SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 11, No. 27, January 7, 2013

PAKISTAN

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FATA: Festering Wounds
Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Maulvi Nazir was among 10 militants killed in a US-operated drone strike in the South Waziristan Agency (SWA) of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on January 3, 2013. The drone targeted the Taliban leader’s moving convoy while it was on its way to Wana, the SWA’s headquarter, from Birmal tehsil (revenue unit). The hit occurred in Sarkundi area (in Birmal tehsil). Maulvi Nazir’s key aide Rata Khan was among the militants killed. Maulvi Nazir was the second top TTP leader to be killed in a drone strike after Baitullah Mehsud, who was the chief of TTP when he was killed in 2009. Bahawal Khan alias Salahuddin Ayubi has been named the new chief of the outfit.

Maulvi Nazir had earned notoriety in the Spring of 2007, when he led a successful uprising against foreign militants in the Ahmedzai Wazir-held areas, ousting Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan militants, then led by Tahir Uldashev, along with their local supporters. Immediately thereafter, Nazir’s group entered into a peace agreement with the Government, avoided attacking Government and Security Forces’ (SFs) installations in the tribal region, and cooperated with the local administration. The military is believed to have struck a non-aggression pact with Nazir ahead of its 2009 operation against extremists in SWA. Moreover, Nazir was understood to be close to the al Qaeda-linked, though Inter Services Intelligence (ISI)-backed, Haqqani Network. Nazir had property in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and was earlier a member of the Hizb-i-Islami, an Afghan terrorist formation. He survived a suicide bombing in November 29, 2012. On December 4, 2012, he ordered all Mehsud tribesmen, including loyalists of the rival TTP led by Hakimullah Mehsud, to leave Wana, by December 5, 2012, presumably blaming them for the attack, though TTP (Hakimullah Mehsud) ‘spokesman’ Ehsanullah Ehsan announced that his group had nothing to do with the attack. A grand jirga (tribal assembly) of the Nazir group, a 120-member peace committee formed in 2007 representing the Ahmedzai Wazir clan and the elders of all nine Ahmedzai tribes and their sub-tribes, warned all internally displaced Mehsud tribesmen who had taken refuge from fighting in the Mehsud area between SFs and militants, to vacate their homes in the Ahmedzai Wazir area. Tribesmen loyal to Mullah Nazir subsequently extended the December 5, 2012, deadline by 10 days, following a second jirga meeting.

Meanwhile, in a bomb blast allegedly orchestrated by the Nazir group, pro-Uzbek TTP 'commander' Maulvi Abbas was killed on December 21, 2012, along with three others, in Wana. Sources said that a bomb went off at the office of Abbas's brother in the vegetable market, killing Abbas and two others, including his son. Another four people sustained injuries. Maulvi Abbas had recently been allowed to resettle in the Ahmedzai Wazir areas after he was expelled in a popular uprising led by Maulvi Nazir, in spring 2007. Senior TTP 'commander' Nek Muhammad, who was killed in a US drone strike in 2004, and Abbas, had come under sharp criticism in the past for harbouring Uzbek, Tajik and other Central Asian militants. Abbas and his fighters left SWA after Maulvi Nazir became ‘commander’ of the terrorists in the region and launched a campaign against them for harbouring the foreigners.

As in previous year, violence continues wrack the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, though a marginal dip in fatalities was registered, in the country’s most volatile region. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), FATA registered a four per cent decline in overall terrorism-related fatalities, from 3,034 in 2011 to 2,901 in 2012. However, fatalities among civilians (549) and SFs (306), remained very high, increasing by 12.5 and 31.33 per cent, respectively. Terrorist fatalities declined from 2,313 in 2011, to 2,046 in 2012, principally due to the suspension of Army operations in many areas. Progressive suspension of military operations also resulted in a marginal decline in the major incidents (each involving three or more fatalities). A total of 261 major incidents were recorded in 2012, as against 281 in 2011.

Another indicator of the region’s rising volatility was the spike in bomb blasts and resultant fatalities. In comparison to 203 fatalities in 185 bomb blasts in 2011, year 2012 recorded 441 fatalities in 297 bomb blasts. Similarly, fatalities in suicide attacks increased to 151 in 10 incidents in 2012, as against 77 fatalities in eight such incidents in 2011.

The most significant suicide attacks in FATA in 2012 were:

September 10: At least 15 Shias were killed and another 40 were injured in a suspected sectarian suicide attack in the crowded Hamid Market in the Kashmir Chowk area of Parachinar town, headquarter of the Kurram Agency.

May 4: A suicide attack targeting SFs killed at least 29 persons, including four Policemen, and injured more than 73, at Khar Bazaar in the Khar town of Bajaur Agency.

March 2: 23 people were killed and another 18 injured in a suicide attack targeting a mosque after Friday prayers in Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency.

February 17: At least 43 Shias were reportedly killed, and another 21 were injured, after a suicide bomber detonated his explosives just near the targeted mosque in Kurmi Bazaar, Parachinar, the main town of Kurram Agency.

With all the seven agencies facing the brunt of militancy, the Khyber Agency has recorded the highest number of subversive acts during 2012, as compared to other parts of FATA. The data compiled by the offices of the Political Administrator in FATA records a total of 96 bomb blasts, suicide and rocket attacks in Khyber Agency between January and October of 2012. The volatile Agency has also topped the list of abduction-for-ransom incidents among all tribal units, with 40 recorded cases (only a fraction of such cases are reported). The main militant groups operating in the area include the Lashkar-e-Islam (LI), Tawheed-e-Islam (TI), Ansarul Islam (AI), Haji Namdar group and Abdullah Azzam Brigade.

Sectarian violence, which has been a persistent phenomenon in FATA, saw an augmentation in 2012. In addition to the Kurram Agency, the only tribal Agency with a significant Shia population, agencies such as Orakzai and Bajaur also witnessed sectarian attacks in 2012. While 2011 saw only three incidents of sectarian violence, with 27 killed and 26 injured, 2012 recorded eight incidents with 75 fatalities and 103 injured. The worst of these incidents was the February 17 suicide bombing near the Imambargah (Shia place of worship) in the Kurmi bazaar of Parachinar, which killed 43 Shias and injured 21 others. The Fazal Saeed Haqqani-led Tehreek-e-Taliban Islami (TTI) – a breakaway faction of the TTP – claimed responsibility for the attack.

Meanwhile, the emboldened militants escalated attacks on SFs and security post throughout the region. There were 13 incidents of terrorists targeting SF camps in 2012. In the latest of such attacks, more than 400 TTP militants stormed security checkpoints in Frontier Region Peshawar in FATA late in the night of December 26, 2012, killing two Levies personnel and abducting 22 others. On December 29, the 22 abducted Levies personnel were executed.

In the absence of military operations in the region, US drone operations continued to target top ranking terrorists, especially in North Waziristan Agency (NWA), despite severe criticism from both within and outside Pakistan. According to the SATP database, at least 344 terrorists were killed in 46 drone strikes in 2012 in the region, as compared to 548 terrorists in 59 such attacks in 2011. Some top terrorists terminated in drone strikes in 2012 included: 

October 11: TTP’s Punjab chapter ‘commander’ Umar Haqqani and Maulvi Shakirullah were among 18 militants killed in a US drone attack at a militant compound in the Baland Khel area of Orakzai Agency. The building belonged to Maulvi Shakirullah, a 'commander' of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group.

September 24: Seleh al-Turki, a mid-level al-Qaeda operative and Abu Akash al-Iraqi, a senior al-Qaeda operative, were among eight terrorists killed when a US drone fired missiles on a house near Khaisura road in the Mir Ali subdivision of NWA.

June 4: Abu Yahya al-Libi, the ‘second-in-command’ of the al Qaeda, was killed in Hisokhel, in the east of Miranshah, in NWA. Another 14 terrorists were killed in the attack.

February 9: Badr Mansoor, a Pakistani citizen who served as al Qaeda's Pakistan chapter ‘commander’ and a key link to the Taliban and Pakistani jihadi groups, was killed near Miranshah.

The success of US drone attacks in eliminating top leadership figures of terrorist formations located in NWA underlines the fact that the Agency remains a terrorist citadel and urgently needs to be sanitised. Islamabad, however, has demonstrated no inclination to take on the terrorist groups concentrated in the region. Indeed, despite an assurance by the Federal Minister of Interior, Rehman Malik, on October 12, 2012, after the Taliban attack on Malala Yusufzai on October 9, that, "if needed” operations would be launched in NWA after a decision “by political and military leadership of the country in harmony", the Government failed to move resolution on military operation in NWA in National Assembly on October 18. Indeed, Islamabad’s inconsistent and opportunistic approach to Islamist terrorist groupings – some of which it continues to support in order to further its expansionist ambitions as well as for domestic political management – remains the principal cause of terrorism within the country. The internal damage inflicted by the terrorists appears, within the calculus of the country’s military and political leadership, an acceptable price to pay for the potential strategic advantages that the sponsorship of terrorism is expected to yield.

INDIA

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West Bengal: Malda - Locus of Instability
Sanchita Bhattacharya
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

The District of Malda in West Bengal, bordering Bangladesh, has emerged as an area afflicted by a plethora of problems, most significantly including the smuggling and distribution of Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN), illegal cultivation of narcotics and illegal migration – which have a far-reaching impact on the security situation of region, in particular, and the country at large.

Part of the Jalpaiguri Division of West Bengal, and extending over 3,733 square kilometers, the Malda District is bordered by the North and South Dinajpur Districts (West Bengal) in the north, the Nadgaon and Chapainawabganj Districts of Bangladesh in the east, Murshidabad District (West Bengal) in the south, and Purnia (Bihar) and Sahibganj (Jharkhand) Districts in the west.

Over a period of time, Malda has emerged as a major transit route for FICN couriers. FICN produced and distributed by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) bosses, is brought into India by couriers, principally through Malda via Bangladesh and Nepal. From here it is circulated across India. Indeed, an unnamed official of the National Investigative Agency (NIA), according to an October 6, 2012, report, disclosed that, “Malda in West Bengal is one of the most well-known transit points for bringing in counterfeit notes from Bangladesh and Nepal. Earlier this year [2012], we arrested some Malda individuals for engaging in organised smuggling and circulation of counterfeit notes. We suspect that they were printed in Pakistan and were being brought to India via Bangladesh and Nepal. Two of the arrested, Morgen Hussain and Rakib Sheikh, were coordinating the operation”. Morgen Hussain and Rakib Sheikh had been arrested on January 6, 2012.

In January 2011, four Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) militants arrested from the Janipura area of Jammu city - Showkat Kucchhay and Sahil Mubarak (belonging to Kulgam District of Jammu and Kashmir) and Zakir Hussain and Shahidul Hassan (residents of Malda District) - revealed that Mushtaq Ahmed Khan – the FICN ‘mastermind’ in West Bengal, with links to the HM and Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B) – was headquartered at Malda District. Khan was receiving consignments of fake currency from Pakistan and smuggling these into Malda, where it was stored in fields at already decided locations. Khan hired some women to pick up the consignments and shift these to his headquarters in Malda, from where the FICN was distributed among HM militants and Over Ground Workers (OGWs) of terrorist formations in different parts of India.

The disclosures added, further, that two types of FICNs were being supplied from Malda. One set was of very high quality and was difficult to distinguish from genuine notes, and was printed in Pakistan’s security presses. The second type of currency was of relatively poor quality and could easily be detected as fake; this was distributed by the militants among the families of slain and arrested militants, OGWs, and other extremist sympathizers.

According to an April 6, 2012, report, the NIA claimed that West Bengal was the main transit point for FICN consignments. In January 2012, following synchronized operations by different state agencies and the Border Security Force (BSF), NIA held 14 persons, including Morgen Hossain and Rakib Seikh from Jamshedtola in Malda District. These arrests led to the recovery of specific evidence to back claims that all the fake notes circulated in India were printed in Pakistan and smuggled through Bangladesh and Nepal. Meanwhile, as reported on October 1, 2012, the BSF took up the matter of FICN with its Bangladeshi counterpart, the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), and proposed the setting up of a joint task force to check the smuggling of FICNs.

Three nodal centres for distribution of FICN have been identified – Jammu in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), Malda in West Bengal and Nepal. The FICN menace in Malda District has also been documented in West Bengal’s Criminal Investigation Department’s (CID) Criminal Intelligence Gazette – 2003-November, 2012, which records that a total of 211 persons were arrested in 133 incidents, since 2003, along with FICN worth INR 12.7525 million in Malda District.

Further, the arrest of Malda-based Barkat Ali at the Guwahati (Assam) Railway Station on March 12, 2012, uncovered the involvement of militants from northeast India in the FICN racket. A March 18, 2012, report indicated that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had exposed the FICN racket that operated in India’s Northeast, with the help of militants in Nagaland, through a well knit network across the Northeast.

Malda has also registered a steep rise in illicit poppy cultivation. According to the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) report for 2011-2012, the agency destroyed poppy crops cultivated in 714 acres of land in West Bengal, of which 711 acres were in Malda District, and just three acres in the Hooghly and Burdwan Districts. Poppy cultivation is mostly spread over the Kaliachak and Baishnabnagar Police Station areas in Malda. Significantly, all the FICN cartels across India are also tracked to these two areas. A senior Malda Police official noted, further, that “poppy cultivation has spread cross border and at the villages on zero lines, beyond the fencing where we have little vigil.”

The CID’s Criminal Intelligence Gazette also recorded 14 incidents of arrests in Malda since 2003 in connection with the narcotics trade, with 25 people arrested, and 179.65 kilograms of narcotics seized. A July 14, 2012, report quoted an unnamed senior NCB official saying, “The lethal gum from the poppy plants is processed to heroin, which heads for clandestine international markets, mostly through the Indo-Bangladesh border at Malda, Murshidabad and Bongaon in the State. Earlier, the consignment used to reach these border points, however, now they have started cultivating the plants at the border point and it is now easier to send the consignment to the international market.”

Excise Department Superintendent, Arunabha Pal added, "During the financial year of 2010-2011, 237.07 hectares of land was used for poppy seed cultivation in the District [Malda]. The Department had registered 21 cases regarding this matter and poppy seeds worth INR 3.292 crore [32.92 million] were destroyed”. Kaliachak-II and III blocks, Manikchak, Ratua, Bamangola, Chanchal, Harischandrapur, Old Malda and parts of English Bazaar Police Station areas were used for poppy seed cultivation. Pal further disclosed that the interior areas along rivers Ganga and Fulohar were principally used for cultivation. The porous border along Malda and Murshidabad is used to smuggle concentrated resin to Bangladesh. The fine heroin is smuggled back into India through this passage.

The presence of these two scourges - FICN and drugs – has created spaces for the growth of terrorist activities and networks in the District as well. The Purnia (Bihar)-Malda link has gradually been consolidated as a transit point for terrorists, between India and Bangladesh. The Pakistan-based HuJI terrorist, Shahid Bilal, who is alleged to have masterminded several bomb blasts across the Indian hinterland, was reportedly raising funds by running weapons between the Malda and Bangladesh. Several other arrests have underlined Malda’s significance as a terror-destination. The most prominent among these include:

October 13, 2012: NIA, with the help of BSF and local Police, arrested Badal Sheikh from Manoharpur in Malda District for his alleged links with the J&K-based HM.

August 5, 2011: Malda Police arrested Mohammad Salim Khan, an alleged HM militant. From a letter sent by NIA to Malda Police, it was learned that an FIR was pending against Salim in Jammu.

June 11, 2010: Malda and Murshidabad Police arrested four persons along with 450 kilograms of explosives from a warehouse in Malda's Kaliachak area.

November 24, 2009: Jahangir Momin alias of Saidul Sheikh, involved in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) racket and having alleged links with ISI, was arrested from Ratua in Malda.

January 12, 2009: A Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorist, identified as Safique Iliyas alias Deepak, was arrested by the CID from Malda District. Safique, a resident of Rajshahi in Bangladesh, was instructed to spy on the movement of Army personnel in Siliguri in Darjeeling District.

July 31, 2009: Ekramul Hoque, a Bangladeshi arms dealer, having links with Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), was arrested by BSF at Sasani in Kaliachak area of Malda District.

August 7, 2008: The BSF arrested three Bangladeshi nationals, with alleged links to HuJI-B, while they were trying to cross over into India, at the Doulatpur border in the Baisnabnagar area of Malda District. Three mobile phones, USD 16,000, INR 16,000 and maps of different parts of India, were seized from them.

December 22, 2007: Mohammad Tariq Qasmi and Khalid Mujahid, two HuJI militants in Uttar Pradesh (UP), were arrested in Malda. Brij Lal, the then Additional Director-General of Police, UP, stated that money was delivered to Qasmi through local contacts and the bombs were made and supplied by Mukhtar alias Raju, who has made several trips to Bangladesh through the Malda district in West Bengal.

March 20, 2005: Police arrested LeT militant, Nassir Sheikh, from Salehpur village in Malda and disclosed that they were on the lookout for others, who had reportedly re-grouped in this District after fleeing north India.

The CID’s Criminal Intelligence Gazette noted, further, that a total of 38 incidents of arrest had taken place in Malda District under Arms Act since 2003, with 64 persons arrested.

Malda also provides a corridor from where illegal migrants can easily access other parts of the country. The unskilled labour force across India has seen a dramatically increasing representation of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. A December 11, 2012, report indicated that the BSF was cracking down on labour agents who place Bangladeshi migrants to various industries in West Bengal and in India’s Northeast. The BSF identified 32 of 866 border outpost areas on the eastern border as ‘sensitive’ in this context. Most of these areas fell in Petrapole (North 24 Paragana District) and Malda District of West Bengal, and Dhubri District of Assam. The problem of virtually unchecked human trafficking is compounded by the fact that Malda District provides ready access to Nepal through North Bengal. State Intelligence reports note, “They [illegal migrants] disperse to various parts, including Rajasthan, Punjab and Assam… But most of these trespassers prefer to go to Malda town first." High volumes of illegal migration also create a significant potential that can be exploited by terrorist groups. A senior intelligence official thus observed: "Before venturing out to the rest of the country it is easy for the suspected terrorists to find a hideout in Malda. Also, it is easy to enter rural Malda via Kolkata after carrying out terrorist activities elsewhere in the country”.

Malda has become the locus of a complex of criminal activities with intricate linkages to the ISI-backed network of terrorism in the region.

Unfortunately, these setbacks have impacted the District in multifarious ways causing terror trouble. If untamed for long, the District can fall into perpetual instability, providing more scope to the terror groups and rogue elements to thrive.

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

INDIA

Assam

Manipur

Left-wing Extremism

Bihar

Chhattisgarh

Jharkhand

Total (INDIA)

PAKISTAN

Balochistan

FATA

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Sindh

Total (PAKISTAN)