SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 1, No. 36, March 24, 2003

ASSESSMENT

USA	SOUTH ASIA

The Iraq War and the 'Deluge of Terror'
Ajai Sahni
Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management

As the war in Iraq intensifies, reports of 'peace demonstrations' as well as more explicitly anti-US and Islamist extremist protests accumulate across South Asia. These have been given great prominence in the media and have fed Western apprehensions that the Iraqi campaign will give rise to new armies of anti-US, anti-West, Islamist extremist terrorists, and a radical escalation of terrorism in the foreseeable future, as Muslims express their 'anger' against America's 'unjust war'.

It is significant that the intensity, spread and participation in these demonstrations across South Asia, and even in Pakistan and Bangladesh, has been muted, and does not compare with the violence in, for instance, Cairo, Bahrain or even Brussels. More significantly, the scale of protests witnessed in much of Europe has been immensely greater - in UK, for instance, an anti-war demonstration in February brought together an unprecedented one million protestors, and demonstrations on March 22 again mobilized an estimated 200,000 - 400,000 protestors. The most significant and inflammatory of the protests in South Asia have been in Pakistan, particularly in areas currently under the political domination of the fundamentalist and pro-Taliban Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), including Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province - areas that have been characterized by substantial movement of pro-al Qaeda elements as well as suspected areas of major re-location of al Qaeda and Taliban cadres. But even the MMA's 'million march' could put together only 'several thousand protestors'. It was on Sunday, March 23, in Karachi - the Pakistani Port city worst afflicted by sectarian and terrorist violence - that the 'largest' of such protests took place, with the participation of an estimated 70,000 protestors. It is useful to note that a demonstration of this size, by South Asian standards - a region that often witnesses million-plus political gatherings and demonstrations - is at best, minor. There have also been small, though provocative, meetings, with substantial inflammatory rhetoric, at various locations in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. In addition, sermons after Friday prayers in some mosques across the region have tended to focus adversely on the US led war, and at least some of these have contained incendiary calls for violence against the US and Western allies.

The anti-war demonstrations have, however, gone well beyond the Islamist extremist / fundamentalist constituency in South Asia, as in much of the world. But this represents nothing more than the broad political uncertainty and ambivalence over the morality and legitimacy of the US led campaign, concerns that have been widely expressed even among the people in the countries that constitute the primary Coalition partners - USA, UK and Australia. These wider demonstrations have articulated apprehensions about, but do not, in any measure reflect or impact on, the potential for escalated terrorist action as a 'reaction' to the Iraq War.

Apprehensions of a 'deluge of terror' in the wake of the Iraq campaign are, however, substantially misplaced and are located in a misunderstanding of the nature of terrorism in general, and of Islamist extremist terrorism, in particular. The defeat of Saddam Hussein cannot, on detached assessment, be expected to provoke any great rise in anti-US terrorism sourced in South Asia. Indeed, the very opposite holds true, and evidence of US weakness and vulnerabilities, either during the Coalition campaign in Iraq, or in general, would tend to encourage greater militant opportunism, particularly among the communities and countries where extremist Islamist mobilisation has already reached an advanced stage, with Pakistan and Bangladesh as the core areas of such risk in this region.

This does not, however, exclude the possibilities of opportunistic strikes against Western targets during or after the Iraq campaign. Such strikes would exploit the existing pool and potential of trained terrorists, but do not significantly reflect any dramatic increase in this pool, or in recruitment to terrorist ranks. The fact is, terrorists strike when and where they have the capacity to strike, and they strike at the maximal level of destructive force available to them. That is the nature of terrorism. War or no war in Iraq, the trajectory of terrorism will be defined by the capacities of its executors.

These capacities do not depend on any pool of shared 'Muslim grievances' - real or imagined. A sufficient - indeed inexhaustible - pool of such grievances already exists and the actual transformation of these into terrorist cadres and actions depends on two specific variables: the intensity and success of the process of terrorist mobilisation, including their demonstrable abilities to strike critical targets and to instil a sense of confidence and imminent victory in their sympathetic constituency; and, conversely, the success and effectiveness, or otherwise, of the world's counter-terrorism responses. In the post 9/11 phase, the incidence of international terrorism has shown declining trends, not because the pool of Muslim resentment suddenly contracted or evaporated, but rather because increased, though still inadequate and selective, international cooperation in counter-terrorism campaigns severely circumscribed the capacities of terrorists to operate and strike. This was also substantially a consequence of international pressure on supporters and state sponsors of terrorism, which limited the impunity with which such entities could extended assistance in terms of safe havens, infrastructure and opportunities for terrorist recruitment, training, finance and weapons' supplies.

Fears of a radical 'intensification' of Islamist extremist terrorism located in this region in the wake of the war in Iraq are, consequently, mistaken. The threats emanating from extremist factions in Pakistan and Bangladesh - and strongly projected by the state apparatus in Pakistan as justification for the continued dictatorship in that country - are no more than threats.

It is useful, in this context, to recall the words of a Pakistan Army Brigadier, S.K. Malik, who elaborated on his county's philosophy of terrorism in his book, The Islamic Concept of War - a book that includes an authoritative foreword by the then Pakistan President, General Zia-ul-Haq: "Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only a means, it is the end in itself. Once a condition of terror into the opponent's heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be achieved. It is the point where the means and the end meet and merge. Terror is not a means of imposing decision upon the enemy (sic); it is the decision we wish to impose upon him."

If the fanatics of the MMA and of the array of extremist and terrorist organisations operating out of Pakistan, or their affiliates in Bangladesh, India and elsewhere, had the power to strike and destroy America or its allies, they would already have done it. And if they are ever able to convince themselves that they do possess such power, it is certain that they would use it. The simple reason why they do not do so is because they lack this power, and are aware of this deficiency. It is precisely this deficit that will ensure that, even after the Iraq war, they will continue with the excesses of their rhetoric, but will fail to escalate their campaign against US and Western targets. The essence of this failure is nothing more than the lack of the necessary capacity. To the extent that they are able to secure this capacity, they would target the US even if America became the most pacific nation in the world. The Islamist terrorist agenda is more inflexible than most of us imagine, and its ends are defined, not in terms of the transient political parameters of the discourse of international relations, but by a perspective rooted in religious absolutisms that will endure long after the reverberations of the crises of transition in Afghanistan or in Iraq have come to an end.

ASSESSMENT

INDIA

J&K: Jehadis Strike as Kashmir Recedes from Global Focus
Kanchan Lakshman
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management; Assistant Editor, Faultlines: Writings on Conflict & Resolution

Even as global attention remains focused on the war on Iraq, the trajectory of Jehadi terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) is beginning to soar. Two dramatic incidents in the space of 12 hours on Sunday, March 23, 2003, demonstrate the strengthening trends to escalation of terrorism in the State. Former Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) Salar-e-Ala or chief commander, Abdul Majeed Dar, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in the Noor Bagh area of Sopore township in north Kashmir when two gun-wielding youth barged into his ancestral house and fired indiscriminately, killing Dar on the spot and critically injuring his mother and sister. In the second incident, at least 24 Kashmiri Pandits were killed at the Nandimarg village near Shopian in the Pulwama district around midnight. The terrorists first snatched the policemen's weapons and later fired indiscriminately on the Pandits. The dead included 11 women and two children. According to preliminary reports, approximately 25 heavily-armed terrorists dressed in police uniforms descended on the tiny village, 75 km from the capital city of Srinagar, and fired indiscriminately on the unarmed Pandits.

Two terrorist organizations have claimed responsibility for Dar's killing: the hitherto little-known, 'Save Kashmir Movement', believed to be a front of the Al Umar Mujahiddeen, while claiming responsibility, labeled Dar as "an informant of Indian agencies" and "an enemy of the Kashmiri people." Separately, a person describing himself as the spokesperson of Al Nasireen, another obscure group, in a message to a local news agency, said that activists of his group killed Dar for his 'anti-movement activities'. Meanwhile, another person claiming to be a spokesperson for the HM called up the news agency and condemned Dar's killing. Dar had been a front ranking terrorist in the HM before his 'expulsion' in May 2002. In his capacity as 'deputy supreme commander', 'Military adviser' and 'chief commander of operations', Dar played a significant role in the indoctrination, recruitment, launching and training of Hizb cadres. Reports suggest that, while managing the Hizb training camps in Pakistan, he was the only Kashmiri terrorist who had direct access to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief as also General Pervez Musharraf.

Dar's killing is the culmination of an almost three-year old battle for supremacy being waged by his followers against the faction led by Syed Salahuddin, the HM 'supreme commander' and chief of the 14-member United Jehad Council (UJC), a conglomerate of Pakistan-based terrorist organisations. Abdul Majeed Dar came into prominence when he returned from Pakistan three years ago to announce a unilateral cease-fire with Indian security forces on July 24, 2000. On August 3, 2000, a high-level official team of the Government of India, headed by the then Union Home Secretary Kamal Pande, visited Srinagar and conducted a meeting with Dar and his associates at the Nehru Guest House. However, on August 8, 2000, Syed Salahuddin 'withdrew' the cease-fire at a Press Conference in Islamabad. The Dar initiated 'peace talks' led to dissent within the Hizb, with the Pakistani ranks fearing that an effective process of negotiations may actually be established, to the detriment of Pakistani interests. Subsequently, a war for supremacy ensued within the HM, and a distinctive 'bimodal' operating structure emerged, with separate factions owing allegiance to Dar and Salahuddin. Since the ill-fated peace talks, followers of Salahuddin - who operates from Pakistan - and Majeed Dar, who remained 'underground' in the Kashmir Valley, have had a series of internecine clashes. In November 2002, two Salahuddin loyalists were killed in factional conflict reported at the Mirpur and Tarbela camps in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). The Hizb leadership in Pakistan has also issued statements claiming Dar's alleged alignment with Indian intelligence agencies. Reports suggest that Dar had been disillusioned with the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and its military leadership. Dar was 'suspended' by the Salahuddin faction and replaced by Saiful Islam as the Hizb 'chief commander of operations' in Kashmir, on May 4, 2002. Two of his close associates, Assad Yazdani and Zaffar Abdul Fatah, were also 'removed' from positions of command. Again, on May 9, 2002, the Hizb leadership expelled another two 'divisional commanders' in south Kashmir. Even as Dar and his associates were accused of assisting Indian security forces, many of his loyalists were killed by cadres of the Salahuddin group. Faced with Dar's rising popularity within the HM ranks, Salahuddin and the ISI had, in the recent months, initiated several moves to marginalize and target Dar and his associates in the terrorist ensemble.

The Salahuddin's faction is also widely believed to have carried out the January 31, 2003 killing of the editor of News and Feature Alliance (NAFA), Parvaz Mohammad Sultan, in Srinagar. NAFA had been prominently reporting on the internal feud in the HM for the preceding two weeks prior to Sultan's killing. The NAFA reports had mentioned that the Valley-based faction led by Dar had 'overthrown' the Salahuddin faction.

Within hours of Majeed Dar's murder, sources indicate that clashes broke out at HM camps in PoK between the slain leader's followers and the faction led by Salahuddin. Violent confrontations are believed to have taken place at camps in Kotli, Mirpur, Oggi, Jungal-Mangal, Haripur and Gadhi-Dupatta. Preliminary reports indicate that Salahuddin was fidgety over the prospect of an imminent test of strength in the camps. Details of casualties and the outcome of these clashes were still not available at the time of this report.

The brief lull in Jehadi violence in J&K over the December - February period was tactical, primarily the result of adverse weather conditions along the passes on the border. However, Chief of Army Staff, General N.C. Vij, on March 23, 2003, had stated that there would be a spurt in infiltration into J&K from across the border after the snow started melting, and this has been borne out by trends in March itself - much earlier than had been usual in preceding years. Infiltration along the Indo-Pakistan Line of Control (LoC) and border has increased with the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) stepping up their activities in the State. As a result, the entire Jammu region, along with some areas in Srinagar, Anantnag, Budgam, Pulwama, Baramulla and Kupwara districts have been declared 'disturbed areas'. Reports indicate that security forces are finding some difficulty in countering the renewed threat perception after the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the J&K Police was disbanded by the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed Government.

The massacre of Pandits is a continuation of the process of ethnic cleansing launched in January 1990 by Pakistan-backed terrorists. Such incidents are clearly intended to block the proclaimed State Government policy to facilitate a return of the Pandits to their homeland and may, in fact, lead to a further exodus of Pandits from the Valley, as well as from Muslim dominated areas in the Jammu region. Past incidents have shown that the Hindus who have stayed back in the Valley are a priority target for the terrorists, who lay claims to Kashmir as a 'Muslim land'. The Pulwama massacre is a setback for Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who had made the 'safe return' of the Pandits a primary plank of his campaign during the September-October 2002 Elections. The State Government had recently drawn up plans to settle the Pandits around the shrine at the holy spring at Tullamullah in Srinagar district and Mattan in the Anantnag district, though the Pandits had displayed little enthusiasm for the plan under the prevailing security situation in the Valley. Their reluctance can only multiply manifold after Sunday night's brutal massacre.

There has been much talk of the revival of the 'peace process' by the Union Government [K.P.S. Gill, "J&K: The Opportunities of Another Peace Process", SAIR 1.34], after the appointment of a new interlocutor charged with initiating negotiations with various political entities in J&K, as well as the new Chief Minister's enthusiasm for a 'political solution' to the violence in the State. But the mounting violence of the past three weeks demonstrates again - as has been repeatedly established in the past - that a search for solutions for the problems of J&K cannot, in fact, be located in J&K. Such a solution will, indeed, remain elusive until the infrastructure of terrorism located in Pakistan, and supported by the state structure in Pakistan, is conclusively and irrevocably dismantled and destroyed.