Publication

This paper sets out the historical, political, and strategic background to Pakistan's experiences with religiously motivated terrorism. The author demonstrates how previous Pakistani leaderships have exploited religious fervor and terrorist violence for their political and strategic purposes. This has made it difficult for President Pervez Musharraf to extract the terrorist fuse from the powder keg of Kashmir. The author argues that only progress in negotiations with India in the short term, and attention to Pakistan's social, economic, and governance-related problems in the longer term, can safeguard the country's stability and thus efficiently counter terrorist movements.