Amid deteriorating India-Pak relations following the Uri terror attack, Pakistan’s ISI is recruiting Pakhtuns from the Khyber region to push them into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK) to quell any possible unrest there or fuel trouble inside Jammu & Kashmir in case India decides to conduct aggressive border patrolling or conducts surgical strikes, according to reliable Intelligence sources.
ISI agents have fanned out to Pakhtun-dominated Khyber Agency and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Balochistan to recruit the tribals on a large scale for undertaking an irregular warfare with India, said sources.
The Pak Air Force has conducted four F-16 sorties over Balochistan and even resorted to shelling at some places — following the Uri attack in which Pakistani terrorists martyred 18 Indian soldiers — in order to threaten the Balochs who are demanding freedom from Pakistani rule, said the source.
The ISI agents are visiting villages in Balochistan and Khyber region asking Pakhtuns to unite to deal with threat of strike by India, said the source, adding that the ISI might shift them to India-Pak border if tension escalates and use them to conduct operations in the POK. The ISI agents are also threatening Baloch villagers of dire consequences if they work against the Pakistan Government.
Meanwhile, terror groups like the JeM and the leT have started collecting donations from the public in various cities citing the threat of “war” with India.
Pakhtuns do not consider themselves as Pakistani citizens and identify themselves as Afghans. The ISI is assuring them that after the war with India, their issues and the border dispute with Afghanistan can be sorted out.
However, Pakhtuns are unhappy with the Pakistan Government’s policies towards them and may not fall in the trap of the ISI in large numbers. Only a gullible section of the Pakhtun populace can fall prey to the evil designs of the notorious spy agency, the source said.
The Pakistan Army is seeking to get a buffer from the Pakhtuns in POK and along the line of Control in case a war between the two neighbours takes place as major components of the Pakistani armed forces are concentrated along Pak-Afghanistan border.
Tribal Pakhtuns are highly skilled in warfare in view of their exposure to violent insurgency prevailing there and in Afghanistan. The Pakistan Army and the ISI keep using their services to contain dissident groups in the area and against foreign forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan had also used them in the war with India in 1948 in Kashmir, said the source.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as North-West Frontier Province) is closely identified with Pakhtuns, one of the largest tribal groups in the world. The Pakhtuns predominate in Balochistan and are also the major group in Khyber Agency besides southern Afghanistan.
The West has long been fascinated with the Pakhtuns, one of the few peoples able to defeat the advances of British imperialism. Authors as diverse as Rudyard Kipling and contemporary Pakistani anthropologist Akbar S Ahmed wrote about them. Pakhtun norms, values, and social organisation are extensively documented than any other ethnic group in Pakistan.