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SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 16, No. 16, October 16, 2017
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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Misplaced
Optimism
Ajit
Kumar Singh
Research Fellow; Institute for Conflict Management
Optimistic
about 'positive intents' shown by Pakistan, United States
(US) President Donald Trump tweeted in the morning
of October 14, 2017,
Starting to develop a much better relationship with
Pakistan and its leaders. I want to thank them for
their cooperation on many fronts.
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Earlier,
hailing the news of an American woman and her family rescued
from terrorists in Pakistan on October 11, 2017, Trump
in a statement released on October 12, 2017, observed,
Yesterday [October 11], the United States government,
working in conjunction with the Government of Pakistan,
secured the release of the Boyle-Coleman family
from captivity in Pakistan. Today [October 12] they
are free. This is a positive moment for our country's
relationship with Pakistan. The Pakistani government's
cooperation is a sign that it is honoring America's
wishes for it to do more to provide security in
the region. We hope to see this type of cooperation
and teamwork in helping secure the release of remaining
hostages and in our future joint counterterrorism
operations.
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In 2012
(date not specified), Caitlan Coleman, an American citizen,
and her husband, Joshua Boyle, a Canadian citizen, were
taken captive and held hostage by the Haqqani Network,
a terrorist organization with ties to the Taliban, and
backed by the Pakistani state. Coleman gave birth to the
couple's three children [a fourth died in infancy, according
to Boyle, ‘killed’ by their captors, an accusation they
deny] while they were in captivity. Boyle’s last call
from freedom was to his in-laws (Coleman's parents), on
October 8, 2012, to tell them that he was calling from
an internet cafe in an "unsafe" part of Afghanistan.]
On the
same day, October 11, 2017, of the release of the American–Canadian
couple, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) rejected
the application of Milli Muslim League (MML), the political
front of the Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD)/ Lashkar-e-Taiba
(LeT),
for registration as a mainstream political party. Rejecting
the application, Pakistan’s Chief Election Commissioner
Sardar Raza Khan observed, "The interior ministry's
[Ministry of Interior] letter mentions that the MML is
backed by banned terrorist outfits." MML was formed
on August 7, 2017, and had applied for registration with
the ECP in the same month. Subsequently, the ECP had sought
the opinion of the Interior Ministry which, in its reply
sent in September 2017, had written “There is evidence
to substantiate that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the JuD, and
Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation are affiliates and ideologically
of the same hue and the registration of the MML is not
supported.” The letter reportedly mentioned that MML president
Saifullah Khalid had claimed that Saeed and he were ideologically
affiliated with each other's organisations.
MML had
even participated in a by-election for the Lahore National
Assembly (NA) seat held on September 17, 2017. In the
election, won by Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PML-N)
candidate Begum Kulsoom Nawaz who secured 61,745 votes,
Yaqoob Sheikh, the MML-backed candidate, bagged 5,822
votes, more than four times the votes secured by the main
opposition Pakistan Peoples Party's (PPP) candidate Faisal
Mir (1,414 votes). Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) candidate
Yasmeen Rashid, at the second position, bagged 47,099
votes. The seat fell vacant after the then Prime Minister
(PM) Nawaz Sharif was asked to vacate the seat and resign
as Prime Minister subsequent to the Supreme Court's ruling
in the Panama
Papers case. The winning candidate,
Begum Kulsoom Nawaz is Nawaz Sharif’s wife.
As SAIR
had noted
earlier, with the US exerting
more pressure, there seems to be urgency
among terrorist formations/individual leaders operating
out of Pakistani soil to gain 'political legitimacy' to
counter any further existential threat. Apart from MML,
declared a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist"
by the US on September 30, 2014, Maulana Fazlur Rehman
Khalil, founder of the terrorist Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
(HuM),
which operates in Indian Jammu & Kashmir, has reportedly
decided
to form his own political party: Islah-e-Watan
Party (IWP).
On September
27, 2017, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif admitted
that JuD chief Hafiz Saeed, LeT, and the Haqqani Network
had become Pakistan’s liabilities: "It is very easy
to say that Pakistan is supporting Haqqanis and Hafiz
Saeed and Lashkar-e-Taiba. They are liabilities, I accept
that they are liabilities. But give us time to get rid
of these liabilities. You are increasing our liabilities
further." The Minister was speaking at a session
hosted by the Asia Society in New York.
These three
developments followed US President Trump's announcement
of his "Strategy
in Afghanistan and South Asia"
on August 21, 2017, where he declared his intentions to
forge a "Radical
Redirection" in US policy towards
Pakistan; and similar such assertions by senior US officials
in recent past. Though these developments are now being
hailed by many experts as 'key change in Pakistan's orientation
towards terrorism', all celebrations are premature, and
Pakistan’s game of deceit continues.
Indeed,
while Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif conceded on August
27, 2017, that the state’s terrorist proxies had become
a 'liability', he also argued, in an interview on October
9, 2017, "We have offered American authorities to
visit Pakistan (sic) with evidence of Haqqani network's
safe havens in the country. If they find any activity
(of Haqqanis) in the targeted areas, our troops along
with the US would destroy them once and for all."
Almost
immediately thereafter, contradicting Asif’s ‘offer’,
an October 14, 2017, news report quoted Inter-Services
Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Major General
Asif Ghafoor as saying, "Whatever has to be done
by Pakistan on its land is done by Pakistan itself. Many
countries could not face terrorism. Our forces have full
capacity. We can never allow any foreign boot on our ground."
In the
context of Hafiz Saeed, similarly, while the Ministry
of Interior, conceded in its September 2017 letter to
ECP that "there is evidence to substantiate that
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the JuD, and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation
are affiliates" of MML, the Lahore High Court warned
on October 11, 2017, that Saeed's house arrest would be
set aside if the Pakistan Government (represented by the
Secretary in Ministry of Interior) did not submit evidence
against him. Saeed, along with another four JuD members,
was placed under house arrest in Lahore on January 30,
2017, under Section 11-EEE of Pakistan's Anti-Terrorism
Act, which gives the Government the power to arrest or
detain terrorism suspects for up to 12 months. The other
four included Abdullah Ubaid, Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman
Abid and Qazi Kashif Niaz. Significantly, Saeed was put
under ‘house arrest’ soon after Donald Trump assumed power
in the US on January 20, 2017. On September 25, 2017,
the house arrest of Saeed and others was extended for
another 30 days by the Punjab Government. Significantly,
the Punjab Government has now declared that no terrorism
charges are pending Hafiz Saeed, paving the way for his
release. A Punjab Government official told three-member
Federal judicial review board headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal
Khan of the Supreme Court on October 14 that the Provincial
Government ‘did not include charges of terrorism’ in the
new order for Hafiz Saeed and his aides. Saeed's lawyer
A.K. Dogar had urged the court to order the release of
Saeed and his four aides since they are no longer under
ATA. The Lahore High Court is expected to decide his application
in the coming week after Justice Muzahir Naqvi asked the
Government to file charges against Saeed.
Earlier
on June 2, 2009, a full bench of the Lahore High Court
(LHC) accepted a habeas corpus petition and ordered the
Government to release
JuD chief Hafiz Saeed and another leader Colonel (Retd.)
Nazir Ahmad, charged with involvement in 26/11
Mumbai attacks, as the Government
failed to provide evidence to prove charges. Originally
there were four petitioners to the case, but two other
leaders, Mufti Abdur Rehman and Ameer Hamza, were released
by a detention review board in May 5, 2009. Despite the
Interpol's Red Corner Notice against Saeed, along with
LeT 'military commander of operation' Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi,
issued on August 25, 2009, in response to India's requests
for his extradition, on October 12, 2009, all cases against
Saeed were quashed by the Lahore High Court and he was
set free. The Court also notified that JuD was not a banned
organization in Pakistan, and could work freely in the
country.
In the
meantime, revealing the state’s real intent of using terrorists
as proxies and "strategic assets", ISPR’s Maj.
Gen. Ghafoor, argued: “Having links is different from
supporting. Name any intelligence agency which does not
have links. Links can be positive, and (Dunford) did not
say there was support (from the ISI).” He was referring
to a statement made by General Joseph Dunford, Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a hearing on October
4, 2017, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, where,
when asked if “the ISI is still helping the Taliban,”
he had responded: “it's clear to me that the ISI has connections
with terrorist groups.”
Pakistan
plays the ‘minimal satisfier’ to the furthest possible
limit, conceding what it cannot refuse in specific instances,
even as it retains its broader strategic purpose and instrumentalities.
Under present and acute pressure from the Trump regime,
despite President Trump’s opportunistic commendation,
there have been marginal demonstrations of compliance,
as in the Coleman-Boyle case, but the broader intent remains
unaltered. No concrete and irreversible action has been
initiated against any element of the principal terrorist
proxies and their leaderships in their Pakistani safe
havens – including the Haqqani Network, Taliban and the
multiplicity of formations operating against India. Unless
such action is clearly and successfully initiated, there
will be no to Pakistan’s strategy of creating, sustaining
and exporting terror.
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J&K:
JeM Inflammation
Nijeesh
N.
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management
On October
3, 2017, terrorists carried out a pre-dawn fidayeen
(suicide) attack on a Border Security Force (BSF)
camp at Gogoland near the ‘high-security’ Srinagar International
Airport in Srinagar District. An Assistant Sub Inspector
(ASI) of BSF was killed and three other Security Force
(SF) personnel were injured in the attack, which ended
with SFs’ killing the three terrorists involved, after
a 10-hour long counter-operation.
On August
26, 2017, a group of fidayeens (suicide attackers)
stormed into the District Police Lines in Pulwama District,
killing eight SF personnel, including four Central reserve
Police Force (CRPF) troopers and four Police personnel.
The subsequent day-long encounter ended with SFs eliminating
the three attackers. Five SF personnel were also injured
in the gunfight.
On April
27, 2017, three Indian Army personnel, including a Junior
Commissioned Officer (JCO,) were killed when fidayeen
stormed into an Army base at Panzgam village in Kupwara
District in the morning hours. Sources said that terrorists
stormed into the Army camp hurling grenades and firing
indiscriminately, injuring at least five Army personnel.
Three of the injured personnel died later. The Army’s
Quick Reaction Team (QRT) killed two terrorists while
a third managed to escape under the cover of darkness.
According
to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), the
State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has recorded three
suicide attacks in the current year so far (data till
October 15, 2017). The Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed
(JeM)
has claimed responsibility for all three attacks.
Out of
34 suicide attacks, where the identity of the group involved
has been established, resulting in 283 deaths and 363
injured recorded in J&K since 2000, JeM has been found
involved in 11 suicide attacks resulting in 139 deaths
and 63 injuries. During this period, J&K recorded
a total of at least 63 suicide attacks resulting in 475
deaths and 602 injuries.
Worryingly,
J&K has recorded an increasing number of fidayeen
attacks since 2013, after passing through a phase
of over
three years (January 8, 2010 to March
12, 2013) during which no such attack occurred. The surge
in these attacks followed the hanging, on December 13,
2001, of Mohammed Afzal Guru, convicted for the 2001 attack
on India’s Parliament, on February 9, 2013, and the subsequent
formation of 'Afzal Guru Squad' in January 2014. Two civilians,
nine SF personnel and five terrorists were killed in the
Parliament attack.
Since the
formation of the 'Afzal Guru Squad' in January 2014, J&K
has recorded nine suicide attacks (where the identity
of the group involved has been established) resulting
in 85 deaths and 58 injured, of which JeM has been found
involved in seven, resulting in 75 deaths and 32 injured.
During this period, J&K recorded a total of at least
15 suicide attacks, resulting in 116 deaths and 81 injured.
Some of the prominent suicide attacks carried out by the
JeM, subsequent to the formation of its 'Afzal Guru Squad'
(excluding the three mentioned above) include:
December
5, 2014: A group of heavily armed fidayeen terrorists
stormed
into the Army's 31 Field Regiment Ordinance Camp located
at Mohra in the Uri Sector of Baramulla District near
the Line of Control (LoC). In the ensuing gunfight, which
lasted over six hours, 11 SF personnel, including one
Lieutenant Colonel; and six terrorists, were killed. It
was subsequently confirmed that the attack was carried
out by JeM.
September
18, 2016: JeM fidayeens stormed
an Army camp near the LoC in the Uri
area of Baramulla District and killed 17 Army personnel.
Another three Army personnel succumbed to their injuries
later. At least four terrorists were also killed in the
encounter.
November
29, 2016: Seven Army men, including two Majors, as well
as three terrorists, were killed in a suicide attack on
a camp of the 166th Artillery Unit at Nagrota,
just about three kilometers from the 16 Corps Headquarters
at Nagrota, in Jammu District. JeM claimed the responsibility
for the attack.
Indeed,
days after the fidayeen attack on the District
Police Lines in Pulwama, on August 26, 2017, it was found
that the terrorists had used charcoal to write slogans
in favour of Afzal Guru. Starting with ‘AGS (Afzal Guru
Squad)’, the slogan written inside one of the burnt DPL
complexes read, “Afzal Guru ka intiqaam” (Revenge
of Afzal Guru). Similar pro-Afzal Guru Graffiti had been
found subsequent to the November 29, 2016, fidayeen
attack, at Nagrota; and the November 25, 2015, suicide
attack on an Army camp near the LoC at Tanghdar in Kupwara
District in which one generator operator of the Military
Engineering Service and three terrorists were killed.
According
to intelligence reports terrorists behind the two most
recent fidayeen attacks (October 3 and August 26,
2017) were from a group of 17 'Afzal Guru Squad' cadres
who had entered India from across the border in the month
of July-August 2017. Reports indicate that, after entering
India, the group had split into small units and spread
out into different parts of J&K. Soon after the October
3, 2017, BSF camp attack, the Inspector General of Police
(IGP), Kashmir Zone, Muneer Ahmad Khan confirmed that
the three terrorists killed in the attack were part of
17-member group of JeM fidayeens who had infiltrated
in July-August. He disclosed, further, "The inputs
are these fidayeens (killed on October 3) were
from the same group. Three of them were eliminated at
Pulwama (August 26)… Four terrorists were killed in Uri
on September 24. Six to seven of them are still at large
and could carry out another attack”.
Though
there has been a relentless effort by JeM to increase
the level of threat through such attacks, SFs have managed
to contain the onslaught, eliminating a significant number
of terrorists, including the group’s ‘top commanders’,
in recent past. According to partial data compiled by
the SATP, of the 105 identified terrorists killed by SFs
since the beginning of the current year, at least 14 belonged
to JeM. Since the beginning of the current year, SFs have
eliminated a total of at least 176 terrorists (data till
October 15, 2017), the highest
number killed in a year since 2011.
Most recently,
in a major success, in an encounter on October 9, 2017,
SFs killed the ‘chief operational commander’ of JeM, Khalid
Ahmad aka Khalid Bhai aka Shahid Showkat,
in the Ladoora village area of Sopore in Baramulla District.
Khalid Ahmad, a Pakistani national, was the ‘mastermind’
behind the recent fidayeen attacks on October 3,
2017 and August 26, 2017 (above); and the attack on the
46 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) Camp at Khajabagh in Baramulla
District on October 2, 2016, in which three persons (two
terrorists and a soldier) were killed. An unnamed Police
spokesman stated, “Khalid alias Shahid Showkat
was constantly exploring the opportunities to kill the
security forces/ police personnel and to attack police/
security establishments in the State. He was motivating
youth and poor boys to join his outfit for execution of
grenade attacks against monetary benefits on behalf of
Pak-based JeM commanders.”
On September
24, 2017, the Army killed four JeM fidayeen in
the Kalgi area near the LoC in the Uri sector of Baramulla
and prevented what could have been a replay of the September
8, 2016, attack at the Uri Army camp. The General-Officer-Commanding
(GoC) 19th Division of the Army, Major General R.P. Kalita
disclosed that there had been intelligence inputs that
terrorists were planning a major attack on Army installations
in the Uri area for long and that these were intended
for execution in the month of September: “They (the terrorists)
seem to be newly infiltrated and must have come two nights
before they were trapped in the village.”
Nevertheless,
JeM’s suicide units remain a challenge. Worryingly, in
July 2017, an audio message released in the name of Saadi,
the pseudonym of JeM ‘chief’ Maulana Masood Azhar, urged
cadres to execute attacks ‘everywhere from Kashmir to
Kanyakumari’ [the southernmost tip of the Indian mainland]
and to use the 'new weapons for war' instead of traditional
ones such as guns, grenades and bullets. The JeM chief
had further called for a ‘new style of attacks’ using
instrument such as vehicles, electricity, petrol, fertilizer
and more significantly, medicines. However, no such attack,
using the ‘new style’ has been reported thus far.
Meanwhile,
Pakistan is using the fidayeen as force multipliers
of its intelligence apparatus (the Inter Services Intelligence,
ISI) to keep ‘troubled’ Kashmir stewing. ISI now appears
to have assigned JeM ‘centre stage’ following sustained
international pressure to disassociate itself from its
first choice the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Moreover, the
drastically diluted
capacities of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM)
have further limited ISI’s choices. It is significant
to recall here that JeM had lost ISI’s favour in the wake
of the December 14 and 26, 2003, assassination attempts
targeting Pakistan's then President General (Retd.) Pervez
Musharraf. Musharraf had survived the attacks unhurt.
Though
no fool proof measures can be guaranteed against fidayeen
ready to ‘sacrifice their lives’ to cause maximum harm
to SFs or Government institutions, alert and well equipped
Indian Forces have evolved measures to minimize damage
after the September 2016 debacle at Uri. The decimation
of leadership elements of all Pakistan-backed terrorist
formations operating in J&K are certain to impact
on capacities and motivation over time. Sustained pressure
on the terrorists operating within J&K will eventually
bring these groups to defeat, irrespective of the support
and safe-havens they continue to receive from Pakistan.
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Weekly Fatalities: Major
Conflicts in South Asia
October
9-15, 2017
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Civilians
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Security
Force Personnel
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Terrorists/Insurgents
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Total
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INDIA
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Jammu and
Kashmir
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0
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4
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8
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12
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INDIA (Total)
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0
|
4
|
8
|
12
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PAKISTAN
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Balochistan
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5
|
1
|
0
|
6
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FATA
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0
|
4
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0
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4
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KP
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1
|
0
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0
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1
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PAKISTAN
(Total)
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6
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5
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0
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11
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Provisional
data compiled from English language media sources.
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