Afghan jihad occurred at the behest of the United States and the West, top Pakistani cleric Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman has said.

Fazl, who is the head of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (F) party, said that the US and the West sought religious discord under the name of jihad.
The cleric, who has long been seen as a sympathizer of the Taliban, also did not rule that the Pakistani establishment supported militants.
“If there is any armed (group), wait for sometime, history will clearly tell if it was madrasa or our establishment behind the Talibanization in Pakistan and encouraging of youth toward gun,” Fazl said.
“It will become crystal clear what their purposes were, what they wanted to achieve,” he added.