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| India-Pakistan |
| Taliban Terror Recruitment in Pakistan GWOT "Ally" |
| 2007-01-29 |
| By RIAZ KHAN AND MATTHEW PENNINGTON SHABQADAR, Pakistan (AP) - Near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, pride mixes with grief and anger over dozens of young men lost to a stepped-up recruiting drive for the Taliban. Like the anti-Soviet rebels of the 1980s and the pre-9/11 Taliban, the recruiters of today have turned to this cluster of about 25 ethnic Pashtun villages in search of volunteers. The father of one dead enlistee says he feels honoured, but with many of Shabqadar's young men dead or feared missing on the battlefield, mujaheddin recruiters are no longer welcome here. A shopkeeper says 100 or more young men have gone missing, including his cousin, a 10th grade student, who mysteriously left home during the summer vacation and is believed to have gone to fight. People here are religious, and recruiters play on that sentiment, "recruiting the youth with raw minds," he said. The shopkeeper, like many others interviewed, requested anonymity for his own safety. Pressure from residents and the shooting and wounding of a local newspaperman who reported about the "martyrs" of Shabqadar compelled authorities in November to shut a local office of Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen, an outlawed Pakistani militant group. It had circulated jihadist literature and CDs and recruited mostly jobless young men to go to Afghanistan - like their fathers who fought the Soviet occupation of that country two decades ago. Following the closure, recruiting has dried up, according to one former recruiter. But Samina Ahmed, an expert with the International Crisis Group think tank, warns that the upsurge in Taliban attacks on NATO forces is boosting the morale of sympathizers in Pakistani border areas and attracting recruits who are susceptible to militant propaganda and believe the Taliban can regain power... |
| Posted by:Ebbolurt Whereger2708 |
| #3 There are still plenty of spare sons emptying the refrigerator and causing trouble I suspect, ed. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-01-29 19:29 |
| #2 One would think the Pashtuns have second thoughts after just one border province lost 7000 jihadis during the 2001 taliban ass kicking. Sons never to return and take care of papa in old age. Though memories are long in Waziristan, math skills are deficient. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-01-29 17:24 |
| #1 I read an article recently that ISI are actively terrorising local villagers to fight in Afghanistan!!!! |
| Posted by: Crinens Claviting2862 2007-01-29 12:27 |