Former Pakistan president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf has admitted to training Kashmiri militants to fight against Indian Army, according to reports. Citing an unverified video clip, news agency ANI reported that Musharraf called terrorists like Osama bin Laden and Jalaluddin Haqqani "Pakistani heroes". The video clip was shared on Twitter by Pakistan politician Farhatullah Babar on Wednesday.
Musharraf can be heard saying "...In 1979, we had introduced religious militancy in Afghanistan to benefit Pakistan and to push Soviet out of the country. We brought Mujahideen from all over the world, we trained them, supplied weapons. They were our heroes. Haqqani was our hero. Osama bin Laden was our hero. Then the environment was different but now it is different. Heroes have turned to villains."
Gen Musharraf blurts that militants were nurtured and touted as 'heroes' to fight in Kashmir. If it resulted in destruction of two generations of Pashtuns it didn't matter. Is it wrong to demand Truth Commission to find who devised self serving policies that destroyed Pashtuns? https://t.co/5Q2LOvl3yb
— Farhatullah Babar (@FarhatullahB) November 13, 2019
While talking about unrest in Kashmir, the self-exiled dictator said, "Kashmiris who came to Pakistan received hero reception here. We used to train them and support them. We considered them as Mujahideen who will fight with the Indian Army then various terrorist organisations like Lashkar-e-Taiba rose in this period. They were our heroes."
Terror funding
The Paris-based global terror watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in October issued a fresh deadline of February 2020 to India's nuclear-armed neighbour Pakistan to act against terror funding.
The anti-terror watchdog said that Pakistan has failed in complying with 22 out of 27 suggested action plans to curb terrorism. FATF sent a strong warning to Islamabad, which got the four months time after it was warned of action if it fails to complete its full action plan.
