'Punjab militants joining hands with Pakistani Taliban'

LAHORE: Banned militant groups in Pakistan's Punjab province are gaining strength with every passing day after having joined hands with the local Taliban who operate in the region with ease, police officials have said.

Several members of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) from southern Punjab, who fought in the Afghan war, have tied up with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan to carry out attacks against important installations, the officials said.

"This Pashtun-Punjabi alliance of extremists was also behind the attack on the army's General Headquarters in Rawalpindi," a senior Crime Investigation Department (CID) officer said.

He was referring to an attempt by terrorists over the weekend to storm the army's headquarters. Eight soldiers were killed in the attack while nine terrorists were gunned down by commandos.

"The facilitators of the terrorists who carried out attacks on the Inter-Services Intelligence building, the Naval War College, the Federal Investigation Agency office, the Sri Lankan cricket team and the police training school in Lahore were from organisations operating in Punjab," said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"These forces have primarily joined hands to target the security forces," he added.

The local facilitators of terrorists have become a serious challenge for the Punjab government, which lacks resources to effectively counter their operations in the province. Though a senior police officer of Bahawalpur was not in favour of launching a "military-style" campaign in southern Punjab, he called for an "effective police operation" based on actionable intelligence reports on the activities of militants.

"I see reports about a military operation becoming inevitable in southern Punjab as mere propaganda. There is no comparison between the militants holed up in southern Punjab and those in Swat or Waziristan.

"The hardcore Punjabi militants have settled in Waziristan but they have roots here which need to be cut through a proper police operation by the Punjab government," the senior police officer said.