Pakistani President Asif Zardari Admits Creating Terrorist Groups
THE TELEGRAPH: Pakistan's president has admitted his country created terrorist groups to help achieve its foreign policy goals.

Asif Zardari told a meeting of former senior civil servants in Islamabad, it was time to be honest about their deployment.

"Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities," he said. "The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryears until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well."

These groups were not thrown up because of government weakness, but as a matter of policy. He said they were deliberately "created and nurtured" as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives.

His comments amount to an admission that Pakistan trained Islamic terrorists to launch attacks on India as part of its long war over its claim on Kashmir.

It came as at least 40 people were killed in a suspected US missile strike in north-west Pakistan.

Three US drones are believed to have fired missiles at militants near Ladha in South Waziristan. It is the third strike in two days and follows strikes in which 19 reportedly died.

Mr Zardari first confirmed that many of the Islamic militants now waging war against his government were once "strategic assets" in an interview with the Daily Telegraph earlier this week. >>> Dean Nelson, South Asia Editor | Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Pakistan Deal Enshrines Sharia Law
Women wearing burqas in North West Frontier Province. Photo courtesy of CNN
CNN: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari signed into law Monday a peace deal for the nation's violence-plagued Swat Valley, according to a presidential spokesman.

The deal implements Islamic law, or sharia, in the Swat Valley region of North West Frontier Province.

Last week, pro-Taliban cleric Sufi Mohammad announced he was pulling out of a peace deal for Swat Valley, saying the government was not serious about implementing Islamic law, or sharia, in the region.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Saturday the peace deal remained intact.

Mohammad brokered a cease-fire in February between the Pakistani government and his son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah, who commands the Taliban in Swat Valley.

Although details of the deal were not immediately available, it was understood that the area will come under the Taliban's strict interpretation of sharia. >>> | Monday, April 13, 2009

Taleban Winning War, Says Zardari
BBC: The Pakistani Taleban have "the upper hand" and should be put on the list of banned organisations in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, has said.

He says the world and Pakistan are losing the war on terror.

"It is an insurgency", he said, "and an ideological war. It is our country and we will defend it.

"The world is losing the war. I think at the moment they (the Taleban) definitely have the upper hand.

"The issue, which is not just a bad case scenario as far as Pakistan is concerned or as Afghanistan is concerned but it is going to be spreading further. The whole world is going to be affected by it." Taleban Winning War, Says Zardari >>> By Owen Bennett-Jones, BBC News, Islamabad | August 24, 2008

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