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Pakistan Purges Army Extremists

(Christian Science Monitor) Owais Tohid - A Pakistani military spokesman revealed last week that three or four officers are under investigation for "possible links with extremist organizations." Interior Ministry sources say there may have been as many as 10 arrests over the last several months. The officers hailed mostly from the Northwest Frontier Province, a stronghold of Pakistan's religious parties that are sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and have led a movement to force Pervez Musharraf to give up either his presidency or the post of army chief. "There are hard-liners in the Army who still believe in the ideology of hoisting the Islamic flag in Afghanistan with the help of extremists," says defense analyst Ayesha Siddiqa-Agha. "But they are few in number.... Musharraf is trying to get rid of them through a gradual process." A high-level military officer privately admits there have been three assassination attempts by suspected Islamic militants against Musharraf since Pakistan became a U.S. ally in the war against terrorism.
2003-09-19 00:00:00
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