India targeting CPEC is economic terrorism: Pakistan cries wolf

Pakistan's latest salvo against India comes amid rising pressure over its use of terrorism as a tool of state policy.

Pakistan has again attempted to blame India for its own problems, by accusing it of ‘economic terrorism’. It also alleged that India was using terrorist organisations against it. Islamabad’s latest salvo against India comes amid rising pressure over its use of terrorism as a tool of state policy.

Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria accused India of using terrorist organisations like Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Jamaatul Ahrar (JuA) against Pakistan. These are two groups that Islamabad does not have control over and has been fighting for years.

Even as the Foreign Office tried to blame India for problems of Islamabad’s making, Pakistan’s top military spokesperson Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor said India’s “economic terrorism” was a plot to sabotage economic activity in Pakistan. This, he said, is why India is opposing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Also, Ghafoor candidly admitted that the ISI does indeed have links with terrorist organisations. He even tried to spin the ISI-terrorist relationship as a good thing. "Having links is different from supporting. Name any intelligence agency which does not have links. Links can be positive," he claimed.

He said the connections between the ISI and terrorists was part of Islamabad’s attempt to integrate militant-linked groups into the mainstream of the country's politics.

Pakistan’s attempt at deflection came days after the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US military, General Joseph Dunford, told a US Congressional committee that it was clear that “the ISI has connections with terrorist groups.”

Just a day earlier, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis had also told the Congressional committee that Pakistan could benefit economically from India if it chose to stop supporting terrorism from its soil.