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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dalvinder45" data-source="post: 226448" data-attributes="member: 26009"><h3></h3>Pakistani officials were quick to blame Afghanistan and India for what they called a “terrorist incident”. This is the latest example of how the Pakistani authorities increasingly deflect responsibility and frame Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan in the language of “war on terror”.Almost three months before the train hijacking, Pakistani fighter jets bombarded  Afghanistan’s Khost and Paktika provinces, killing at least 46 people, including women and children. Many of the casualties were displaced people from Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region.Pakistan justified its violation of Afghan sovereignty and international law by claiming that it is targeting Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) fighters hiding on Afghan territory. Over the past two years, Islamabad has been accusing Kabul of harbouring “terrorists” who have carried out attacks on Pakistani territory.This is the same logic the United States employed to conduct air raids, kidnappings, targeted killings, etc throughout the Muslim world during its so-called “war on terror”. In doing so, the US trampled over all the conventions the world had endorsed affirming state sovereignty, the distinction between civilians and combatants, proportionate response and the rights of prisoners of war.The US army and intelligence saw civilians as active combatants or “collateral damage” that was inevitable when a “high-value target” was pursued. Whole countries and civilian populations paid the price for “terrorist” strikes conducted by armed groups – and they still do. That is because the US may have withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq, but the legacy of its practices remains and is readily embraced by governments in the region. Pakistan’s government is one of them.Throughout the 20-year US occupation of Afghanistan, Pakistan refused to see the Afghan Taliban as “terrorists” and continued sheltering and supporting the group. Yet today, the Pakistani authorities label the TTP and BLA as “terrorist” groups and the Afghan Taliban government as sponsors of “terrorism”.They refuse to see these local insurgencies as politically motivated rational actors who could be reasoned with or whose grievances should be heard.How Pakistan chooses to deal with these groups is an internal matter, but there are a few lessons from the recent American adventurism that ought to be heeded.</blockquote>

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