BENAZIR Income support program

ISLAMABAD: Stung by fresh US criticism of its ability to defeat the Taliban on the Afghan border, Pakistan is turning to women in its latest bid to quell the terror threat and reduce poverty.

The government’s Benazir Income Support Program is designating 750 million dollars, nearly half from US coffers, to create jobs and avoid poverty by providing women with funds for food, health and training in the tribal belt.

The region is the world’s premier breeding ground for Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants and where Western governments believe the majority of terror plots are hatched.It is also home to some of the lowest social indicators in the world.

Girls’ schools have been blown up, while extremists reportedly barred nearly half a million women from voting in Pakistan’s last election in 2008. Farzan Raja, head of the income support program, said that,

“Poverty is the main reason for extremism and terrorism”

“We will provide these people with skills instead of Kalashnikovs.” Beyond direct government control and seen as a refuge for Taliban networks fighting US-led troops in Afghanistan, the tribal belt is on the front line of a covert and deeply controversial US drone war against militant commanders.

“We need to solve the problems of these people and eliminate poverty from these sensitive districts more rapidly than in other parts of the country.” Several would-be beneficiaries in Bajaur, where Pakistan’s fight against the Taliban was criticized by the White House last week, welcomed the program.