NEW YORK: The Pakistani army should concentrate on more crucial things, including permanently shutting down the Pakistan-based Kashmiri terrorist groups, rather than hunting down followers of slain Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a prominent US daily on Sunday said.
But any effort to deal with crucial things, 'The New York Times' points out, would stir up opposition in one part or another of the Pakistani military, the "only constituency that Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf, ever really cares about".
"So long as elections are brazenly rigged, opposition parties are banned and Washington's uncritical support remains guaranteed, Musharraf has little incentive to take up any of these vital challenges," the paper says.
"When Musharraf comes to the United States, he loves to be lauded as a leader in the war on terrorism. Back home, his government too often acts like a garden-variety military dictatorship."
In an editorial, the Times says the army needs to finally seal its "scandalously porous" border with Afghanistan, making it harder for the Taliban to infiltrate into that country, pointing out that they kill American, NATO and Afghan soldiers.
It could permanently shut down the Pakistan-based Kashmiri terrorist groups that have survived past crackdowns by reopening under new names, with little interference from Pakistani authorities. Not least, it could make a more serious effort to find and arrest Osama bin Laden, widely believed to have spent much of the past four and a half years on Pakistani soil, it says.
