NO one would disagree with Owen Bennett-Jones (Aug 25) that politicians have themselves repeatedly appeased the jihadis, but it may not be fair to blame them alone.

Let us be realistic — nothing happened without a green signal from the relevant powers once General (later Field Marshal) Ayub Khan took the additional charge of defence minister in 1954.

Decades later, there were many political parties and leaders who strongly opposed the grant of $30m to Samiul Haq’s Madressah Haqqani. Similarly, the official stand vis-a-vis Abdul Aziz Ghazi has been mysterious. And who knows if there is still somebody in the background arranging colossal doles to Maulana Samiul Haq or if some big portion of this amount is meant for some other entity. Only a future audit, if any, of the Haqqani Madressah will reveal the real facts.

Another side of the affair, ignored by Mr Bennett-Jones, needs to be highlighted. It is a fact that originally it was the Western powers which in their own interests gave billions of dollars to various Pakistani organisations to sponsor, finance, train and arm jihadis and extremists to fight Soviet forces in Afghanistan, which they invaded in 1979. In fact, Muslim fundamentalists, Christian neocons and others joined hands to fight Soviet atheists. Now during the post-Soviet era every group claims and insists that they are the real believers in God and others need to be eliminated. Hence they are after each other’s blood!

It would be unrealistic indeed to ignore the role of some Western and Middle Eastern countries in creating this modern-day evil!

Nasser Brohi

Karachi.

Published in Dawn September 1st, 2016