INDIA DEFENCE CONSULTANTS

WHAT'S HOT? –– ANALYSIS OF RECENT HAPPENINGS

INDIA'S CHALLENGES IN AFGHANISTAN

An IDC Analysis

 

New Delhi, 22 November 2006  

 

President Hu Jintao’s visit is of great importance. After signing the cooperation agreements Hu will go to Pakistan. China has long term stakes in Gwadar port and in the future gas pipeline and the land route to China via the Karakoram Pass. These Chines strategic interests are linked with Pakistan's future. China wants to do trade with India but would like to ensure that the balance of power does not move away, with too much power in India's hands and is obviously worried about India's new found friendship with USA. The world realises the geographic and social import of Pakistan's position as a Muslim nation right next to India, and that Pakistan is a close friend of China and a nuclear power to boot. Yet many in India ignore this fact of geography. India has been over critical of USA and UK molly codling President Musharraf since 9/11, when he has himself clearly stated most terror emanates from Pakistan and wants to control it. However, the Mullahs and their hold over people is very strong in Islamic countries and the motivation of the misguided Muslim religion is full of fervour. USA, UK and NATO need Pakistan direly for their operations in Afghanistan and even Tony Blair on a recent visit had to transit Pakistan to meet his troops. He admitted to disasters in Iraq and was told Afghanistan is a tough call by his military Commanders. The future is unpredictable.

Though most countries have armies but in Pakistan the Army has the country, and this fact needs to be factored into India–Pakistan relations. The Army matters. The Pakistan Army leadership at Independence realised that if the POK area and Kashmir went to India, Pakistan would have no defence in depth and if India had Kashmir India's Army could be breathing down Islamabad and march in any time. So, encouraged by the British, Pakistan tried to take Kashmir but in the stalemate we have to live with the LOC.

It is Afghanistan that gives Pakistan defence on the other side but India has always wanted influence in Afghanistan, which Pakistan always resists because India has made trouble for Pakistan in the past and the present situation is unclear. Warlords in Afghanistan can be rented. The FATA area of NW Pakistan in any case is out of control of the Pakistan Army and recently the tribals in collusion with Taliban killed 32 Pakistani soldiers in one suicide attack. In the past India had good Intelligence connections and cooperation with the Northern Army but never in the south of Afghanistan. Today the situation seems to be getting worse in the South as Musharraf has cut a deal with NW Frontier leaders and Taliban in the area. India has pledged $600m to Afghanistan as reconstruction aid. Yet Pakistan does not allow transit of Indian goods which go via Chahbahar in Iran, the expensive way

Mr B Raman's excellent analysis of India's tough postion in Southern Afghanistan culled from media reports, with military and geographic details. He claims terror is being fermented on India's borders.

International Terrorism Monitor:

NWFP Increasingly Under Anti-India, Anti-Us Jihadi Control

(Collated from the Pakistani Media)

By B. Raman

Clerical control of public life appears to be on the rise in large areas of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan. The clearest indications of this are emanating from districts adjoining the more volatile regions of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). In the South, these include Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu and Lakki Marwat, all bordering the South and North Waziristan Agencies. In the North, the situation in the Bajaur Agency is igniting religious extremism in Dir, Swat and the Malakand tribal regions and as far East as Kohistan and Gilgit in the Northern Areas of Jammu & Kashmir. (My comment: This is presently occupied by Pakistan)

Meanwhile, the presence of jihadi camps in the districts of Manshera and Abbotabad, both bordering Kashmir, completes a picture of the province that is increasingly overwhelmed by a rising tide of political Islam on the one hand and by the presence of active jihadi cadres on the other.

Various jihadi outfits active in the Waziristan region have traditionally maintained formal organisational networks in southern NWFP. As the influence of the State declines in the Waziristan region, these militant networks have expanded their public contact campaigns with the aim of recruiting fighters for the insurgency in Afghanistan. Dozens of aspiring jihadis recruited from Karak, Bannu, Lalli, Dera and Tank are sent each month to training camps in Wana in South Waziristan.

Up North, the banned Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) has reactivated its cadres and taken to the streets in the Districts of Dir, Malakand and Swat, using FM channels to whip up fundamentalist sympathy and jihadi sentiments. The Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) has a strong presence in the Districts of Upper and Lower Dir and runs about 30 FM radio channels that advocate jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan.

At least three major jihadi groups maintain their liaison and recruitment offices in the Timergara area of Lower Dir District. These include the JEI-backed Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), former JI affiliate Al Badr Mujahideen, now re-named as Al Suffa Foundation, and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), now known as Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD). Other jihadi organisations that have representatives in the Timergara and Warai areas of Dir include the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), which now calls itself Al Rahman Trust, the Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA), the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) and a Kashmiri group called the Pasban Millat.

Reliable sources in the area claim that these organisations liaise closely with Al Qaeda and Taliban militants based in the Bajaur Agency and have operations inside the Eastern Afghan provinces of Kunar and Laghman. However, the representatives of these outfits make no such claim. They are more forthcoming on their activities in Kashmir than in Afghanistan. They display openly on their notice boards the details of their activities in Kashmir. They contain information such as the last group to cross into Kashmir, the names of those recently "martyred" etc.

During May, there were persistent rumours that Osama bin Laden may be hiding in Dir's Kumrat area. The veracity of these rumours could not be established. However, it was established that Maulvi Naquibullah, who was a Minister in the pre-9/11 Taliban Government, was staying for two years in the house of a local leader of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema Islam Pakistan of Maulana Fazlur Rahman at Barawal in Upper Dir District. Six months ago, he shifted to the Bajaur Agency to assume command of the Taliban forces in Eastern Afghanistan.

My comments: During the two years of his stay, he used to conduct the prayers every Friday in a Barawal mosque. Pakistani Army and Inter-Services Intelligence officers, who attended the prayers, never arrested him.

(From the "Herald", a monthly journal of Karachi, of June,2006. "Herald" is published by the "Dawn" group of publications)

THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE THE JIHADI BUSINESS

Billions of rupees have been spent to extend "moral and diplomatic support' to the people of Kashmi, while millions of dollars have also been raised through donations by Pakistanis and Kashmiris living abroad for the same cause.

This has allowed some enterprising men to make fortunes in the name of jihad...No wonder then over the years, this cause has become associated with comfortable living, luxury cars and multi-million rupee assets in Pakistan and elsewhere.

Many have pocketed money out of the funds lavished on them by private fund-raisers in the US, Britain and the Middle East and reportedly by the official agencies for pushing forward Islamabad's Kashmir agenda. In 2004, one of the country's major intelligence agencies arrested Bilal Rahi, chief of Al Barq Mujahideen and recovered from him Rs.45 million (about US dollars one million) that he had siphoned off out of the funds he was supposed to have passed on to his organisation's leadership in Kashmir.

A Kashmiri leader based in Muzaffarabad and associated with the Jamiatul Mujahideen was arrested for pocketing Rs.25 million (roughly US Dollars 500,000) out of the funds given to him.

Several Pakistan-based Kashmiri political leaders possess plots in the Jammu Kashmir Housing Society on Adiala Road, Rawalpindi. Political leaders associated with the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim Conference, the People's Conference and the Freedom Party also own plots there.

Another leader associated with the Islamic Front, who was running an auto repair workshop in Srinagar before migrating to Pakistan-administered Kashmir, owns properties and movable assets worth hundreds of millions of rupees.

There are people among Kashmiri political leaders in Pakistan, who have no visible means of earning a livelihood, yet they own personal properties and drive expensive vehicles.

Several political figures, who previously spearheaded the activities of the All-Party Hurriyat Committee's component parties in Pakistan, as well as representatives of some militant groups, have left the scene after having raked in the money during their prolonged association with the Kashmir movement. Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front's representative Altaf Qadri, who represented Yasin Malik for about 10 years in the Pakistan-administered Kashmir chapter of the APHC, quit active politics and moved to the US along with his family.

Some seven militant leaders, previously associated with different Kashmiri groups, have given up militancy and established businesses. In several instances, it was noted that those, who ended their affiliations with political and militant groups, entered the real estate business and also thrived due to the boom in the country's stock exchanges. There has been a controversy surrounding the distribution of Rs.560 million (US Dollars 12 million ) from the Kashmir Liberation Cell (KLC) account when Sardar Abdul Qayuum was the Prime Minister of Pakistan-Administered Kashmir. It is a closed chapter as nobody knows exactly how much of that amount reached the people across the Line of Control it was intended for.

My comment: The KLC was set up by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in 1989 when Mrs.Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister to transmit money clandestinely to the jihadi organisations .

(From an article carried by the "Herald" in its issue for August, 2006)

CHANGE IN JIHADI TACTICS

Sources say that both the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) continue to attempt infiltration (into India's J&K). The LET, which has its own guides, has been more successful. According to these sources, the militant outfits are trying to adapt to the new environment. "One way of avoiding ambushes by the Indian troops is to send in smaller groups through carefully selected points on the LOC so that they are able to avoid detection," says one LET source. Unlike the earlier groups of 20 to 25 men, the militants now move in groups of eight or less, he adds. Secondly, the infiltrators hardly carry weapons any more. Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have replaced Kalshnikovs. The new strategy is to blow up important installations instead of engaging the Indian troops in gun battles, he says. Ground action is initiated only when the militants are a hundred per cent sure of success. He further reveals that the militants are now training local Kashmiris to make their own explosive devices with raw material easily available in India. "The jihad in Kashmir is becoming self-sustaining," he claims.

(From the same issue of the "Herald")

JIHADI CONCENTRATIONS IN THE NWFP

More than a thousand trained militants from Kashmir are presently in three Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) camps in the Hazara region of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) alone. Of these, the Hisari and Batrasi camps are located in the Manshera District while a third camp is located in Boi in District Abbotabad. Sources say that thousands of other militants are in camps run by half a dozen smaller Kashmiri groups or predominantly Pakistani outfits such as the LET, the JEM, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) and Al Badr Mujahideen in the NWFP and the Pakistan-administered Kashmir regions. Enquiries made by the "Herald" reveal that although major jihadi organisations have various sources of funds, official funding traditionally made up the bulk of their financial inflows. Small organisations such as Tehrik-e-Mujahideen, Jamiat-e-Mujahideen, Al Fatah,Al Jihad, Tehrik-e-Jihad, Islamic Front etc were receiving between Rs. 400,000 and 700,000 a month, whereas larger organisations such as the HM, the LET, the JEM and others received between Rs.two and three million a month. This is in addition to funds that were paid for logistics, communications, equipment, weapons, explosives. food and trekking kits for the thousands of militants, guides and porters who infiltrated into Kashmir every year.

(From the same issue of "Herald")

MADRASAS FOR WOMEN JIHADIS

According to "Jang" of January 6, 2006, there were 11,221 madrasas in Pakistan in 2005. The number of madrasas before the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US was 6761 in 2000. There are 448 madrasas exclusively for women. The majority of the madrasas are Deobandi. In Punjab, 444,156 madrasa students are Deobandis as against 199,733 Barelvis, 34,253 Ahle Hadiths and 7,333 Shias. The largest number of madrasas (in Punjab) are in Bahawalpur followed by Lahore, Bhawalnagar and Faislabad. The Federal Government has withdrawn from all four provinces the funds meant for madrasa reform because it was unspent (by the provinces). President Musharraf is seen as a person of cultivated ambivalence in regard to these nurseries of violence.

My comment: According to reliable police sources in Pakistan, girls from the UK, the US and Canada have been joining the madrasas meant for women in increasing numbers. They join from the age of 10 upwards.

("Daily Times" of August 21, 2006)

JIHADI RADIO STATIONS

The Government seems to be having a tough time dealing with the proliferation of illegal FM radio channels in parts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and adjoining districts in the NWFP. These channels are being used to spread sectarian extremist views and general intolerance. They are inciting those in their respective camps to take to violence against those belonging to rival sects. A fall-out of one such battle fought on the radio may have been the Nishtar Park bombing in Karachi, which killed 47 people. They are also fostering Talibanisation of the areas covered by them. A radio station run by the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-E-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) has been repeatedly warning women listeners that the marriages of those, whose husbands do not have a beard, would be declared null and void.

(The "News" of August 20, 2006)

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: itschen36@gmail.com)

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