Is Imran Khan living in fool’s paradise?

Imran Khan promises to eliminate Jihadi terrorism from the face of Pakistan in 90 days if he gets elected. He seems to have already chalked out an action plan with which he strongly believes that he can remove the menace of terrorism from Pakistan forever.  According to Imran, the cause of the growth of terrorism in Pakistan is the presence of U.S. army in the tribal areas and the drone attacks by it, which kills innocent people every single day. Naturally, the people are angry, especially the Pathans, who has gradually taken up Jihadi terrorism to avenge the U.S. aggression. Imran Khan’s solution is simpler than his reasoning- asks the Americans to leave and once they pack up, the Jihadis will quit fighting.  Is it as simple as what Imran believes? Does the terrorism in Pakistan have only one characteristic- that of the Jihad against the Americans?

The Wiki leaks cable dating from late 2008, published by the Pakistani newspaper Dawn came out with some shocking revelations. The cable details point to the sudden widespread growth of sophisticated Jihadi recruitment network in poor areas of Pakistan, which recruited children into divisions that grew Deobandi and Ahl-e-Hadith madrassa network.  The network exploited worsening poverty of areas like Multan, Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan Divisions. Younger children (between 8 and 12) were preferred and were sent to comparatively small, extremist Deobandi or Ahl-e-Hadith madrassa in southern/western Punjab to get indoctrinated into Jihadi philosophy. They are further enrolled in regional/ indoctrination centers and ultimately send to terrorist training camps in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK).

The source of funding for the Jihadi network comes from the Oil rich Saudi Arabia and to an extent U.A.E.  A family receives upwards of $ 6500 per son for getting their ward recruited in the madrassa. While exact amount of money pouring into this projects were unavailable, the staggering estimates put the total to the region of $ 100 million annually. But why do the Saudis fund Jihadi terrorism in Pakistan? The answer is simple- to establish “Wahhabism”, a particularly austere and rigid form of Islam originated in Saudi Arabia. These Deobandi/ Ahl-e-Hadith Madrassas funded by Saudi oil rich Sheikhs has proliferated across Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, creating Jihadis to exterminate the Shiites, Sufis, Ahmedis  and Christians in Pakistan, to fight the government in Afghanistan, to kill the Christians in Nigeria and Indonesia , and Jews and Hindus world over.

Imran Khan is looking at only a portion of the aspect of Jihadi terrorism in Pakistan.   Terrorists or extremists in Pakistan are not only fighting the Americans but different sects and nationalities, which Imran Khan has failed to understand despite working closely with Pakistan’s political affairs for many years now.  A 100 years wouldn’t be enough, forget 90 days, to eliminate terrorism from Pakistan unless and until the government cut the supplies of Saudi funds to the Deoband/ Ahl-e-Hadith Madrassas, dismantle the 100s and 1000s of Madrassas spread across Pakistan and lock up the Maulanas and interlocutors behind bars.