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SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 10, No. 52, July 02, 2012

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


AFGHANISTAN
PAKISTAN
USA
Click for PrintPrint

Seeds of Uncertainty, and Pride
Ajai Sahni
Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management & South Asia Terrorism Portal
Ajit Kumar Singh
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

Just as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commanders in Afghanistan began to sense some ‘gains’ in Afghanistan, observing that fatalities and ‘enemy initiated attacks’ had declined, for the first time in the war, through 2011, and that the trend appeared to be continuing into the early months of 2012, the Taliban declared their Spring Offensive 2012, codenamed Al Farouq, kicking up their operations dramatically. The escalation came in the wake of increasing political uncertainty, with the hardening of US President Barack Obama’s stance on the withdrawal of US Combat Forces from Afghanistan “by 2014”, and the commencement of the first phase of withdrawal.

ISAF data had indicated a drop of 9 per cent in ‘enemy initiated operations’ in 2011 over 2010, and a further drop of as much as 21 per cent in the first three months of 2012, as against these same period in 2011. Total fatalities dropped from 10,826 in 2010 to 8,942 in 2011, with only civilian fatalities registering an increase, from 2,777 to 3,021, over this period.

Year

ANA
ANP & Local
ISAF
Civilian
Militant

2007

278
688
232
1523
4500

2008

259
724
295
2118
5000

2009

292
639
521
2412
4610

2010

821
1292
711
2777
5225

2011

511
569
566
3021
4275

2012

70 (July 1)
133 (July 1)
223 (July 1)
871 (July 1)
1592 (July 1)

Total

2231
4045
2548 (Since 2001: 3070)
12722 (Since 2001: 18,003)
25202 (Since 2001: 39,015)
Source: Compiled from multiple sources by the South Asia Terrorism Portal.

With the announcement of the Taliban’s Al Farouq Spring Offensive, commencing May 3, 2012, however, these positive trends have registered a sharp reversal. Al Farouq, the Taliban announcement of May 2, 2012, declared, would aggressively target "foreign invaders, their advisors, their contractors, all those who help them militarily and in intelligence." The Spring Offensive was named after Islam's second Caliph, Omar Al-Farouq, known for his military advances in Asia and the Arab world during the 7th century. Significantly, the Taliban announcement came hours after Taliban insurgents, armed with guns, suicide vests and a bomb-laden car, attacked a heavily fortified compound used by Westerners in Kabul, killing seven people and wounding more than a dozen others on May 2, 2012.

Since then, the country has witnessed resurgence of violence to an unprecedented level. Month to month comparisons indicated that April 2012 registered a three per cent increase in “enemy initiated attacks”, rising dramatically to 20 per cent in May 2012, over May 2011. There were an estimated 3,000 ‘enemy initiated attacks’ in May 2012, as against some 2,500 attacks in May 2011. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) noted, further, on June 26, 2012, that 214 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in just the preceding week, in 48 separate incidents. On June 12, 2012, Afghan President Hamid Karzai told Parliament, "I have noticed that these days, in the past one, two or three months, attacks on our soldiers, police and intelligence officers have increased. Every day, 20 to 25 of our youths sacrifice their lives for this homeland and are martyred." The Institute for Conflict Management database recorded at least 20 high fatality incidents (10 or more killings) between May 1, 2012, and June 30, 2012, in addition to another 16 such incidents in the first four months of the year.

In one of the most prominent attacks since the announcement of Al Farouq, at least 23 people, including 14 civilians, three hotel guards, five Taliban militants and one Afghan Policeman, were killed in a gunfight, between militants and Security Forces (SFs), which occurred following the seizure by terrorists of the Spozhmai Hotel, outside Kabul, in the night of June 21, 2012. Armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, the terrorists had stormed the hotel, shooting dead the hotel guards, and taking more than 40 people hostage. A 12-hour long siege was brought to an end in the morning of June 22, 2012, when five terrorists were shot dead by Afghan SFs, supported by helicopter gunships from the US-led ISAF. There were more than 300 people in the hotel at the time of the attack.

Widely divergent assessments are currently emanating from the US regarding the trajectory of violence in Afghanistan. Republican Kathleen C. Hochul claimed, on May 24, 2012, "A year ago, 50 percent of the country [Afghanistan] was still under Taliban control; now it's down to about 25 percent." On the other hand, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Fienstein and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers asserted, on May 6, 2012, that the Taliban was stronger than it was before Obama’s ‘surge’. President Obama has conceded that the trends in Afghanistan are far from reassuring, even as he insists that the withdrawal plans are “irreversible”, declaring, “The Taliban is still a robust enemy, and the gains are still fragile.” The Afghan Taliban (or Quetta Shura) headed by Mullah Omar, Hizb-e-Islami, the Haqqani Network, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and al Qaeda, retain the wherewithal to fight the SFs in Afghanistan, and are increasingly reinforced by a number of Pakistani terrorist formations. In another disturbing signpost, the Failed State Index saw Afghanistan rising from the 11th position among States at extreme risk in 2005, to the 6th position in 2012.

Almost all of Afghanistan is now witness to some levels of violence. As one local commentator noted, “the Taliban are spreading like wild fire” in the north, which was once the most peaceful part of Afghanistan. Indeed, just three Provinces in the country – Dayakundi in Central Afghanistan, Sare-Pol in the North and Badakshan in the Northeast – remain free of ISAF fatalities (the most consistently maintained index of violence in the country). The Taliban are ranging out from their original strongholds in the South and Southeast, to spread across the Central, Eastern, Northern and North Western regions, and have brought key NATO supply lines between Tajikistan and the Kunduz and Baghlan Provinces under repeated attack. Major clashes have also been recorded in the remote North Western Faryab Province.

Of course, the overwhelming theatres of violence remain centred along the AfPak border. Thus, for instance, Helmand has recorded the largest number of cumulative fatalities, at 864, in the country; Kandahar follows with 460; Konar, 173; Kabul 165; and Paktika, 134. It has long been abundantly clear, and is now more clearly acknowledged by Washington, that the problem of Afghanistan is, principally, Pakistan. Kathleen Hochul thus argues, "The loose end will always be Pakistan… It is unconscionable to me that we are giving federal taxpayer dollars to support a country that puts our country in harm's way."

The situation is now further complicated by the increasing presence on Afghan soil of Pakistan’s bête noire, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is increasingly making common cause with the Afghan Taliban, both to create room for manoeuvre when it comes under pressure in Pakistan, and to launch attacks against the ‘infidels’ and ‘invaders’ in Afghanistan. Pakistani officials claim that some six to seven hundred TTP militants have set up bases in Afghanistan, facing the Mohmand Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan; another four to five hundred were based across the border from the Bajaur Agency; and an estimated 300, across the border from the Upper and Lower Dir Districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). The total strength of the TTP in Afghanistan Pakistani sources claim, is around 1,500, principally based in Kunar and Nuristan, where US-led coalition forces abandoned the more remote outposts after suffering heavy casualties in 2009, and where the Afghan Government has little physical presence. Reports indicate that the ‘deputy chief’ of the TTP, Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, was currently operating from the Kunar Province, while Maulana Fazlullah, head of the Swat chapter of TTP, was believed to be based in the Nuristan Province. Significantly, on December 10, 2010, the head of the TTP in Upper and Lower Dir, Hafizullah, and two of his aides, Dr. Wazir and Muftahudin alias Shabbar, were killed in US drone strikes in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province. US air strikes also killed at least 35 TTP militants in the Paktia Province, when a group of about 100 TTP militants fired missiles and rockets at a convoy of foreign troops on July 23, 2011. Pakistani authorities also claim that TTP cadres were crossing in from Afghanistan to execute attacks in Pakistan. In the latest of these attacks, on June 24, 2012, TTP terrorists located in the Kunar Province, crossed over into the Upper Dir area of KP and abducted 17 Pakistani soldiers. Six of them were beheaded on the same day, another seven on the next day, and, four bodies were recovered on June 27, 2012.  In retaliation, Pakistan has resumed artillery barrages along and across the AfPak border and ground operations in the Upper Dir area. TTP spokesman Mullah Mansoor was among 34 militants killed in clashes with Pakistani SFs in the Upper Dir area since June 28. No TTP fatalities have been reported on Afghan territory.

Pakistan has opportunistically sought to cash in on these disturbances, launching an unrelenting succession of artillery and rocket barrages into Afghanistan since mid-2011. On June 26, 2011, for instance, Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused Pakistan of firing over 470 rockets into the Kunar and Nangarhar Provinces, bordering Pakistan. Officials put the death toll at 36 civilians, including 12 children. Subsequently, on July 5, 2011, the Afghan Interior Ministry claimed that nearly 800 rockets had been fired from Pakistan into Afghan territory since early June, killing 42 civilians and injuring 55. Separately, Fazlulluh Wahidi, the Governor of the Kunar Province, stated that 645 rockets had been fired just into the Kunar Province, killing 22 people and wounding 40.  

On June 27, 2011, Pakistan’s chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas claimed that there had been five "major attacks" by the TTP, launched from Afghanistan, which had killed 55 Pakistani SF personnel in a month. Justifying the missile and artillery barrages into Afghanistan, he argued, “The fleeing militants were engaged by the SFs and a few accidental rounds going across cannot be ruled out.” 

Ironically, no report in the open source indicates that even a single TTP militant has been killed in the Pakistani shelling on Afghan territory, and President Karzai has repeatedly raised this question with Pakistani authorities, even as he has come under rising pressure in Parliament on demands that Afghanistan break all ties with Pakistan because the “non-stop shelling” has killed many civilians.

Indeed, while the presence of the TTP in border areas of Afghanistan is a reality, Pakistan has seized upon this as an opportunity to push its dominance further into Afghanistan, as ISAF presence will erode. The objective appears to be to force more and more civilians out of these areas, in order to create wider and safer sanctuaries for the al-Qaeda-Taliban combine – even if the TTP benefits temporarily. Thus, Afghanistan’s Eastern Border Police Commander Aminullah Amerkhail remarked, “Pakistan is looking to clear out these areas in order to deploy fighters who will pursue Pakistan’s interest once the international community leaves Afghanistan.” Moreover, rejecting the Pakistani claim of “a few accidental rounds going across”, Afghan Ministry of Defence spokesman Major General Zahir Azimi noted, “The shelling is far too regular to be a mistake. The shelling does not appear to be targeting fleeing fighters, but villages.”

Underlining the problem, White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest noted, on June 22, 2012, “Our concern about militants using Pakistan as a safe haven from which to launch attacks against our forces is well known.” The Afghan Government, which has for long maintained that Pakistan has been engaged in creating trouble in Afghanistan, on June 19, 2012, had accused Pakistan of involvement in the December 6, 2011, attack on the minority Shias marking the Ashura rite on a Kabul street, killing at least 55 people, including women and children.

It is under these unsettled circumstances that the ‘transition’ or, as the Afghans express it, the ‘inteqal’, is being implemented, with territories in the country being progressively handed over to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and Afghan civil administration. Phase I of the transition commenced on July17, 2011, and included the handover of three Provinces and four provincial Capitals. Phase II commenced on December 1,2011, and gave over another five Provinces, eight provincial capitals and 40 Districts to the Afghans, bringing roughly half the country under direct Afghan control. Phase III commenced on May 13, 2012, and will take an additional eleven Provinces, all provincial capital, and 122 Districts out of ISAF control, and would also, by the time of its completion in November 2012, bring 75 per cent of the country under direct Afghan security and civil administration.

The process of security transition is being conducted under the Inteqal (Transition) Framework, laid out at the London and Kabul conferences on Afghanistan in 2010, under which the international community’s civilian and military representatives decided to shift their responsibilities to the Afghans to a supporting, mentoring, and eventually sustaining role in security, governance and development. The Joint Afghan-NATO Inteqal Board (JANIB) established at the Kabul Conference in July 2010 recommended provinces and districts for transition to the Afghan Government based on an assessment of the prevailing levels of security and governance. The five phase transition aims to put the ANSFs fully in the lead for security across the country by the end of 2014. The current strength of the ANSF stands at 321,000, [including 195,000 Afghan National Army (ANA) and 126,000 Afghan National Police (ANP)], and is expected to rise to 352,000 by end 2012.

While the transition and withdrawal processes have enormously increased uncertainties in Afghanistan, fuelling both Pakistani and Taliban ambitions and raising the pitch of violence, the outcomes are far from satisfactory for either side. Though it is difficult to establish trends over the short period since the transition, especially across Provinces where partial control has been ceded to the ANSF, partial data suggests that there may have been a spike in violence in at least some of the areas where control has been ‘transferred’ to the Afghans.

On the other hand, the ANSF has demonstrated improved capabilities to counter the insurgents. Significantly, ISAF Deputy Commander Lieutenant General Adrian J. Bradshaw on April 25, 2012, had noted:
We saw considerable improvements in the quality and capability of the Afghan National Security Forces also over last year. They showed, in the late part of last year, and over the winter, their confidence at planning and coordinating and leading brigade-level operations, again, in the hardest insurgent areas, in the south and in the east, working alongside ISAF, with assistance from ISAF, but with Afghan forces in the lead. They managed to coordinate these operations very well with the police and with the local authorities, and in a number of areas they've shown competence and capability, which has not only surprised us, it surprised them.

Similarly, the NATO Secretary General’s Annual Report, released in January 2012, observed that the transition was on track, and that security conditions had remained “good” in transitioned areas. According to NATO, since October 2011, 89 per cent of combat operations were ‘partnered’, and 42 per cent were led, by Afghan Forces.

Perhaps in the most remarkable operation in the ANSF’s history, Afghan Forces killed 36 terrorists enormously containing the damage when squads of heavily armed Taliban fighters and suicide bombers launched multiple coordinated attacks across Afghanistan, targeting government offices, foreign embassies and military bases on April 15, 2012. With a powerful focus on Kabul, Taliban cadres even tried to enter the Afghan Parliament, firing rockets and small arms, but were engaged, principally by ANSFs and driven back. 18 hours of gunfire in Kabul ended on April 16, 2012, with just 11 ANSF personnel and four civilians killed, and one terrorist taken alive. The incident has emerged as a source of tremendous pride among the ANSFs and a wider population that has long remained ambivalent in its orientation to the ANA and ANP.

The ANSF is, of course, still wracked by teething troubles, and this includes rogue soldiers, who were blamed for at least 25 attempted suicide attacks in just two months preceding a May 29, 2011, report. Indeed, the Taliban recently announced the formation of “a committee… assigned to invite members of the Afghan security forces to join their insurgency”. Worse, the incidence of “green on blue” fratricidal attacks by ANSF against ISAF personnel appears to be increasing, aggravated by a spate of unfortunate incidents, including the horrific mass murder of 17 Afghan civilians by an American soldier, the burning of Korans, and the video of Marines urinating on the Taliban dead.

The US elections and an acute crisis of the American economy are exerting extraordinary pressure for an accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan, with widespread fears of the ‘transition’ being undermined by undue haste, delivering the war ravaged country into the predatory embrace of an expansionist and lawless Pakistan and its Taliban proxies. The direct costs of the Afghan war for the US have variously been estimated at between USD 530 billion and USD 1.7 trillion, but with vast hidden and secondary costs, including trillion dollar interest payments on the costs of veteran benefits and care, as well as on the servicing of war debt. The US economy is, today, burdened by trillion dollar deficits, and Federal Debt stands equal to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The mood in Washington is getting both desperate and ugly – with demands for drastic reductions in war expenditures, on the one hand, and for punitive action against Pakistani mischief, on the other, becoming daily more strident.

Nevertheless, there are strong indications that there will be no abrupt ‘flight’ from Afghanistan. Indeed, on March 20, 2012, James Miller, US Defense Undersecretary of Policy, in his Statement to the House Armed Services Committee on “Developments in Afghanistan” stated explicitly, “The United States’ objectives in Afghanistan remain to deny safe havens to al Qaeda, and to deny the Taliban the ability to overthrow the Afghan Government.” While estimates vary, it is clear that a very substantial US presence will be maintained indefinitely in Afghanistan. In August 2011, for instance, it was reported that the Pentagon was trying to strike a deal with the Afghan Government to leave 25,000 US troops in Afghanistan until at least 2024. It is useful to recall that the total strength of US troops in Afghanistan in 2009, when President Obama took charge, was just 34,000.

Crucially, any substantial presence of Western Forces – certainly including a substantial complement of drones, high technology assets, and Special Forces – in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 ‘withdrawal’ and ‘end of combat operations’, will prevent Pakistan from intervening too openly in favour of the Taliban, and will clearly make a quick and decisive ‘victory’ over Kabul impossible. This assessment is reinforced by the improving capabilities and strength of the ANSFs. Pakistan has, moreover, failed to understand its near-complete isolation in the international community today, and to appreciate the dangers of what one commentator has described as “playing chicken with a superpower.” In any event, with a rising crisis at home, Pakistan’s continued intervention in Afghanistan can only prove suicidal. Between 2003 and July 1, 2012, Pakistan experienced no less than 42,264 terrorism related fatalities, with terrorist violence afflicting every Province in the country, including its ‘heartland’ in Punjab. The country’s economy is in a shambles, and can only worsen, as populations rise by an estimated 30 million by 2020. Fanaticism and the ideology of violent jihad are rapidly growing more entrenched across the country, even as the overwhelming proportion of the population lacks employable skills, and is progressively harnessed by the extremists. Every voice of criticism or dissent is quickly stifled, both by the terrorist constituency and its radicalized supporters, as well as by an opportunistically Islamist political and military establishment. Pakistan, today, has hostile relations with all her neighbours, even as the Army’s domestic hegemony comes under increasing challenge from renegade Islamist radicals. Indeed, the internal dynamic of extremism, state decline and fragmentation has become self-propelling in Pakistan, and centrifugal forces can only worsen rapidly if the war in Afghanistan continues for an extended period of time.

18 months still remain for the completion of the transition in Afghanistan, and there is no reason to believe that the US and the wider West will repeat the folly of 1989, and abandon this region to Islamist terrorist depredations once again. While elements of uncertainty remain, and the road to peace in Afghanistan can be expected to be long, there is reason to believe that the more pessimistic of past prognostications will not come to pass. For once, despite the enduring pain, Afghanistan looks to the possibility of a more positive future – even as its unrelenting enemy, Pakistan, can hope for no more than a deepening darkness beyond.


NEWS BRIEFS

Weekly Fatalities: Major Conflicts in South Asia
June 25- July 1, 2012

 

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

INDIA

 

Assam

2
0
0
2

Jammu and Kashmir

0
0
1
1

Manipur

0
0
4
4

Nagaland

0
0
1
1

Left-wing Extremism

 

Bihar

0
0
2
2

Chhattisgarh

0
0
20
20

Jharkhand

3
1
0
4

Odisha

1
0
0
1

Total (INDIA)

6
1
28
35

PAKISTAN

 

Balochistan

31
0
1
32

FATA

10
8
26
44

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

5
0
48
53

Sindh

16
0
3
19

Total (PAKISTAN)

62
8
78
148
Provisional data compiled from English language media sources.


INDIA

20 Maoists killed in Chhattisgarh: The Chhattisgarh Police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) claim to have killed 20 cadres of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) in two separate incidents in the State's Sukma and Bijapur Districts in the early hours of June 29. The Hindu, June 29, 2012.

26/11 plotter arrested in New Delhi: The Delhi Police arrested key plotter of the November 26, 2008 (26/11) Mumbai (Maharashtra) attacks, Abu Jundal alias Abu Hamza alias Sayeed Zabi ud Deen alias Zabi Ansari alias Riyasat Ali at the Indira Gandhi International airport. According to reports, he is an Indian national who went to Pakistan for allegedly training people for the 26/11 attacks. He was arrested on June 22, after being deported from Saudi Arabia.

Abu Jundal, who belonged to the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), revealed that LeT founder and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) 'chief' Hafiz Mohammad Saeed was present in the Karachi (Pakistan) control room when the 26/11 masterminds were controlling the events. Times of India; The Hindu; IBN Live, June 25-July 2, 2012 and.

Pakistan support for 26/11 confirmed, asserts Union Home Minister P Chidambaram: Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said on June 27 that the revelation made by the arrested Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militant Syed Zabiuddin alias Abu Jundal has confirmed the role of Pakistani state actors in the plotting and execution of November 26, 2008 (26/11) Mumbai attacks. He told media, "When I say state actors, at the moment, I am not pointing a finger at any particular agency. But clearly there was state support or state actors' support for the 26/11 massacre". Chidambaram said, "LeT founder Hafiz Saeed was in the control room in Pakistan with Abu Jundal during 26/11 Mumbai carnage". Economic Times; Samay Live, June 28-30, 2012.

LeT has a new chief in Muzameel, says Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram: Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on June 29 said that according to the revelation made by the arrested Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militant Syed Zabiuddin alias Abu Jundal, after Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was arrested by Pakistan for 26/11, another handler named Muzameel took charge of the LeT. The militant also has revealed that the LeT base camp was at Muzzaffarabad. He says after 26/11, this headquarter was moved to Dulai near Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). Samay Live, June 29-30, 2012.

Tripura Government to withdraw 1300 criminal cases against 736 militants: The State Government, in a controversial move, has issued an order to withdraw 1,300 criminal cases, of heinous nature, against 736 hardcore militants. Times of India, June 27, 2012.


NEPAL

Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai vows to hold election on November 22: Claiming that the Government would conduct the fresh Constituent Assembly (CA) polls on the declared date on November 22, 2012, Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai dismissed the opposition parties' demands for resignation from his post. He said that he would hand over power only to an elected Prime Minister. Nepal News, June 26, 2012.


PAKISTAN

48 militants and five civilians among 53 persons killed during the week in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) 'spokesman' Mullah Mansoor was among 34 militants killed in clashes with Security Forces (SFs) since last three days (June 29-July 1) along Pak-Afghan border in Upper Dir District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

At least four militants were killed in retaliatory firing of Frontier Crops (FC) while three FC personnel also sustained injuries when their check post in Dhand area of Hangu District came under attack of the militants on June 29.

Security Forces (SFs) June 28 repulsed another major attack on the Pakistani-Afghan border in the Sabir Kalley area of Upper Dir District, reportedly killed seven militants.

The bullet-riddled body of chief of the anti-Taliban Bazidkhel Qaumi Lashkar (community militia), Fahim-ur-Rehman, who escaped at least seven attempts on his life since 2008, was found in his white Land Cruiser on the Ring Road of Peshawar on June 27. The bodies of his three close friends and associates, Altaf Bacha, Haji Niaz Muhammad and Rahim Lala, were also found in the vehicle. Daily Times; Dawn; The News ; Tribune; Central Asia Online; The Nation; The Frontier Post ; Pakistan Today, June 26-July 2, 2012.

26 militants and 10 civilians among 44 persons killed during the week in FATA: At least eight militants were killed in a US drone attack on a compound in the Kund Ghar area of Shawal tehsil (revenue unit), 50 kilometres southwest of Miranshah, the headquterer of North Waziristan Agency in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on July 1.

Five Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) militants were killed on June 30 in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast on their post on a mountain in Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency.

Eight bullet-riddled bodies were found in different areas of Bara tehsil in Khyber Agency on June 29.

Eight troops, including a captain, were killed and three others injured in a remote-controlled bomb blast near Alhaj Market in Bara town of Khyber Agency on June 28.

At least eight militants were killed on June 26 during a crackdown in Mamuzai and Bootakhel areas of Orakzai Agency.

A US drone strike targeting a militant compound in the Shawal area, some 50 kilometres southwest of Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan Agency, killed at least five militants. Daily Times; Dawn; The News ; Tribune; Central Asia Online; The Nation; The Frontier Post ; Pakistan Today; Pakistan Observer , June 26-July 2, 2012.

31 civilians and one militant among 32 persons killed during the week in Balochistan: At least 14 persons, including two policemen and a woman, were killed and 30 others, including women and children, sustained injuries in a suicide attack on a bus of pilgrims coming from Iran, at Hazar Ganji area of Quetta on June 28.

At least seven persons were killed and as many as 30 injured, when a remote-controlled bomb went off at the Sibi Railway Station of Sibi District on June 27.Daily Times; Dawn; The News ; Tribune; Central Asia Online; The Nation; The Frontier Post ; Pakistan Today; Pakistan Observer, June 26-July 2, 2012

60 Hazaras fall victim to terrorism in 2012: At least 60 people belonging to Hazara community living in Quetta have been killed in targeted attacks, including suicide, remote controlled and timer device bombings and firing, during the past six months. Dawn, June 29, 2012.

170 extortion complaints received in six months in Karachi: At least 170 complaints of extortion reported within a short span of six months have made the role of law enforcement agencies (LEAs) dubious, as Karachites are presently suspecting them for being pressurised by different political groups and remaining innocuous against extortion mafias. The growing number of extortion cases that has presently become a matter of concern for every citizen in general and business fraternity in particular has exposed the performance of LEAs. Daily Times, June 25, 2012.

JuD 'chief' Hafeez Mohammad Saeed collects donations for militants active in Jammu and Kashmir: Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder and Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) 'chief' Hafiz Saeed has launched a drive in Punjab to collect donations for militants active in Jammu and Kashmir. He visited Gujranwala District and collected wheat from people at Al-Makka Centre. "I am thankful to you for your generous help for the 'mujahideen' in the shape of wheat crop. I expect you to donate maximum of the corn crop in the coming season," Saeed told people in Gujranwala. The Hindu, June 28, 2012.

Uganda detains five Pakistanis suspected of militant ties: Uganda Police on June 26 arrested five Pakistanis suspected of terrorist links. The area where the five men were arrested was formerly a base for now-dormant rebel group, Allied Democratic Forces (ADF-NALU), which officials say has links to al Shabaab. Daily Times, June 27, 2012.

US designate two money traders for helping Taliban: The United States designated two Afghanistan-Pakistan money changers as helping Taliban manage and move funds, setting sanctions against both that aim to hinder their business. The US Treasury said the two hawalas, or money exchange businesses, the Haji Khairullah Haji Sattar Money Exchange (HKHS) and the Roshan Money Exchange, "have been used by Taliban to facilitate money transfers in support of Taliban's narcotics trade and terrorist operations." Daily Times, June 30, 2012.

TTP admits of having safe haven in Afghanistan: The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) admitted for the first time that they are using the Afghan soil as a springboard for launching attacks on Pakistani Security Forces (SFs). The acknowledgment gives credence to Islamabad's claims that the TTP has found safe havens in Afghanistan's eastern provinces bordering Pakistan. Tribune, June 26, 2012.

Most Pakistanis consider US an enemy, says survey report: A report of a PEW global survey released on June 27 said that about 74 per cent of Pakistanis consider the US an enemy, up from 69 percent last year and 64 percent three years ago. And the US President Barack Obama is held in exceedingly low regard by Pakistanis. Dawn, June 28, 2012.

Pakistan deliberately harassing our diplomats, says US: The United States (US) on June 24 said that Pakistan Government is "deliberately, willfully and systematically" harassing and obstructing American diplomats in the country, marking a new low in the already strained ties between the two nations. The harassment and obstruction has increased dramatically and reached "new levels of intensity", said a State Department report, which has urged Washington to take the issue up at bilateral talks with Islamabad. Times of India, June 25, 2012.


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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