SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 11, No. 44, May 6, 2013

SOUTH ASIA

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LeT: Augmenting Threat
Sanchita Bhattacharya
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

Emphasizing the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s (LeT) clout and survival capabilities in South Asia, Admiral Samuel Locklear, Commander of the US Pacific Command (PACOM), observed, on April 9, 2013, “LeT remains one, if not the most operationally capable terrorist groups through all of South Asia. LeT was responsible for the November 2008 attack in Mumbai, India, that killed over 160 people, including six Americans, and has supported or executed a number of other attacks in South Asia in recent years.”

Significantly, the Combating Terrorism Centre (CTC) at the US Military Academy, West Point, published a paper, “The Fighters of Lashkar-e-Taiba: Recruitment, Training, Deployment and Death”, on April 4, 2013, based on the biographies of 917 LeT militants killed in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) between 1989 and 2008. Unsurprisingly, the report found that 94 percent of the selected LeT militants listed J&K as the ‘fighting front’. The vast majority of the LeT fighters was from Pakistan and was killed in the Districts of Kupwara, Baramulla and Poonch in J&K. According to J&K Police data, out of 184 identified foreign terrorists killed in the State (a total of 568 foreign terrorists were killed in the State since 1998), more than half, (96) belonged to the LeT.

Partial data compiled by the Institute for Conflict Management indicates that a total of 1,791 people, including 1,305 terrorists, 274 Security Force (SF) personnel and 212 civilians died in 710 incidents of killing connected with the LeT, since 2001 (data till May 5, 2013). The group, along with the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), has been responsible for the greatest proportion of violence in the State.

LeT has remained active outside Kashmir as well. Out of the 45 prominent terror attacks witnessed outside theaters of violence in J&K and the North East since August 14, 2000, the LeT was alleged to be involved in no less than 17 incidents, which resulted in at least 630 fatalities. Though the outfit had established linkages and operational capabilities across India much earlier, disclosures by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) suggest that the February 13, 2010, Pune German Bakery blast (in which 17 people were killed and 60 others sustained injuries) was the first act of terror in which LeT coordinated with the Indian Mujahiddeen (IM). Maharashtra ATS Chief Rakesh Maria observed, "We proved in court that the LeT and IM joined hands for the first time to create terror in India.” IM’s parent group, the Student’s Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) had, however, been cooperating and coordinating with the LeT, among other Islamist terrorist formations in India, since the late 1990s.

The LeT has also continuously attempted to make its presence felt elsewhere in India’s immediate neighbourhood, though primarily, in the past, with the aim of targeting India. Of late, however, the group has emerged as a force multiplier to militant outfits operating in Afghanistan. It has established bases in the Afghan Provinces of Kunar, Nuristan, Nangarhar, Wardak, Laghman, Paktia, Paktika, Khost, Kabul and Kandahar. The LeT has already been responsible for several attacks on Indian establishments, Coalition and Afghan Forces in Afghanistan. Indeed, on August 30, 2012, US Treasury Department designated eight LeT leaders – Sajid Mir, Abdullah Mujahid, Ahmed Yaqub, Hafiz Khalid Walid, Qari Muhammad Yaqoob Sheikh, Amir Hamza, Abdullah Muntazir and Talha Saeed – as terrorists, holding them accountable for attacks on Coalition and Afghan forces in Afghanistan as well as for the November 26, 2008, (26/11) Mumbai (Maharashtra, India) attacks. Again, on April 15, 2013, Coalition and Afghan Special Operations Forces arrested a “senior LeT leader” (name not disclosed) in the Andar District of Ghazni Province. Sources indicated that he had "planned and participated in multiple attacks against Afghan and Coalition forces throughout Kunar, Kandahar and Ghazni provinces" and "was actively planning a high-profile attack at the time of his arrest."

In October 2010, while cautioning India about LeT, the then Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon Panetta warned India about the increasing LeT presence in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

The LeT had also made inroads into Bangladesh and had primarily been using it as a launch pad for attacks against India. Several LeT cadres, who were operating in India and Pakistan and had taken shelter in Bangladesh, have been arrested by Bangladeshi enforcement agencies, but the degree of penetration the organization had established in Bangladesh was discovered by the April 8, 2010, arrest of the LeT organizer in Bangladesh, Mobashwer Shahid Mubin alias Yahia, a Pakistani national. Intelligence sources said Yahiya was recruiting local youths for LeT and carrying funds assigned by top LeT leaders for its activities in Bangladesh. Yahia reportedly also looked after the interests of different local and foreign militant organisations as an ISI agent.  Significantly, the revelations by Pakistani American David Coleman Headley and Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Rana in the US had enabled Bangladeshi authorities to thwart a LeT design to attack the US Embassy and the Indian High Commission in the capital city of Dhaka in 2009. Meanwhile, stressing the outfit’s role in the current turmoil within Bangladesh, the country’s Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir disclosed, on February 27, 2013, that the LeT remained active in Bangladesh and law enforcement agencies were tracking down their networks and keeping them under sharp security vigil. "It is the moral and legal obligation of the Government to uproot them totally,” he added further.

The LeT also has also established a strong presence in the Maldives. Various media reports suggest that the Pakistan-based Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq (IKK), one of the identities under which LeT operates, reached the Maldives in the wake of the December 2004 Tsunami under the guise of providing humanitarian aid to affected populations. In 2006, evidence emerged that Dhaka-based LeT ‘commander’ Faisal Haroon had explored plans to use the islands in Maldives as a logistical base. February 2010 reports, quoting the Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB), claimed that the LeT had nearly 1,000 operatives active in the Maldives. Indeed, disclosures by a Maldivian national, Asif Ibrahim, arrested in Kerala as far back as in April 2005 indicated that a shadow outfit, Jamaat-e-Muslimeen, was working as a cover for LeT and operations connecting Maldives and Kerala were being carried out in the name of this front. Further, Moosa Inas – who had been charged in the case relating to the Sultan Park, Male, blast of September 29, 2007, in which 12 foreign nationals were injured – had travelled in connection with the Male explosion to Thiruvananthapuram in the Indian State of Kerala in December 2005.

Nepal has, for long, been a critical base for LeT operatives targeting India. Reconfirming the group’s presence in that country, arrested LeT operative Abu Jundal, on June 30, 2012, revealed that his arms training was started in Nepal in 2004 by LeT terrorist Mohammed Aslam alias Aslam Kashmiri, a resident of Rajouri District in J&K. On July 6, 2012, Jundal, further told interrogators that Abu Hamza had entered India through Nepal and executed the December 28, 2005, Indian Institute of Science (IISc, Bangalore, Karnataka) attack and then escaped to Pakistan through the same porous route. Investigators also learnt that the Karnavati Express blast at Ahmadabad Railway Station (Gujarat) on February 19, 2006, failed due to insufficient training given to the LeT operatives in Nepal.

The LeT’s presence in countries across South Asia has been acknowledged by US diplomatic sources. A January 3, 2009, secret cable sent from Islamabad (disclosed by Wikileaks in its November 30, 2010, release) quoted the then U.S. Ambassador in Islamabad, Anne W. Patterson, stating,

…we believe there are still LeT sleeper and other cells in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, as well as many law enforcement leads which need to be pursued. To prevent another potential attack, we need to keep channels of cooperation and information sharing open. We are concerned that the Indians' premature public dissemination of this information will undermine essential law enforcement efforts and forestall further Indo-Pak cooperation. Our goal is not only to bring the perpetrators of this attack [26/11 Mumbai attacks] to justice, but also to begin a dialogue that will reduce tensions between India and Pakistan.

On January 5, 2009, India shared a 55-page dossier of information with diplomats of 14 countries whose citizens were killed in the 26/11 attacks.

LeT linkages also existed with the now-defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has also been used by the LeT to target India. Based on research by the Presidential Research Unit, the Sri Lankan Presidential Secretariat, on July 3, 2009, disclosed that military links between the LTTE and the LeT went back to as early as 1992, when LTTE leader Sathasivam Krishnakumar alias Kittu had negotiated an arms deal with the terrorists based in Peshawar (Pakistan). The study noted that intelligence sources were aware that LTTE’s links with LeT continued and there were ‘substantiated reports’ of the LTTE and LeT exchanging terrorist expertise, LeT supplying arms to the LTTE, and both carrying out joint training. Investigators on June 29, 2012, revealed that LeT militant Faiyaz Kagzi, an accused in the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, had given bomb-making training in the Sri Lanka capital, Colombo, in 2008 to German Bakery blast accused Mirza Himayat Baig. Baig was sentenced to death on April 18, 2013.

While all the South Asian countries thus register some presence and activities of the LeT, the group has entrenched roots in Pakistan, where it has flourished under the protection of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The CTC report inferred, on the basis of information gathered about the recruitment base of LeT cadres, that there is probability of an overlap between Pakistan Army recruits and LeT militants:

It is noteworthy that there is considerable overlap among the Districts that produce LeT militants and those that produce Pakistan army officers, a dynamic that raises a number of questions about potentially overlapping social networks between the Army and LeT.

Significantly, Abu Jundal’s disclosures confirm that the Pakistan Government has failed to take action against LeT because it remained loyally ‘pro-Pakistan’.

Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy at Brookings Institution, notes that LeT, in the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, matured “from a Punjabi-based Pakistani terror group targeting India exclusively, to a member of the global Islamic jihad targeting the enemies of al Qaeda: the Crusader West, Zionist Israel, and Hindu India”. The LeT now constitutes an enduring threat, not only to India, but to the world at large. Unless coordinated action is undertaken by all countries afflicted or threatened by this terrorist formation, given the complexity and spread of its networks, it will be a difficult task to neutralize its growing menace.

INDIA

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Meghalaya: The Trouble with Peace
Veronica Khangchian
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

The flawed tripartite Cease-fire Agreement-(CFA) signed with the Achik National Volunteer Council (ANVC) on July 23, 2004, resulted in a split in the outfit. This was ‘exposed’ only in March 2012, with the surfacing of the ‘Breakaway faction’, ANVC-B. This latter formation has been split further, resulting in the formation of another extremist group, the United A’chik Liberation Army (UALA) in February 2013. The ANVC-B claimed in April, 2012 that their group was deliberately left out and not brought under the CFA by ANVC leaders, even as Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, on April 3, 2012, admitted: “There were deficiencies and the ceasefire process was not done properly. It came to the notice of the Government last year (2011) that there is still an armed group which did not come overground." The ANVC had also faced disgrace when Sohan D. Shira, the then-leader of ANVC, formed the Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) towards the end of 2009, after he had surrendered as a member of ANVC in 2007.

UALA was formed when Norrok X. Momin, the then ‘action commander’ of ANVC-B, whose real name is Singbirth N. Marak, deserted from the outfit after he was accused of leading the attack on Williamnagar Jail in the East Garo Hills District, in which two jail officials – assistant Jailer Neil Warjri and Warder Sarai Singh Thabah – were dragged out and shot dead on February 2, 2013. The ANVC-B denied its involvement in the attack, though sources had pointed out that its ‘chairman’ Rimpu Barnard N. Marak had conceded that Norok had led the attack without his sanction. Norok had been released on bail in January 2013, after he had been arrested in connection with the attack on Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) working president, Deborah C. Marak, in November, 2012. Intelligence reports indicate that the UALA has a sizeable number of AK rifles, small arms and hand grenades, which the group took away from ANVC-B camps before deserting the parent outfit.

On January 5, 2013, the Union and Meghalaya State Government had signed a draft agreement with both ANVC and ANVC-B for the enhancement of powers of the existing Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC). The GHADC has been in existence since 1952, under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India. Commenting on the infirmities of the draft peace pact, an official source observed that the defect lay in the fact that no deadline was given to ANVC-B leaders to deposit their arms with the Police or keep them in joint custody, as was done in the case of ANVC. The hurriedly drafted peace pact with ANVC-B, just prior to the Assembly Elections on February 23, 2013, without securing the surrender of weapons, had evoked criticism from the opposition National People’s Party (NPP), which dismissed the pact as an election stunt. The Government wanted to bring both the groups under the peace pact for a final settlement, but had failed to ensure a ceasefire with ANVC-B.

The newly floated UALA headed by its ‘commander-in-chief’ Norrok X. Momin, on April 16, 2013, accused the ANVC-B leadership headed by Rimpu Barnard N. Marak (earlier known as Torik Jangning Marak, former ‘spokesperson’ of ANVC) and ‘commander-in-chief’ Mukost Marak, of aligning with the Rabha Hasong leadership in Assam to merge the Garo inhabited areas in Assam into the Rabha Hasong Autonomous Council (RHAC), ‘against the wishes of the people’. In a strongly worded statement, Momin declared, “The ANVC-B chairman (Rimpu) and commander-in-chief (Mukost) have signed up to merge the Garo areas with the Rabha Hasong for which they have been assured of Rs. 5 crore (50 million) as reward. It is because of their attempt to sell the rights of the Garos living in Assam that we have formed the UALA to oppose them… The ANVC-B leadership has betrayed the Garos of Assam and it is because of this that a large group of cadres along with me has abandoned the organization to start our very own called UALA to fight for the cause of the Garos living in Assam.” ANVC-B had, in April 2012, asserted that the group would fight for a ‘greater Garoland’ [including all the three Districts of the Garo Hills – East Garo Hills, West Garo Hills and South Garo Hills – and Garo-dominated areas of West Khasi Hills, in Meghalaya, as well as Goalpara and Kamrup Districts in Assam] and would negotiate a separate truce with the Government, and not go along with ANVC. ‘Greater Garoland’ was the original demand of its parent group, ANVC as well. However, this demand was scaled down to the establishment of a Garo Autonomous Council (GAC) after the CFA, a provision that has been continuously delayed, as the Government now argues that the State already has the GHADC, which is a similar body.

RHAC areas spread over the troubled Goalpara and Kamrup (Rural) Districts of Assam. The Garo community in Assam, together with other tribes and communities, including the Bodos, Nepalis and Muslims, have refused to be a part of the RHAC, resulting in widespread ethnic clashes in February 2013, during the third and final phase of Panchayat (village Self-Governing body) elections in the RHAC areas in Assam, which claimed at least 20 lives. The Rabha Hasong Joint Movement Committee (RHJMC), an umbrella organisation of 34 Rabha groups, opposed the polls on the grounds that RHAC elections should have been completed before the Panchayat elections. RHAC elections were to be organized for the first time since the Accord of 1995. Assam’s Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi had, on February 13, 2013, also described the 1995 Rabha Hasong Accord as “faulty”, while his Press adviser, Bharat Chandra Narah, on February 14, claimed it was “unconstitutional”, while confessing to the State’s inability to exclude RHAC areas from the Panchayat Act.

The ANVC-B leadership, however, insisted that a “conspiracy” was being hatched by Muslim militant groups to form a Garo outfit to take on the ANVC-B. ANVC-B ‘chairman’ Rimpu Marak, referring to the draft agreement of January 5, 2013, contended, “The UALA was formed by people closely associated with Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA) and probably Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJi) and were kept under control from rising until we signed the peace agreement,” and further, “Regardless of Norrok’s actions against the ANVC-B, it had never abandoned him and provided him protection. However, Norrok has disregarded it and because of him three members of the outfit were recently shot dead at Dobu.” On March 9, three ANVC-B cadre were killed in an alleged encounter between a Meghalaya Police team and the rebels, at Dobu Chitingbang village of East Garo Hills District.

The ANVC-B further alleged that a nexus existed between the UALA, All India Garo Union (AIGU) and the Garo National Union (GNU), not allowing the RHAC to function through proper elections. In a statement issued on April 19, 2013, ANVC-B chairman Rimpu Marak observed, “UALA support to Garo National Union and All India Garo Union of Assam against the autonomous council election needs to be closely examined.” The ANVC-B also made it clear that the outfit would not oppose the RHAC election. RHAC elections, which were scheduled for April 30, 2013, have been delayed. A meeting of the Cabinet sub–committee, in which representatives of Rabha and non–Rabha organizations had taken part, presided over by State Revenue, Relief and Rehabilitation Minister, Prithvi Majhi, was held at Guwahati on April 24, 2013. After the meeting, Majhi stated, “There are some problems due to which the RHAC polls cannot be conducted soon. More discussions are needed with Rabha and non–Rabha organizations. Hence the polls will be delayed.”

Prospects of a stable peace with the ANVC factions are undermined further by contrary claims from different authorities. On April 8, 2013, Chief Minister Mukul Sangma stated in the Assembly that the peace pact with ANVC and ANVC-B was at an ‘advanced stage’. However, Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA), Joint Secretary Shambhu Singh, asserted, on April 13, 2013, that the peace process would take ‘more time’: “The signing of final peace pact with the ANVC militants is likely to take some more time with the Centre still processing the matter.”

Meanwhile, on April 11, 2013, ANVC-B disclosed that the outfit was trying to bring Norok back into the outfit to enable his participation in the peace process. Rimpu Marak noted, “Norok is still a part of the ANVC-B and we are trying to get him back as we are in the verge of a settlement and the last thing we would want is another splinter group.”  Rimpu Marak also asserted that UALA was an Assam-based outfit, conceptualized after the Garo-Rabha conflict. In January 2011, clashes broke out between the Rabhas and the Garos along the Assam-Meghalaya border, resulting in the death of 12 persons and displacement of an estimated 50,000 civilians.

ANVC-B had accused ANVC of being indifferent to GNLA attacks on its cadres. In first incident of its kind in the Garo Hills, a clash between the GNLA and the ANVC-B occurred near Simsang River, bordering West Khasi Hills and South Garo Hills District on December 20, 2012, resulting in the death of one GNLA militant and injuries to another two.

Worse, the growing nexus between Mehalaya’s GNLA and the Anti-Talk Faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom [(ULFA-ATF) in Assam [now renamed ULFA-Independent, after its central executive committee meeting between April 2 and 5, 2013] is another rising threat to peace. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), a total of six GNLA militants have been killed so far in Assam alone in 2013. Meghalaya Home Minister Roshan Warjri, on April 17, 2013, observed that the GNLA, with support from Assam-based militant groups, had become a “potent force, comprising a large number of cadres, including active overground workers, adequate firepower, organizational capacity and command leadership.” She noted that the outfit, which was active all over Garo Hills, in certain areas of West Khasi Hills and in South West Khasi Hills, was a significant cause for concern.

An April 30, 2013, report indicates that the Government wants the GNLA to first eschew violence before initiating talks with the group. The GNLA recently made an offer of talks, but asserted that it would not surrender. In response, the State’s a Home Department insisted that talks with the Government would be possible only if the GNLA ends violence. An official stated, “The militant group has to first abjure the path of violence and extortion, then only we will be able to talk to them.”

Meghalaya has already recorded 16 fatalities in 2013 [till May 5, 2013] including five civilians. Three civilians fatalities involved GNLA, one ANVC-B, and one was ‘unspecified’. Two Security Force personnel and nine militants (six GNLA and three ANVC-B) have also been killed. Total fatalities recorded by SATP numbered 20, 29 and 48, in 2010, 2011 and 2012, respectively. The rising graph of violence is substantially the result of continuous mishandling of a complex situation by state agencies, and the formation of a new Garo militant group can only add to the problems. It is useful to recall that Meghalaya’s security scenario started deteriorating with the formation of GNLA at the end of 2009. The repeated inking of flawed and hastily drafted peace agreements, the divergent agendas of a multiplicity of ethnic groups, and inordinate delays in the implementation of agreements reached with Government, threaten further deterioration, as new actors engage in the simmering conflict.

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

BANGLADESH

Islamist Extremism

INDIA

Jammu and Kashmir

Assam

Meghalaya

Left-wing Extremism

Andhra Pradesh

Chhattisgarh

Jharkhand

Odisha

Total (INDIA)

PAKISTAN

Balochistan

FATA

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Punjab

Sindh

Total (PAKISTAN)