WASHINGTON: The attack on a police academy in Lahore indicates that religious terrorism, once confined to Pakistan’s tribal belt, now threatens political stability nationwide, The Washington Post observed on Tuesday.

‘The precisely orchestrated assault … was also a likely sign that militant groups in Punjab, once tolerated and even supported by the Pakistani state to fight in India and Afghanistan, have turned openly against the government,’ the newspaper noted.

‘The attack raised new questions about the vulnerability of Pakistan, a nuclear-armed Muslim state with a weak civilian government that only recently emerged from a decade of military rule,’ the report added.

‘The realization that this problem is now no longer confined to a buffer zone with Afghanistan must dawn on everyone in Pakistan,’ Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistani American military expert in Washington told the Post.
 
‘Pakistan has the wherewithal to deal with the problem, but does its leadership have the will to do so?’
 
The newspaper noted that Pakistani officials, normally given to blaming India or other foreign adversaries for fomenting anti-government violence, were unusually frank in denouncing Monday’s attack as the probable work of domestic terrorists, who they said were attempting to destabilize the country.
 
The Post pointed out that in the past several years extremist groups along the Afghan border have turned inward, spreading violence and religious fanaticism among the ethnic Pashtuns.

Pakistan has tried to contain the problem through a combination of military offensives and political negotiations, which are underway in several conflicted border districts, the newspaper added.

The Post also noted that US officials have publicly charged that some elements of Pakistan’s army and intelligence services still support the fighters as a counterweight to India.
 
‘Now, however, the increasing pattern of insurgent assaults against high-profile government and civilian targets in other regions of the country, especially in Punjab, suggests that militancy has spun out of the government’s control.’

The New York Times reported that the rampage in Lahore showed that the militants have extended their reach from NWFP to Punjab.

The newspaper noted that the militants who attacked the police academy had no demands and the attacks came at a time when Pakistan’s own stability was considered by ‘the new (US) administration to be the sine qua non of any level of success in Afghanistan.’

The Pakistani government under President Zardari ‘continues to show signs that it is losing control over its internal security,’ the report added.

‘The government’s impotence will greatly complicate the Obama administration’s efforts to bring order to Afghanistan, whose militants slip through Pakistan’s porous borders.’

The Los Angeles Times noted that the daylong siege was yet ‘another sign of intensifying turmoil’ in Pakistan, considered a crucial US ally in the fight against militants.

The newspaper recalled that last week US President Barak Obama declared quelling the insurgency in Pakistan a key to Western success in the war in neighboring Afghanistan. He tied continuing aid to Pakistan with progress in confronting militants.

‘The assault on the police compound … was as swift and sudden as it was audacious,’ the reported noted.

Christian Science Monitor reported that the Pakistani police have drawn the ire of jihadi groups for leading a crackdown and investigation of their suspected involvement in the attack on Mumbai in November.

‘Analysts are divided over how much enthusiasm the Army has for tackling militant groups, even in the face of a rise in attacks, but there’s consensus that it’s the police who have proven the most aggressive and need the most Western backing moving forward,’ the report said.
   

Dawn (Pakistan)