ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, July 8 (UPI) -- The Pakistani army is trying to win over the youth in Balochistan to deter them from joining the Taliban or the province's nationalist movement, officials say.
A CNN report likens the effort to the counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan to integrate Taliban if they give up violence and respect the constitution.
In Balochistan, Pakistan's largest province, the government is facing a nationalist insurgency against the military along with a growing Taliban presence, the report said.
"The whole exercise is to integrate the Balochi youth," Gen. Athar Abbas, a Pakistani army spokesman, told CNN.
"If you encourage people all over the province to join the army and the state system ... that is going to diffuse whatever insurgency is left in these parts."
Pakistani commanders said more than 3,500 Balochi troops have so far been recruited.
The program also includes education under which hundreds of civilian students are taught free at an army engineering school, the report said.
The province is rich in resources and their exploitation for years, with the government keeping the profits, was what led to the independence movement.
The army has reopened the mines extracting about $75 million worth of coal so far, with most of the profits being spent in the area itself, officials said.
Balochis, however, know the risk they face in the program. One tribal leader said he has been attacked 18 times for supporting the army.
