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SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 1, No. 11, September 30, 2002
Data and
assessments from SAIR can be freely published in any form
with credit to the South Asia Intelligence Review of the
South Asia Terrorism Portal
|
|
J&K Elections 2002 - Phase II:
September 24, 2002
Voter turnout (in %)
District
|
Assembly
Segment
|
Poll
%age
|
2002
|
1996
|
SRINAGAR
|
16-Kangan
|
51.92
|
63.47
|
|
17-Gandarbal
|
35.24
|
50.79
|
18-Hazratbal
|
7.12
|
23.78
|
19-Zadibal
|
4.65
|
27.86
|
20-Idgah
|
4.7
|
20.14
|
21-Khaniyar
|
4.22
|
12.79
|
22-Habbakadal
|
1.64
|
17.17
|
23-Amrakadal
|
3.07
|
12.65
|
24-Sonawar
|
9.96
|
34.71
|
25-Batamaloo
|
4.02
|
19.72
|
10
|
11.04
|
26.26
|
BUDGAM
|
26-Chadoora
|
52.45
|
62.74
|
|
27-Budgam
|
33.65
|
67.45
|
28-Beerwah
|
35.05
|
71.13
|
29-Khanshaib
|
49.52
|
63.61
|
30-Charari-Sharief
|
63.33
|
64.39
|
5
|
45.98
|
66.22
|
JAMMU
|
68-Samba
|
58.78
|
57.79
|
|
69-Vijaypur
|
64.79
|
70.04
|
70-Nagrota
|
64.04
|
66.48
|
71-Gandhinagar
|
48.59
|
50.84
|
72-Jammu East
|
38.69
|
47.21
|
73-Jammu West
|
39.16
|
43.43
|
74-Bisnah
|
68.44
|
72.1
|
75-RS Pura
|
61.76
|
69.03
|
76-Suchetgarh
|
70.75
|
73.71
|
77-Marh
|
69.65
|
72.64
|
78-Raipur Domana
|
61.04
|
63.08
|
79-Akhnoor
|
71.91
|
74.04
|
80-Chhamb
|
72.09
|
74.86
|
13
|
57.83
|
61.35
|
|
TOTAL (28)
|
40.6
|
50.56
|
*
Provisional figures, subject to final verification by
the Election Commission of India.
Source: Election
Commission of India
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|
Gujarat:
New Theatre of Islamist Terror
K.P.S. Gill
President, Institute for Conflict Management
Whether by
accident or design, even as the second phase of elections
was unfolding in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) on September 24, 2002,
two terrorists launched an attack in the Akshardham Temple
of the Swaminarayan sect of Hindus, one of the most hallowed
temples in the western Indian State of Gujarat. They first
lobbed grenades and opened indiscriminate fire on the devotees
in the crowded hour of the evening aarti (prayer),
and then, as darkness fell, entered into a protracted exchange
of fire with security forces that lasted through the night.
They were eventually killed at dawn by a crack team of the
National Security Guard, but only after they had taken the
lives of 32 persons, including 16 women and four children,
and injured at least another 74. With this outrage, militant
Islamists opened up one more theatre of terrorism on Indian
soil.
There has been a certain inevitability about a terrorist attack
in Gujarat for some time now. The international pressure on
Pakistan to curb cross border terrorism in J&K has mounted
substantially since 9/11 - and can be expected to increase
further after the very credible election process in that State.
Under the circumstances, it had become necessary to extend
the terrorist campaign to other theatres to maintain the cover
of deniability, and to project the fiction that Islamist terrorism
in this country is an 'indigenous' outcome of the frustrations
and despair of the Muslim community. The tragic and indefensible
slaughters after the Godhra carnage of February 27, 2002,
in the retaliatory riots in Gujarat through the months of
March and April, made this State the highest priority in this
process, since it is here that Pakistan can most plausibly
claim that the violence is 'indigenous', the result of local
Muslim anger against the post-Godhra atrocities. It is significant
that the Akshardham incident occurred within days after General
Pervez Musharraf brought up the issue of the Gujarat riots
in his address to the United Nations. Gujarat, however, will
not be the last or only destination of such violence - more
and more concentrations of Muslim populations will be targeted
in this strategy to project to the world that Muslims in India
are spontaneously resorting to violence as a result of their
growing frustrations in 'Hindu India'.
This, precisely, is why the perpetrators of the Akshardham
Temple outrage identified themselves as members of an entirely
unknown organization, the Tehreek-e-Qisas or 'movement for
revenge', although there is preliminary evidence to suggest
that they were linked to existing Pakistan based terrorist
proxies operating on Indian soil. More significantly, there
has been continuous evidence of recurrent efforts by Pakistan
backed Islamist extremist groupings to engineer terrorist
incidents in Gujarat in the months since the riots in this
State. Thus,
-
On August
28, 2002, Farhan Ahmad of Moradabad (Uttar Pradesh) and
Shahid Ahmed Bakshi of Ahmedabad were arrested from the
Nizamuddin area in Delhi with four kilogrammes of RDX, a
pistol, two detonators and ammunition. Interrogation reports
indicated that they were linked to the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)
and were tasked to go to Gujarat and to assassinate Chief
Minister Narendra Modi and some senior members of the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad (World Council of Hindus, VHP) and Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Ahmad and Bakshi had been recruited
while they were working in Kuwait, by three Pakistani LeT
members identified as Basharat, Faheem and Mujahid-ul-Islam.
Farhan had undergone training in Muzaffarabad (Pakistan
occupied Kashmir, PoK) as far back as in 1998, and was a
specialist in illegal fund transfers from Kuwait to various
recipients in India. He had returned to India in May 2002
to mobilize support in madrassas (seminaries) in Tanda,
Rattanpura, Umrikalan and Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, and
to motivate these institutions to accept and retain Muslim
youth orphaned during the Gujarat riots until they could
be trained to join the jehad. In July 2002, Farhan had visited
relief camps in Gujarat and identified at least 33 boys
for possible recruitment. Bakshi, in turn, had received
substantial funds to purchase a tanker for 'milk collection'
in the Kutch-Bhuj areas of Gujarat, which was intended to
be used for transporting arms and explosives clandestinely
inducted from Pakistan, to urban centers in the State.
-
On August
4, 2002, security forces arrested Mohammed Maqbool Joiya
@ Bashir Joiya, a Pakistani terrorist of the Jaish-e-Mohammed
(JeM)
from Kotla, under Khavda police station limits, Kutch district,
Gujarat. Maqbool, a native of Saiwal in Pakistani Punjab,
had infiltrated into India via Jammu. He had trained with
the JeM at camps at Kotli (PoK) and later at an Inter Services
Intelligence (ISI) training camp at Sensa, and was 'launched'
into J&K along with a group of eight terrorists. He initially
operated in Rajouri in that State, and was involved in an
encounter with Village Defence Committee (VDC) members in
the district. He was surveying infiltration / exfiltration
possibilities on the Kutch border in Gujarat in an effort
to identify new routes and operational bases.
-
On May
10, 2002, Delhi Special Commissioner of Police (Intelligence)
K.K. Paul disclosed that five terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Toiba
(LeT) [two of whom were killed in an encounter in Delhi
on May 9] had plans to target VVIPs and industrial interests
in Delhi and were operating under a changed name of Tehreek-bin-Zaid.
He also indicated that the terrorists planned to rope in
Muslim youth from Gujarat into militancy, as they apparently
visualised the State as a 'fertile ground' for recruitment
into terrorist organisations in view of the recent communal
violence there.
-
In early
May, intelligence agencies in J&K intercepted communications
between the Lashkar-e-Toiba and their handlers in Pakistan.
The LeT cadres were being instructed to send groups to execute
acts of terrorism in Gujarat, and also to identify and mobilize
potential recruits among the victims and survivors of the
Gujarat riots.
These are only
a handful of the recent intelligence breakthroughs that prevented
acts of terrorism from taking place in Gujarat, and are part
of a much larger plan that extends well beyond this State, and
that predates the Gujarat riots by many years. Since 1998, for
instance, Central intelligence and State police units charged
with countering Pakistan-backed terrorism in India outside the
State of Jammu & Kashmir, have identified and dismantled at
least 162 terrorist and support modules [1998: 29; 1999: 30;
2000: 25; 2001: 59; 2002 (till September 25): 19] located virtually
across the country. These figures relate only to terrorist and
terrorist support activities, and do not include arrests relating
to subversion and espionage charges.
Despite these successes, it is in the nature of terrorism that
someone will eventually slip through even the most elaborate
intelligence and security net. As the Provisional Irish Republican
Army (PIRA) said to the then British Prime Minister, Margaret
Thatcher, "We only have to be lucky once. You will have to be
lucky always." This is what manifested itself at Akshardham
- one more among the many occasions on which the terrorists
'got lucky'. Such occasions, regrettably, will repeat themselves
again and again, as long as the motives, the incentives and
the external support for terrorism survive.
Jammu
& Kashmir Elections: Macabre Scorecard
Guest Writer:
Praveen Swami, in Srinagar
Chief of Bureau, Mumbai, Frontline
Cynics
contend that all politicians want is to make a quick buck.
If that's true, those contesting the ongoing Jammu & Kashmir
(J&K) elections might do well to consider that there are
easier and safer ways of making a living. What journalists
wryly call the 'scoreboard' - the register of fatalities
in terrorist violence - has continued to grow each day.
Many of the targets have been high-profile candidates.
On September 28, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)
attempted to assassinate the Nationalist Congress Party
candidate from Devsar, in southern Kashmir. She, along with
her brother, was critically injured; her father and three
others died in the explosion. The day before that, her party
colleague Abdul Gani Veeri was attacked at Bijbehara. And
the day before that, another National Conference (NC) candidate,
Ayesha Nishat, was fired on at Wachi. The previous day,
terrorists fired on the Congress (I)'s Mohammad Shafi Banday
and the National Conference's Sheikh Rafiq, both standing
from Shopian.
No major attacks took place on September 22, apart from
the murder of an inconsequential NC activist, Ghulam Mohammad
Parrey in Beerwah. No surprise that terrorist groups felt
the need for a little peace and quiet, since September 21
had been a particularly busy day: Minister of State for
Tourism, Sakina Itoo, escaped a fourth attempt on her life
near Meerhama, in Kulgam. A 22-year-old villager, Maimoona
Akhtar, who had come out to support Itoo was killed, along
with a police constable. Before dawn the same morning, two
Communist Party of India (Marxist) cadres were also killed
by terrorists, along with a two-person truck crew from Punjab
who had nothing whatsoever to do with the elections.
With the total numbers of political activists killed in
acts of terror specifically directed against the ongoing
election process now at over 81, few people in their right
minds ought to have any reason to vote. And yet, some 41
per cent of voters chose to do so in the second phase of
polling, conducted on September 24 in districts of Jammu
and Srinagar (over 47 per cent had voted earlier, in the
first phase). While fewer voters came out in the core urban
segments of Srinagar, which gave birth to the rebellion
of 1988-1992, participation was high in the surrounding
countryside. Abdul Gani Bhat, the chairperson of the secessionist
coalition, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC),
attributed the levels of voting to coercion by security
forces in some areas and to the existence of a 'personality
cult' in others.
Both arguments are fairly easy to debunk. Bhat's 'cult'
reference was directed at the Shia religious leader Aga
Rohullah, whose father Aga Syed Mehdi was assassinated by
terrorists last year. But Shia voters were also protesting
Sunni chauvinism of the kind symbolised by the assassination
and, indeed, by Bhat's remarks. More important, Rohullah
supports the National Conference, and many Shia communities,
traditional Congress (I) voters who are often relatively
less affluent than their Sunni counterparts, hope the new
political alignment will yield tangible developmental benefits.
Debunking the notion of state coercion of voters to exercise
their franchise is a problem even easier to address. First,
there were few credible accounts of such coercion having
taken place, and no reporters' eyewitness accounts whatsoever.
Second, it is hard to understand why, if the Indian Army
exercised such coercive pressure, turnout was still so low
in some areas where such pressure is alleged to have been
exerted. The only explanation would be that residents of
the Kashmir Valley are, in some neighbourhoods, inherently
more terrified of the state than in adjoining areas - a
dubious explanation at best. Even more curious, individuals
allegedly 'coerced' by soldiers to vote nevertheless felt
free to hold demonstrations against the elections and even
chant anti-India slogans in front of those very soldiers.
Finally, proponents of the thesis need to consider one simple
issue: if the Indian Army was able to so easily terrify
an entire population on September 24, it would have long
ago succeeded in crushing the insurgency now underway for
over 13 years.
Sadly, the media has paid little attention to the very real
terrorist coercion evident through J&K to prevent participation
in the voting: threats rendered credible by the fact that,
while not one member of anti-election political groups has
been shot at, killings of pro-election individuals and leaders
have been widespread. This fact is likely to be crucial
to voter turnout in the third phase of elections in the
hard-hit areas of southern Kashmir.
It has passed largely unnoticed that these elections have
attracted a rich spectrum of ideological interests. While
secessionist groups like the People's Conference and Kashmir
Revival Movement have elements formally participating, a
large number of pro-independence figures, pro-Pakistan figures,
one-time terrorists and individuals with current links to
terrorist groups have entered the election theatre through
the medium of mainstream opposition parties. Southern Kashmir,
in particular, has seen a good deal of behind-the-scenes
deal making with local terrorist groups, particularly the
Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM).
This is, without dispute, the most politically inclusive
election J&K has seen in decades. Terrorist violence and
intimidation is, sadly, depriving the people of the State
of the opportunity to have an election that is as inclusive
in terms of grassroots participation as well.
The
Terror Targets Christians
Guest
Writer: Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science,
Stockholm University
On
September 25, 2002, gunmen entered the offices of the
Idara-e-Amn-o-Insaf (Institute for Peace and Justice),
a Pakistani Christian charity located in the country's
biggest city, Karachi. Victims were tied up in chairs
with their hands behind their backs, their mouths taped,
before being shot point-blank in the head, according
to Karachi Police Chief Kamal Shah. Early police reports
suggested that three of the victims were Muslims, though
subsequently all seven were claimed to be Christians.
Shah stated that the police were questioning an office
assistant who was tied up and beaten by the attackers,
but not shot. He is being questioned on how the gunmen
got into the office, which had an electronic door that
could only be opened from the inside. The office assistant
told the police there were two gunmen involved in the
shooting. The Christian group has been in operation
for 30 years, working with poor municipal and textile
workers to press for basic worker rights, and organizing
programs with local human rights groups.
Pakistani Information Minister Nisar Memon condemned
the attack, saying those who carried it out were enemies
of Pakistan. He also extended the assurance that Pakistan's
cooperation with the world community in the war against
terrorism would continue. In subsequent statements,
the police and even General Pervez Musharraf have suggested
that the Indian intelligence agency, the Research &
Analysis Wing (R&AW), could be behind the latest killings.
However, senior Pakistani journalist M.B. Naqvi has
suggested that the killers are probably militant Islamists.
This month, police in Karachi had arrested 23 members
of Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen Al-Almi, which is believed to
be behind many of the attacks in recent months. There
is no doubt that General Musharraf has not been able
to crush all the militants, and reports of various assassination
attempts on him have also been circulating in the Press.
It is widely suspected that the militants continue to
receive help and protection from disgruntled elements
within the Army and the secret services, though the
possibility of a coup against Musharraf remains remote.
3.8 million Christians constitute some 2.5 per cent
of Pakistan's total population. Concentrated mainly
in the Punjab and in the port city of Karachi, most
of them belong to the poorest sections of society. Mission
hospitals and schools have been the main avenue for
social mobility for those among them who succeed in
getting an education. Very few openings are possible
for them in the mainstream public and private sectors,
where religious and caste prejudices against them abound.
The climate against the minorities in Pakistan began
to harden during the regime of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
(1977-88). He introduced a system of separate electorates
in 1985 under which Christians and other non-Muslims
voted separately for reserved seats for non-Muslims
in the various legislative assemblies. The Blasphemy
Law of 1986 made any insult to Islam or the Prophet
Muhammad a penal offence punishable with death. Over
the years, many Christians have been charged with blasphemy,
and although death sentences passed in the lower courts
have been commuted to lesser sentences or acquittals,
the general atmosphere has become increasingly hostile.
Violent attacks on Christian churches and property have
been occurring since the late 1980s.
General Musharraf, who captured power in a coup on October
12, 1999, was widely believed to favour a modern type
of Islam, and he initially made some remarks in that
direction. This resulted in loud protests from the Islamists
who had been enjoying state patronage for many years.
The result was that Musharraf quickly retreated to a
policy of inaction vis-à-vis the various Islamist groups.
These extremists had, for years, been operating in Afghanistan
and Indian-administered Kashmir. Almost all of them
adhered to a puritanical type of militant Sunni Islam.
The Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)
and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM)
were the biggest among these. They openly conducted
their propaganda and recruited cadres from bases in
various parts of Pakistan, and the Inter Services Intelligence
(ISI) and some senior army officers were directly involved
in the activities of these groups.
After September 11, 2001, General Musharraf decided
to abandon the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and Pakistan
joined the anti-terrorism coalition. The Americans were
offered all help, including access to military airfields
and seaports. Such a dramatic reversal of policy was
greatly resented by the Islamists who organized mass
protests all over Pakistan. Things came to a head on
October 7, when the bombing of Afghanistan began. The
fall of the Taliban regime and the liquidation of the
Al
Qaeda network on Afghan territory made the
Pakistani Islamists look for revenge. They began to
target native Christians and Westerners.
Thus, on October 28, 2001, gunmen opened fire on Christian
worshippers in Bahawalpur, a town in southern Punjab.
16 Christians were killed and many injured. The culprits
managed to escape and were never captured. On March
17, 2002 a grenade attack took place on a Protestant
church in a heavily guarded diplomatic quarter of Islamabad,
resulting in the death of five people. Among the dead
were an American woman who worked at the US embassy
and her 17-year-old daughter. On May 8, 2002, a suicide
bomber killed 11 French Engineers. On June 14, a bomb
exploded outside the US Consulate in Karachi, killing
12 Pakistanis. On August 9, assailants hurled grenades
at worshippers leaving a church on the grounds of a
Presbyterian hospital in Taxila, 25 miles northwest
of Islamabad. Four nurses were killed and 25 people
wounded. Four days earlier, attackers had raided a Christian
school 40 miles east of Islamabad. Six persons were
killed in that outrage.
Western governments, church leaders and human rights
organizations have protested against the continuing
violence against Christians and Westerners in Pakistan.
The European Union and the United Nations have expressed
great concern over the fact that Pakistan has been converted
into a base by terrorists. The reaction from Washington,
however, has been more muted. It seems that the Americans
do not want to destabilize the present Pakistani government,
whose cooperation in the campaign against Al Qaeda has
been to their full satisfaction.
|
Weekly Fatalities:
Major conflicts in South Asia
September 23-29,
2002
|
Security
Force Personnel
|
Civilian
|
Terrorist
|
Total
|
INDIA |
28
|
55
|
61
|
144
|
Gujarat |
3
|
29
|
2
|
34
|
Jammu & Kashmir |
25
|
23
|
44
|
92
|
Karnataka |
0
|
0
|
5
|
5
|
Left-wing extremism |
0
|
3
|
2
|
5
|
Manipur |
0
|
0
|
7
|
7
|
Meghalaya |
0
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
BANGLADESH |
0
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
NEPAL |
3
|
8
|
177
|
188
|
PAKISTAN |
0
|
8
|
2
|
10
|
Provisional data compiled
from English language media sources.
|
BANGLADESH
125 injured
in bomb explosions in Satkhira town: Media reports said approximately
125 persons were injured in two bomb explosions that occurred
separately at a cinema hall and a circus in Satkhira town on September
28, 2002. Police suspect involvement of the Islamic Shashantantra
Andolon (ISA) group in these incidents. The ISA had reportedly
been holding a series of agitations against the circus and hall
authorities accusing them of holding 'indecent shows' and screening
pornographic movies. Unconfirmed reports said about ten persons
have been killed in these attacks. The
Daily Star, September 29, 2002.
Seven Arabs arrested for suspected international terrorist
links: The Detective Branch (DB) of Bangladesh Police is reportedly
interrogating seven Arab nationals, arrested in Uttara Model Town
in Dhaka on September 23, 2002, for suspected international terrorist
links. A Bangladeshi national was also arrested along with the
seven Arabs from the Al Hermann Islamic Institute. The
Daily Star, September 26, 2002.
INDIA
Five terrorists
involved in 1998 Coimbatore blast killed in Bangalore encounter:
Five terrorists, including Imam Ali and four of his associates,
involved in the February 1998 bomb blast in Coimbatore, Tamil
Nadu, were killed in an encounter in the Sanjaynagar area of Bangalore,
capital city of Karnataka State, on September 29, 2002. 13 Police
personnel were also injured during this encounter. The terrorists
belonged to the newly floated Al-Mujahideen group. Preliminary
investigations and telephonic intercepts have reportedly revealed
that the group had planned to assassinate the Deputy Prime Minister,
L K Advani, the Union Human Resource Development Minister, Murli
Manohar Joshi, and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader, Ashok Singhal.
Imam Ali, a native of Tamil Nadu and trained by Pakistan's Inter
Services Intelligence (ISI), had escaped police custody at Thirumangalam
near Madurai in Tamil Nadu on March 7, 2002. Ali also allegedly
masterminded the bomb blast at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) headquarters in Chennai in August 1993. Times
of India, September 30, 2002.
Pakistani terrorists involved in Gujarat temple-attack:
Security agencies have reportedly identified the two terrorists
responsible for the attack on the Akshardham temple of the Swaminarayan
sect in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, on September 24, 2002, as those
belonging to Pakistan. The two slain attackers were identified
as Mohammed Amjad Bhai and Hafiz Yasir, who hailed from Lahore
and Attock respectively in Pakistan. Reports said the identification
of terrorists was established on the basis of intercepts from
across the border when a commando operation was on to flush them
out of the temple on September 24 night. The police have also
detained the driver and the owner of the car used by the terrorists.
Press
Trust of India, September 28, 2002.
34 persons killed in terrorist attack on temple in Gandhinagar,
Gujarat: An estimated 32 persons were killed and nearly 100
injured when terrorists attacked the Akshardham temple of the
Swaminarayan sect in Gandhinagar, capital of Gujarat, on September
24. The terrorists gained entry into the temple complex at around
5 pm and after lobbing hand grenades opened indiscriminate fire.
They moved from the exhibition complex to the main temple before
climbing and taking positions on the rooftop. The commando operation
by National Security Guards (NSG) to flush out the terrorists
ended on September 25 morning, with the killing of the two terrorists.
Documents recovered from the possession of the two slain terrorists
indicated that they belonged to a hitherto unknown terrorist group
called Tehreek-e-Qisas-Gujarat (Movement for Revenge in Gujarat).
The
Hindu, September 25, 2002.
ULFA 'general secretary' sentenced to seven years imprisonment
by Bangladesh court: United Liberation Front of Asom 'general
secretary' Anup Chetia and two of his associates were sentenced
to seven years imprisonment by a court in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on
September 24, 2002. They were convicted for 'illegal possession'
of a satellite phone. Dhaka police had arrested them in December
1997. The ULFA terrorists are already serving a six year-jail
term there for other offences, including illegal entry into the
country, possession of forged passports and fake foreign currencies
of 16 countries. Outlook,
September 24, 2002.
CBI team leaves for Lisbon to seek deportation of Mafia don
Abu Salem: A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team has
left for the Portugal capital Lisbon on September 23, 2002, to
seek the deportation of Mafia don Abu Salem. Official sources
said that a two-member team had left with some documents that
would help in convincing Portuguese authorities about Salem's
involvement in the 1993-Mumbai serial bomb blasts. Outlook,
September 24, 2002.
NEPAL
74 Maoist insurgents killed
in Rolpa district: The Defence Ministry said on September
25, 2002, that troops of the Royal Nepal Army killed at least
74 Maoist insurgents in a major military operation in Rolpa
district, on September 23, 2002. The dead bodies of 24 slain
insurgents have reportedly been recovered by troops while the
insurgents had carried away the others. Nepal
News, September 25, 2002.
PAKISTAN
Mullah Omar
and bin Laden alive, claims Taliban ex-Envoy: Naseer Ahmed
Roohi, a former Taliban diplomat claimed in Peshawar on September
27, 2002, that 'supreme leader' Mullah Mohammad Omar and Al Qaeda
chief Osama bin Laden were both alive and in good physical condition.
Roohi, who also heads the Tehreek Jamiat Shababul Muslimeen (Movement
of Young Muslims), made the claim at a press conference held at
an unidentified location in the Peshawar region. He claimed he
met Mullah Omar 15 days ago inside Afghanistan, but refused to
disclose the exact location. Dawn,
September 28, 2002.
Seven Christians killed in Karachi terrorist attack: Seven
Christians were killed and three others injured on September 25,
2002, when two unidentified terrorists attacked the office of
the Idara Aman-o-Insaaf (Institute for Peace and Justice), a Christian
charity, located at Rimpa Plaza, Karachi. Dawn,
September 26, 2002.
|
The South
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on terrorism, insurgencies and sub-conventional warfare,
on counter-terrorism responses and policies, as well as
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the South Asian region.
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and the
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Asia Terrorism Portal.
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South Asia Intelligence
Review (SAIR) to a friend.
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