America’s New Worry: Facts Need to Be Gathered!

U.S. Marine Corp Lt. Gen. John M. Paxton, the director of operations for the Joint Staff, regarding the allied forces’ operation in Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in a briefing that highly-ranked Taliban leaders are gathering in Karachi, where 3,000,000 Pashtuns live, and it is hard to identify insurgents. In addition, it will become more difficult to control them. For America, this is worrisome news.

Before this briefing, it’s been mentioned that al-Qaida and the Taliban have been in Balochistan [Pakistan] and along its borders in Afghanistan, but it’s never been believed that they are in Karachi. Based on this new discovery, the government should make a thorough investigation to find out what is really true. It is not right to deny that among the huge population of Pashtuns in Karachi there may be a few Taliban supporters. In fact, for the past few months the many terrorist events that have occurred in Karachi tell us that there are extremists living there. A few days before, the Taliban leader, Mulla Baradar, was arrested in Karachi, which further proves the point that the Taliban are in Karachi. Furthermore, for quite some time, Karachi has been a victim of target killings and gang war, which means that the fact that extremists are already in Karachi cannot be ignored.

Paxton said that Afghan Taliban are starting to migrate from Quetta to Karachi because of drone attacks. However, he did not explicitly state that there have not actually been any drone attacks in Balochistan. This is why the accusation may not necessarily be true. Therefore, it is the government’s responsibility to control the country’s internal affairs by gathering all evidence that points to this accusation quickly, before the Taliban leaders gain power in Karachi. Pakistan has been denying that Taliban leaders are in Quetta, so they say it cannot be true that the Taliban are moving to Karachi. However, if we were to believe that Quetta housed Taliban leaders who are now definitely coming to Karachi, then there can be two events that have led to this. One is that America has been claiming Taliban leaders are in Quetta and are therefore threatening drone attacks against the Taliban, which resulted in this migration. The other is that allied forces’ operations in Afghanistan’s Helmand province may have increased the worry that the Taliban are entering Balochistan, and to avoid the new extremists, they are migrating to Karachi.

Whatever the reason, it is the government’s responsibility to begin an extensive investigation of the facts in Karachi and either authenticate or denounce the American general’s accusation. This is important for two reasons: one, so that internal affairs can be brought under control, and two, so that America and other countries do not have the opportunity to further criticize Pakistan. At this point, it is necessary to tell America that they should not worry so much about Pakistan’s state of affairs and that they should instead focus their attention on rebuilding Afghanistan, which, day by day, is getting out of hand and causing problems for American military leaders. We believe this statement by the American general is just a way to increase pressure on Pakistan and another opportunity to demand more from Pakistan. However, the Pakistani government should, for its own sake, investigate and relieve themselves of this problem so that the limited peace Pakistan has gained can continue.