Pakistan's Punjab Heartland Alive with Extremist Groups, DAWN, 30 April 2010

EXCERPT: "Even the Pakistan army conducts military operations against Taliban guerrillas in northwest tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, banned al Qaida-linked groups are operating openly in the Pakistani heartland of Punjab, which itself has been the target of dozens of terror attacks. The province on Pakistan's eastern border with India is home to more than half the country's population and functions as its economic and political powerhouse, as well as the main recruiting ground for the military. It is the stronghold of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who leads the opposition to President Asif Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party, which rules nationally from Islamabad. Critics accuse Sharif and his brother, the chief minister, of accommodating extremist groups like Sipah-e-Sahaba, a banned sectarian group blamed for the killing of hundreds of Shiites, the minority sect of Islam. The Sharifs draw political support from the religious right."

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