Pakistan-style attacks 'could happen in Europe'
I’ve just had a very insightful chat with Ahmed Rashid, doyen of the Lahore journalism set, the best-selling Taliban-Qaida watcher and described by Christopher Hitchens as “Pakistan’s best and bravest reporter”. His latest book, Descent into Chaos, documents Pakistan’s apocalyptic downward spiral.
So what did he make of what went on in the upmarket Gulberg district at 9 o’clock this morning? “Pakistan,” he said to me, ominously, “is running away with its crises. It doesn’t bode well.”
Three months back, Ahmed was saying a third of Pakistan was out of government control. “What about now,” I asked.
“It is getting worse,” he said. “And I think the ceasefire in the Swat valley means the extremists control literally the entire valley and the concession given to them on sharia law means they have the run of the place. Pakistan has surrendered the rule of law as set out in its constitution to these extremists.”
The extremists’ ability to carry out such attacks in Lahore shows they’re expanding their reach from the tribal areas into the cities, he said. The Afghan Talibs and their Pakistani brothers are one and the same.
“Did you know,” Ahmed asked me, “that the leader of the Afghan Taliban just asked his opposite number here for help to combat the arrival of the 17,000 new American troops in Afghanistan? Their aim is to undermine the governments in both countries.”
“The Americans are trying to develop a regional strategy, but the situation is certainly flipping out of everyone’s hands.”
He agreed that pictures of the Lahore gunmen, confidently swaggering around killing people with their AKs and rocket launchers, had shades of Mumbai.
“Clearly this new style of extremist attack, where you get a bunch of young guys, train them up, and let them run through the city killing whoever gets in their way, is something new. The danger is of course that something like this could happen in European cities too.”
I’m going to include a bit of this in the analysis piece I’m working on for this evening’s programme.
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