‘Strengthen nuclear capability to avert Indian designs’

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan must outstrip India in the nuclear race to counter its neighbour, which is “fomenting instability” and was aiming to dismember this country as part of an American-Indian-Israeli “satanic alliance”, an editorial in a leading Urdu daily said Monday.

“To create tension in the region, foment instability in Pakistan and to break it up into two to four pieces, a satanic triangular alliance of America, India and Israel and their intelligence agencies has come about,” the editorial in Nawa-i-Waqt said.

It claimed that Indian spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) has “already created a network in Afghanistan using Indian consulates where terrorists were being trained and being infiltrated into Pakistan in the guise of the Taliban”.

The editorial, which began by accusing former Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Salah of working at the dictates of RAW to cause instability in Pakistan, castigated “fashions” such as “Aman ki Asha” peace initiative and sought to warn Pakistani intellectuals and politicians of the “real face” of India, with which no peace was possible.

It said there was “sufficient evidence of and witnesses to” the Indian involvement in various terrorist attacks in Pakistan, including the last month’s attacks on two Ahmadi places of worship in Lahore.

“Talking of peace with India is akin to feeding milk to a snake and instead of feeding the snake, it should be crushed. For this, we have nuclear power (capability). Until we defeat India in the nuclear race, it will keep on conspiring against us,” the editorial maintained.

As for Salah, who resigned June 6 after the Taliban attack on a peace jirga in Kabul, the editorial said he had spent his whole life working against Pakistan’s interests and was in constant touch with RAW, which had even provided him staff for his “nefarious designs”.

He was also accused of being behind reports in The Sunday Times and by the London School of Economics that charged Pakistan’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of still covertly supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Also, Salah had demanded a free hand for his “work” from Afghan President Hamid Karzai and on being refused, threatened to plunge the entire region into bloodshed, the editorial said.

It said after his resignation, Salah - an ethnic Tajik from the Panjshir Valley who had worked with charismatic guerrilla leader Ahmad Shah Masood - was working full time for RAW.

Apart from involvement in various terrorist outrages in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Multan, the editorial alleged that RAW operatives had tied up with violent criminals in Balochistan in an attempt to cripple Pakistan’s economy.

It said Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had given proof of this to his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh during their meeting on the margins of the Non-Aligned Movement summit at Sharm-el Sheikh and demanded that these activities be stopped forthwith.

Manmohan Singh had promised to assess the evidence but the opposition, including from his own party, he faced when he returned to India, prevented any action and these activities continued unabated, the editorial said.