Pune and after

And a question for Washington

This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.

Pune was attacked today, days after days after a top leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba named Pune as a target city at a public rally the Pakistani authorities permitted him to address (linkthanks @offstumped). (And yet, a significant element of Maharashtra’s law enforcement machinery was not engaged in securing the state against a potential terrorist attack. It was engaged in securing the state against potential hooligan attacks. If there was ever a time to hold the Shiv Sena and its grotesque leadership to account, it is now.)

Despite the Lashkar-e-Taiba threat, it is too early to definitively attribute the attack to the Pakistani military-jihadi complex. But it is clear that the Pakistani military-jihadi complex has every reason to escalate tensions with India through the use of terrorism. Without the excuse of “tensions to the east”, Pakistan would have nothing left to explain to Washington its double-dealing on the taliban.

As an INI co-blogger said, New Delhi should ask the Obama administration just how committed Washington is to targeting the military-jihadi complex, because otherwise, what’s the point of talks and suchlike?

If you would like to share or comment on this, please discuss it on my GitHub Previous
Engaged neutrality in Sri Lanka Next
Pune and after (2)