Mon, May 20, 2013 07:10:37 AM
Bangkok Post
Mon, May 20, 2013 07:10:37 AM
Bangkok Post
ISLAMABAD : The Pakistani Taliban Thursday threatened to attack Myanmar to avenge crimes against the Muslim Rohingya, unless Pakistan halts all relations with the Naypyidaw government and shuts the Myanmar embassy in Islamabad.
It was the first time in memory that the Taliban had ever threatened to go outside the Pakistan-Afghanistan area to launch terrorist attacks.In a rare statement focused on the plight of Muslims abroad, the umbrella Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) group sought to present itself as a defender of Muslim men and women in Myanmar, saying "we will take revenge of your blood".Spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan demanded that the Pakistani government halt all relations with Myanmar and close down its embassy in Islamabad."Otherwise we will not only attack Burmese interests anywhere but will also attack the Pakistani fellows of Burma one by one," he said in a statement.The Myanmar embassy in Islamabad could not be reached for comment.The TTP frequently claims attacks on security forces in Pakistan but its ability to wage violence in countries further afield is untested.US officials say there is evidence the group was behind a failed 2010 attempt by a US resident to bomb Times Square in New York. Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad was jailed for life.TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud has also been charged in the United States over the killings of seven CIA agents who died when a Jordanian Al-Qaeda double agent blew himself up at a US base in Afghanistan in December, 2009.Recent clashes in western Myanmar between Buddhist ethnic Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya have left dozens dead and tens of thousands homeless.Last week, Amnesty International said hundreds of people, mostly men and boys, have been detained in sweeps of areas heavily populated by the Rohingya, with almost all held incommunicado and some ill-treated.Most arrests appear to have been "arbitrary and discriminatory" and Amnesty said there were "credible reports" of abuses against the Rohingya population - including rape, destruction of property and unlawful killings - by both Rakhine Buddhists and the security forces.Decades of discrimination have left the Rohingya stateless, and they are viewed by the United Nations as one of the world's most persecuted minorities.Myanmar President Thein Sein, just days before he began a three-day visit to Thailand last Sunday, called for the deportation of all 800,000 Rohingya, saying their presence in Myanmar was unacceptable."It is impossible to accept the illegally entered Rohingyas, who are not our ethnicity,'' he told UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.He referred to mass deportation of all Rohingya as "the only solution to the issue".
