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SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 10, No. 14, October 10, 2011
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
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Peace
Deal: Prelude to a Fiasco
Ambreen Agha
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management
The
face of the Enemy frightens me only when I see how
much it resembles me
-
Oscar Wilde
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On October
2, 2011, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said that his
administration was ready to hold negotiations with all
militant groups, including Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan
(TTP). Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, TTP’s ‘Deputy Commander’
and ‘Commander-in-Chief’ for its Bajaur Chapter in the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), spoke to the
media on phone on October 3, 2011, declaring, “TTP welcomes
the Prime Minister’s offer.” Before the bells could peal
out for an imminent ‘peace’, unsurprisingly, the TTP ‘commander’
set out two unattainable preconditions for talks: One,
the Government should reconsider its relationship with
the United States (US); and, two, enforce Islamic Shari’ah
(law) in the country.
The offer
of ‘peace talks’ comes at the time when Islamabad’s operations
in the tribal region have had little impact on TTP’s jihadist
operational capabilities, and this is reflected in the
confidence that underpins Faqir Muhammad’s response to
the Prime Minister. The organisational strength and systemic
growth of TTP’s leadership has, both qualitatively and
quantitatively, taken a quantum leap in over the past
years.
According
to the SATP data, Pakistan witnessed 6,769 fatalities
[including 3,135 civilians, 1,211 Security Forces (SF)
personnel and 2,423 terrorists] between 2003 and 2007.
After the formation of TTP on December 14, 2007, however,
the fatalities recorded a steep rise, totalling as many
as 30,843 in this latter phase (SATP data till October
9, 2011). Crucially, the number of suicide attacks also
increased dramatically. 75 suicide attacks had been recorded
between 2002 and 2007, killing 1,183 persons; the number
of suicide attacks witnessed since January 2008 stands
at 219, with at least 3,600 persons killed.
Some of
the largest attacks that Pakistan has witnessed since
the formation of TTP, for which the outfit has either
claimed responsibility or has been accused, include:
May 13,
2011: Two suicide bombers attacked Frontier Constabulary
trainees in the Shabqadar tehsil (revenue unit)
of Charsadda District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killing 73
personnel and 17 civilians, and injuring another 140.
May 28,
2010: At least 95 worshippers were killed and 92 injured
as seven assailants, including three suicide bombers,
attacked Ahmadi mosques in the Model Town and Garhi Shahu
areas of Lahore in Punjab.
October
10, 2008: At least 85 persons were killed and another
200 wounded, when a suicide bomber in an explosives-laden
vehicle attacked an anti-TTP jirga of the Ali Khel
tribe in the Khadezai area of the Upper Orakzai Agency
in FATA.
December
27, 2007: 31 people were killed and over 100 others wounded
when a suicide attacker riding on a motorbike blew himself
up after firing at former Premier Benazir Bhutto who was
waving to her supporters from her vehicle's sun roof in
Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi. Benazir was killed in the
attack. After the May 13, 2011, attack the TTP spokesman
Ehsaullah Ehsan declared, “Pakistan will be the prime
target followed by United States (US). The US had been
on a man-hunt for Osama and now Pakistani rulers are on
our hit-list as we also killed Benazir Bhutto in a suicide
attack."
Benazir
Bhutto’s assassination was the first major attack by the
TTP after its formation. The era of the suicide bomb has
seen military installations and religious gatherings of
rival denominations as its primary targets. Suicide bombings
and the recruitment of young children in TTP suicide squads
heralded a new phase of terrorism in Pakistan.
The TTP
was established on a powerful base of Islamist extremist
organisations that existed and pursued a jihadist agenda
in Pakistan even prior to its creation in December 2007.
The organisation only formalized and further radicalized
the structure of what were, previously, loosely knit Pakistani
jihadist forces affiliated with the Taliban since
the 1980’s. The cadre of the Pakistani Taliban movement
(as distinct from the Afghan Taliban) came from the rank
and file of mainstream Islamist political parties, whose
alliance held power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from 2002 to
2007. It was during General Pervez Musharraf’s Presidency
that an alliance of religious parties won the Provincial
elections of 2002 (as well as significant numbers in the
Parliament) to rule North Western Pakistan. The two most
powerful and orthodox religious political parties that
comprised the alliance were Jama’at-e-Islami (JeI) and
Jama’at Ulema-e-Islam (JuI). Both these mainstream political
parties have played an active role in Pakistan’s jihadist
politics.
The JuI,
in particular, experienced a shift towards increasing
radicalization during the invasion of Afghanistan by the
Soviet Union in the 1980s. The JuI actively participated
in the Afghanistan war of the 1980s, when madrassas
established by this ‘Deobandi’ organisation provided holy
warriors against the Soviets. Through the 1990s the JuI
remained deeply involved with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Indeed, thousands of Afghan and Pakistani students from
the madrasa run by JuI formed the nucleus of the
Taliban militia. The mushrooming of thousands of Deobandi
madrassas along the border with Afghanistan, deeply
mobilized other religiously motivated political parties
in Pakistan, producing a new breed of radical Islamists
who, over the years, spilled across into Pakistan. The
rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 1996 also encouraged
the formation of Pakistani militant groups such as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
(HuM)
and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).
Most of the top militant leaders in Pakistan’s tribal
region, who later formed the TTP, were initially associated
with the JuI or groups raised out of JuI madrassas.
Terrorist commanders and leaders like Baitullah Mehsud,
Mufti Wali-ur-Rehman, Maulana Nazir and Hafiz Gul Bahadur
have all emerged from the ranks of the JuI. Under military
rulers like Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan
moved further towards becoming an ideological Islamist
state, enormously emboldening the clergy. Significantly,
the JeI and other Islamists were co-opted by Zia’s Government,
serving in his martial law cabinet. The edifice of a military-mullah
combine was created, and the Islamists penetrated deep
into state institutions.
It was
the Lal Masjid [Red Mosque] imbroglio
in Islamabad in 2007 that pushed the Islamists across
the Rubicon, turning them against their erstwhile state
sponsors. Asma Jehangir, the Chairperson of the Human
Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), commenting on the
high level independent inquiry into the Lal Masjid Operation,
observed:
...the
situation in the Lal Masjid did not crop up overnight.
The significant build up of arms and the training
to the students had continued for years with the
help and connivance of the Pakistan authorities.
The authorities didn’t learn about the presence
of alleged militants within the Lal Masjid just
hours before the operation. The whereabouts of these
individuals should not have been unknown to the
vast intelligence network based in Islamabad...
Even now other seminaries exist, where militants
are trained and arsenals of arms stocked. The existence
and location of these seminaries are well known
to authorities. Indeed, the violent events seen
at the Lal Masjid are an outcome of the collusion
between the military and the militants backed by
the clergy that has continued for decades.
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Shuja Nawaz
also confirms, in Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army
and the Wars Within, that the Lal Masjid radicals,
prior to their declaration of a parallel judicial system
to enforce Islamic laws in Islamabad, were trained and
supported by the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).
There is
a clear, and now widely acknowledged, history of collusion
between a range of Islamist terrorist formations and the
Army and intelligence, as well as the political, establishment
in Pakistan. This has generated a ‘blowback’, forcing
the country’s SFs to struggle to contain ‘renegade’ groups
that have escaped or rebelled against military-intelligence
control. It is, indeed, the extremist-terrorist spaces
created for state supported groups that have allowed anti-state
groups to flourish as well. All these groups have been
mobilized on a pan-Islamist ideology of jihad,
which makes clear distinctions between cadres of different
groups impossible.
TTP is
currently led by Hakimullah Mehsud, who took over the
reins of the movement after the death of his brother and
the TTP founder, Baitullah Mehsud, in a US missile strike
on August 5, 2009. The Mehsud brothers belonged to the
Mehsud tribe of the South Waziristan Agency in FATA. Projecting
the fanatical Talibanised version of Islam, Baitullah
Mehsud had declared in an interview with the British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in October 2007, “Only
jihad can bring peace to the world.” The activities
of the Talibanised extremists within Pakistan were no
secret and found visible expression in pamphlets and audio-video
recordings circulated across the country, slogans on walls
and open public mobilization. Thus, Shahid Nadeem wrote
in Daily Times on August 7, 2002,
Wall
chalking after wall chalking advertised jihadi
outfits and announced recruitment for jihadi
fighters. Just a few kilometres from the Havelian
Cantonment, there are slogans such as ‘jihad
is the shortest route to Paradise’ and ‘contact
us for commando jihadi training’. Walls between
Havelian in Abbottabad to Haripur District in Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province are full of jihadi slogans
and adverts.
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Headquartered
in the South Waziristan Agency of FATA, TTP has spread
its networks into all of Pakistan’s four provinces, establishing
various ‘Chapters’ and groups led by local ‘commanders’
with common organisational goals. The TTP has also made
its presence
felt in neighbouring Afghanistan in recent times.
There is
an overlap of membership between TTP and other sectarian
terrorist outfits that operate across the country, each
pursuing its own internal and external agendas. On November
23, 2008, the then TTP spokesman, Mullah Omer, had said,
“The Taliban are present in Karachi and have links with
the LeJ, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP)
and other banned religious organisations.” Apart from
these sectarian groups, there are others with which the
TTP has established linkages, primarily including Lashkar-e-Taiba
(LeT)
Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM),
HuM and Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI).
Media reports on January 5, 2011, indicated that five
terrorist groups had joined the TTP and were working under
its umbrella TTP. With common aims and enemies, LeJ, SSP,
JeM, HuM and Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA)
had ‘merged’ with TTP. TTP spokesman Azam Tariq declared,
“We have not forced anyone to join TTP, and the leaders
and activists of the banned religious organisations have
united themselves under the umbrella of the TTP on their
own choice.”
The US
Department of State had put the TTP on its list of Foreign
Terrorist Organisations on September 1, 2010. On January
18, 2011, Britain moved to ban the TTP, making it illegal
to belong to or raise funds for the organisation in Britain.
Subsequently, on July 5, 2011, Canada designated the TTP
as a terrorist organisation. Vic Toews, Canada’s Minister
of Public Safety, noted that putting TTP on the terrorism
blacklist was “an essential part of our efforts to combat
terrorism and keep our communities safe.” On July 29,
2011, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) put the
TTP on its international anti-terrorism sanctions list
in a move highlighting the growing threat from the outfit.
The Pakistani
military has launched a succession of offensives against
the TTP, but the movement continues to thrive. From time
to time, different ‘chapters’ of the organisation have
entered into deals with Islamabad, to secure transient
relief and consolidate their operations further. The TTP
has now consolidated its presence and influence across
the tribal areas, particularly in the Agencies of North
and South Waziristan. Indeed, in September 2006, in an
attempt to end the violence raging since 2004 between
the ‘Pakistani Taliban’ and the Pakistan Armed Forces,
in a negotiated settlement, the Pakistan Government recognised
the ‘Islamic Emirate of Waziristan’, comprising of Waziristani
chieftains with close ties to the Taliban, as the de
facto SF for Waziristan. This peace Agreement finally
broke in August 2007 after the Lal Masjid siege. A three
day military operation, from October 8, 2007 to October
10, 2007, was launched in the Mir Ali Town of North Waziristan
Agency in which at least 150 militants were killed. Clashes
broke out after militants set off Improvised Explosive
Devices (IEDs) and conducted ambushes on the SFs on October
7, 2007. Though there have been other military operations
by the Pakistan Armed Forces against Taliban militants
in FATA, Pakistan continues to live on a sword’s edge
in the region.
On January
28, 2008, there were reports of clandestine talks between
the Government and the TTP. Militant 'commander' Maulana
Faqir Muhammad was identified as the ‘political face’
of the TTP for the purpose of holding talks with the Government.
Subsequently, on February 24, 2008, after Provincial elections
had installed a new Government, the TTP said that they
were ready for talks, but only if the new Provincial regime
rejected Musharraf’s “war on terror” in the country’s
tribal belt. On May 13, 2008, the KP Government and the
TTP agreed to the implementation of Shari’ah Nizam-e-Adl
Regulations, 1999, in the Malakand Division within one
month. The TTP’s demand for the implementation of Shari’ah
has been settled, the KP unit President of the ruling
Awami National Party, Afrasiab Khattak, informed the media,
after a second round of talks with TTP representatives
from Swat. However, the Pakistan Government, on June 9,
2008, scrapped the peace deal with the TTP after militants
reneged on their promise to stop violence.
The present
peace deal offered by the Prime Minister to the TTP and
other terrorist groupings within Pakistan is bound to
produce another fiasco. It comes at a time of escalating
terrorist violence, widening instability across the AfPak
region, growing Pakistani state adventurism, and the declining
coherence of state institutions within the country. Islamabad
has failed to learn any lessons from past failures, and
has repeatedly sought accommodation with fanatical, religiously
intolerant, misogynist and violent groupings, even as
radical Islamist mobilisation remains at the core of all
domestic politics and the Army’s model of crisis management.
The Prime Minister’s blandishments will do little to contain
the TTP and other extremist factions within the country,
or to stall Pakistan’s hurtling descent into chaos.
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Maharashtra:
Deep Slumber
Deepak Kumar Nayak
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management
On October
3, 2011, Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist)
cadres killed a civilian, identified as Mahendra Bawankar,
in the Kothi village of Gadchiroli District, on suspicion
of being a Police informer. Bawankar had been abducted
the previous night by a group of 10 to 15 Maoists from
the village.
Earlier,
on September 20, the Maoist cadres abducted Ranu alias
Kiran Pusali (30) and his wife Jaswanda alias Devli
(25), both former Maoists, from a relative's house in
village Jhari in Dhanora tehsil (revenue unit)
in Gadchiroli District and shot them dead on a hillock
near the village, presuming them to have turned Police
informers. Ranu, a native of Nelgunda village in Bhamragad
tehsil, had surrendered to the Police on May 17,
2010, while Jaswanda of Bhimpur village in Dhanora tehsil,
had left the CPI-Maoist on August 18, 2010.
Elsewhere
in the District, the Maoists abducted and subsequently
shot dead one Borra Vidpi (40) of Gopnar village and threw
his body on Hedra Road in Bhamragad tehsil. Vidpi
was also branded a Police informer.
31 civilians
have already been killed by the Maoists in Maharashtra
in 2011 till October 9, a figure that exceeds the total
civilian killings (22) in the whole of 2010. This is by
far the highest number of civilian fatalities in the State
in a year since 2005.
Fatalities
in Left-wing Extremism in Maharashtra 2005-2011
Years
|
Civilian
|
SF
|
Naxal
|
Total
|
2005
|
2
|
17
|
8
|
27
|
2006
|
13
|
3
|
33
|
49
|
2007
|
9
|
2
|
8
|
19
|
2008
|
2
|
5
|
7
|
14
|
2009
|
12
|
52
|
23
|
87
|
2010
|
22
|
15
|
3
|
40
|
2011*
|
31
|
9
|
25
|
65
|
Total
|
91
|
103
|
107
|
301
|
Source:
SATP, *Data till October 9, 2011
There was
a spike in SF fatalities in Maharashtra in 2009, but such
losses have diminished sharply since, largely as a result
of avoidance of confrontation with the Maoists. The high
casualty figure among Maoists in 2011, as compared to
an insignificant three in 2010 would, on first sight,
suggest a dramatic augmentation of operations, but fails
to inspire confidence; of the 25 Maoist fatalities claimed
by the Police, only two bodies have been recovered. Even
in 2009, with 23 Maoist fatalities claimed, just three
bodies were recovered.
Some of
the major incidents of civilian killings during the period
include:
July 17,
2011: A group of CPI-Maoist cadres reportedly killed three
persons including a sarpanch (village head) in
Korchi Taluka (revenue sub-division) in Gadchiroli
District. The victims identified as Motiram Katenge (50),
sarpanch of Dabri village, Sudhakar Koreti (40)
and Paharsinh Kumre (55), were killed in Bijepar village
and their bodies were dumped in the neighbouring Mohgaon
Tola village.
May 5,
2011: A landmine blast triggered by CPI-Maoist cadres
killed six persons of a family, including a five-year-old
boy, on Gadchiroli-Rajnandgaon road near Tavitola village
in the Dhanora Police Station limits in Gadchiroli District.
The Naxalites (Left Wing Extremists) are learnt to have
followed up the blast with constant firing on the victims.
October
8, 2010: Four civilians including two schoolchildren were
killed in the outskirts of the Sawargaon village in Gadchiroli
District along the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border when
a hand grenade, hurled during an encounter between the
Maoists and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel,
landed in a school compound. Twelve children were critically
wounded in the crossfire. The encounter had started after
a jeep carrying ITBP personnel was blown up by the Maoists
in the Sawargaon forest, killing three personnel instantly.
It was not clear who hurled the grenade.
May 16,
2006: In a landmine explosion triggered by the CPI-Maoist
cadres, 12 members of a marriage group were killed between
Halebada and Patha villages in the Gadchiroli District.
There has
been a continuous rise in the number of civilians killed
since 2008. The Maoists objective is apparently to prevent
the local population from cooperating with the Police.
A significant proportion of all the civilians killed have
been branded as Police informers by the Maoists.
In a letter
written to Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan in July, 2011,
Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram expressed concern at
the worsening Naxalite situation in the State. Earlier,
on December 16, 2010, Maharashtra Home Minister R.R. Patil,
speaking in the State Assembly, noted that a ‘large number’
of armed Naxalites were active in Gadchiroli District
and were ‘waging a war’ against the state power. The steady
worsening of the situation in Gadchiroli
is compounded by the steady leaching of the Maoist influence
into the neighbouring Chandrapur, Bhandara and Gondiya
Districts, and further into Nagpur and Wardha. The Naxalites
have also made their presence felt far into the Western
extremities of the State, in Mumbai, Nandurbar, Nashik,
Pune and Thane, where a number of Maoists have been arrested.
Earlier,
in 2010, intelligence agencies had cautioned the State
Government that considerable increase in the activities
and influence of the Maoists had been detected in large
parts of Gadchiroli and small pockets of Gondia, and that
young tribals were being enlisted and trained at camps
organised in the District through May and August 2010.
A ‘pan-Vidarbha
plan’ for the vistar or spread of the Maoist influence
across Maharashtra’s expansive and most backward region,
was also discovered when security agencies recovered crucial
Maoist documents during an operation in April 2011. The
Maoists are said to have formed a V-dalam (squad)
to extend the movement across Vidarbha in the State’s
east, bordering Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Andhra
Pradesh. The Vidarbha region comprises of 11 Districts,
Amravati, Akola, Bhandara, Buldana, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli,
Gondiya, Nagpur, Wardha, Washim and Yavatmal. A shift
in the strategy of the Maoists, increasingly targeting
urban areas, has also been noticed. Revelations was made
by 15 Maoists arrested by the Maharashtra’s anti-terrorism
squad (ATS) in Thane and Pune between April 25 and May
12, 2011, indicated a strong effort to push forward the
objectives of the Maoist ‘Urban Perspective’ document.
There is,
however, little to suggest that the State’s counter-insurgency
efforts are keeping pace, though the number of encounters
has increased from four through 2010, to 10 so far in
2011.
Of these
ten encounters in 2011, the SFs suffered (9) losses in
five incidents, while no SF casualty was reported in five.
In two of the five incidents in which SFs’ suffered
losses, two Maoists were also killed. A woman Maoist dalam
(squad) ‘commander’ Raneeta alias Ramko Hichami
was killed On August 20, 2011. Further, a team
of the C-60 Battalion, [the crack unit set up to fight
Naxals in the forests of Gadchiroli District in Maharashtra,
raised from local adivasi youth], exchanged fire
with a CPI-Maoist ‘platoon’ led by ‘commander’ Dinesh
near Msanjhurwa and Lalzhari villages under the Duggipar
Police Station in Gondia District on September 22, 2011.
Though the SFs failed to inflict any fatalities on the
Maoists, they recovered 10 kilograms of explosives and
13 detonators, along with some communications equipment
and Maoist literature, in what the Police claimed was
the biggest operation in the State in years. With no signs
of any major operations in Gadchiroli, the epicentre of
Maoist violence in the State, this limited operation in
the adjoining Gondia District appears to be something
of an eye wash.
Maharashtra
had a Police Population ratio of 166 per 100,000, as on
December 31, 2009, as against an all India average of
129. Ten State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) battalions
have been deployed in Gadchiroli. Five battalions of the
Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), including one of
the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA), have
also been deployed in Gadchiroli to boost the Police strength.
With little
pressure from the SFs, the Maoists have also avoided an
escalation, quietly continuing with the tasks of political
mobilisation, recruitment, training and wide intimidation
of civilian populations, punctuated by demonstrative killings
of those deemed to be ‘Police informers’ or others perceived
as hostile to their objectives. These campaigns are progressively
drying up information flows from affected areas, even
as they make the future tasks of the SFs much harder to
tackle. Significantly, wherever the SFs expose themselves,
the Maoists have not been shy of engagement. Thus, on
August 20, 2011, a 70-member Police patrol party, which
was approaching Makadchuha in Gadchiroli District from
its northern tip, were suddenly fired on from corn fields.
The SF team, reinforced by CoBRA commandos after the gunbattle
broke out, were taken totally by surprise. Two CoBRA personnel
and a woman Maoist cadre were killed.
The grave
dangers of a Maoist consolidation across wider areas is
being systematically downplayed, even ignored, by the
Government and SFs in Maharashtra, even as the usual twaddle
about development as a solution is served out regularly.
The reality of the developmental marginalization and neglect
of the Vidarbha region, and, indeed, of the expansion
of the Maoists into the highly developed Western region
of the State, is consistently disregarded in all this.
A rapidly expanding and systematically consolidated Maoist
movement can only present far graver challenges in future.
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Weekly Fatalities: Major Conflicts in
South Asia
October 3-9, 2011
|
Civilians
|
Security
Force Personnel
|
Terrorists/Insurgents
|
Total
|
INDIA
|
|
Assam
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
2
|
Jammu & Kashmir
|
0
|
0
|
6
|
6
|
Manipur
|
0
|
0
|
7
|
7
|
Left-wing
Extremism
|
|
Chhattisgarh
|
2
|
3
|
0
|
5
|
Jharkhand
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
Karnataka
|
0
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
Maharashtra
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
Total (INDIA)
|
5
|
4
|
14
|
23
|
PAKISTAN
|
|
Balochistan
|
31
|
2
|
1
|
34
|
FATA
|
0
|
1
|
12
|
13
|
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
|
1
|
2
|
19
|
22
|
Sindh
|
9
|
0
|
0
|
9
|
Total (PAKISTAN)
|
41
|
5
|
32
|
78
|
Provisional
data compiled from English language media sources.
|
INDIA
Six
NSCN-IM militants
killed in Manipur:
Six National Socialist
Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah
(NSCN-IM) cadres
were killed in an
ambush laid by suspected
Zeliangrong United
Front (ZUF), a newly
flouted armed Naga
outfit, on the road
leading to Subung
village under Nungba
subdivision in Tamenglong
District on October
7. In the incident
that occurred around
4.30pm, NSCN--IM
'Brigadier' Sunu
Poumai of 'Hothrong
Brigade' was injured.
Four others were
also injured. Nagaland
Post,
October 8, 2011.
China
and ISI supports
PLA in its bid to
form a 'Strong United
Front' along with
CPI-Maoist and Kashmiri
militants, says
report: China
and Inter Services
Intelligence (ISI)
supports Peoples
Liberation Army
(PLA), the Manipur
based outfit, in
its bid to form
a 'Strong United
Front' along with
Communist Party
of India-Maoist
(CPI-Maoist) and
Kashmiri militants.
Officials claimed
that ISI was funding
PLA for supplying
arms and ammunition
to Maoists in the
country and a "Strategic
United Front" was
being made to carry
out attacks in India
and on Security
Forces in the Naxal-affected
areas. An official
source said, "ISI
and PLA are in touch
and supplying Maoists
with arms. They
are supposedly using
China as the alternative
route." Times
of India,
October 8, 2011.
Illegal
firearms may create
major law and order
problem in Northeast:
Illegal firearms
being channeled
into the Northeast
are going to emerge
as a major concern
in maintaining law
and order in a region
already infested
by dozens of insurgents
and subversive groups.
Apart from pistols
and revolvers, semi-automatic
weapons with considerable
fire power are being
brought into the
region. At times
American and European
weapons have also
been recovered from
insurgents, which
reveal the demand
for high-quality
firearms. Tribune,
October 5, 2011.
Maoists
promise to restrict
use of arms in West
Bengal: The
Communist Party-Maoist
(CPI-Maoist) on
October 4 said that
they would restrain
use of arms for
one month if the
Government suspended
joint operation
in Jungle Mahal
to create a congenial
atmosphere for talks.
"If there is no
joint operation
in the area then
we will restrain
arms for one month,"
a joint statement
signed and issued
by Akash- spokesperson
of Maoist state
Committee besides
Sujato Bhadra and
Choton Das, the
two interlocutors,
said. Zee
News,
October 7, 2011.
PAKISTAN
31
civilians and two
SF personnel among
34 persons killed
during the week
in Balochistan:
At least four people
were shot dead by
unidentified militants
near the Railway
Colony on Joint
Road in Quetta on
October 5.
At
least 14 people
of Hazara community
were killed and
five seriously injured
after unknown militants
fired indiscriminately
at a bus in Akhtarabad
area of Quetta on
October 4. According
to sources, around
20-30 people on
board a passenger
bus came under fire
on their way to
Hazar Ganji from
Quetta. The militants
carrying guns stopped
the bus, dragged
some passengers
down and shot them
dead following which
they opened indiscriminate
fire on the bus
killing more. The
News, daily Times,
October 5-6, 2011.
Pakistan
is a major source
of makeshift bombs
in Afghanistan,
reveal media report:
Pakistan is a major
source of makeshift
bombs being used
by terrorists in
Afghanistan, a media
report of The
USA Today said
on October 3. According
to Navy Captain
Douglas Borrebach,
Deputy Director
at Pentagon's Joint
IED Defeat Organization,
"More than 80 per
cent of the Improvised
Explosive Devices
(IEDs) are homemade
explosives using
calcium ammonium
nitrate fertilizer
produced in Pakistan,"
adding, "The border
is a sieve. Indian
Express,
October 4, 2011.
Taliban
can't move a finger
without Pakistan,
says Afghanistan
President Hamid
Karzai: Afghan
President Hamid
Karzai on October
7 said that Taliban
"can't move a finger"
without Pakistan's
support. "Definitely,
the Taliban will
not be able to move
a finger without
Pakistani support,"
he said, without
specifying if he
meant the army,
the civilian Government,
the feared Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI)
Agency, or another
part of the state.
Karzai also accused
Pakistan of supporting
the insurgency saying
sanctuaries there
still needed to
be tackled. Daily
Times,
October 8, 2011.
SRI LANKA
LTTE
front organizations
run private schools
in Netherlands,
says report:
Front organizations
of the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) are
running private
Saturday schools
in the Netherlands,
Radio Netherlands
reported citing
a recent report
by the Dutch National
Police. During the
weekend classes
of 21 schools across
the country Tamil
children are taught
the Tamil language
as well as dance
and acting, the
Police report has
revealed. The schools
are located in Amsterdam,
Rotterdam, Den Haag,
Breda, Eindhoven,
Arnhem and Leeuwarden.
Colombo
Page,
October 5, 2011.
The South
Asia Intelligence Review (SAIR) is a weekly service that
brings you regular data, assessments and news briefs on
terrorism, insurgencies and sub-conventional warfare, on
counter-terrorism responses and policies, as well as on
related economic, political, and social issues, in the South
Asian region.
SAIR is a project
of the Institute
for Conflict Management
and the
South
Asia Terrorism Portal.
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