Trump govt must demand Pakistan to knock off its jihad habit: Expert

Says Pakistan has played a double game with the US during the global war on terrorism

Pakistan has played a "double game" with the US during the global war on terrorism, a top American expert on South Asian affairs has said, urging the Trump administration to use many "tools" it has to demand Islamabad to knock off its "jihadi habit".

"Washington needs to demand that Pakistan knock off its jihad habit while at the same time working to ensure this relentless liberal witch hunt ends," C Christine Fair, an associate professor at Georgetown University's Security Studies Programme, wrote in a latest article in The National Interest magazine published on Thursday.

"The US has many tools at its disposal, ranging from sanctions to declaring Pakistan to be a state sponsor of terror, to significant curbs on military assistance. Washington needs to muster the intestinal fortitude to employ these tools-now," wrote Fair, who has emerged as a leading critic of Pakistan for the latter's support to terror groups.

"Since the earliest years of the so-called global war on terrorism, Pakistan has played a double game," she alleged.

"With one hand, it has taken some USD 33 billion from the US in the name of partnering with it to fight Islamist militancy in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Fair said.

Yet, with the other hand, it continued to kill Americans and their Afghan partners, as well as NATO and non-NATO allies in Afghanistan, through its varied proxies such as the Afghan Taliban, the Jalaluddin Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba and others, she alleged.

Fair alleged that increasingly, it seems likely that Pakistan colluded to protect Osama bin Laden the very reason why the US invaded Afghanistan in the first place.

"While Pakistan has tenaciously maintained the viability of these so-called Islamist militant assets, it has prosecuted a brutal campaign of violence and threats of violence against Pakistanis who are fighting for a saner Pakistan, one that it is at peace with itself and its neighbours," Fair wrote in her op-ed.