Zardari admits Pak deliberately created militants

In the first such “candid admission” by any Pakistani head of state, President Asif Ali Zardari has said that militants and extremists were “deliberately created and nurtured” in the country as a policy to achieve “some short-term tactical objectives”.

But these militants and extremists began to “haunt” the country in the post-9/11 era, Zardari said during an interactive meeting with former senior civil servants at the presidency last night.

Militants and extremists emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised, but because they “were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives,” he said.

“Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities,” Zardari said. “The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryears until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well,” he added.

Labelling Pakistan as a frontline state in the war against terrorism, Zardari pledged to eliminate this scourge from society. “I have taken charge at a difficult time and will come up to the challenges the country is facing.”