Masood Azhar, the Jaish-e-Muhammad chief has called for jihadist and militant groups to be allowed to launch offensives against India. Published in Jaish weekly al-Qalam, it said, “If the government of Pakistan shows a little courage, “the problem of Kashmir, as well as the dispute over water, can be resolved once and for all right now.
In a front-page article, Azhar writes, “a lack of decisive decision-making” could rob Pakistan of a “historic opportunity” to seize Kashmir. Amid tensions between India and Pakistan, this article hints the latent support given by the Pakistani government to the jihadist groups. “If the government of Pakistan shows a little courage,” Azhar writes in a front-page article in the magazine, “the problem of Kashmir, as well as the dispute over water, can be resolved once and for all right now. If nothing else, the government simply has to open the path for the mujahideen. Then, god willing, all the bitter memories of 1971 will be dissolved into the triumphant emotions of 2016.”
Azhar also talks about the policy establishments of both the countries and says, that the jihadist policies have brought strategic benefits to Pakistan. Referring to India, he writes;
“What remained of its military prowess was exposed in Pathankot and Uri.”
“India is putting pressure on Pakistan at this time. Looking at the situation in Kashmir, though, Pakistan should have been doing all this. Given that Kashmir is our jugular vein, we should have cancelled the SAARC conference ourselves, and cancelled the ceasefire on the Line of Control. In the last ninety days, how many Muslims have been martyred, and how many more injured?”
The article argues that jihadist operations in Kashmir have significantly eroded India’s military capacities. “Consider India before and after the jihad in Kashmir”, Azhar writes. “You will see a dramatic difference. In the course of this journey, which I have been an eyewitness to, I have seen India reduced from a serpent to an earthworm.”
Azhar’s article also addresses the Jaish’s Islamist constituency within Pakistan, reassuring it that the wheels of history are moving its way. “When we entered the tent of the jihadist movement,” he writes, “it had no branch in Kashmir, nor was there lightning in Iraq or Syria. There were just two fronts, in Afghanistan and Palestine, one of them active and one of them shut.”
“We have watched as the jihad we befriended grew from a glowing ember into the sun; from a small spring into a river, and now, as it is about to become a great ocean,” he writes.
