SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 3, No. 12, October 4, 2004

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

ASSESSMENT

INDIA

The Northeast: A Tempest of Terror
Wasbir Hussain
Associate Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi; Consulting Editor, The Sentinel, Guwahati

Terror struck with a vengeance in India's insurgency-wracked Northeast beginning on October 2, 2004, the birth anniversary of India's apostle of peace, Mahatma Gandhi, killing at least 60 people and injuring more than 200 others over three consecutive days of serial bombings and gunfire, mostly on unsuspecting civilians. The powerful bomb explosions at a jam-packed Railway station and the popular Hong Kong market in Dimapur, the commercial hub in the State of Nagaland, on the morning of October 2, 2004, took 26 lives, and injured another 104.

Also Read

Assam: Demographic Jitters -- Wasbir Hussain

Manipur: Mismanaged Crisis -- Pradip Phanjoubam

Rebels also carried out a string of attacks in neighbouring Assam, killing at least 34 people over a span of 36 hours (October 2-4, 2004), in 17 separate incidents. Clearly, India's strategic northeastern frontier - a vast stretch that is home to nearly 40 million people, wedged between Bangladesh, Bhutan and China's Tibet region - was bleeding profusely in some of the biggest terror attacks in its long history of armed insurrections, which dates back to 1951, shortly after the country attained independence from the British.

Union Home Minister, Shivraj Patil, rushed to the region on October 3, 2004, to take stock of the security situation, but said it was too early to establish a link or a pattern in the bloody raids in Nagaland and Assam. It is not, however, particularly difficult to establish such a pattern in the serial attacks. The timing of the terror raids is itself significant: the attacks began on October 2, an important day in the Indian national calendar, when the country remembers Mahatma Gandhi, the 'father of the nation' and a champion of peace and non-violence. Moreover, October 3, 2004, was the 'Raising Day' of the outlawed National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB), marking the group's 18th anniversary (NDFB was formed in 1986). Lastly, the attacks in Assam, carried out by the proscribed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and the NDFB, came within 48-hours of Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's offer of a conditional ceasefire to both these insurgent groups.

There are no prizes for guessing who could be responsible for the attacks in Assam. Both the ULFA and the NDFB have separately claimed responsibility for different incidents. The ULFA's elusive 'commander-in-chief', Paresh Barua, telephoned newspapers in Guwahati on the night of October 3, 2004, and claimed responsibility for five of the attacks (on October 2 and 3). Significantly, the ULFA's military chief owned up only those attacks where there were no civilian casualties: the attacks at the police stations in Baihata Chariali (three policemen were injured), near Guwahati, and at Jagiroad (two civilians were wounded), in central Assam's Morigaon district; the gas pipeline blast at Borhat in eastern Assam and the landmine blast near Talap, also in eastern Assam, where a vehicle carrying Army soldiers narrowly missed the impact. On its part, the NDFB issued a statement saying their attacks 'demonstrated their strength.' The NDFB killed more than 20 people in four incidents of indiscriminate gunfire on civilians at market places and by calling out sleeping villagers.

Apart from a demonstration of their striking capacities to dispel impressions that their cadres were 'on the run' after the Bhutanese military operations in December 2003, the ULFA and the NDFB have perhaps sought to send out a clear message that they cannot be drawn to give up their intractable postures and to engage in protracted peace negotiations on the lines of New Delhi's dialogue with the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM). ULFA 'c-in-c' Paresh Barua made it clear when he telephoned The Sentinel, an English daily from Guwahati, on the night of October 3, 2004, and said, "The explosions are an answer to Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's ceasefire call." Gogoi had told journalists in Guwahati on September 30, 2004, that his Government was ready to call a ceasefire with the ULFA and the NDFB provided the rebel groups responded positively to the offer by October 15.

The attacks in Assam may be part of a pattern, with rebels often snubbing the Government's peace overtures by stepping up violence or striking on days of national significance or of importance within the narrative of rebellion, but the explosions in Dimapur, in Nagaland, clearly targeted at civilians, has certainly been surprising. A theory that has gained significant weight over the past 48-hours, is that the blasts in Nagaland, aimed at inflicting civilian casualties and provoking public outrage thereafter, were meant to derail the Naga peace process, underway since August 1997, when the NSCN-IM entered into a ceasefire agreement with the Indian Government.

In fact, a top NSCN-IM leader told this writer in a telephone interview on October 3, 2004, that the blasts in Dimapur were a clear attempt to 'sabotage' the Naga peace process. "An anti-Naga militant group is behind the blast. We are close to solving the case," Kraibo Chawang, NSCN-IM's 'Deputy Minister' for information and publicity, said from Dimapur. The NSCN-IM has set up a 'special investigating team' to probe the attacks and identify the culprits, a decision approved by the group's topmost duo, 'chairman' Isak Chishi Swu and 'general secretary' Thuingaleng Muivah. The fact that the NSCN-IM sees the blasts as an attempt to scuttle the Naga peace process and is bent on identifying the forces behind the incidents, indicates that the group has taken the matter extremely seriously.

Could the ULFA be the 'anti-Naga rebel group' of NSCN-IM's allegations? Assam's Inspector General of Police (Special Branch), Khagen Sharma, was noncommital: "The attacks in Assam were coordinated strikes by the ULFA and the NDFB. About the blasts in Nagaland, every possibility needs to be probed." Highly placed intelligence sources, however, told this writer that, on October 1, 2004, a day before the serial attacks, the Assam Police captured two front-ranking ULFA activists, Arup Terang and Nirob Chetia, from a bus near Hahchora, in the eastern district of Sivasagar. Upon interrogation, Arup Terang said he was an explosive expert and had been based for some time at Dimapur. The police had, in fact, recovered a live bomb weighing 7 kilograms from a house at a village following disclosures made by Terang.

There are at least two reasons that back up the thesis that the ULFA was behind the Dimapur blasts: the group may actually wish to derail the Naga peace process to widen the sphere of violence in the region and to get the pressure to enter into negotiations with New Delhi off its back. Further, the ULFA is an ally of the Khaplang faction of the NSCN (NSCN-K), and could, therefore, be trying to shift the focus from the peace talks (between the Indian Government and the NSCN-IM) to the law and order issue. The NSCN-K is a bitter rival of the NSCN-IM, but has gone on record saying it could be an ally of the ULFA, but would not support any attacks on innocent civilians.

Home Minister Patil, after visiting Nagaland and Assam, stressed on the need for coordinated counter-insurgency measures, including intelligence sharing, between the States in the Northeast. But, that is easier said than done. For instance, in Assam, the Army, police and the paramilitary forces operate under a Unified Headquarters, with the Army heading the operational command. Of late, a loose unified security set up has come up in Manipur. But, there is no formal mechanism for a coordinated security structure in Nagaland or Tripura. This makes any attempt at a broad coordinated counter-insurgency campaign in the region difficult. Besides, in different states, the authorities have their own channels open with certain rebel groups, who are either fence sitters or are keen on talking peace. Such a situation makes a generalised attempt to rein in all the rebel groups difficult. Things remain murky in the Northeast, to say the least.

INDIA

Bad Medicine for a Red Epidemic
Ajai Sahni
Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management

"They are our children. They are angry and we have to show them the right path with affection. We have the forces to deal with violence but that is not the only approach."

Shivraj Patil, Minister of Home Affairs, Government of India, September 17, 2004

"…any thinking that relaxes the will to fight and belittles the enemy is wrong."

Mao Tse Tung, "Report to the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China", March 5, 1949

Force, India's Minister for Home Affairs assures us, 'can be used at any time', but other alternatives - "sympathy and understanding" - need to be tried with the Left Wing Extremists (Naxalites) first. As a result, the present regime is advising all other States afflicted by Naxalite violence to emulate the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister's initiative, and to invite the extremists to join a process aimed at finding a 'negotiated solution' to the protracted violence that has spread persistently, like a cancer, to ever-widening areas of the country.

This is, currently, the politically correct and widely held 'formula' for the resolution of all conflicts in India, and is faithfully parroted across the ideological spectrum, with few, if any, dissenting voices.

It is useful, in the meanwhile, to see what 'our children' have been doing.

At the meeting of the Central Coordination Committee of Naxalite-affected States at Bhubaneshwar on November 21, 2003, the Union Home Secretary had disclosed that a total of 55 districts in nine States were affected by varying degrees of Naxalite violence. Just ten months later, on September 21, 2004, an official note circulated at the meeting of Chief Ministers of Naxalite-affected States indicated that this number had gone up to 125 districts in 12 States, with another 24 districts being targeted by the Left Wing Extremists under their current agenda of expansion. Official sources indicate, moreover, that, till August this year, Naxalite violence had claimed 405 lives in 1,140 incidents, as against 348 deaths in 1,138 incidents over the corresponding period last year. A total of 1,946 lives have been lost to Left Wing extremism over the period January 2001 - August 2004.

The dramatic expansion of Naxalite activities is more spectacular when seen against the slow, painstaking and uncertain struggle that went into the seizure of the 55 districts that had fallen under their shadow by the end of 2003. The current movement traces its genealogy back to the insurrection of 1967 in the Naxalbari area of North Bengal, but that insurgency - after a wildfire spread in its early years - had been comprehensively defeated by 1973, with the entire top leadership of the Communist Party of India - Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML) either jailed or dead. What little remained of its splintered survivor organizations was destroyed during Indira Gandhi's Emergency of 1975.

It was in 1980, with the formation of the People's War Group (PWG) under the leadership of Kondapalli Seetharamaiah (an erstwhile Central Organising Committee Member of the CPI-ML) in the Telengana region of Andhra Pradesh, and the reorganization of the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) in Bihar in the mid-1980s, that the movement resurfaced in some strength. Initial successes were, again, rapid, and by the mid-1980s, 31 districts in seven States were afflicted by Naxalite violence. By the early 1990s, however, the problem had been eliminated from at least 16 of these districts, bringing the total number of affected districts to just 15 in four States.

The reconstruction, thereafter, has been more continuous and systematic, with wider areas being gradually targeted and consolidated, building up slowly to the 55 districts that had been brought into the ambit of the movement by late 2003.

Throughout this period, the 'force' that Patil appears to be so confident of as a final resort, has been used repeatedly, and it is evident that the state's capacities are not as overwhelming as the Home Minister believes them to be. The character and scale of force that lies within the capacities of the Indian state have clearly remained inadequate to permanently recover the areas that have been lost to disorder as a result of Left Wing extremist activities.

There is a pattern here. Each new incumbent in the North Block - from where India's internal security is 'managed' by the Ministry of Home Affairs - sets about reinventing the wheel, with little apparent concern for history. The cycle is almost invariable - with 'peaceful' and 'political' resolution passionately advocated in the early days of incumbency, yielding gradually to an eventual return to the use of force, as Naxalite depredations mount. The same pattern is replicated at the level of State Governments with successive Chief Ministers advocating 'sympathy and understanding' for varying periods, and then lapsing once again, to a reliance on the police and paramilitary forces, rushing constantly to the Centre for more funds and more men to strengthen their armed capacities of response.

The interregnums of 'sympathy and understanding' have, however, been the periods of the most rapid consolidation for the Naxalites, who exploit ceasefires and 'peace processes' to their potential limits for the propagation of their cause, and for recruitment, training and expansion. Each period of political conciliation has, consequently, seen a widening of the geographical reach of the movement.

Patil is, consequently, located squarely within a long tradition of political silliness, and is far from the first to invent this 'sympathetic' approach to 'children' who need to be weaned away from the 'wrong path' with 'affection', a tradition most vividly illustrated in Andhra Pradesh.

In 1982, the then leader of the Telugu Desam Party of Andhra Pradesh, N.T. Rama Rao had described the Naxalites as "true patriots, who have been misunderstood by ruling classes", and had sought and secured their support in the Assembly Elections the following year, in which he then replaced the Congress-I Government in the State. He gave free rein to the Naxalites over the succeeding years, and by 1985, the movement had consumed eight of the ten Districts of the volatile Telengana region, and had spread beyond the State's boundaries as well. By 1985, a series of ambushes on police parties exhausted Rao's gratitude for his electoral victory, and a 'hardline' - increasing reliance on the police and paramilitary forces to re-establish law and order - was restored. In 1987, the PWG was banned, and by mid-1989 the Naxalites were, once again, in flight in Andhra Pradesh - until electoral considerations intervened, again.

This time around, it was the Congress-I, under the leadership of Marri Chenna Reddy, that sought Naxalite support in the elections. And for the first two years of Chenna Reddy's Chief Ministership, the Naxalites went on a rampage. The ban on the PWG was lifted in 1989, and 190 'hardcore' Naxalites were released from jail. Chenna Reddy's policy of indulgence was only reversed by his successor, N. Janardhan Reddy, towards the latter half of 1991, after the murder of a former Minister and a rising flood of murders, large scale extortion and destruction. In May 1992, the ban on the PWG and its front organizations was re-imposed, with palpable impact, as the killings and other offences declined immediately and continuously, till 1994, when another election returned N.T. Rama Rao to power.

Rama Rao lifted the ban, and the old policies of conciliation and complicity gave the Naxalites another opportunity to revive, strengthen and extend the scale and geographical scope of their activities. Rama Rao's successor, Chandrababu Naidu, restored the ban on July 23, 1996, and reverted to the policy of confronting extremist violence with the force of arms. Nevertheless, Naidu also succumbed to the seduction of the 'political solution' in 2002, declared a 'ceasefire' and invited the Naxalite leadership for 'talks' to settle the 'issue'. The talks collapsed after seven months, and it was more than apparent that the interlude was fully exploited by the Naxalites for vigorous consolidation, even as the state's Forces remained paralysed by the political executive's command not to act against PWG cadres. Naidu continues to maintain that he was 'betrayed' by the Naxalite leaders. Among the first actions of his successor, the Congress-I's Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, was a suspension of security force operations against the Naxalites, and an invitation for 'direct talks', scheduled for October 15, 2004, to their leadership.

This, then, has been the pendulum of the state's policy on Naxalite violence, and it is now abundantly clear where maximal gains have accrued, as district after district lapses into disorder, as the institutions and mechanisms of civil governance withdraw, abandoning vast areas to the extremists and to the security forces that, alone, contest their dominance. Force has, thus, been applied again and again, erratically and haphazardly, interrupted regularly by periods of 'conciliation' during which successive regimes sought to seduce the extremists with promises and inducements. Each period of political indulgence has invariably seen a further consolidation and expansion of Naxalite activities.

Naxalite disorder, moreover, need to be located within the larger context of the loss of control in wider areas within India. In addition to the 125 districts currently under the influence of the Naxalites, and the additional 24 districts that are being targeted by them, there are at least another 63 districts in the country variously afflicted by different patterns of ethnic or communal terrorism and insurgency (Jammu & Kashmir: 12; Assam: 22; Tripura: 4; Meghalaya: 6; Manipur: 9; Arunachal Pradesh: 3; and Nagaland: 7). This takes the number of districts afflicted by terrorism and insurgency to 212, out a total of 602 districts in the country. More than a third of the country is, consequently, suffering from high degrees of present or potential disorder. This, moreover, is not the sum of the threat, as abysmal governance, divisive politics, continuous external and internal subversion, opportunistic terrorist attacks, increasing criminalization and other patterns of mass violence sporadically disrupt the rule of law in widely dispersed locations across the length and breadth of the country. It is useful to note, moreover, that India's record of recovering areas from persistent disorders is, at best, equivocal. These rising disorders, further, will not be lost on India's enemies in the neighbourhood, and an intensification of their efforts to disruption are a matter, essentially, of time.

As the Maoist insurgency in Nepal appears to approach its end state, moreover, it is significant that the districts that are falling to the Naxalite influence lie along a near-continuous expanse of the projected Compact Revolutionary Zone (CRZ) along India's eastern board, that would eventually link up 'liberated areas' from Nepal in the North (and possibly, Ladakh and Uttaranchal, other areas that are currently being targeted), to Tamil Nadu in the South. This is a coherent strategy articulated and adopted by the Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA) in 2001, and that has been dramatically crystallized on the ground in just three years. Once the present 'gaps' in the CRZ have been filled - as it appears that they inevitably will be, given current trends - the strategic consequences for India would be devastating, as the CRZ would not only result in an area of uninterrupted disorder from Nepal in the North to Tamil Nadu in the South, but would also obstruct vital linkages with India's troubled Northeast, profoundly deepening the dangers in that vulnerable region. Since early 2002, moreover, the two most powerful Naxalite groups in India, the PWG and the MCC, have been discussing the modalities of a merger which would act as a force multiplier, substantially increasing their capacities to dominate the regions currently under their influence. The state's strategy of response, on the other hand, has been far from coherent or effective.

To return to the present, as the ban on the PWG lapses in Andhra Pradesh, dalam (armed group) members have become hyperactive, concentrating on recruitment and training of cadres, and extension and intensification of activities in neighbouring States. They have begun to openly conduct gram sabhas (village courts), 'settling' issues relating to land disputes, caste discrimination or the sale of arrack (home brewed alcohol). The PWG has also successfully organized mass meetings at several locations, including a huge congregation in the capital city, Hyderabad. In the meanwhile, other Naxalite factions, including the CPI-ML Praja Prathighatana Group, have rejected the negotiations, and are taking advantage of the truce to lure cadres to their fold as well.

While the Governments of other Naxalite affected States are now working to 'establish conditions conducive to talks', Naxalite groups in these States, including PWG State units, have escalated violence in many of these areas, and have rejected offers of talks as 'deceptive and meaningless'. Security and Intelligence organizations - as well as observers who have long watched the trajectory of the Naxalite movement - believe that the 'peace process' in Andhra Pradesh - and in any other State where it may be initiated in the proximate future - would inevitably collapse within six-odd months, after which a reinvigorated PWG can be expected to resume violent activities.

Advocates of the 'sympathy and affection' approach to the resolution of the 'Naxalite problem' underestimate and misunderstand the dynamic, the ideological motivation and the commitment of the Maoist movement in South Asia, even as they belittle its enormous and cumulative successes. They undervalue, moreover, the extraordinary mobilization capacity of this subversive creed, particularly among the marginalized millions in this region, and within the expanding and neglected detritus of humanity generated by the processes of globalization and technological transformation. Mao offers not only an ideology but also the strategy and tactics that could wreck the uncertain peace of vast areas in the developing world - as well as regions beyond its confines - with a scale of violence and destruction that is yet to be imagined by those who are framing national and counter-terrorism policies across the contemporary and volatile world. The present obsession with a single ideological source of terrorism - Islamist extremism - is contributing directly to a dangerous disregard of other and rising dangers.

NEWS BRIEFS

Weekly Fatalities: Major Conflicts in South Asia
September 27-October 3, 2004

	Civilian	Security Force Personnel	Terrorist	Total
BANGLADESH	2	0	0	2
INDIA
Assam	31	4	9	44
Jammu & Kashmir	11	7	26	44
Manipur	0	1	0	1
Nagaland	26	0	0	26
Tripura	0	0	5	5
Total (INDIA)	68	12	40	120
NEPAL	9	3	37	49
PAKISTAN	39	10	1	50
SRI LANKA	3	0	8	11

Provisional data compiled from English language media sources.

BANGLADESH

BDR chief denies presence of terrorist camps: Speaking to the media in New Delhi, Director General of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), Major General Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, on September 27, 2004, said that there had been "a lot of progress" since the last meeting with his Indian counterpart. Though Jahangir demanded that India hand over the offenders wanted by police and courts in Bangladesh, allegedly taking refuge in its territory, he categorically denied the presence of terrorist camps of northeast Indian militants in Bangladesh. The Daily Star, September 28, 2004.

INDIA

42 persons killed during continuing terrorist violence in Assam: At least 42 people, a majority of them civilians, are reported to have died and 100 others sustained injuries in separate incidents of terrorist violence across the State of Assam on October 2 and 3. Latest reports from the State indicate that the violence is still continuing. While 28 people died on October 2 the rest are reported to have been killed the next day. According to official sources in Assam, suspected National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) terrorists triggered a series of bomb blasts and also opened indiscriminate fire at various places in the State. Inspector General of Police Sharma said that the NDFB, which is demanding the creation of a 'sovereign Bodoland', had carried out attacks on soft targets in a bid to draw attention on its '18th raising day'. The Director General of Police, P.V. Sumant, said, "The Assam Police has information that they [the NDFB and the ULFA] do work together as seen in yesterday's serial blasts and firings by militants across the State." The Hindu; Assam Tribune; Sentinel Assam; October 3 and 4, 2004.

26 persons killed during two bomb explosions in Nagaland: At least 26 people, including women and children, were killed and over a 100 were injured in two powerful bomb blasts triggered by unidentified terrorists in Dimapur, Nagaland, on October 2. The first improvised explosive device blast occurred at the railway station at 9:30 AM (IST) prior to the scheduled arrival of the daily passenger service to Dimapur, running between Guwahati and upper Assam, killing 12 persons and injuring 60 others. More or less simultaneously, the second blast occurred at the busy Hong Kong Market area of the town, killing 10 persons on the spot and injuring 40 others. Four critically wounded persons later died at the district civil hospital. The Hindu, October 3, 2004.

Peace talks with Naxalites in Andhra Pradesh to be held on October 15: The first-ever direct talks between the Andhra Pradesh Government and leaders of left-wing extremist (also called Naxalite) groups will take place on October 15, 2004. Although the venue has not been officially announced reports indicate that the talks will take place at the Secretariat in the capital Hyderabad. Home Minister Jana Reddy said that Naxalite leaders would be given a safe passage for the talks. "It is the government's responsibility to provide protection and safe passage to them," he said. Reddy also said the Government would finalise the modalities with representatives of the People's War Group (PWG) and Janasakthi on October 5, when the two sides would also sign an agreement on a cease-fire. Deccan, October 4, 2004.

PAKISTAN

31 persons killed during bomb blast at a Shia mosque in Sialkot: At least 31 people were killed and 75 others sustained injuries in a suspected suicide bombing at a Shia mosque at Sialkot in the Punjab province on October 1, 2004, during the Friday prayers. More than 1,000 Shias were reportedly present at the Zainabia mosque, a kilometer away from the city police station on Raja Road, when the bomb exploded. Eyewitnesses said that a man, whose identity is yet to be ascertained, entered the mosque with a briefcase while the Friday sermon was being delivered. The Sialkot Police have indicated that the man with the briefcase, who also died in the blast, was the main suspect. The army was deployed later to maintain law and order after angry mobs reacted by setting ablaze a gas station and two police vehicles to protest the blast. While no group has claimed responsibility for the blast thus far, officials in Islamabad said that it could be in retaliation for last week's operation in which Amjad Farooqi, a suspected Al Qaeda operative, was killed by security agencies. Farooqi, a key suspect in two assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf, was also affiliated to the outlawed Sunni outfit, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). Dawn, October 2, 2004.

Al Qaeda disrupting Afghanistan elections from Pakistan, says US Commander: Al Qaeda is helping Taliban terrorists to disrupt the presidential elections in Afghanistan, said the US Commander of the coalition forces in the country, Lt. Gen. David Barno, on September 27, 2004. Gen. Barno said, in the Afghan capital Kabul, that most of the network's operatives were in Pakistan and it was more likely that key figures such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahri were there instead of Afghanistan. Barno also said it would take time to assess whether this year's Pakistani intelligence breakthroughs against Al Qaeda would lead to bin Laden, Zawahri or Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar. Daily Times, September 28, 2004.

SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW Weekly Assessments & Briefings Volume 3, No. 12, October 4, 2004

SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 3, No. 12, October 4, 2004