[DAWN] PAKISTAN’S military and government have proscribed the bully boy Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(IS, aka ISIS) group and declared it an enemy organization. They have never explained why. Of course, IS’s atrocities ‐ which include beheadings, crucifixions, suicide kabooms, and intimidation of civilians in captured territories ‐ have been condemned by many. It is also a fact that IS has killed many more Moslems than non-Moslems. But is IS to be faulted for bad tactics or is its goal to create an Islamic state in Pakistain itself wrong? Should attempts to make a global caliphate be condemned or, instead, assisted?
Our generals and politicians would rather bomb IS than argue logically against it because they know IS’s stated goal resonates with millions of ordinary Paks. Through its internet machinery, IS declares it will establish God’s principality (mumlikat-e-khudadad) headed by a righteous caliph who would govern by God’s law. For this to happen territory must be seized and secured, idolatry and heresy eliminated, and the immoral mixing of men and women stopped. This is sweet music to many Pak ears.