India supporting Baluch terrorist rebels, says commander
Local Sunday, October 11th, 2009India and Afghanistan are supporting an insurgency in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, trying to bolster the leadership of separatists fighting the Pakistani government, a top security commander said yesterday.
Baluch nationalists have for decades campaigned for greater autonomy and control of the province’s abundant natural gas and mineral resources, which they say are unfairly exploited to the benefit of other parts of the country.
Separatist guerrillas have also been fighting a low-level insurgency for decades.
“A lot of evidence of Indian involvement through Afghanistan is there, supporting the separatist movement,” Major General Salim Nawaz, inspector general of the Frontier Corps paramilitary force in Baluchistan, said in an interview at his headquarters in the provincial capital, Quetta.
Nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their independence in 1947 and accuse each other of supporting rebel groups in each other’s countries.
Pakistan has backed militants fighting Indian security forces in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Pakistan says India backs the Baluch rebels.
Nawaz said the separatists were not very strong as they did not have enough foot soldiers or a proper command.
“The foreign element, especially the element there in Afghanistan, is trying hard to create more leadership,” he said.
Brahamdagh Bugti, the grandson of a Baluch rebel leader killed in late 2006, lives in Afghanistan and is regarded as one of the main Baluch separatist leaders.
Nawaz said proof of Indian involvement had been provided.
“The proof has been given at various levels … Photographs have also been provided,” he said. He did not elaborate.
India competes for influence in Afghanistan where India is one of the main backers of puppet President Hamid Karzai and his US-backed government.
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on Oct 11 2009. Filed under