India's partition and 70 years of proxy jihad - DW

The use of proxy jihadis in the Indian sub-continent is as old as India and Pakistan's independence from British rule. 70 years after partition, the jihadist network has become so huge that it threatens both states.

In a recent interview with DW, Pakistani politician Imran Khan argued that the US intervention in Afghanistan is the main reason behind the rise of jihadi phenomenon in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Khan is only partly correct. The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Pakistani military's spy group, the ISI, collaborated closely in Afghanistan to defeat Soviet forces in the 1980s. Washington and Islamabad invested heavily in Afghan mujahideen (Afghan "holy warriors") and provided them militaristic and logistic support to fight the Moscow-backed government in Kabul. From the point of view of the US and Pakistan, it was a successful campaign. The mujahideen forced Soviet troops to retreat and were able to take control of the Afghan capital, Kabul. But what Khan and many others, who associate Afghan jihad with the Cold War's US-Soviet rivalry, gloss over is the fact that Pakistan's support for jihadis began as early as the country's independence in 1947. Analysts say it spiked in the 1950s and peaked in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. - Read More

India′s partition and 70 years of proxy jihad | Asia | DW | 14.08.2017

Opinion: The anniversary of hatred | Opinion | DW | 14.08.2017