WASHINGTON: With almost one-fifth of the country reeling from floods, Pakistan has said its homegrown terrorists have overtaken the
Indian Army as the greatest threat to its national security, even as
Islamabad battles overcome the world’s trust deficit to win desperately needed aid.
The sudden turnaround in downgrading the Indian ''threat,'' reportedly contained in a recent internal assessment of security by the country’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), comes only weeks after the country’s military supremo Pervez Ashfaq Kayani rebuffed Washington’s efforts to highlight the threat of home-grown terrorism while insisting India remained the principal enemy.
The ''recent'' undated assessment, leaked by a senior
ISIofficial to the Wall Street Journal, allocates a ''two-thirds likelihood of a major threat to the state coming from militants rather than from India or elsewhere.'' Evidently, it is the first time since Independence that India isn’t being viewed as the top threat.
The purported rethink, received leerily in Washington and New Delhi, comes amid catastrophic floods that has devastated Pakistan and generated talk about the country’s very survival. Some reports say nearly a quarter of the country – an area the size of
Great Britain – is affected by floods, and there is fearful speculation that extremists will have a run of the place because of government apathy and inefficiency.
Pakistan’s civilian rulers have tried to highlight this aspect to drum up more aid from world community, but till last weekend its appeal was met with skepticism given Islamabad’s own dodgy use of militant groups to further its strategic depth, a concept which Kayani defended till recently. But that depth now appears to have been washed away; on Tuesday, Pakistan faced the mortifying spectacle of
Afghanistan giving it $ 1 million in flood aid, even as it sat on India offer of $ 5 million in aid with more to follow.
The neighbourly concern from countries that Pakistan has tried to undermine for long is in sharp contrast to the indifference, based on suspicion about Islamabad’s bona fides, from most of the world community. As of last weekend, the Indian aid offer topped
France ($ 1.5 million),
Germany ( $ 2.4 million),
Italy ( $ 1.8 million) ,
Netherlands ( $ 1.3 million). Sweden ($ 3 million), and a host of other wealthy countries.
International experts attribute the cautious and tentative response by the world community to the trust deficit – as also donor fatigue -- arising from the Pakistani establishment’s deep and long ties to terrorism. "We note often an image deficit with regards to Pakistan among Western public opinion," Elizabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, bluntly stated over the weekend, even as she and other experts questioned the logic of punishing millions of flood victims for the policies of the country's militarized establishment.
Pakistan's image deficit became evident in the poor response to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s appeal for $ 10 individual donation through text messages for
flood relief – an effort that brought in only thousands of dollars in the first few hours compared to the millions which rolled in for the
Haiti earthquake and tsunami relief funds.
Similarly, a German lawmaker who is trying to raise money for Pakistan complained to Der Spielgel that he had so far been met with two types of reactions: "Some fear their money will help extremists. Others say: If Pakistan would spend less money on its efforts to arm itself with nuclear weapons then it would have enough money to manage the catastrophe."
Pakistan appears to have gotten the message – or at least is pretending that it did – going by the disclosure of its new threat assessment that runs contrary to what its
Armychief insisted only weeks ago – that India remained a bigger threat than home-grown terrorists.
Read more:
ISI's sudden turnaround: Says terror bigger threat than India - Pakistan - World - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...n-India/articleshow/6326267.cms#ixzz0wucpNeH7
