Editor's Note: It's interesting that in this report from Press TV, a U.S. Secretary of State, finally admits that the U.S. "created the Taliban in the 1980's to counter the Soviets' influence in the volatile region" in a quasi-justification for the support the CIA gave the Taliban in the 1980s. Hillary Clinton adds the derisory comment, "And great, let them come from Saudi Arabia and other countries, importing their Wahabi brand of Islam so that we can go beat the Soviet Union". The admission may give the impression that the Obama administration has changed U.S. policy in the region since the 1980's but such is not the case. It was only after Clinton made her remarks that Zardari-the-puppet added that the ISI worked with the CIA back then to support the Taliban (the internal battle between the ISI and President Zardari should be noted here). Finally, the report boasts, "Nearly 700 militants have been killed in fresh army offensives..." but makes no mention of the thousands of civilians killed and sent fleeing their homes as refugees - a direct product of this U.S. "Af-Pak" slaughter in SWAT, packaged as an offensive by the Pakistan Government. For a clear understanding of what is happening in Pakistan's internal affairs and relationship with Washington, see the reports from
Talha Mujaddidi, Axis of Logic's columnist in Pakistan.
President Asif Ali Zardari says Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence along with the CIA conceived and gave birth to the Taliban.
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| Pakistan's President, Asif Ali Zardari, promises all-out war against Taliban militants. |
"I think it was part of your past and our past, and the ISI and the CIA created them [the Taliban] together," Zardari told the NBC news channel in an interview on Monday.
Zardari's remarks come after the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in a congressional hearing explained how the militancy in Pakistan was linked to the US-backed proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
"Let's remember here ... the people we are fighting today we funded them twenty years ago ... and we did it because we were locked in a struggle with the Soviet Union," she said on April, 23.
The US along with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) created the Taliban in the 1980's to counter the Soviets' influence in the volatile region.
"And great, let them come from Saudi Arabia and other countries, importing their Wahabi brand of Islam so that we can go beat the Soviet Union," Clinton said.
Moderate Sunni and Shia Muslims believe that Wahabism has nothing to do with Islam and that it is a concept created by the global powers to fuel extremism.
The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 has prompted militants to cross the border into Pakistan, turning the restive tribal belt between the two neighbors into a scene of deadly and continuing violence.
Tension peaked when a militant spokesman claimed that the Taliban were planning to takeover Islamabad and other major cities across nuclear-armed Pakistan.
After many such speculations about the insurgents' advancements, government security forces launched military operations to flush out the militants from the troubled northwestern Swat valley and its adjoining strategic districts near Islamabad.
Nearly 700 militants have been killed in fresh army offensives in the volatile insurgency-plagued valley over the past 24 hours, Pakistani military sources claimed on Sunday.
Zardari has vowed that the army will continue offensives against the militants in Swat until security is restored to the volatile valley.
RZS/JR/SME/MMN
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