Pakistan haunted by jihadis in the closet

By Simon Cameron-Moore

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - They are Pakistan's version of Frankenstein's monster.

Secretly trained in guerrilla warfare by the army to fight Indian rule in Kashmir, jihadis have ruined Pakistan's international reputation, and fuelled militant violence that is threatening to destabilise the nuclear-armed state, analysts say.

International revulsion and Indian accusations over the slaughter of 183 people in Mumbai have put Pakistani authorities under immense pressure to uproot groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad.

Pakistan says these groups are no longer in the country, having been banned almost seven years ago, and denies anything more than diplomatic and moral support for Kashmiri freedom fighters.

Yet, analysts say, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has clung onto these assets, protecting them despite mounting evidence of links to al Qaeda's global jihad and the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

"They are all one," said Ahmed Rashid, author of "Descent into Chaos", a book that dissects how the region has been plunged into turmoil by Pakistan's use of militants left over from the Afghan jihad against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

Rashid believes the assault on Mumbai was possibly planned and sanctioned by al Qaeda and the Taliban, who want to create a strategic diversion to draw Pakistani forces away from the Afghan border where the militants have been pounded in recent months.

The groups that actually executed the attack were more likely taking orders, he said.