Nuclear Islamic State? Pakistan: The Taliban takeover

If Pakistan has Nukes, and it does, so does The Taliban.

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"They aim at nothing less than to cleanse Pakistan and turn it into a pure Islamic state," says Rashed Rahman, executive editor of the Lahore-based Post newspaper.

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"Serve Islam," they reply in unison. "We will dedicate our lives to jihad."

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Ziauddin Sardar
Published 30 April 2007

Pakistan is reverberating with the call of jihad. Taliban-style militias are spreading rapidly out from provinces in the far north-west. The danger to the country and to the rest of the world is escalating.

"You must understand," says Maulana Sami ul-Haq, "that Pakistan and Islam are synonymous." The principal of Darul Uloom Haqqania, a seminary in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), is a tall and jovial man. He grabs my hand as he takes me round the seminary. Maulana ul-Haq laughs when I ask his views on jihad. "It is the duty of all Muslims to support those groups fighting against oppression," he says.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200704300025