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SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 8, No. 38, March 29, 2010

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
INDIA
PAKISTAN
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Troubled Triad
Asutosha Acharya
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

In the latest of a series of terrorist attacks targeting Indians in Afghanistan, coordinated suicide attacks were executed on February 26, 2010, at two hotels in Kabul, the Afghan capital. Nine Indians were killed, including two Majors of the Army. At least 10 others, including five Indian Army officers, were injured in the strike, which killed another eight, including locals and nationals from other countries. The attackers, believed to be three in number, struck at the guest houses, particularly the Park Residence, rented by the Indian Embassy for its staffers and those linked to India’s developmental work in Afghanistan. Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna noted that this was "the third attack on Indian officials and interests in Afghanistan" over the preceding 20 months.

A faction of the Taliban was first to claim responsibility for the attack, when the Haqqani group’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid telephoned a reporter with the Associated Press and confirmed that five suicide bombers took part in the operation, and that foreigners were the target.

Later in the evening, a man introducing himself as Hussain Burki called the BBC Urdu Service in London, to claim that the suicide bombing in Kabul was a joint operation of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and the Afghan Taliban. "Three of our fidayeen [suicide squad members] fighters, Mohammad Owais, Aftab Ahmad and Daresh Khan, carried out the attack, along with the Afghan Taliban and offered the supreme sacrifice of their lives. This was revenge against the Indians for the atrocities they are committing in Kashmir and Afghanistan’.

A few hours later, however, the ‘Afghan Taliban’ ruled out the involvement of the JeM in the Kabul attack, claiming that the assault had been executed by Taliban fidayeen alone.

These claims and counter-claims were, however, mere smokescreens, intended to mislead investigators and keep the focus away from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s external intelligence agency, which simply does not want the Indian presence in its Afghan ‘backyard’, and which has been the architect of the succession of earlier attacks on Indian interests.

Initial speculation, based on past trajectories, lent credibility to the idea that the attack was engineered by the Haqqani faction of the Taliban, at the behest of the ISI. Afghan intelligence officials leading the investigations, however, quickly found that the top leadership of both the Taliban and al Qaeda were ignorant of the attack for more than five hours after its initiation. Afghan investigators found a trail that led directly to Pakistan and to the ISI's currently preferred terrorist formation, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Afghan security officials soon confirmed the responsibility of the ISI-LeT combine. Saeed Ansari, a spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence service, on March 2, disclosed that his agency had evidence that Pakistanis, specifically LeT, were involved in the attacks. "We are very close to the exact proof and evidence that the attack on the Indian guest house ... is not the work of the Afghan Taliban, but this attack was carried out by Lashkar-e-Toiba network, who are dependent on the Pakistan military." Ansari also noted that the February 26 Kabul attacks bore similarities to two suicide bombings at the Indian embassy in Kabul in 2008 and 2009, and the car bomb attack in January at a residential hotel in one of the safest neighbourhoods in the capital, Kabul. Ansari further stated that the Taliban lacked the logistical capabilities for the attack, since the gunmen appeared to have detailed knowledge, including names, of Indian guests at the hotels. "This kind of information, where the Indians are, is not the ability of the Afghan Taliban to know," Ansari insisted. He also claimed that the Taliban "had no knowledge" of the Kabul attacks at least five hours after they started. Investigators also established that the attackers spoke Urdu, not Pashto or Dari. Sources also indicated that the staff at the targeted guesthouses generally comprised Pakistani nationals who were recruited by the Kabul ISI station to keep tabs on the Indian residents.

Crucially, the style of the attack was very different from past suicide attacks on the Indian establishment in Kabul. Unlike previous suicide attacks on the Indian embassy, the latest attack was the ‘trademark’ LeT-style assault, using explosives to bring down defences and then launching a small-arms raid, hunting for specific targets, particularly Indian nationals, similar to the November 26, 2008, Mumbai attacks. Confirming this, the Indian Ambassador in Kabul, Jayant Prasad, noted, "It was a 26/11 type of attack. The attackers searched each and every room and killed people." Further, sources revealed that the terrorists searched a senior Indian Foreign Service Officer’s room at Park Residence several times and even lobbed in grenades, because they thought he could be hiding inside. When they did not find him in the room, the terrorists spoke to their handlers over their mobile phones to notify his absence, a pattern significantly similar to the LeT cadre’s modus operandi on 26/11.

Though LeT’s global presence is now widely acknowledged, the ISI had not previously used the group to target Indian establishments outside Indian soil. In Afghanistan, Indian targets had earlier been hit by ISI using its preferred anti-India Afghan terrorist faction – the Haqqani network. India, US and Afghanistan investigators had recovered clinching evidence that the July 2008 and October 2009 Indian Embassy suicide bombings were orchestrated by the Haqqani network, under real-time operational control of the ISI. In an effort to create a measure of ambiguity, the ISI chose to utilize the LeT to target Indian interests in Afghanistan. The move is also part of ISI's design to keep the pressure on Indian projects and presence in the country, and also skirt around the handicap of US pressure against the Haqqani network’s operations on Afghan soil at a time when Islamabad is eager to ‘repackage’ its proxies as the ‘good Taliban’, for inclusion in the power structure at Kabul.

Indian projects and nationals in Afghanistan remain vulnerable to the Pakistan-backed terrorist enterprise because of its large presence in the reconstruction of the war-ravaged country. India has a huge assistance programme for Afghanistan’s reconstruction. Since 2002, after the defeat of the Taliban regime, India has pledged over USD 1.3 billion aid to Afghanistan, making India the fifth largest donor nation, after the US, UK, Japan and Canada. In the 2010-11 Indian budget, a total of INR 2.9 billion has been allocated for various aid programmes to Afghanistan. Indian engagement in Afghanistan has focused on long-term economic stabilization, institution-building and social welfare, as well as a commitment to integrate Kabul into the South Asian framework. With Indian involvement in developmental works steadily increasing, some 4,000-5,000 Indian nationals are currently working on several reconstruction projects across Afghanistan. The Indian Embassy at Kabul notes: "India has undertaken projects virtually in all parts of Afghanistan, in a wide range of sectors, including hydro-electricity, power transmission lines, road construction, agriculture and industry, telecommunications, information and broadcasting, education and health, which have been identified by the Afghan Government as priority areas for development." In January 2009, India handed over the 218 kilometre Zaranj-Delaram highway, constructed at a cost of USD 266 million, linking Kabul with Iran and, more importantly, with the Iranian port of Chabahar, to facilitate movement of goods and commodities across an alternative route from the links through Pakistan, which are periodically held at ransom by the Pakistan establishment and their terrorist proxies. The construction work on the Zaranj-Delaram highway was disrupted repeatedly due to Pakistan's denial of all transit facilities from India to Afghanistan through its territory. The project was also opposed by the Pakistan-backed Taliban, who relentlessly attempted to block work by attacking and killing Indian nationals. Some of the more prominent attacks directly targeting work on the Zaranj-Delaram highway project included:

November 19, 2005: A 36-year old Border Roads Organisation (BRO) employee, Ramankutty Maniyappan was abducted. His decapitated body was found four days later, on a road between Zaranj, capital of Nimroz, and the Ghor Ghori area.

January 3, 2008: In the first-ever suicide attack on Indians in Afghanistan, two Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) soldiers were killed and five injured at Razai village in Nimroz.

April 12, 2008: Two personnel of the Indian Army’s BRO, M.P. Singh and C. Govindaswamy, were killed and seven persons, including five BRO personnel, sustained injuries, in a suicide-bomb attack in Nimroz.

June 5, 2008: An Indo-Tibetan Boarder Police (ITBP) trooper was killed and four others injured by the Taliban in the south-west Province of Nimroz.

[Nimroz lies along the 218 kilometre Zarang-Delaram Highway Project].

Since 2002, Pakistan has continuously attempted to block India’s capacity-building initiatives in Afghanistan. For instance, blocking the movement over Pakistani territory of heavy equipment meant for a 202-kilometre transmission line in Afghanistan. India has, nevertheless, managed to overcome such obstacles, engineering one of the largest airlifts in the region, over four years, to bring electricity to power-starved Kabul.

India’s growing influence in Afghanistan has always been opposed by Islamabad, in pursuit of Pakistan’s blatant ambitions to establish a proxy regime at Kabul. Pakistan fears that India’s ‘soft power’ among the Afghans will leave Pakistan encircled by hostile neighbours. Pakistan has historically sought a zero Indian presence across its western borders, and has aggressively lobbied diplomatically against any Indian role in Afghanistan, even as it intensifies terrorist intimidation in physical attacks against Indian targets. Significantly, at a meeting of the Indian National Security Council (NSC) on February 12, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) chief reportedly told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that his agency had picked up a conversation between ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha, and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, in which Pasha asked for a scaled down Indian presence in Afghanistan, including its cultural presence, in return for mediating a truce between Karzai and the Taliban.

After the ferocious February 26 attack, sources indicate that the ISI is planning more attacks on the Indian presence in Afghanistan. Intelligence inputs confirm that Indians are under a constant threat from Pakistan-backed terrorist groups. Regarding the February 26 incident, Indian Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram stated, on March 2, "there were intelligence alerts that Indian assets may be targeted, following which adequate steps were taken... but Afghanistan is a vulnerable area." Union Government sources indicated, on March 12, that India has received ‘credible’ intelligence inputs on a terrorist plot to abduct Indian diplomats.

Coming against a backdrop of a growing threat perception from ISI backed terrorist outfits, India has sent 40 Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel to step up the security of its diplomatic corps in Afghanistan. Earlier, there were 163 ITBP personnel, deployed at the Indian embassy in Kabul and its consulates in Jalalabad, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif.

Despite growing threats from Pakistan-backed terrorist outfits, India has declared that it will continue its developmental activities in Afghanistan without scaling down its presence, even though it suspended operations of its medical mission in Kabul, which were hit by injuries to most of its members. National Security Adviser (NSA) Shivshankar Menon nevertheless asserted that India would continue to fulfil its developmental commitments towards the Afghan people, although there may be some adjustments in the way things were being done.

Threat perceptions from Pakistan backed terrorism at India’s many projects and establishments in Afghanistan have always been high. It is evident that India will have to invest much more in the security of its assets in that country, though it would be physically impossible to secure every place and every Indian life. India’s overwhelming emphasis in Afghanistan has been on ‘soft power’, and in the region, on minimal defensive capability, relinquishing the entire initiative to a malignant Pakistani intent. Since India has refused to evolve the necessary offensive capacity, and to seize the initiative, it will have to go on battling perceptions that it is running scared.

INDIA
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Gujarat: Copybook Expansion
Ajai Sahni
Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management
Sachin Bansidhar Diwan
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

Six years ago, the erstwhile People’s War Group’s (which later merged to form the Communist Party of India – Maoist, CPI-Maoist) ‘Urban Perspective’ document (‘Our Work in Urban Areas’) promised to focus on, among others, the Ahmedabad-Pune corridor, noting,

This stretch of Western India is the main concentration of high industrialisation and urbanisation in the country. It includes four of the top ten cities in the country – Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune and Surat – besides two other cities over ten lakh – Vadodara and Nashik. The industries cover almost all the main industrial groups – engineering, chemicals, textiles, automobiles, telecommunications, electronics, etc. These cities and the adjoining districts attract the largest amount of new investment in the whole country. The working class is the most diverse, having migrated from all parts of the country.

Recognizing that rural areas would "play a primary role" in the "armed struggle" the Urban Perspective stated, nevertheless,

Without a strong urban revolutionary movement, the ongoing people’s war faces difficulties; further, without the participation of the urban masses it is impossible to achieve countrywide victory.

And further,

The ceaseless attacks of the imperialists and their Indian agents are daily pushing the national bourgeoisie into more conflict with the ruling classes. Thus today the practical possibilities of unity from below are growing. These possibilities are greater in cities with a stronger national bourgeois presence like the Delhi belt, the Coimbatore-Erode belt in Tamil Nadu, Surat in Gujarat, etc. Local party organisations should, where possible, utilise such opportunities, while keeping in mind the above principles.

Gujarat would seem an unlikely location for a Maoist mobilisation, on conventional reasoning. With just 4.4 per cent of the country’s population, the State accounts for 17 per cent of its GDP, 16 per cent of national exports, and 39 per cent of the national industrial output. While the world teetered on the brink of recession, and while the Indian economy slowed down significantly, Gujarat grew at 12.99 per cent in 2009-2010, and has averaged 12 per cent over the past decade. According to official calculations, just 16.75 per cent of the population is below the poverty line, as against a national average of 27.5 per cent. When the Tata’s Nano project at Singur in West Bengal ran into trouble over land acquisition and displacement, it shifted to Gujarat. This is the State most preferred by industry, and, according to the Reserve Bank of India, accounted for 26 per cent of total bank finance in the country in 2006-07.

Surat is a notable part of this success story: the State’s fastest growing city accounts for 92 per cent of the world’s diamond cutting and polishing industry. It has been called the ‘Manchester of the East’, accounting for 28 per cent of India’s total synthetic fiber output, and 40 per cent of the country’s man made fabric production.

None of this, however, has deterred the Maoists from targeting this flourishing State to realize their strategy of bringing the ‘Ahmedabad-Pune corridor’ into their sphere of influence.

On March 16, 2010 the Surat Police arrested a former freelance journalist of Orissa, Niranjan Mahapatra, from Pandesara in the Surat District for his alleged involvement in Maoist movement in Surat city, as well as in different tribal areas of South Gujarat. Sources indicate that he had been working among the tribals in South Gujarat since 1996, though had shifted base to Surat for the past five years. Police investigations revealed that he had sought to mobilize the dam evacuees of Ukai, living in Tapi, Surat and Dang Districts. The Police claimed to have recovered several incriminating documents from his rented accommodation at Jagannath Nagar.

Subseqeuntly, on March 19, 2010, N. K. Singh, a suspected cadre of the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist-Janshakti (CPI-ML-Janshakti) was arrested from the Alang ship-breaking yard in the Bhavnagar District of the Saurashtra region where he was running a labour union. He hailed from Begusarai in Bihar. The Police had extracted his mobile phone number from Niranjan Mahapatra.

Prior to these incidents, the Gujarat Police, on February 26, 2010, filed a comprehensive First Information Report (FIR) against the CPI-Maoist in Surat, to investigate the organisation’s activities and identify the persons involved in its spread in the State. The complaint confirmed that the Maoists were trying to extend their networks in the State, particularly in the tribal regions of South Gujarat. An offence under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) has been registered. Explaining the circumstances of filing of the FIR Inspector General of Police (Surat Range) A. K. Singh stated on February 27, 2010,

We have analysed the source materials and believe that their activities in South Gujarat are in continuation with their activities in the other Naxal [Left Wing Extremism]-affected States of the country. This is the first comprehensive FIR registered against them that will give legal power to the Police to investigate and find out the spread of CPI-Maoist in South Gujarat. Earlier, only minor complaints were filed against them. It is a banned organisation and we need to track their every movement.

Earlier, on April 10, 2009, five CPI-Maoist cadres belonging to the Narayanpur District of Chhattisgarh were arrested by a joint team of the Chhattisgarh Police and Gujarat Police from the Hazira industrial area of Surat. The Maoists were identified as Arjun Ramlal Yadav, Surajlal Rupjiram Gond, Jankuram alias Dholuram Virsing Gond, Chandu alias Chanda Bavanji Gond and Sonmati Rasiya Gond.

According to senior Police officials, the Maoists, including two women, were acting as a sleeper cell and used Surat and Hazira as a hiding place after carrying out attacks in Chhattisgarh. They were working as labourers in a construction company and living in the staff quarters near Singotar Mata Temple. The operation was planned after Police from the Dhantri District of Chhattisgarh received a tip-off that the extremists were hiding in Surat. The Surat Deputy Commissioner of Police, Subhash Trivedi, disclosed that the group used to visit Chhattisgarh frequently: "They used to return to Surat, either after carrying out attacks, or when any member fell ill."

Many of the details of the Maoist gameplan were revealed during interrogation of Surya Devra Prabhakar, believed to be in charge of the Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh Maoist operations, who was arrested by the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) from Mumbai (Maharashtra) on January 18, 2010. Prabhakar was responsible for drafting policies to recruit ‘young blood’ into the movement, and stayed in Surat between 2000 and 2006, before shifting to Mumbai. He, however, continued to visit Surat frequently. He was active in the tribal belt of South Gujarat and had established contacts with power loom and diamond industry workers. The ATS recovered INR One million from Prabhakar, believed to be a portion of the INR 2.5 million collected by him from Surat. The ATS also recovered a computer CPU, a pen drive, a mobile phone and Maoist literatures. More importantly, Prabhakar revealed that the plan to make the stretch from Ahmedabad to Mumbai a ‘Red Corridor’ was brewed almost 10 years earlier, and Surat was chosen as the operational Headquarters because of its huge migrant population from Maoist affected States like Orissa, Maharashtra, Bihar and Chhattisgarh. In addition, another two major cities Vadodara (Gujarat) and Nashik (Maharashtra) – lie in the targeted corridor, each with million-plus populations. The entire targeted region boasts a diversified industrial presence and is home to a wide varied range of the working class populations, with a significant representation of migrant workers from Maoist afflicted States.

Gujarat is also being developed as a ‘breeding ground’ for Maoists from other, more troubled, States. Gujarat Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Sudhir Sinha, on March 22, 2010, revealed that the Maoists were using Gujarat to recruit potential cadres from the large migrant population, especially in Surat, and collect funds for their movement: "CPI-Maoist cadres are brainwashing potential migrant recruits and are sending them back to the State of their origin to work there," Sinha said.

For all their efforts, the Maoist consolidation in Gujarat, and in the targeted Ahmedabad-Pune corridor, is still in its infancy. There has been no violence in the State. Crucially, the Gujarat Administration and Police have far better capacities for governance than most of the regions afflicted by the Left Wing insurgency. The overall level of policing is better in this region than in the States worst affected by Maoist mobilisation. The Police-Population ratio [number of Policemen per 1, 00,000 of Population] in Gujarat is 131, and in Maharashtra, 141, both higher than the national average of 125 (though well below ratios internationally regarded as adequate even for peacetime policing).

There is, nevertheless, an evident residual potential for extremist mobilisation, and this has been clearly demonstrated by Hindu right wing mobilisation in the State, and by the brutality of the Gujarat riots in 2002. There is a vast pool of grievances which extremists, both of the Right and of the Left, can harness. A sizeable population has been displaced as a result of development projects such as dams, highways, Special Economic Zones (SEZs), mining, etc., across the targeted region. Significantly, there is a large migrant worker population from Maoist affected States like Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. The gulf between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ is considerable.

The Maoists are clearly aware that existing and evolving developmental friction and the inequities and inequalities of the emerging order can translate excellent opportunities for mobilisation in their favour. The Maoist intent is to "mobilize the broadest possible sections", and such an objective is not pursued only through mobilisation of armed cadres, but would also "utilise all possible open and legal opportunities for work", building "broad mass organisations" to help the Party "have wide contact with the masses, so that it can work under cover for a long time and accumulate strength". At the same time, a secret underground structure for violent action is being developed, within a long-term ‘protracted war’ framework. The Maoist network, consequently, comprises both ‘secret’ and ‘open revolutionary mass organisations’. A range of ‘legal and democratic’ fronts join hands with a United Front that establishes linkages with ‘like-minded organisations’ to take the movement forward.

The Maoist strategy is insidious, deeply corrosive, and is rarely confronted by the State in its initial, non-violent phases. Indeed, the record in most badly affected States has been one of denial even after significant Maoist violence has been initiated. Nipping the budding Maoist mobilisation will, of course, present the Gujarat Police with a range of legal challenges within the Indian system. It is, nevertheless, the most efficient and humane method to prevent the transition to a more violent phase, which would then require even greater use of Force to suppress. The State Police has done well to initiate a vigorous response at the present, incipient stage of the Maoist movement in Gujarat. India can ill-afford another ‘Red Corridor’, this time, across its flourishing Western belt.


NEWS BRIEFS

Weekly Fatalities: Major Conflicts in South Asia
March 22-28, 2010

 

Civilian

Security Force Personnel

Terrorist/Insurgent

Total

INDIA

 

Assam

2
0
1
3

Jammu and Kashmir

0
0
13
13

Manipur

0
0
4
4

Meghalaya

1
0
0
1

Left-wing Extremism

 

Bihar

2
0
0
2

Chhattisgarh

0
0
4
4

Jharkhand

5
0
0
5

Maharshtra

1
0
0
1

Orissa

1
4
0
5

West Bengal

5
0
5
10

Total (INDIA)

17
4
27
48

PAKISTAN

 

Balochistan

3
0
0
3

FATA

3
5
166
174

NWFP

0
0
3
3

Total (PAKISTAN)

6
5
169
180
Provisional data compiled from English language media sources.


INDIA

90 Maoists killed in Chhattisgarh till February 2010: Chhattisgarh Home Minister Nankiram Kanwar on March 25 said in the State Legislative Assembly that as many as 90 Maoists were killed and 12 of their terror camps were destroyed till February 27 this year in the State's Bastar region under Operation Green Hunt." Economic Times, March 26, 2010.

219 Kashmiri Pandits killed by militants since 1989, says Jammu and Kashmir Revenue Minister Raman Bhalla: The Jammu and Kashmir Government on March 23 said 219 Kashmiri Pandits were killed by militants since 1989, while 24,202 Kashniri Pandit families were among the total of 38,119 families that migrated out of the Valley due to turmoil. Revenue Minister Raman Bhalla told the Legislative Assembly that from 2004, no killing of any person from the community [Kashmiri Pandits] had taken place. He disclosed that 808 Pandit families, consisting of 3,445 people, were still living in the Valley. The Hindu, March 24, 2010.

Intercepts reveal LeT plan to target Indian interests in Afghanistan: Several satellite phone conversations intercepted by Indian agencies in the past few months indicate that Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) is now deeply involved in attempts to drive India out of Afghanistan. "Unlike earlier, apart from Pashto, many of these recent intercepts have been in Urdu. These were taken up with US agencies and they later authenticated them," said an official source, adding that, through the intercepts, India has been able to confirm at least five meetings since September 2009, in which plans to attack Indians in Afghanistan were discussed. The location of the satellite phone in most of these conversations was established in areas adjoining the Kunar province along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Kunar is the place where LeT was first formed in the early 1990s. The intercepts also revealed that ISI officials were in constant touch with not just LeT but also other groups, to carry out attacks against Indians and Indian establishments in Afghanistan. Times of india, March 27, 2010.

400 militants waiting to infiltrate in Jammu and Kashmir: About 400 militants were waiting to cross over to this (Indian) side of the Line of Control (LoC) and nearly 300 militants were active in the Kashmir Valley, said Brigadier Gurmeet Singh, Brigadier General Staff, 15 Corps, on March 28. "According to the Intelligence available with us, there are 42 training camps across the LoC and 34 of these are active. There are 20 launch pads opposite our Corps zone, where around 400 militants are waiting to infiltrate," he said. He added that the militants were using GPS and satellite phones, as they do not trust local guides anymore.

Meanwhile, Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) has issued a warning in Kashmir, telling residents to stop helping defence forces or face death. In its latest diktat, the LeT has put up posters in the Doda District of Kashmir, warning locals that all who either serve in the Para-military Forces or the Police Force will be killed. It also waned that, in the coming days, the group will target Special Police Officers. Times of India, March 27, 2010.

Capacity of terrorists to strike India is very high, says Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram: The Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram, on March 27, said the capacity of terrorists operating from across the border, to strike places in India was high, as they get support from the (Pakistani) state. At the same time, he said, Indian security forces have the capacity to give a "swift and decisive" response to any terror attack targeted against the country. "The challenge before security is that the source of the terror lies across our border and they have the support of the state and therefore their capacity to reach here and strike is very high," he said. Chidambaram said that cities in India were as vulnerable to terror as those in other parts of the world. "

Chidambaram listed Maoist violence as one of the grave challenges facing the country and assured the gathering that the Government would free areas held by Naxals in the next three years. "Within two-three years, we will be able to free these areas from Naxals," he said. Times of India, March 27, 2010.

LeT expanding to other South Asian nations, said top US military official: Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), predominately a threat to India, is fast expanding operations to other South Asian countries including Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives, said Admiral Robert Willard, Commander of the US Pacific Command, in his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 27. "Right now our concern is the movement of Lashkar-e Toiba, the terrorist group that emanates from Pakistan that was responsible for the Mumbai attacks in India, and specifically their positioning in Bangladesh and Nepal, the Maldives and Sri Lanka," Willard said, in response to a question from Senator George Lemieux. Times of India, March 27, 2010.

Headley names more Pakistani Army officers in Karachi Project: The Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operative David Coleman Headley identified five or six serving officers of the Pakistan Army among the leaders of the Karachi Project, which seeks to organize attacks on India through fugitive Indian jihadis being sheltered in Karachi by the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI)-LeT combine. Sources said that, besides serving Majors Samir Ali and Iqbal of Pakistan Army, Headley has told his Federal Bureau of Investigation handlers about the role of one Colonel Shah and at least two other officers of the Pakistan Army in the Karachi Project. The role of two serving officers of the Pakistan Army, Majors Samir Ali and Iqbal, in the Karachi Project, was reportedly mentioned in the dossier that was submitted to visiting Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir in New Delhi on February 25. Times of India, March 27, 2010.


PAKISTAN

166 militants and five Security Force personnel among 174 persons killed during the week in FATA: At least 17 Taliban militants were killed in air strikes and clashes with Security Forces (SFs) in Orakzai Agency of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on March 28.

Air strikes killed around 16 Taliban militants in the on going Operation Khwakh Ba De Sham (I will see you) in the Orakzai Agency of FATA on March 27. In addition, a US missile strike in North Waziristan killed four militants in a suspected al Qaeda and Taliban hideout.

At least 31 Taliban militants and five soldiers, including a lieutenant colonel, were killed in fighting and air strikes in the Orakzai Agency on March 26.

At least 66 Taliban militants were killed in air strikes in Taliban strongholds of Ghaljo and Mamuzai areas of Orakzai Agency on March 25.

The SFs killed at least 21 Taliban militants in Ajani area of Lower Orakzai Agency on March 24.

The missiles fired from US drones killed at least six militants in the suburbs of Miranshah in North Waziristan Agency on March 23.

The SFs killed five Taliban militants in the Anjani area of Orakzai Agency. The SFs targeted Taliban hideouts with heavy artillery, killing at least five Taliban militants and injuring three others. Dawn; Daily Times; The News, March 22-29, 2010.

823 militants killed during Operation Rah-e-Nijat, says Interior Minister Rehman Malik: Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operative David Coleman Headley, accused of plotting the November 26, 2008 (also known as 26/11) Mumbai terrorist attacks and conspiring to target a Danish newspaper, pleaded guilty before a US court in Chicago on March 18. Headley told US District Judge Harry Leinenweber that he wanted to change his plea to guilty, in an apparent bid to get a lighter sentence than the maximum death penalty. Headley reportedly charged on 12 counts, admitted he was guilty of all of them. Dawn, March 27, 2010.

Pakistan continues to support some terrorist outfits, says US official: Pakistan continued to support some militant outfits that operate in Afghanistan, a top US intelligence official said on March 24. "Islamabad has demonstrated determination and persistence in combating militants it perceives dangerous to Pakistan's interests, but it also has provided some support to other Pakistan-based outfits that operate in Afghanistan," said Mathew Burrows, Counsellor and Director of the Analysis and Production Staff at the National Intelligence Council. Times of India, March 25, 2010.

Mullah Omar names new deputies: Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, on March 23 appointed two of his top Taliban ‘commanders’ from the south to replace his former ‘deputy’ Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was arrested by Pakistani forces in Karachi on February 18. Abu Zabihullah, a senior Taliban operative, said that Abdul Qayyum Zakir, a former Guantánamo Bay inmate, and Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, replaced Baradar. Their appointments, Zabihullah said, are meant, "to convey a good message that, despite our leader’s arrest, the Taliban is back to business-as-usual operations without a problem". Daily Times, March 24, 2010.


SRI LANKA

TNA highlights Sinhalese influx into North: Tamil National Alliance (TNA) highlighted the "dangers" arising from the post-war influx of Sinhalese into the predominantly Tamil Jaffna peninsula and the Wanni by drawing attention to the construction of permanent Sri Lankan Army camps in the region. Parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran, who is contesting the April 8 General Election from Jaffna District, said that the construction of permanent camps meant the transformation of the existing camps into family stations, which in turn would mean a great increase in the population of the Sinhalese. This fear stems from the fact that the Sri Lankan Army is almost exclusively Sinhalese. Express Buzz, March 25, 2010.


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.

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