'Pak nutured terror groups, army projected India as threat'

From Lalit K Jha
Washington, Jul 22 (PTI) Pakistan nurtured extremist
groups to fight "proxy irregular" war against India, while its
military benefited from presenting New Delhi as a threat, a
top Pentagon official told US lawmakers.
"Pakistan has viewed India itself and Indian (or any
other nation's) domination of Afghanistan as an existential
threat, and has taken steps it believes are necessary to
counter this threat, including developing nuclear weapons and
nurturing extremist groups to fight proxy irregular warfare,"
Admiral James A Winnefeld, the next vice chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, said in a written reply to lawmakers' query.
"That the Pakistani military benefits from presenting
India as a threat, and that there are many in the military who
sympathise with the extremist views of these groups, only
reinforces this tendency. Moreover, these groups fought hard
against the Soviets during their invasion of Afghanistan, and
thus the military bears a certain loyalty to them," he said.
The officials, however, said in supporting and tolerating
these terror groups the Pakistani military has grabbed the
"tail of a tiger" that they may not be able to control.
Winnefeld, during his confirmation hearing for the post
before a Congressional panel, said: "I believe it's very
unfortunate that Pakistan years ago made a decision to go down
a very risky road of using proxy groups to carry out some of
its desires to protect what it views as its own national
interests, and among those groups has been the Haqqani
Network."