Karachi breeding hub of anti-India jihadist groups: Report

Pakistan's port city of Karachi is a breeding hub of anti-India Jihadist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi which are backed by the Pakistani Army, a Brussels-based think tank said.

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New Delhi: Pakistan's port city of Karachi is a breeding hub of anti-India Jihadist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi who are backed by the Pakistani Army, a Brussels-based think tank said.

These groups are operating freely without any hindrance and have "umbilical links with Karachi's large, well-resourced madrassas," the International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report on Friday.

The report assumes significance as it has come a day after a devastating terror attack at a Sufi shrine near Karachi in which more than 70 people were killed and scores injured.

The ICG has branded the city as a pressure cooker due to frequent ethnic, political and sectarian strife.

It also claimed that the Pakistani law enforcement agencies refused to take action against some groups whom they believe are 'good' jihadists.

"There are pockets all along the Super Highway of 'good Taliban'," the ICG quoted a senior member of the ruling Pakistan People's Party in Sindh province.

Many Jihadists who had fled Karachi during September 2013 have started to trickle back in due to absence of proper police action in recent times.

"Any time Pakistan-India or Kashmir tensions flare, these groups mobilise in the heart of the city. You can't treat (LeT and JeM) as your friends in one part of the country and your enemies elsewhere," ICG quoted a recently retired senior provincial official as saying.

A police officer in Karachi was told ICG that "We tend to look at law and order challenges in isolation; we can't. We have to also look at (them) in the context of our foreign policy choices".

However, the pro-active and well funded jihadist groups in the city are tapping into young men who have no other ways of making a living leaving them with Jihad as the only prospect.