Islamabad, Oct 05: As President Pervez Musharraf made a fresh pledge not to allow Pakistan to be misused by religious extremists, the domestic media today asked him to crackdown on all Jehadi groups including those fighting in Kashmir. "There is no real distinction between sectarian terrorists and the so-called jihadis... There is enough evidence to suggest that cadres of the so-called jihadi organisations also doubled, in many cases, as sectarian terrorists," the daily times said in a editorial referring to the Friday attack on a Shia minority bus in Karachi in which seven people were killed.

"It is futile to distinguish among groups like Harkat-ul Mujahideen, Jaish-e Mohammad, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Lashkar-e Jhangvi as Jihadi or sectarian, the newspaper said warning that it would be a "downright dangerous exercise" if one tried putting Jehadi or sectarian tags on one or the other organisation. According to it, since the militant groups fighting inside Afghanistan and Kashmir were Wahhabi-Deobandi, a free hand to them by the state meant they would also pursue a sectarian agenda.

The daily's comments followed after Msuharraf termed the religious extremists as enemies within and cautioned that if such elements went unchecked the extremists could "pull down" the country.
Bureau Report