Rising terror in Pak hindering US efforts: Congressional body

NEW DELHI: Even as the failed 2009 suicide bomb plot to attack New York’s subways was traced to Pakistan, a US Congressional panel has warned that the rise in Islamist extremism and militancy in Pakistan was hindering US efforts to fight the al-Qaeda and threatened the stability of Afghanistan and South Asia.

Congressional Research Service, an independent bi-partisan research wing of the US Congress, pointed out that this upward trend in terror activity would hinder the resolution of the Indo-Pak issue.

“The development hinders progress toward key US goals, including the defeat of al-Qaeda and other anti-US terrorist groups, Afghan stabilisation, and resolution of the historic Pakistan-India rivalry that threatens the entire region’s stability and that has a nuclear dimension,” the CRS said.

The report comes in the wake of revelations that a Saudi American al-Qaeda operative based in Pakistan was behind a failed plot to bomb New York City’s subway last September in a clear indication that al-Qaeda is still running terrorist training camps in Pakistan.

The US unsealed charges against Adnan G El Shukrijumah, a naturalised US citizen who fled the US after the September 11, 2001, attacks in a 11-page chargesheet, which was filed in a New York federal court.

According to reports, Colorado resident Najibullah Zazi was directed by Shukrijumah and other senior al-Qaeda leadership from Pakistan to carry out the New York plot. This is being taken as a clear indication that Al Qaeda network is still active. Five of the accused had received training from al-Qaeda in Waziristan in 2008 and early 2009.

Meanwhile, the CRS report on Pakistan also pointed to a trend of American citizen’s being recruited by Islamist terrorism. ``Long-standing worries that American citizens have been recruited and employed in Islamist terrorism by Pakistan-based elements have become more concrete in recent months, especially following a failed May 2010 bombing attempt in New York City,” said the report.

The report also said that Pakistan had a mixed record in battling Islamist extremism and was tolerant of Taliban elements operating from its territory. It also pointed to the increasing threat that Pakistan faces from terror groups. “Pakistan is the site of numerous armed insurgencies of various scales that represent an increasingly severe threat to domestic, regional, and perhaps global security,” the report said.