Tweet
As Pakistan’s government struggles to provide aid to about three million Pakistanis displaced by flooding, foreign correspondents continue to find evidence that the aid vacuum is being filled by militant Islamist groups, including one that is run by the founder of a banned militant group held responsible for the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008.
After reaching the northwestern town of Charsadda, Saeed Shah of The Guardian reported:
Hajji Makbool Shah, a volunteer who said he was a member of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, told The Guardian. “If the government were doing this work, there would be no need for us.” He added: “When the floods came, we carried people out on our shoulders, to our own ambulances. Where were the government ambulances?”
Jonathan Miller of Britain’s Channel 4 News reported similar frustration in Nowshera, another northwestern town hit hard by the monsoon rains. Mr. Miller came across an Islamist charity distributing aid to residents, who said that their government and army had failed them. Mr. Miller also found a whole village of Afghan refugees who said that the television crew was the first group of outsiders they had seen in the week since their homes had been swept away.
According to Mr. Miller, Pakistanis are also angered by the fact that their president, Ali Asif Zardari, did not postpone the foreign trip they are calling his “European joyride.” On Friday Mr. Zardari is expected to meet with British Prime Minister David Cameron and object strongly to his remarks that Pakistan has not done enough to crack down on groups that “export terror” to countries like India and Afghanistan.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/201...d-in-pakistan/
After reaching the northwestern town of Charsadda, Saeed Shah of The Guardian reported:
Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a hardline Islamist organization thought to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group blamed for the 2008 assault on Mumbai, said it had 2,000 members working for flood relief across the north-west of the country and down into Punjab province.
With the government overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster, the worst flooding in Pakistan in at least 80 years, a gap has opened up for well-organized Islamic groups, mainstream and extremist.
Mr. Shah added, “Across the deluged northwest, locals complained bitterly that government help was almost entirely absent.”With the government overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster, the worst flooding in Pakistan in at least 80 years, a gap has opened up for well-organized Islamic groups, mainstream and extremist.
Hajji Makbool Shah, a volunteer who said he was a member of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, told The Guardian. “If the government were doing this work, there would be no need for us.” He added: “When the floods came, we carried people out on our shoulders, to our own ambulances. Where were the government ambulances?”
Jonathan Miller of Britain’s Channel 4 News reported similar frustration in Nowshera, another northwestern town hit hard by the monsoon rains. Mr. Miller came across an Islamist charity distributing aid to residents, who said that their government and army had failed them. Mr. Miller also found a whole village of Afghan refugees who said that the television crew was the first group of outsiders they had seen in the week since their homes had been swept away.
According to Mr. Miller, Pakistanis are also angered by the fact that their president, Ali Asif Zardari, did not postpone the foreign trip they are calling his “European joyride.” On Friday Mr. Zardari is expected to meet with British Prime Minister David Cameron and object strongly to his remarks that Pakistan has not done enough to crack down on groups that “export terror” to countries like India and Afghanistan.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/201...d-in-pakistan/
Comment