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Backgrounder: Pakistan's New Generation of Terrorists

Council on Foreign Relations

Author: Jayshree Bajoria, Staff Writer

February 6, 2008

Introduction

Pakistani authorities have long had ties to militant groups based on their soil. They have supported some organizations fighting Indian forces in Kashmir and played a pivotal role in supporting the Afghan resistance against the Soviets throughout the 1980s. In the 1990s, Pakistan’s government supported the Taliban’s rise in Afghanistan in the hope of having a friendly government in Kabul. But with Pakistan joining the United States as an ally in its war against Islamic extremists since 9/11, experts say Islamabad has seen harsh blowback on its policy of backing militants operating abroad. Leadership elements of al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, along with other terrorist groups, have made Pakistan’s tribal areas (the semi-autonomous region along the Afghan border) their home. Pakistan’s deployment of troops in the tribal areas has generated resentment among tribal leaders and others who sympathized with the Taliban. In recent years, many new terrorist groups have emerged in Pakistan, several existing groups have reconstituted themselves, and a new crop of militants have taken control, more violent and less conducive to political solutions than their predecessors.

Terrorist Groups

Many experts say it is difficult to determine how many terrorist groups are operating out of Pakistan. Most of these groups tend to fall into one of the five distinct categories laid out by Ashley J. Tellis, a senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in January 16, 2008, testimony (PDF) before a U.S. House Foreign Affairs subcommittee:

• Sectarian: Groups such as the Sunni Sipah-e-Sahaba and the Shia Tehrik-e-Jafria, which are engaged in violence within Pakistan;
• Anti-Indian: Terrorist groups that operate with the alleged support of the Pakistani military and the intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), and the Harakat ul-Mujahedeen (HuM).

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.