By IANS,
Islamabad : Describing as “alarming” a would-be suicide bomber’s confession that 400 such attackers were being trained in Pakistan, a leading daily has warned that the “festering wounds inflicted by militancy and extremism are not going to heal any time soon”.
An editorial in the Dawn Monday said: “The alarming confession…shows that the enemy within is still alive and fatally dangerous.”
In the latest incident, 49 people were killed in the suicide bombings that took place April 3 at a Sufi shrine in Punjab province. Umer, 15, was nabbed from the spot.
Dawn said: “What we have before us now is some rare insight from a person who has first-hand knowledge of the indoctrination or brainwashing programmes run by the recruiters, handlers and trainers of suicide bombers.”
“Abhorrent as the idea might be to right-thinking people, Umer was told he would be sent to Afghanistan to kill infidels, or kafirs. Instead, he was dispatched to bomb a Sufi shrine near Dera Ghazi Khan. According to his own testimony, when Umer told his handlers `there are no kafirs here’, he was informed that `these people are worse than kafirs’.”
Umer said that at least 400 suicide bombers were currently receiving training in North Waziristan’s Mirali area.
“There is no doubt that militant sanctuaries and training centres for suicide bombers are still very much a reality in that part of the tribal belt…it is widely believed that militants pushed out of South Waziristan are now operating out of North Waziristan. The mayhem they can create must be checked,” the editorial said.
“It is clear that the festering wounds inflicted by militancy and extremism are not going to heal any time soon.”
“We have reached the point – indeed did so quite some time ago – where anyone who disagrees with the ideology of the Pakistani Taliban and their ilk can be considered worthy of death. And the truly alarming thought here is that the situation may get a lot worse before it ever improves,” Dawn noted