SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 10, No. 19, November 14, 2011

AFGHANISTAN

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HIG: Volatile Player
Sanchita Bhattacharya
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

Reiterating a long-standing demand for quick withdrawal of foreign forces, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the founder and leader of Hezb-e-Islami-Gulbuddin (HIG), in an interview on November 1, 2011, declared, “If the U.S. is willing, we can offer them an honorable exit from Afghanistan. Lasting peace is possible only if foreign forces end the occupation of Afghanistan and withdraw their troops." He further condemned Pakistan for its role in the U.S.-led war against terrorism.

On September 24, 2011, HIG had stated that they had no interest in attending the Bonn Conference scheduled to be held in December 2011, and saw the solution to the Afghan issue only in the withdrawal of foreign forces. At that stage, Hekmatyar queried, “How can Mujahideen be interested in attending a conference which has neither a clear agenda nor its participants are clear and being organized on the proposal of the occupying forces.” He had also expressed his dissatisfaction over the fallout of the Bonn Conference and the Bonn Agreement of December 5, 2001, noting,

The U.S., however, appears determined to realize the pre-mature withdrawal of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops by 2014, and is desperately seeking any kind of arrangement that would enable the extraction of its Forces without a complete collapse of order in Afghanistan.

In an effort to create the necessary conditions for an ordered extraction, the U.S. has sought to shift the focus of the war from Taliban strongholds in South Afghanistan, to the porous eastern border with Pakistan, where al Qaeda and Taliban factions hold sway. General David Petraeus, former Commander of the U.S. and NATO Forces in Afghanistan, observed, on July 4, 2011, “It’s a shift of intelligence assets. It’s a shift of armed and lift helicopters and perhaps the shift of some relatively small coalition forces on the ground and substantial Afghan forces on the ground. The intent has always been that, as the southwest and south are solidified, that these assets would focus on the east”.

Insurgency in the eastern Provinces of Kunar, Parwan, Kapisa, Laghman, Khost and Jalalabad, is heavily influenced by HIG. The outfit also has strong presence in Kabul, Paktika, Nangarhar and Logar Provinces. HIG has historically been active in these areas, as it operates from Pakistan's tribal areas – the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the Khyber-Paktunkhwa (KP) Province. HIG has a strong presence in the Peshawar District of KP, particularly at the Shamshatoo Refugee Camp, from where it publishes two newspapers, Shahaadat (Martyrdom) and Tanweer (The Light). HIG members recruited youth from the Shamshatoo Refugee camp to receive advanced training, including the use of remote controlled Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and electronics. On October 1, 2007, Qazi Amin Waqad, a close associate of Hekmatyar, stated that the Shamshatoo Council [a governing body of the HIG in the Shamshatoo Refugee Camp] is directly controlled and led by Hekmatyar. HIG also has a base in Spina Shaga in the Kurram Agency in FATA.

The most significant incidents of violence associated with HIG include: 

January 28, 2011: A suicide attack killed nine people and wounded several Afghans and foreigners at the Finest Supermarket in the Wazir Akbar Khan area of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.

November 12, 2010: A suicide car bomber blew himself up as a NATO convoy passed by his vehicle on the outskirts of Kabul, wounding two soldiers.

November 21, 2009: A rocket attack near the luxury Serena Hotel in Kabul injured four people, including two members of the Afghan Security Forces.

August 19, 2008: 10 French soldiers were killed in Sarobi District of Kabul Province in a Taliban ambush on an ISAF patrol. The clashes began late August 18 afternoon and continued into the next day, when the casualties occurred.

April 28, 2008: An attack targeting Afghan President Hamid Karzai was carried out during a military parade in Kabul. A Member of Parliament and two others were killed.

November 27, 2007: A suicide bomb attack on a convoy of U.S. contractor SUVs near the US Embassy in Kabul killed two people, including the bomber, and injured another four.

January 31, 2003: An explosion on the Rambasi Bridge six miles south of Kandahar killed eight civilians traveling on a bus.

September 5, 2002: A car bomb exploded in a central market in Kabul. Authorities indicated that at least 25 persons were killed and dozens injured.

September 5, 2002: An assassination attempt was made on Karzai outside the Governor's Palace in Kandahar. However, no casualty was reported.

Apart from these incidents for which the HIG has either claimed responsibility or has been directly implicated, there has been a large number of other attacks in Kabul in which the group’s involvement cannot be ruled out, since it is part of the Kabul Attack Network (KAN), an umbrella organization that carries out operations in and around Kabul, led by the Haqqani Network. There have also been several attacks for which both the Quetta Shura Taliban and HIG claim responsibility, as they have a checkered history of relations.

The HIG is an Afghan Islamist political party, founded in 1977 by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a Kharotai Pashtun. During the anti-Soviet Jihad, Hekmatyar was heavily backed and funded by the CIA, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. While he was an engineering student at Kabul University, Hekmatyar, was heavily influenced by the Ikhwan-al-Muslimin (Muslim Brotherhood). Initially, he was also part of the Pro-Soviet People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, but his linkage with HIG was established through covert Pakistani support of the Islamist formations in the country, with the objective of toppling the Daoud Khan Government. However, Hekmatyar’s failure to lead a successful anti-Government rebellion caused split in the party. Hezb-e-Islami-Khalis was founded in the 1979 by Mawlawi Mohammad Younus Khalis, after the latter broke with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar over political differences. Before splitting with the Khalis’ faction and forming his own cadre of fighters, Jalaluddin Haqqani, who now heads the Haqqani Network, was among the most famous of Hezb-e-Islami-Khalis commanders.

In the early 1990s, Hekmatyar ran several terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and was a pioneer in sending mercenary fighters to other Islamic conflicts across the world. He offered to shelter slain al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden after the latter fled Sudan in 1996. However, when HIG failed to capture Kabul during the early 1990s, and consequently failed to secure Pakistan’s influence over Afghanistan, Islamabad shifted its support to the Taliban, a new movement of religious students (talibs) who were gaining strength in the south of the country at that time. The Taliban went on to take over most of Afghanistan by the late 1990s.

Hekmatyar was forced into exile when the Taliban finally conquered Kabul in 1996. Unsurprisingly, as late as November 2002, Hekmatyar publicly denied cooperating with the Taliban. However, on December 25, 2002, Hekmatyar and the Taliban publicly announced that they were coordinating their activity against the Afghan Government and its international supporters. According to Abdul Razak, former Minister of Commerce in the Taliban Regime and Guantanamo Detainee 1043, “In the spring of 2003, Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, HIG leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and Usama bin Laden agreed to unite their forces”. This alignment formed the Anti-Government Elements (AGE) organizing the insurgency against the current Afghan Government.

Radio Free Europe reported that, in May 2006, Hekmatyar appeared in a video aired on the Arabic language Al-Jazeera television station, and declared that he wanted his forces to fight alongside al Qaeda. He stated, "We thank all Arab mujahideen, particularly Sheikh Osama Bin Laden, Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri, and other leaders who helped us in our jihad against the Russians”.

According to an October 2008 document of the District Court for the Central District of California, Southern Division, in the U.S.,

These designations continue in effect.

Meanwhile, the insurgency’s penetration of the greater Kabul area has intensified competition between Taliban fighters associated with Mullah Omar’s Quetta Shura (leadership council), the North Waziristan-based Haqqani Network and HIG. Violent rivalries between commanders of these insurgent groups in places such as Kapisa, Logar and Wardak have resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives.

Thus, in spite of trying to work at an extremist AGE front, HIG and Taliban have failed to hammer out a shared operational framework. Ideologically, HIG is in favour of establishing a democracy based on elections, which is totally opposed by the Taliban. Further, HIG supports education and jobs for women, whereas Taliban are known for their anti-women policies. HIG has also articulated its willingness to pursue a political settlement with the Karzai Government, and this has reportedly irritated the Taliban. Unsurprisingly, there have been confrontations between members of the HIG and Taliban. In March 2010, HIG and the Taliban clashed in Baghlan Province, which resulted in hundreds of casualties, according to the US Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center (CTC). Both insurgent groups also clashed in the Wardak Province in July 2010. The CTC notes that the Taliban’s growth in northern Afghanistan and subsequent competition for terrain between insurgent groups had generated a “significant fissure in the country’s militant movement”.

Though HIG has engaged in several attacks on civilian targets, it has also issued an edict condemning civilian killing. For instance, HIG took 'credit’ for the massacre of civilians in the Finest Supermarket on January 28, 2011. However, Hekmatyar's deputy, Qutbuddin Helal, on February 5, 2011, stated, "Killing civilians is prohibited. We cannot call it an Islamic act. Suicide attacks and firefights in public and civilian locations are not acceptable in Islam at all”.

It may have been forced to adopt this dichotomous approach as a result of the fact that almost 40 members in the newly inaugurated Wolesi Jirga (lower house of the National Assembly) have or had political affiliations to the HIG. The Jirga was formed in October 2010 and has 249 members.

HIG representatives have also been engaged in direct talks with Government officials in Kabul. Significantly, on March 22, 2010, HIG published a 15-Point Peace Plan. While it is very detailed about an interim period during and after a quick withdrawal of foreign troops, the plan is vague about what a future Afghanistan would look like. It stipulates only that the first new elected Parliament would revise the Constitution. Apart from the establishment of Islamic courts to try war criminals and corrupt officials, there is not even the standard reference to an Islamic system of Government – apparently, that goes without saying.

A decade into the war, the West is seeking to weaken a host of insurgents, including the HIG, and push them towards embryonic peace talks with the Afghan Government, rather than to achieving a decisive battlefield victory in this decade-long guerrilla war. At the same time, political disagreement has become a perennial problem in insurgency-ravaged Afghanistan. HIG remains a critical, unpredictable and dangerous player in Afghanistan’s present and volatile scenario, marked by a visible incoherence of strategy and political objectives. Given the group’s history, there is little reason to believe that it offers an alternative that could end present and potential political instability within the context of the U.S. efforts to hasten a withdrawal from Afghanistan.

INDIA

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Manipur: Ethnic Turf war
Veronica Khangchian
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

At midnight of October 31, 2011, the Sadar Hills Districthood Demand Committee (SHDDC) lifted the longest ever economic blockade in the history of Manipur after 92 days, following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the State Government. The Sadar Hills area in Senapati District was to be upgraded to a full-fledged Kuki District at the earliest, after the submission of the report by the District Re-organisation Committee. The Kukis have been demanding district status for the area since the early 1970s, with the bifurcation of the Kangpoki sub-division of the Naga majority Senapati District, to form a Kuki-dominated Sadar Hills District. The agreement was signed ahead of Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s visit to Manipur on November 2, 2011.

The SHDDC had imposed an economic blockade on the two National Highways (NH) – NH-39 (renamed NH 2, Imphal-Dimapur) and NH-53 (renamed NH 37, Imphal-Jiribam) – of Manipur started on August 1, 2011. The long blockade resulted in four deaths and several injuries in confrontations between blockade supporters and the Security Forces (SFs). The blockade was converted into a general strike following the mowing down of three women in an accident. On August 2, on the second day of the economic blockade, three blockade supporters were rammed by an oil tanker at Kanglatongbi in Senapati District, when the driver lost control after the tanker came under attack from blockade supporters. Again, a truck driver who was critically injured by blockade supporters on NH-53 on August 3, 2011, succumbed to his injuries on August 13. On August 4, the blockade witnessed more violent incidents as the offices of the Additional Deputy Commissioner (Kangpokpi), Sub Divisional Officer (Siatu Gamphajol), Public Health Engineering Department Executive Engineer (Kangpokpi) and Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (Kangpokpi), were set ablaze, and three vehicles at Gangpijang along Saikul Road and another two cars at Hengbung in Senapati District, were vandalized.

Inclusive of Government buildings and private vehicles vandalized or destroyed, properties worth INR 2.45 billion are estimated to have been lost during the course of 92 days blockade imposed by SHDDC. According to a Government report, the State exchequer suffered a loss of INR 25.7 million every day during the course of the economic blockade. Further, at least 20 Government offices and around 45 private vehicles were set on fire by blockade supporters. Prices of essential commodities in the Imphal Valley soared as a result of shortages, with LPG cylinders sold in the black market for up to INR 1,600 per cylinder and petrol at INR 120 a litre.

Meanwhile, the Nagas, under the leadership of the United Naga Council (UNC), launched a counter-blockade on August 21, on all highways in the State, including NH 150, which links Manipur with Kohima in Nagaland and Aizawl in Mizoram, in opposition to the SHDDC demand. Sadar Hills is currently under Senapati District, where the Nagas constitute a majority, and the Naga organisations oppose bifurcation.

On October 30, 2011, a Manipur Government report indicated that Manipur Police had, till that date, registered 48 First Information Reports (FIRs) for violent acts related with the economic blockade called by SHDDC, and nine cases related to the counter-blockade by UNC.

The October 31 MoU comes as a blow to the Nagas led by the UNC in Manipur, as they interpret it as a policy to further divide the Naga homeland and frustrate their ultimate goal of integration of Naga areas under one administrative unit. The Nagas have made no secret of their resentment. On November 1, 2011, reacting strongly to the signing of the MoU between the Government of Manipur (GoM) and the SHDDC, the two main Naga bodies in the State, the UNC and the All Naga Students Association Manipur (ANSAM), took a decision to escalate their agitation. Condemning the manner in which the GoM had executed the agreement, without the consensus and consent of the Nagas, the UNC alleged that the Government had failed to abide by the four MoUs signed with the Naga people in 1981, 1992, 1996 and 1998.  Significantly, the MoU of 1998 states that “Resolution to the conflict on the issue of the Sadar Hills will be brought about through a consensus of the people concerned in the interest of bringing about lasting peace and harmony between the Nagas and the Kukis”. This MoU also agreed to honor the preceding agreements of 1981, 1992, 1996, which recognized the issue of land as the bone of contention between the Kukis and the Nagas. The 1992 MoU also guaranteed that no part of the Naga area would be bartered away under any circumstance.

The Nagas have now declared that their ongoing economic blockade would continue until further notice and that their agitation would intensify. The UNC enforced a three day bandh (total shutdown) from midnight of November 3 till November 6, 2011. The bandh turned violent on November 4, when at least 10 persons, mostly woman bandh supporters, were injured while engaging in a scuffle with the SFs at Noney along National Highway-53 in Tamenglong District.

Reacting to the Naga opposition, the SHDDC, on November 3, warned that it would resume its economic blockade unless both the Central and State Governments acted on the written assurance of the MoU signed between the committee and the State Government. A memorandum addressed to Union Home Minister Chidambaram noted,

According to the ADC Act, 1971, all the Hill Areas were to be divided into six autonomous Districts, with the ultimate goal of full-fledged District status. These six autonomous Districts included Churachandpur, Senapati, Ukhrul, Tamenglong, Kangpokpi (Sadar Hills) and Chandel. Of the six autonomous Districts, Sadar Hills remains the only one that has not been accorded a full-fledged District status. Unlike the other five districts, it still remains an ADC, under the supervision of the Senapati District administration in all matters concerning executive, legislative, judicial and financial functioning.

The Kukis and the Nagas of Manipur share a bloody history of ethnic conflict, reaching deep into the British colonial era, and beyond. The animus was widely manifested through the 1990s (1992-1997), when over 1,000 people were killed in Kuki-Naga clashes in the Hill Districts, because the Nagas reportedly served a ‘quit notice’ to the Kukis to vacate the Naga-settled areas. The Nagas believed that they had the right over the land, as they were the original settlers in the Manipur Hills, while the Kukis migrated into the region after they were driven out from Myanmar’s Chin Hills, their ancestral land, in the 19^th century.

Many a time in the past, these conflicts have been played out on the State's highways, affecting thousands of people. The economic blockade has, in fact, become part of the ‘culture’ of the State. The turf war between the warring groups has literally held the majority of Manipur's 2,166,788 people to ransom, as the landlocked State depends on supplies of almost all essential commodities from outside the region through trucks plying on these highways.

In April 2010 as well, when the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) general secretary, Thuingaleng Muivah, made an attempt to enter Manipur to visit his birth place at Somdal in Ukhrul District, this was opposed by both the Meiteis and Kukis, who saw his visit as an endorsement of the ‘greater Nagaland’ concept, which sought the incorporation of all ‘Naga dominated’ areas in Manipur as well. Later, on April 11, 2010, ANSAM and the Naga Students' Federation (NSF) initiated an indefinite blockade on NH-39 and NH-53, protesting elections to the Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) in Manipur hills and the Manipur Government's decision to ban Muivah’s entry. The blockade continued for 69 days, resulting in an unprecedented crisis in Manipur. The United Committee Manipur (UCM), formed by the Meiteis, also 'banned' all vehicles plying between Imphal and other Hill Districts of the State, in protest against the decision of the Union Government to allow Muivah to visit Manipur. Two protestors were killed and another 80 were injured during clashes between the protestors and the Police at Mao Bazaar area in Senapati District on May 6, 2010. The SFs also arrested at least 28 protestors during follow-up operations. Following the incident, the Naga Peoples Convention held at Tahamzam in Senapati District under the aegis of the UNC on July 1, 2010, resolved to sever all ties with the Manipur Government, and began to demand an ‘alternative arrangement’ for the Nagas of Manipur through the intervention of the Government of India. Explaining its stand on what it meant by “alternative administrative arrangement of the Nagas”, the UNC, on December 12, 2010, asserted that there was nothing anti-State or anti-national in their demand. The ultimate demand of the Nagas as a whole was always the integration of all Naga areas. The demand for “alternative administrative arrangements” concerned only the Nagas of Manipur.

In 2001, Manipur had witnessed a round of tremendous turmoil following the Centre’s decision to extend ceasefire with the National Socialist Council of Nagalim “without territorial limits”, i.e., beyond Nagaland.  On June 18, 2001, 13 civilians were killed and over 50 were injured in Imphal as Police fire on demonstrators protesting the extension of the cease-fire area. The protestors feared that the truce extension was the first step towards a bifurcation of the State for merger with Nagaland. During this phase of agitation, mobs stormed Government buildings and torched the State Assembly Hall, Chief Minister’s Secretariat, and residences of State Legislators and the Speaker of the Assembly. The UCM had spearheaded the stir against the truce ‘without territorial limits’. The stir left 18 persons dead, including the 13 killed in Police firing. The protests died down only after India’s then Home Minister L.K Advani on July 27, 2001, announced that the three words “without territorial limits” would be dropped from the agreement signed with the NSCN-IM, regarding the scope of the cease-fire. While the Meiteis took out celebratory marches with the review of the ceasefire, the Nagas in Manipur blocked highways, enforced general strikes and took out torch rallies in protest. The Kukis were also threatened by these developments when a new Kuki body, the Kuki Nampi International, was formed on July 29, 2001, with a view to integrating Kuki ethnic groups scattered worldwide under one umbrella and to safeguard the rights and interests of the Kukis.

In 2005, ANSAM carried out an economic blockade against the decision of the Government of Manipur to declare June 18 as "State Integrity Day" and a State holiday. This was to commemorate the June 18, 2001, incident, when 13 Meitei civilians were killed. The economic blockade, which started from June 18, 2005, lasted for 55 days (till August 11). UCM had been urging the State Government to declare a general holiday on June 18 to observe ‘Manipur Integrity Day’.

With a rapidly improving general security scenario and declining residual militancy, the “culture of economic blockades” has the potential to provide the insurgents fertile grounds to revive rapidly dwindling support among the masses. Sandwiched between the demands of the Kukis and Nagas, the Government faces a tricky situation. Granting the demands of either side is likely to create more violence and even, in the worst case, to trigger another possible ethnic clash between the two communities, as their turf wars continue unabated.