Pakistan is using the narco-terror network Lashkar-e-Khorasan for ethnic cleansing, an American war veteran who has seen action in Afghanistan and Iraq, has said.
In his article published in Family Security Matters, US Army Reserve Col. (Retired) Lawrence Sellin says this outfit kills in the name of religion and operates with the approval of Islamabad.
"Lashkar-e-Khorasan is part of a narco-terrorist network, fueled by the opium trade and operates with the tacit approval of the Pakistan government," says Sellin in his article titled "Pakistan Uses Islamic State for opium-fuelled ethnic cleansing".
He opines that there are countless home-grown Pakistani Islamic terrorist groups that have emerged from the Sunni-Shia conflict, but recognising the usefulness of proxies, the Pakistan government has nurtured and deployed them to quell all forms of nationalist and ethnic unrest at home and also incorporated them as an element of its foreign policy, to carry out attacks India and Afghanistan.
Col. (Retired) Sellin further states in his article that the designated role of the Lashkar-e-Khorasan in southwest Balochistan has been to kill members of the secular independence movement and cleanse Balochistan of Sufi Zikris, Shia Hazaras, Hindus, Christians, Ahahmadis, Sikhs or anyone else who refuses to convert to the extreme form of Sunni Islam.
He further explains that the web of relationships between the Pakistan Government, Lashkar-e-Khorasan and drug traffickers is more complex.
He says that the leader of Lashkar-e-Khorasan is Mullah Shahmir Bizenjo, resident of Turbat and the son of Aziz Bizenjo, whose cousin is National Party President and Senator Hasil Bizenjo, currently Pakistan's Minister for Ports and Shipping.
The Daily Beast claims that one of the drug world's most notorious opium traffickers, also from Turbat, is Imam Bizenjo aka Imam Bheel, a National Party financier, whose son, Yaqoob Bizenjo, served as a member of the Pakistan National Assembly until 2013.
This region of southwest Pakistan is a major transit point for opium originating in Afghanistan reaching Gwadar and other ports on the Makran coast for worldwide distribution, all under the supervision of a relative of the Lashkar-e-Khorasan leader.
The Pakistan Frontier Corps have reportedly provided the outfit operating bases and whose soldiers have acted as reinforcements for Lashkar-e-Khorasan when it has been under assault by Baloch secular nationalists.
He suggests that support for the secular Balochistan independence movement would be a wiser alternative for Washington to help stop the spread of narco-terrorism than to continue to give Pakistan billions of dollars in aid, while it works against American interests in Afghanistan and supports jihadi criminals within its own borders.
It also makes no sense for the Central Intelligence Agency to fund directly Pakistani terrorist groups simply for pinprick attacks on Iran, he adds.
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