SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 12, No. 34, February 24, 2014

PAKISTAN

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FATA: Pernicious Policies
Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

During a meeting with Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) General Raheel Sharif on January 28, 2014, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif asserted that no decision on launching an offensive in North Waziristan Agency (NWA) could be taken without consensus among ‘all stakeholders’, and that any such decision must be in the best ‘national interest’. Less than a month later, the Prime Minister has been forced to authorize the military to launch an operation in the region. An unnamed Government official stated on February 20, 2014, “After restraining the army for three days, the prime minister himself authorized the strikes last night [February 19]. It was the only option to teach the Taliban a lesson.” Similarly, Federal Minister of Interior Chaudhary Nisar stated emphatically, “Dialogue and violence cannot take place side by side. The military has been asked to retaliate in self-defence, which is their right. This [self-defence] is the right of the armed forces, which cannot be taken away from them.”

In the night of February 19, 2014, Pakistani Air Force (PAF) jets pounded terrorist hideouts in the Mir Ali, Shawal and Datta Khel areas of NWA, killing more than 35. Another seven terrorists were killed in air strikes in Khyber Agency.

Significantly, the strikes were in retaliation against the February 16, 2014, announcement by the Mohmand chapter of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), that it had executed 23 Frontier Corps (FC) personnel, allegedly as revenge for the killing of its fighters in custody in several parts of the country. The FC personnel had been abducted in June 14, 2010, from the Shoonkri Post of Mohmand Agency. An unnamed security official, however, rejected the TTP's claim, declaring, “The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is just lying. No terrorist has been killed in the custody.” At the time of the execution of the FC personnel, the TTP had been engaged in talks with the Government. As the military decided to retaliate, the talks collapsed.

Crucially, Nawaz Sharif, who had won the May 2013 General Elections on a promise to hold talks with TTP terrorists as part of a broader settlement, had initiated a dialogue with TTP through a panel of representatives, since January 29, 2014. The Government was represented in these talks by the Prime Minister's Advisor on National Affairs Irfan Siddiqui, Major (Retd.) Mohammed Amir (a former ISI official), senior journalist Rahimullah Yousafzai, and former Ambassador to Afghanistan Rustam Shah Mohmand (who was nominated by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government). The TTP team was led by Maulana Samiul Haq (former chief cleric of the Lal Masjid in Islamabad), Maulana Abdul Aziz, Professor Mohammad Ibrahim of the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), and Mufti Kifayatullah, a former lawmaker of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) from Mansehra.

The February 19 decision to carry out punitive attacks against the TTP was forced upon the Nawaz Sharif Government by the all powerful Army, which itself had been wary of opening up operations against many of the cross-border militants in NWA because of their long association with the country’s military-run intelligence agencies and their potential as “strategic assets”, both in the country's expansionist campaigns in Afghanistan, and in Indian Jammu & Kashmir. The Army had retaliated earlier as well, after being attacked by the terrorists in the region, but past operations never lasted long. Significantly, the PAF jets had pounded military hideouts in Mir Ali area of NWA, killing at least 24 persons and injuring another 15 on January 20, 2014. As speculation mounted regarding the launch of an 'offensive' in NWA, however, Minister for Defense Production Rana Tanveer Hussain, declared on January 22, 2014, that 'no operations' were being carried out in NWA, but conceded that 'retaliatory action' had been conducted against terrorist elements. On January 19, 2014, at least 26 soldiers had been killed and another 24 were injured, when a bomb ripped through a military convoy in Bannu Town of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), en route to Razmak in NWA. TTP had claimed responsibility for the attack.

Conspicuously, the present retaliation does not indicate the commencement of a broader and longer offensive against the Taliban in the region.

Meanwhile, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) - often described as the most dangerous place on earth - registered a 40.84 per cent decline in overall terrorism-related fatalities, from 2,901, including 2,046 terrorists, 549 civilians and 306 SF personnel in 2012; to 1,716, including 1,199 terrorists, 319 civilians and 198 SF personnel in 2013, according to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP). These figures indicate a decline in fatalities among terrorists, civilians, and SFs, by 41.39, 41.89 and 35.29 per cents respectively, between 2012 and 2013.

Fatalities among terrorists/militants and SFs declined principally due to Islamabad’s growing reluctance to continue with military operations in different agencies of FATA. Notably, Bajaur, Khyber, Kurram, Mohmand, Orakzai, and South Waziristan Agencies had witnessed operations in the past, which had resulted in a high number of killings among the militants and SFs. Such operations, however, remained suspended through 2013, in all these Agencies, as the Government kept on harping on talks with the TTP. Operation Rah-e-Shahadat (Path to Martyrdom) in Tirah Valley in Khyber Agency between April 5-June 30, 2014, was an exception. This operation was, in fact, intended to help terrorist militant formation, Ansarul Islam (AI), against the TTP- Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) combine, in a fratricidal struggle to control the remote Tirah Valley, which has had a key strategic significance for terrorist groups for the past many years. AI has had an enduring enmity with LI in the area, but the ideologies and policies of both outfits are the same, and both are on the list of banned terrorist outfits in Pakistan since June 30, 2008.

The absence of a sustained military offensive by Pakistani Forces could have been expected to have emboldened the terrorists, resulting in escalating attacks against civilians, as has been the case in other theatres in Pakistan. In FATA, however, the continuing successes of the US drones in eliminating the top terrorist leadership considerably weakened their formations. According to SATP data, FATA recorded at least 23 US drone strikes, resulting in 150 fatalities through 2013, adding to the 46 drone strikes in 2012, with 344 fatalities. The fatalities included several top terrorist leaders, including TTP ‘commander’ Maulvi Nazir, who was terminated in a US drone strike in Mir Ali tehsil of NWA on January 3, 2013; TTP’s 'deputy chief' Waliur Rehman, who was killed in a US drone strike in Chashma village near Miranshah town of NWA on May 29, 2013; and, finally, on November 1, 2013, Hakimullah Mehsud, TTP ‘chief’, who had a USD five million US Government bounty on his head, who was killed along with four other TTP cadres in a US drone strike in the Dandy Darpakhel area, five kilometers north of Miranshah, the main town of NWA. According to a media report of February 17, 2014, the Barrack Obama administration is making contingency plans to use air bases in Central Asia to conduct drone attacks in northwest Pakistan in case the US is forced to withdraw all military troops from Afghanistan at the end of 2014.

Unsurprisingly, other parameters of violence, such as incidents of killing, major incidents (each involving three or more fatalities), bombings, suicide attacks, and sectarian attacks also registered a decline through 2013.

In comparison to 434 incidents of killing in 2012, 2013 recorded 229 such incidents. Major incidents in 2013 stood at 133, as compared to 261 in 2012; the resulting fatalities in major incidents stood at 1,534 in 2013, as against 2,516 in 2012. In the worst attack during 2013, at least 60 persons were killed and 180 were injured in coordinated twin suicide attacks at Parachinar in the Kurram Agency, on July 26, 2013.

2013 also recorded 385 killed and 626 injured in 122 bomb blasts; as against 441 killed and 777 injured in 297 bomb blasts in 2012. The number of suicide attacks in FATA also dipped marginally, from 10 incidents in 2012 to nine in 2013; the resultant fatalities, however, rose from 151 in 2012 to 164 in 2013, and the numbers injured, from 212 to 256.  

Sectarian violence in the region also registered a steep decline. 2012 saw at least eight sectarian attacks, resulting in 75 killed and 103 injured; 2013 saw only one such incident. The July 26, 2013, attack took place at Parachinar in the Kurram Agency, killing at least 60 persons and injuring 180. Abu Baseer, ‘spokesperson’ of Ansarul Mujahideen, a TTP sub-network, claiming responsibility for the attack, declared that Shia community members were the target, and added, "We have planned more similar attacks against the Shia community in Pakistan to seek revenge of the brutalities of Shia on Sunni Muslims in Syria and Iraq."

Attacks on educational institutions in the region also registered a decline. As against 32 such attacks in 2012, year 2013 saw 12 such attacks. No casualties were reported in these attacks, both in 2012 and 2013, as human losses were not intended. Nevertheless, the continuous process of targeting educational institutions in a deteriorating security environment has had a crippling impact on education in the region. The Minister for States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON), Lieutenant General (Retd.) Abdul Qadir Baloch informed the Upper House of the National Assembly on December 6, 2013, “Over 947 educational institutions were completely closed due to [the] worsening law and order situation while 82 schools have been damaged in FATA.” He also disclosed that over 1,029 educational institutions were 'non-functional' in FATA. In 2008, an estimated 4,664 Government schools were operational in FATA, according to the KP Bureau of Statistics.

Despite sometimes dramatic declines in many parameters of terrorist violence in FATA, there appears to be little hope of a foreseeable end to the region's misfortunes, given Islamabad’s reluctance to sustain operations against the entrenched terrorist networks there. At the heart of the problem is the Government and the Army's perverse perception of the ‘national interest’, which has sought to keep terrorist proxies alive, even while they attempt to contain the domestic blowback of this pernicious policy. Limited respite has come from US drone strikes targeting the terrorist leadership, but as long as the feeder mechanism of state support to Islamist extremist and terrorist formations continues, such surgical operations can have only limited impact, and will tend to leave the broad trajectory of terrorism in the region more or less intact.

INDIA

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Odisha: Beating Back the Maoists
Mrinal Kanta Das
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

On February 5, 2014, the body of a tribal Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) activist, was found with the throat slit open in Singavaram jungle located near Sarkubandha village of Ralegada panchayat (village level local self Government institution) under Paparmetla Police Station in the cut-off Balimela Reservoir area in Malkangiri District. The activist had been involved in projects under the Odisha Tribal Empowerment and Livelihood Program (OTELP) as well as in sectors related to health and sanitation. The victim, identified as Sadanand Hantal (25), was a resident of Sarkubandha village. Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres had abducted Hantal and three other activists in the night of February 2, but released the other three.

The Maoists have killed at least eight civilians in the State since the beginning of 2014, according to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), with all eight fatalities recorded in the Koraput and Malkangiri Districts – four in each. While it is much to early to see this as establishing a trend, if civilian killings continue at anything near the current rate, they would far outstrip the averages for earlier years. According to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA), 28, 31 and 39 civilians were killed, through 2013, 2012, and 2011, respectively, in Left Wing Extremism (LWE) related violence in Odisha.

Year 2013 also saw a halving of Security Force (SF) fatalities, and more than a doubling of rebel fatalities, as against the preceding year.

Another significant aspect is the geographical spread of the Maoist violence. In 2013, killings perpetrated by Maoists were confined to just three Districts – Koraput, Malkangiri and Nuapada. Forty-two extremists were killed in Koraput and Malkangiri District, though Maoist fatalities were also recorded in Balangir (2), Bargarh (1), Gajapati (1), and Rayagada (4); no civilian or SF fatalities were recorded in these four Districts.

Other parameters of LWE/CPI-Maoist violence in Odisha in 2012-13 also confirm to the positive trends reflected in the fatality figures.

Considerable declines are visible on most indicators. Crucially, while the encounters with the Police increased from 15 to 25 between 2012 and 2013, attacks on the Police (including landmines) decreased from 19 to just 3. Similarly, the number of arms training camps held decreased from 8 to 2. The number of jan adalats (people’s courts/kangaroo courts) held also dropped significantly, from nine to three. Other patterns of violence and disruption, including attacks, intimidation, abduction and disruptive activities, also remained muted. In 2013, four incidents of abduction attributed to the CPI-Maoist were recorded, with 13 persons abducted. The Sabyasachi Panda-led Odisha Maobadi Party (OMP), abducted another two persons [these may be underestimates, as a number of cases of abduction go unreported]. Bandh (shut down strike) calls were given on seven occasions through 2013. CPI-Maoist cadres also put up posters in the Paikmal area of Bargarh District warning that they would 'prosecute' former Minister and Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA), Padampur, Bijay Singh Bariha and Bargarh District Collector Bhabagrahi Mishra in 'praja courts' (Peoples' Court) for their 'corrupt practices'.

An analysis of Maoist activities - both underground and 'over-ground' - indicates that three Districts of Odisha – Koraput, Malkangiri and Nuapada – remain highly affected; five Districts – Balangir, Bargarh, Nabarangpur, Kandhamal and Rayagada – remain moderately affected; and seven Districts – Ganjam, Sundergarh, Boudh, Gajapati, Mayurbhanj, Sonepur and Kalahandi – remain marginally affected.

The state also made crucial inroads into erstwhile Maoist strongholds in Malkangiri and Koraput Districts. On September 14, 2013, for instance, the Odisha Police killed at least 13 CPI-Maoist cadres, including a woman, in an encounter with the State Police Special Operations Group (SOG) and District Volunteer Force (DVF, comprising mostly of ex-service men) near Silakota village under the Podia Block of Malkangiri District. All 13 bodies were recovered from the site of the encounter. A cache of arms and ammunition including two claymore mines, several Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), AK 47s, country-made pistols and magazines, were recovered, and one person was arrested on suspicion of being a Maoist. The operation was led by Malkangiri Superintendent of Police (SP) Akhileswar Singh.

Further, the Maoists’ control over the Narayanpatna-based Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha (CMAS), a front organisation of the outfit in Koraput District, has fragmented over the past year. CMAS used to provide logistic and militia support, and served as an excellent cover for Maoist subversion. Some 150 CMAS supporters have been charged in different cases, including LWE violence, and its president, Nachika Linga, had been declared ‘most wanted’ by the State. Off late, however, many CMAS-Narayanpatna supporters have given their pledge to the Police that they would no longer support the Maoists. Between January and May 2013, at least 1,692 CMAS supporters surrendered before the Police. Odisha Police sources claim that the actual figure is more than 2,400. The Maoists have also acknowledged this reversal, noting, in their '4^th CC Resolution', “The leader of the Narayanpatna peasant struggle Nachika Linga is backing away from the movement with rightist politics”. Further, the surrender of Maoist cadres (other than CMAS supporters) increased, from 34 in 2012 to 101 in 2013. A significant proportion of these surrenders were from the Malkangiri District, according to SATP. 

The rapid decline in Maoists’ fortunes in Odisha followed the defection of Sabyasachi Panda, who held the post of Odisha State Committee Secretary in the party organisation. Panda left the Party and set up his own OMP in August 2012. The Maoist '4^th CC Resolution' acknowledges, “Due to betrayal of Panda and enemy onslaught the Odisha movement weekend a lot”.

Even as the Maoists suffered heavily in Odisha, they engaged in some ‘morale building operations’. On August 27, 2013, Maoist cadres trigged a landmine blast on the busy National Highway 26, at a culvert between Sakirai and Kauguntha villages near Ralegada in the Sunki Ghat area, under the Pottangi Police Station in Koraput District, killing four Border Security Force (BSF) personnel and injuring another three. The BSF personnel were moving to Visakhapatnam in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, in a convoy of three vehicles. The timing of the attack and the ability to single out the BSF vehicles on a busy national highway were astonishing in their precision.

Earlier, motor boat services to the 150-odd villages of the Kudumulu Gumma Block – separated from the rest of the Block by the Balimela Reservoir – remained suspended for 10 days between  August 21 and 31, due to a Maoist threat, creating a crisis situation in the area, as other routes of transport are too circuitous and difficult to be undertaken by villagers.

The Maoists also forced 15 sarpanches (head of Panchayats), 14 samiti members (block level local-self government institution representatives) , 31 ward members and three Zilla Parishad members (district level local-self government institution representatives) under the Kalimela panchayat samiti to resign. This was an attempt by the Maoists to recover lost ground by raising the issue of extension of the Potteru Irrigation canal work from Karkatpalli to Manyamkonda in Malkangiri District, which the State Government had promised during the negotiated release of the abducted then-District Collector R. Vineel Krishna.

These 'successes' notwithstanding, things have not gone the way the Maoists would have wished. In addition to the September 14 incident in which 13 Maoists were killed, the Secretary of the Malkangiri Divisional Committee of the CPI-Maoist, Madhav alias Golla Ramullu, was killed in an encounter with SFs in the Malkangiri District on August 23, 2013. He was allegedly involved in over 50 murder cases and carried a cash reward of INR 300,000 on his head in Andhra Pradesh. Moreover, one ‘deputy commander’ and three ‘commanders’ were arrested while three ‘area commanders’ and two ‘commanders’ surrendered in the State through 2013. The important catch among these was the CPI-Maoist ‘militia commander’ Ghasi Badanayak, in Malkangiri District.

Meanwhile, the Sabyasachi Panda-led OMP weakened further in 2013. Not only was OMP 'military head' Pradip Majhi alias Govind (27) killed in an encounter in Gajapati District, one of Panda’s close aides, Sishu Mallick, surrendered, and three of his cadres were arrested. According to Ganjam Superintendent of Police (SP) Ashis Kumar Singh, OMP has now less than 10 members and Panda is unable to enrol any new recruits to his party. This assessment was made by the District Police based on the revelations made by two OMP cadres arrested on February 15, 2014, after an exchange of fire with the SFs, and on further proof found from the encounter site inside the Merikote Reserve Forest near Salimagochha under Badagada Police Station limits in Ganjam District.

To complement SF efforts, both the Central and State Governments have introduced a number of developmental measures in the Maoist-affected areas of Odisha, including the special package for Malkangiri and the Sunabeda Area Development Agency (SADA) in the Nuapada District. The performance of these initiatives has, however, been far from satisfactory. Expressing displeasure at the tardy pace of developments efforts on August 19, 2013, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh claimed that the 'non-utilisation' of INR 130 billion of Central funds under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) by the Odisha Government had contributed to a spurt in LWE activities in the State.

Nevertheless, encouraged by the decline in Maoist violence, the Odisha Government has asked for the deployment of two additional battalions of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), to consolidate the gains of the recent past. At present there are 17 CAPF battalions – eight BSF, eight CRPF and one of the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (COBRA) – deployed in Odisha. Additionally, the State Police has 57 SOG teams. However, the Police-population ratio in the State, at 110 to 100,000, is far below the low national average of 138 (as on December 31, 2012, NCRB data), and the capacities and quality of general policing are poor. On February 18, 2013, Malkangiri SP Akhileswar Singh disclosed that the State Government had decided to establish at least six model Police Stations in the Malkangiri District within a 'few months'.

Counter-insurgency operations against the Maoists in Odisha are at a critical juncture. Maoist violence is now concentrated mostly in two clusters of Districts: Koraput-Malkangiri-Nabarangpur and Nuapada-Balangir-Bargarh. The comprehensive decline in Maoist fortunes has created an opportunity for the State to move ahead more emphatically. Despite recent attempts to revive activities through civilian killings, the Maoists remain unambiguously on the defensive in Odisha.  Effective policies and operations can go a long way to consolidate state successes and establish a permanent peace in the State.

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

BANGLADESH

Islamist Terrorism

Left-wing Extremism

Total (Bangladesh)

INDIA

Assam

Jammu and Kashmir

Meghalaya

Left-wing Extremism

Bihar

Chhattisgarh

Maharashtra

Total (INDIA)

PAKISTAN

Balochistan

FATA

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Sindh

Total (PAKISTAN)