents on the mountainous western border, Pakistan's government remains deeply ambivalent about tackling extremist Sunnis it says are a rising menace within its populous heartland.

In the vast lowlands of Punjab province, fundamentalist and sectarian organizations banned for terrorist links operate openly and with occasional support from officials. The groups' encouragement of violence against minorities and others considered infidels is tolerated, one top provincial official said, because it is part of Pakistan's political "mind-set," and confronting it might spawn more radicals.

Extremists have violently flexed their muscles in this eastern metropolis over the past year, with attacks against Shiites and most recently with sieges on two mosques that killed nearly 100 Ahmadis, a long-persecuted minority sect. While authorities acknowledge that the attackers had roots and found shelter in Punjab, they insist that the crux of the problem lies in training camps in the Taliban-riddled borderlands, an area viewed here as a distant backwater.

But critics say that the lines between the Taliban in the tribal areas and extremist organizations in Punjab have long since blurred and that their collusion represents a time bomb. The provincial government has muzzled itself out of fear, political analysts say, because it relies on the backing of religious conservatives who hold great sway, even if their radical views represent a minority.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/21/AR2010062104625.html?wprss=rss_world/asia