Presence of Foreign Military Forces in Afghanistan and Spread of Sectarian Extremism in Pakistan (2001-2011)

Historically, extremism in Pakistan has been deeply influenced by regional developments around Pakistan. Hence, the main objective of the present paper is to show the mechanisms of the impact of presence of foreign military forces in Afghanistan in spread of sectarian extremism in Pakistan from 2001 to 2011. The findings of this research indicate that the entry of Afghan Taleban forces into the soil of Pakistan, the formation of Pakistan Taleban and the way of treatment of these groups other combatant groups by Pakistan and the United States have somehow intensified sectarian extremism in Pakistan. In order to quantitatively measure extremism two indexes of bombing and suicide attacks have been used. The hypothesis of this paper is that the presence of foreign military forces in Afghanistan after 2001 has caused the spread of sectarian extremism in Pakistan. This finding of this research sustains the hypothesis which is significant because the intra-national approaches which lay emphasis on economic factors such as poverty and unemployment, or religious factors such as the way of interpretation of the doctrine of Jihad in Islam do not offer a correct analysis of the causes of sectarian extremism in Pakistan. The research method applied in this study is documental based on existing statistics.