Questions raised on Pakistan's 'real' power

The real catastrophe of Pakistan is the "cynical use of Islamist extremism" by the country's security establishment to hold democracy "hostage" and to provoke the insecurity it needs to maintain its grip on power, said experts.

Questioning where the real power of Pakistan lies, a report by the New York Times stated that instead of bringing terrorist masterminds under control and protecting religious minorities and civilians from the attacks, Pakistan's security establishment is promoting Islamist extremism by "freeing terrorist leaders and by clamping down on civil society groups that it accuses, falsely, of being fronts for foreign spies."

On November 24, Mumbai 26/11 mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed was released from house arrest in Lahore. Saeed is said to be the head of the U.S.-designated terror outfit, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and had been under house arrest since January 31 this year.

On Decemeber 17, two suicide bombers burst into a church full of worshipers in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan Province, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 35 others.

Hence, "until that changes, there is scant hope Pakistan will take control of the terrorism that threatens its citizens' lives and the stability of the region."

The article, meanwhile, also said that hopes after the ousting of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in July and his association with successor Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who would have asserted some civilian swing over Pakistan's powerful security establishment, have evaporated "as terrorism claims new civilian victims and the army uses Islamist extremists to stage what has all the hallmarks of a velvet coup."

On the same note, "as many as 29 international nongovernmental organizations - many doing vital development work in Pakistan for years and employing thousands of Pakistanis - were informed this month that their registration applications had been rejected due to nonapproval by intelligence agencies," the article stated.