SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 15, No. 20, November 14, 2016

PAKISTAN

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The Shadow of Daesh
Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

At least 52 persons were killed and more than hundred were injured when a teenage suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest in the midst of devotees at the shrine of Sufi saint Shah Noorani in the Khuzdar District of Balochistan in the evening of November 12, 2016. The explosion took place at the spot where the dhamaal (Sufi ritual of devotional dance) was being performed, within the premises of the shrine. “The bomber appeared to be 14 to 16 years old,” said Muhammad Hashim Ghalzai, the Commissioner of Kalat Division, of which Khuzdar is a District. Nawaz Ali, the shrine's custodian, added, "Every day, around sunset, there is a dhamaal here, and there are large numbers of people who come for this." According to Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Jafar Khan, at the time of the blast, around 1,000 devotees were present in the shrine to view the performance. The Daesh (Islamic State, IS, previously Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack via Amaq, its affiliated news agency.  

Daesh, along with Al Alami (international) faction of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), also claimed the October 24 attack on the Quetta Police Training College (PTC) at New Sariab, in which 61 Security Force (SF) personnel were killed, and another 164 were injured. Three terrorists entered into the PTC and headed straight for the hostel, where around 700 Police recruits were sleeping. The attack began at around 11:10 pm, with gunfire continuing to ring out at the site for several hours. Major causalities were inflicted when two suicide bombers blew themselves up. One of the terrorists, wearing a suicide vest, was killed by SFs. Though the Pakistani establishment claimed that the terrorists belonged to the LeJ-Al Alami, Daesh claimed responsibility and released photographs of the fighters involved, one of whom bore a strong resemblance to an attacker who was killed by SFs in the assault.

On the same day, Daesh also allegedly orchestrated another killing, when two motorcycle borne terrorists shot dead Intelligence Sub-Inspector Akbar Ali at a bus stop near his home in the Sardaryab area of Charsadda District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), when he was on his way to work in Peshawar, the provincial capital. In a short statement posted on Amaq, its affiliated news agency, Daesh claimed that "Islamic State fighters have killed a Pakistan intelligence agent in the Sardaryab region... of Pakistan".

The most significant claim from Daesh came on August 8, 2016, for the suicide attacks on Quetta’s Civil Hospital in which at least 74 persons, including 55 lawyers, were killed and over 100 were wounded, when scores of people had gathered to mourn the death of BBA President Bilal Anwar Kasi in a gun attack earlier in the day. Law enforcement officials stated that the two attacks were connected and the blast was carried out by a suicide bomber. The 55 slain lawyers include BBA’s former President Baz Muhammad Kakar; former Supreme Court Bar Association Vice-President Syed Qahir Shah; Advocate Sangat Jamaldani, son of Jahanzeb Jamaldani, Secretary General, Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M); and Advocate Dawood Kasi, son of Former Federal Minister Dr. Abdul Malik Kasi. Reuters quoted Daesh’s Amaq news agency as stating, “A martyr from the Islamic State detonated his explosive belt at a gathering of justice ministry employees and Pakistani policemen in...Quetta.” The Amaq report was released from Cairo, Egypt.

A succession of deadly attacks in Pakistan claimed by Daesh suggests a rising partnership with local terrorist formations, even though the Pakistan establishment continues to deny Daesh presence in Balochistan. Thus, Baluchistan Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti stated, on November 13, 2016, "There is no presence of (Islamic State) in Balochistan. The claim IS made is false." Bugti claimed that the recent attacks claimed by Daesh were carried out by LeJ-Al Alami, but this group gave information to Daesh relating to the attackers in order to harm Pakistan's reputation: "Claims through IS are a conspiracy to isolate Pakistan in the international community." Similarly, Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry, on November 15, 2015, had ruled out any Daesh ‘footprint’ in the country and declared that no citizen would be allowed to have links with the terrorist organisation, adding, “Pakistan has the capability to thwart threats by any terrorist organisation, including the Islamic State.” Similarly, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah on November 23, 2015, claimed that the Islamic State did not exist in Pakistan and that some proscribed organisations within the country were using its name.

Daesh appears happy to let its local allies in Pakistan operate under their own identities in exchange for allowing Daesh to claim responsibility for high-profile attacks. Zahid Hussain, a Pakistani security analyst, noted, on November 13, 2016, "IS may not have a formal structure in Pakistan, but certainly they have support among some of the banned terrorist groups, particularly Sunni sectarian groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al Alami (LeJ-AA)… It's a kind of nexus that we are seeing between global jihadi groups and local sectarian groups."

US commander General John W Nicholson, who commands the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, while briefing Washington-based journalists at the Pentagon, on August 1, 2016, said that almost 70 per cent of Daesh fighters in Afghanistan are Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists. Nicholson claimed, a "significant proportion, a majority of fighters" with Daesh in Afghanistan come from Pakistan's Orakzai Agency, over the border from Nangarhar, and are former members of TTP. He further stated that many of the fighters were Pakistani Pashtun from Orakzai Agency and had been forced out of Pakistan by the ongoing military offensive, Operation Zarb-e-Azb: "In the case of the IS fighters in southern Nangarhar, we see that many of them come from the Orakzai Agency, which is south of Nangarhar – actually, south of the Khyber Agency. And they were former members of the TTP, complete with their leadership, who wholesale joined Islamic State, pledged baya (allegiance) to Islamic State and joined them earlier this year."

Seeing Daesh as a major threat in the region, the US, on January 14, 2016, declared Daesh’s Afghanistan-Pakistan wing a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO). A statement issued in Washington declared, “The US Department of State has announced the designation of ISIL-K (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan) as a FTO under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.” The Department of State took this action in consultation with the Departments of Justice and the Treasury, the statement added.

On July 26, 2016, the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan were able to eliminate the then Daesh chief in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hafiz Saeed, who was killed in a drone strike in the Kot District of Nangarhar province. Saeed’s death represents a major setback for Daesh-K (Daesh in the imagined ‘Khorasan’ wilayat), as it tries to establish itself as a serious force in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Hafiz Saeed Khan was a former commander of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA, Assembly of Freedom), the break-away fraction of TTP, who pledged allegiance to Daesh. After Hakimullah Mehsud, then head of TTP, was killed in a US drone strike on November 1, 2013, the al Qaeda-linked group had been plagued by leadership disputes, infighting, and defections. Mullah Fazlullah, Mehsud’s successor, proved incapable of holding the coalition of jihadists together. On August 26, 2014, a group of TTP ‘commanders’, led by Maulana Qasim Omar Khorasani, broke away from the parent organization and formed a new outfit called Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA, Assembly of Freedom). JuA included TTP factions from the tribal areas – Bajaur, Khyber, Mohmand, and Orakzai Agencies in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA); and Charsadda, Peshawar, and Swat Districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). While announcing the split, Khorasani claimed, "The leadership of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan [TTP] is a victim of narrow, personal objectives. A separate group was announced after the efforts to keep TTP united ended in failure.”

In June 2014, while announcing the formation of the Islamic State, Daesh had released a map purportedly showing areas that it planned to bring under its control within five years. These areas included all of Pakistan within the projected ‘Islamic Caliphate’. Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost, who was detained at Guantanamo for three years, had defected from the Afghan Taliban on July 1, 2014, and joined Daesh and was pronounced Amir of Islamic State Khorasan province just two days after Abu Bakr al Baghdadi named himself “Caliph Ibrahim I” and declared that his Islamic State was now a “caliphate.” However, in April 2016, several members of the ‘Islamic State Khorasan province’ “central council” as well as other senior and mid-level leaders based in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar broke their oath to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and rejoined the Afghan Taliban. Dost claim that the ‘Khorasan Province’ had become a tool of “regional intelligence agencies and started torturing innocent people.” He described Hafiz Saeed Khan, the succeeding ‘emir’ of the ‘Khorasan province’, as “illiterate” for approving attacks on civilians.

Purportedly the first of its major attacks on Pakistan soil came on May 14, 2015, when Daesh claimed responsibility for the May 13, 2015, bus attack that killed 43 Ismaili Shias in the Safoora Chowrangi area of Gulshan-e-Iqbal Town in Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh. A blood-stained Daesh pamphlet was recovered from the scene, according to a Police official. A subsequent statement in Arabic declared: "Thanks be to Allah, 43 apostates were killed and around 30 were wounded in an attack carried out by Islamic State soldiers on a bus transporting Shia Ismaili infidels in the city of Karachi."

It is unlikely that Daesh can extend its direct operational outreach into the AfPak region at a time when it is under increasing pressure in its Syrian and Iraqi heartlands, but the audacity of the attacks executed by its regional affiliates suggests a rising danger and an infusion of a greater lethality into the enduring trends in terrorism and sectarian strife afflicting both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Crucially, fragments of groups that have long flourished under state protection or neglect in Pakistan, are now coalescing into the Daesh identity and finding a unity of purpose with an increasingly globalized movement of jihad, outside the control of the Pakistani state. This can only reinforce the instability of the AfPak region, and project increasing risks beyond.

AFGHANISTAN	PAKISTAN	USA

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Foreign Targets
Ajit Kumar Singh
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

Just after 5:30 am AST [Afghanistan Standard Time] on November 12, 2016, terrorists carried out an explosion at Bagram Airfield in the Bagram District of Parwan Province, the largest United Stated (US) military base in Afghanistan. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which is heading the Resolute Support Mission (RSM) in Afghanistan, issued a statement that "An explosive device was detonated on Bagram Airfield resulting in multiple casualties. Four people have died in the attack and approximately 14 have been wounded." No one has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.

At around 11 pm on November 10, 2016, a vehicle laden with heavy explosives detonated in the vicinity of the German Consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh Province, in Northern Afghanistan. The explosion followed an exchange of fire between the Security Forces (SFs) and the terrorists which lasted till the early hours of November 11. Though all German employees of the Consulate General remained safe, at least four Afghan civilians were killed and another 128 Afghans, including 19 women and 38 children, sustained injuries in the attack. The explosion also damaged more than 100 homes and shops. Claiming responsibility for the attack, Afghan Taliban ‘spokesman’ Zabihullah Mujahid stated that heavily armed fighters, including suicide bombers, had been sent “with a mission to destroy the German consulate general and kill whoever they found there”. Germany heads the NATO-led RSM in Northern Afghanistan.

In another major attack, at least 13 persons – seven students, one professor, two security guards of the University, and three SF personnel – were killed and another 45 persons, including 36 students and staff members and nine SF personnel, were injured, when terrorists carried out an attack targeting the well guarded American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) in capital Kabul on August 24, 2016. The attack, which commenced at 18:30 AST after the attackers exploded a car bomb at a University entry gate, stormed into the University complex and opened gunfire, lasted for almost 10 hours. SFs eliminated two terrorists, bringing an end to the attack. There were about 750 students on Campus at the time of the attack. According to reports, the attackers had made their way past the University’s armed guards and watchtowers, lobbing grenades and checking out their maps.

Over a fortnight earlier, on August 7, 2016, two professors of the same University – an American and an Australian – were abducted at a gun point from near the University campus. Their whereabouts are still unknown. Significantly, the AUAF was founded with US help in 2004.

On August 4, 2016, Afghan Taliban terrorists attacked a group of 12 foreign tourists – eight from the United Kingdom, three from US and one from Germany – escorted by an Afghan Army convoy in the Chesht-e-Sharif District of Herat Province. At least seven people were wounded in the attack.

These incidents are not in isolation. Terrorists inside Afghanistan are continuing with their long avowed policy of targeting foreign interests, including that of US, United Kingdom (UK), India and others. Unsurprisingly, the US Department of State in a release on November 10, 2016, disclosed, "The US Embassy in Kabul has received reports regarding a possible pending attack targeting foreigners at the Serena Hotel and a guest house located in PD-10 Kabul City. The attack may be carried out by multiple suicide bombers at each location."

Though there is a lack of data on total fatalities among foreign civilians in Afghanistan, according to The Aid Worker Security Database, at least 147 foreign nationals working as aid workers have been either killed (40) injured (29) or abducted (38)  in Afghanistan between November 24, 2002, and July 9, 2016. Moreover, according to icasualties.org, at least 3,525 foreign troopers, including 2,389 personnel from the US, have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, when the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) launched its operation in Afghanistan. 40 of these fatalities have been recorded since December 28, 2014, when ISAF ended its combat operations in Afghanistan. Following the ‘completion of ISAF’s mission’ at the end on December 28, 2014, the new, follow-on NATO-led mission, RSM, was launched on January 1, 2015, to provide training, advice and assistance to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and institutions. According to official figures, RSM consists of 13,453 US and Coalition personnel as of September 17, 2016. Of that number, 6,939 are US forces, 4,934 are from the 26 NATO allied partners, and 1,580 are from 12 non-NATO partner nations. The number of US forces conducting or supporting counterterrorism operations is not known.

Meanwhile, the Taliban continues to hold ground in areas of its consolidation. According to the 33^rd Quarterly report of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), released on October 30, 2016, approximately 63.4 per cent of the country’s districts are under Afghan Government control or influence as of August 28, 2016, a decrease from the 65.6 per cent reported as of May 28, 2016. Giving further detail, the report says that out of 407 districts within the 34 provinces, 258 districts were under government control (88 districts) or influence (170), 33 districts (in 16 provinces) were under insurgent control (8) or influence (25), and 116 districts were “contested”. Referring to the Islamic State (IS), the report said that it was operating primarily in three to four districts including Nangarhar and Kunar — a decrease from the nine to 10 districts the group populated in 2015.

Nevertheless, the country continues to record a further surge in violence. The midyear report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict in Afghanistan published on July 25, 2016, prepared by the Human Rights Unit of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which covers the period from January 1 to June 30, 2016, indicates that at least 5,166 civilians suffered casualties – 1,601 deaths and 3,565 injuries – during this period. This is the highest number of such casualties recorded during the first six months of a year since 2009, when UNAMA began systematically documenting civilian casualties. During the corresponding period of 2015, at least 4,982 persons had suffered casualties – 1615 deaths and 3,367 injured. There is no further authentic/systematic data available on civilian fatalities in Afghanistan. Partial data compiled by the Institute for Conflict Management (ICM) has recorded 418 such fatalities since July 1, 2016 (data till November 11, 2016).   Meanwhile, fatalities among ANSF personnel remain alarmingly high. According to the SIGAR report, between January 1, 2016, and August 19, 2016, at least 5,523 ANSF personnel were killed and an additional 9,665 personnel were wounded. The number of ANSF personnel killed through 2015 stood at 6,637 and another 12,471 injured. Though there are no systematic estimates of the number of insurgents killed, partial data compiled by the ICM indicates that the insurgents have also been suffering significantly increased fatalities. The number of terrorist fatalities, which stood at 2,702 in 2013, increased to 6,030 in 2014, and further to 10,628 in 2015. So far, in 2016, 10,931 terrorists have been killed (data till November 11, 2016).

Despite mounting losses, the Taliban remains unrelenting. Following Donald Trump’s victory in the US Presidential Elections, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, stated, on November 9, 2016, "Most importantly, he (Trump) should withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and unlike other former US rulers, he should neither seek any more titles of ignominy for his self and American generals, nor worsen the American prestige, economy and military by engaging in this futile war…” Trump will assume office on January 20, 2017.

There are indications that the war in Afghanistan will intensify further, with increasing and more incidents of the Taliban targeting foreign establishments/individuals in an environment of overall insecurity within the country. A US revaluation of its Af-Pak policy appears likely under Trump. During the course of a debate while he was on the campaign trail, on being asked, “do you pull out of Afghanistan and let the Taliban take over”, Trump responded, “I don't know that Afghanistan is much -- as much of a problem as Pakistan, because everyone is telling me they're all in Pakistan; they're not in Afghanistan.” However, on further and insistent questioning, he acknowledged that he would withdraw US troops out of Afghanistan. In the same breath, however, he asserted, “I don't believe too much in the soldier concept, other than I believe in air power. You're sort of seeing that over in Libya. You can knock the hell out of them without losing soldiers and losing lives and arms and legs.” Qualifying his statement further, when asked “You kill (sic) a lot of civilians though”, he added, “Well, not necessarily if you have good intelligence. You know, intelligence is the thing that this country is lacking, especially from its leadership.”

On an American radio show on September 21, 2015, Trump had called Pakistan “probably the most dangerous country in the world today”, adding, “You have to get India involved… They have their own nukes and have a very powerful army. They seem to be the real check…. I think we have to deal very closely with India to deal with it (Pakistan).”

Much of this is incoherent, and Trump’s projections about an Indian role are probably unrealistic. It is, however, unlikely that US AfPak policy under Trump will be ‘more of the same’. Crucially, Pakistan’s role in supporting terrorism in Afghanistan will come under close examination, though the outcome of such scrutiny remains currently uncertain.

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

BANGLADESH

Left-Wing Extremism

INDIA

Jammu and Kashmir

Left-Wing Extremism

Chhattisgarh

Madhya Pradesh

Total (INDIA)

PAKISTAN

Balochistan

FATA

Sindh

Total (PAKISTAN)