ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN - THEY are Pakistan's version of Frankenstein's monster.

Secretly trained in guerilla warfare by the army to fight Indian rule in Kashmir, Pakistan's jihadi groups have gone rogue - and are ruining the country's global reputation.

Worse, they are now fuelling domestic violence that threatens to destabilise the nuclear-armed state, analysts say.
World revulsion and Indian accusations of a role in the slaughter of 171 people in Mumbai have put Pakistan under immense pressure to uproot jihadi groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad.

Indeed, since Pakistani security forces crushed an Islamist militant movement at Islamabad's Red Mosque last year, the country has reeled from waves of suicide bombings and attacks launched by militants largely operating out of the tribal lands bordering Afghanistan.

These are strongholds of the Taleban and Al-Qaeda. But there are increasing signs that fighters from jihadi groups like Lashkar and Jaish - who are based in Pakistan's Punjab province - have moved in, too.

It is now felt Western counter-terrorism agencies with influence in Pakistan may have erred in focusing so heavily on the tribal-area networks, neglecting the jihadi groups in central and southern Punjab.

"The militant jihadi organisations that are in the Pakistani heartland, they are far more dangerous," said Ms Samina Ahmed, South Asia project director of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

President Asif Ali Zardari has asked the world to recognise Pakistan as a terror victim.

"Even if the militants are linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, who do you think we are fighting?" Mr Zardari told the Financial Times newspaper.

Yet, the truth is Lashkar is not one of the groups Pakistani security forces have been fighting.

And even if the civilian government wants to get rid of these groups, the military might baulk.

Civilians do not yet fully control the soldiers after over eight years under the thumb of former general Pervez Musharraf.

Lashkar was banned in 2002, after it was blamed, along with Jaish, for the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament that almost led to a fourth war with India.

But the ban was only in name: The leaders of Lashkar and Jaish have suffered only periodic spells of house arrest, and their ranks are as strong as ever, analysts say.

The government cracked down on militant groups that had openly turned against then-president Musharraf, but refused to see the ideological risk all the groups posed to any ambitions for Pakistan to become a progressive, modern Muslim nation. - REUTERS