New Age Islam

Books and Documents 07 Jan 2012, NewAgeIslam.Com Punjab: Driver of Terrorism in Pakistan By Khaled Ahmed
	Mujahid Hussain’s book tells us how holy warriors using terrorism as their modus operandi have spread out from Punjab to new centres of turmoil in Pakistan’s intra-state conflict. There are factors that persuade Pakistan to fight against the terrorist organisations located on its soil. There are equally a number of factors militating against Pakistan’s campaign to fight terrorism. Together, these two contradictory compulsions characterise the current scene. The state has used terrorists in the past through ‘non-state actors’ in a foreign policy of covert ‘proxy war’ in Afghanistan and India. It has not abandoned its intent to do so even after these elements have aligned themselves with Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The use of fully armed non-state actors in deniable wars has tended to create multiple centres of power in Pakistan, meaning that the state has abdicated a large portion of its claim on the ‘monopoly of violence’ in the Weberian sense. -- Khaled Ahmed http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamBooksAndDocuments_1.aspx?ArticleID=6322