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SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 8, No. 14, October 12, 2009
 
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| 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 |
Assassins
from the Epicentre
Kanchan Lakshman
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management;
Assistant Editor, Faultlines: Writings on Conflict
& Resolution
A suicide
car bomber attacked the Indian embassy in Kabul on October
8, 2009, killing 17 persons and injuring more than 70
others. The car bombing ripped through a street in the
city centre during the morning rush hour, killing and
injuring bystanders, almost all of them Afghans. The
highly-fortified mission’s wall was damaged and a watch
tower destroyed in the blast, which occurred near the
outer perimeter at around 0827 hours. India’s Ambassador
to Afghanistan, Jayant Prasad, said the "Indian Embassy
was the target" but the suicide bomber failed to breach
the security perimeter. While no Indian was killed in
the attack, three Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP)
personnel sustained minor injuries. This is the second
terrorist attack on the Indian mission in 15 months,
and the fourth attack in the embattled Afghan capital,
Kabul, since August 2009.
The Taliban
was swift in claiming responsibility for the attack.
Quoting the Taliban Website, Al Jazeera channel
identified the suicide bomber as Khalid. Al Jazeera
also said Afghan Government and intelligence sources
have indicated the involvement of a ‘foreign hand’ in
the suicide bombing, describing it as "planned by a
state and not a group of bandits", an unambiguous reference
to Pakistan. The Afghan Foreign Ministry said the attack
"was planned and implemented from outside of Afghan
borders" by the same groups responsible for the July
7, 2008, suicide
bombing at the Indian Embassy that
killed 60 people, including 4 Indians.
Intelligence
sources said the swiftness in claiming the attack was
a ploy to keep the focus away from the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI),
Pakistan’s external intelligence agency, whose involvement
in the July 2008 blast near the Indian Embassy has been
confirmed by American, Afghan and Indian intelligence
sources. The Taliban is simply attempting to camouflage
and ‘protect’ its biggest benefactor in the region.
The Afghan envoy to the US, Said T. Jawad, has clearly
declared that the ISI was behind the latest attack on
the Indian Embassy in Kabul: "We are pointing the finger
at the Pakistan intelligence agency, based on the evidence
on the ground and similar attack taking place in Afghanistan."
India
has, so far, made no attribution of blame for the suicide
attack. However, India’s Foreign Secretary Nirupama
Rao did mention in New Delhi after returning from Kabul
that "the attack was clearly the handiwork of those
who are desperate to undermine Indo-Afghan friendship
and do not believe in a strong, democratic and pluralistic
Afghanistan." Pakistan and its militant-ISI network
is the only force which fits this description.
It is
still unclear at this point in time as to which Taliban
faction had claimed responsibility for the attack, though
there is a strong possibility, based on past trajectory
and current intelligence, that the network of Jalaluddin
Haqqani, a pro-Taliban warlord with close links to al
Qaeda, and whose Pakistan-backed
militants are battling US troops in eastern Afghanistan,
had a role in the attack. The Haqqani network is, in
fact, among the most likely suspects behind the recent
string of suicide bombings in capital Kabul. While no
militant group had claimed the July 2008 Indian Embassy
bombing, India and the US had recovered substantial
evidence which indicated that the attack was orchestrated
by the Haqqani network at the behest of the ISI. Jalaluddin’s
son, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is reported to have had a big
role in executing that attack.
India
remains an important target of the Pakistan-backed militant
enterprise because of its large presence in Afghanistan.
India has a huge assistance programme for Afghanistan’s
reconstruction. Since the Taliban regime’s defeat in
2002, New Delhi has pledged over USD 1.2 billion in
aid to conflict-ravaged Afghanistan, making India the
fifth largest donor nation to the country after the
US, Britain, Japan and Canada.
The Indian
involvement in Afghanistan is gradually increasing.
There are approximately 4,000-5,000 Indian nationals
working on several reconstruction projects across the
war ravaged country. According to the Indian Embassy
at Kabul, "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 the near
future, reports indicate that India is contemplating
building "an industrial estate which will generate
much-needed employment for the local population. There
is also talk of Indian involvement in food processing,
which addresses rural farmlands and a long-term plan
to inhibit poppy cultivation."
All of
this and Pakistan’s more insidious ambition of regaining
strategic depth in Afghanistan have rendered Islamabad
insecure. Consequently, it has resorted to lobbying
diplomatically against India’s presence in Afghanistan
and using the Taliban to physically attack Indian interests.
Plainly, Pakistan doesn't want any Indian presence in
the region.
Over
the years, Pakistan has persistently attempted to block
India’s capacity-building initiatives in Afghanistan.
Pakistan had, for instance, disallowed heavy equipment
meant for an electricity project to travel through its
territory. While this reportedly led to one of the largest
airlifts in the region, India overcame other odds to
build, in four years, a 202-kilometre transmission line
to bring electricity to power-starved Kabul.
Since
2002, the Taliban has demanded the departure of all
Indians working on various developmental projects in
Afghanistan. These demands have been backed by targeted
terrorist action against Indians. In the most recent
of these, before the latest Embassy bombing, Simon Paramanathan,
an Indian from Villupuram in Tamil Nadu, working for
Italian food chain Ciano International, who was held
captive by terrorists for nearly four months, was found
dead on February 9, 2009. Before the July 2008 Embassy
bombing, an ITBP trooper was killed and four others
injured by the Taliban in the south-west Province of
Nimroz on June 5, 2008. Two Indians, M.P. Singh and
C. Govindaswamy, personnel of the Indian Army’s Border
Roads Organisation (BRO), were killed and seven persons,
including five BRO personnel, sustained injuries, in
a suicide-bomb attack in Nimroz on April 12, 2008. In
the first-ever suicide attack on Indians in Afghanistan,
two ITBP soldiers were killed and five injured at Razai
village in Nimroz on January 3, 2008. On December 15,
2007, two bombs were lobbed into the Indian consulate
in Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar Province. There was
however, no casualty or damage. On May 7, 2006, an explosion
occurred near the Indian Consulate in Herat Province,
without causing any casualties. In April 2006, K. Suryanarayana,
working with a Gulf-based company, was abducted and
killed by Taliban militants, allegedly on orders from
the ISI. Further, on February 7, 2006, Bharat Kumar,
an Indian engineer working with a Turkish company, was
killed in a bomb attack by the Taliban in the western
province of Farah. On November 19, 2005, Ramankutty
Maniyappan, a 36-year old BRO employee, was abducted,
and his decapitated body was found on a road between
Zaranj, capital of Nimroz, and an area called Ghor Ghori,
four days later. Following his abduction, Taliban spokesperson
Qari Yusuf Ahmadi had claimed that they had given the
BRO an ultimatum to leave Afghanistan within 48 hours,
failing which they would behead Maniyappan. Nimroz is
the location, among others, of the strategic 215-kilometre
Zarang-Delaram Highway Project executed by India. In
addition, there were two attacks in November and December
2003 in one of which an Indian engineer was killed.
India
and its role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan has
always been opposed by the establishment in Pakistan,
as well as by the Taliban–al Qaeda combine, and threat
perceptions at India’s mission in Kabul, and at the
multiplicity of Indian developmental projects in Afghanistan,
have always been high. The vulnerability of Indian establishments
in Kabul is further augmented by the fact that Kabul
itself continues to be highly susceptible to terrorist
attacks, including suicide bombings. As India’s presence
in Afghanistan continues to grow, it is inevitable that
Indian installations will come under sustained attack
– both diplomatically and physically.
Over
the past few months, both in the run-up to the Presidential
elections and in the aftermath of an evidently controversial
poll, the Taliban had vowed to augment their attacks,
including suicide bombings, clearly demonstrating an
intensification of the militant campaign. Indeed, the
attack on the Indian Embassy comes within the context
of spiraling violence in Afghanistan.
The New
York Times reported in September 2009, that Taliban
leaders, aided by the ISI, are using their sanctuary
in Pakistan to stoke a widening campaign of violence
in northern and western Afghanistan. The Taliban’s leadership
council, led by Mullah Muhammad Omar and operating around
Quetta, capital of Balochistan province, was directly
responsible for a wave of violence in the once relatively
placid parts of northern and western Afghanistan, the
US daily said, citing unnamed senior American military
and intelligence officials. It cited American officials
as stating that they believed the Taliban leadership
in Pakistan still gets support from sections of the
ISI. American officials, it noted, have long complained
that senior Taliban leaders operating from Quetta provide
money, military supplies and strategic planning guidance
to the Taliban in the south of Afghanistan, where most
of the nearly 68,000 American forces are deployed. The
U.S. commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, General
Stanley McChrystal, in an assessment leaked in the last
week of September 2009, had also stated that the Afghan
insurgency was clearly supported from Pakistan. "Senior
leaders of the major Afghan insurgent groups are based
in Pakistan, linked to al Qaeda and other violent extremist
groups, and are reportedly aided by some elements of
Pakistan's ISI". He identified the Quetta shura
as the biggest threat to the US-led mission in Afghanistan.
The Taliban
has clearly been working in tandem with the Pakistan
Army and the ISI to combat NATO troops in the south
of Afghanistan and simultaneously increase attacks against
allied troops elsewhere in the country to ease pressure
in the south. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates declared
at the George Washington University on October 5, 2009,
"The thing to remember about Afghanistan is, that country
and particularly the Afghan-Pakistan border is the modern
epicentre of jihad."
Amidst
all of this entrenched subversion, Pakistan continues
to spread false propaganda about the ‘large’ Indian
consulates in Afghanistan being a source of insecurity
for Islamabad. Dismissing a question on Pakistan’s perceived
concerns about the activities of Indian consulates in
Afghanistan, U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke said
in April 2009 that, "Pakistanis have told me for
a long time that India has hundreds of people in its
consulate in Kandahar, in Afghanistan. I asked Americans
and U.N. people how big the Indian consulate was in
Kandahar and they said six or eight people. You know
I am not worried about that." And further, in an
interview with Geo News channel at the U.S. State
Department in Washington, Holbrooke added, "Pakistan
does not have to worry about India in Afghanistan. They
need to worry about the miscreants in western Pakistan…
Now if the Indians were supporting those miscreants
that would be extraordinarily bad [and] really dangerous.
But they’re not. There is no evidence at all that the
Indians are supporting the miscreants in the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas or North West Frontier Province
or Waziristan. None." He noted that India has been
playing a key role in the reconstruction of the war-ravaged
country: "India has given Afghanistan about $1
billion in assistance. They’re rebuilding the Parliament
building, they’ve built a very useful road in the south-western
part of the country leading down towards Iran. They’re
training agricultural experts, they’re giving scholarships.
The Indians have published a pamphlet on what they’re
doing. I don’t think that should be cause of concern
for Pakistan."
The dangers
of anarchy within Afghanistan and across areas along
the Pakistan-Afghanistan border are predominantly sourced
in Pakistan, to a far greater extent than in war-ravaged
Afghanistan. The Taliban–al Qaeda combine and transnational
jihadi groups based within Pakistan remain the
principal instrumentalities of Islamabad’s response
to India’s deepening engagement in Afghanistan. The
Pakistan-backed terrorist network will surely attack
more Indian targets in Afghanistan in the future. India,
however, has clearly declared its intention not to waver
from its commitment to reconstruction and capacity building
in Afghanistan.
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Floundering
in a Long War
Ajit Kumar Singh
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management
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Prepare
and mobilize the entire Party, PLGA [People’s Liberation
Guerrilla Army] and the people for carrying out
tactical counter-offensives and various forms of
armed resistance and inflict severe losses to the
enemy forces; attacks should be organized with meticulous
planning against the State's khaki [Police] and
olive-clad terrorist forces [Security Forces], SPOs
[Special Police officers], police informants, and
other counter-revolutionaries and enemies of the
people; these attacks should be carried out in close
coordination with, and in support of, the armed
resistance of the masses; these should be linked
to the seizure of political power and establishment
of base areas; it is the combined attacks by all
the three wings of the PLGA and the people at large
that can ensure the defeat of the enemy offensive."
"Post-Election
Situation – Our Tasks", Politburo,
Communist Party of India – Maoist (CPI-Maoist),
June 12, 2009
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While the
state vacillates, flails and flounders, the Maoists have
focused on carrying out their Politburo’s vision with
little dithering or delay. In the latest incident, on
October 8, Maoist cadres killed at least 18 Policemen,
in an ambush in the dense forests near Laheri Police Station
of Gadchiroli District in Maharashtra. The dead include
10 commandos of the Maharashtra Police, as well as six
constables and a sub-inspector, Chandrasekhar Deshmukh,
from the Laheri Police station. The incident occurred
when a 40 member Police party came under heavy fire from
150 to 200 Maoists at about 1:00 pm (IST). The Police
force was returning after a search operation following
intelligence inputs that the Maoists had assembled in
the area. The Additional Superintendent of Police M.K.
Sharma claimed that the Police managed to kill 15-17 Maoists,
though no bodies were recovered. There was no independent
verification of the claim.
Earlier,
on October 7, the Maoists brutally beheaded a civilian
at Kurkheda in the same District, suspecting him to be
a Police informer. The beheading was carried out a day
after the Jharkhand Police recovered the decapitated dead
body of Police Inspector Francis Enduwar, who had been
abducted on September 30.
On October
1-2, 16 civilians, including five children, were shot
dead by suspected CPI-Maoist cadres at Amosi Bharen Diara
village in the Khagaria District of Bihar late in the
night of October 1, a top Police official said on October
2.
In an attack
launched by personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force’s
(CRPF’s) Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA)
and the Chhattisgarh Police in the night of September
17 in the Dantewada District of Chhattisgarh, Assistant
Commandants of CoBRA, Manoranjan Singh, and Rakesh Chaurasia,
as well as another four SF personnel were killed by the
Maoists. In subsequent operations on September 18-19,
10 dead bodies of the Maoists were also recovered. The
Police claimed that at least 24 Maoist cadres had been
killed, though there was no independent verification.
The botched operation, part of the wider ‘Operation Green
Hunt’, lasted for 48 hours.
On July
12, cadres of the CPI-Maoist killed 30 Police personnel,
including a Superintendent of Police (SP), in two incidents
in the Rajnandgaon District of Chhattisgarh.
On June
20, 12 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were
killed in a landmine blast triggered by CPI-Maoist cadres
at Tonagapal in Dantewada District of Chhattisgarh. The
Maoists also opened fire at the ambushed patrol, but the
troopers instantly retaliated, killing seven insurgents,
whose bodies were recovered.
On June
12, CPI-Maoist cadres detonated a landmine in the Nawadih
area of Bokaro District in Jharkhand, killing at least
11 SF personnel and injuring eight
According
to the South Asia Terrorism Portal Database, a
total of 788 persons (261 civilians, 293 SF personnel
and 234 extremists) had been killed in 2009, till the
time of writing. At least 74 major incidents of violence
[incidents in which three or more people were killed]
involving Maoists had been reported during this period.
366 persons, including 138 civilians, 124 SFs and 104
Maoists, have been killed after June 12, when the Maoists
decided to escalate their ‘people’s war’.
Union Home
Minister P. Chidambaram has now accepted that Left Wing
Extremists (LWE) have some influence in over 2,000 Police
Station jurisdictions across 223 Districts in 20 States
in the country. The data confirms Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh’s repeated assertion that the Maoists have emerged
as the country’s gravest internal security challenge.
Acknowledging
that the Maoists are getting significant support from
the people, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Ranchi
(Jharkhand), Praveen Kumar, disclosed that this was emerging
as one of the biggest stumbling blocks for anti-Naxalite
operations in the Bundu and Tamar areas of the District.
"Whether it is out of fear or otherwise, the support of
villagers that the ‘sub-zonal commander’, Kundan Pahan,
enjoys in the area, has made him almost invincible. Whenever
police are about to conduct raids in the area, Pahan invariably
gets wind of it," Kumar said. Pahan is the prime
suspect in the murder and decapitation of Special Branch
Inspector Francis Induwar.
There is
also clear intent to take the ‘struggle’ forward at a
different level. As CPI-Maoist politburo member Koteshwar
Rao alias Kishan, who heads the outfit’s operations
in Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal, stated in
an interview published on October 8, "Despite our strongholds,
the Revolutionary People’s Committee has not emerged properly.
We still need to take the movement forward". The article
also noted that, "Unlike Bastar and Dankaranya regions
in Chhattisgarh, the Maoists have been unable to complete
‘area domination’ in Jharkhand. In Chhattisgarh, ‘taking
control’ of the tribal belt stretching from Abujhmadh,
Bastar and Dandakaranya, the Maoists have established
departments dealing with defence, health, development,
personal relations, legal assistance, education and culture
to run their so-called ‘revolutionary government’."
The Maoist leader also rejected the Home Minister Chidambaram’s
October 7 call to lay down arms and abjure violence, asserting
that "armed struggle against the system will continue."
Meanwhile,
reports suggest that the Union Government is planning
to launch ‘all out operations’ against the Maoists in
the first half of November 2009 [the scheduled has been
repeatedly pushed back since rumours of such action first
became rife in July]. The Cabinet Committee on Security
(CCS), in a meeting chaired by the Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh on October 8, is believed to have sanctioned a ‘comprehensive
approach’ to deal with the LWE. According to the ‘action
plan’, the Union Government has adopted the ‘clear and
hold’ doctrine, requiring SFs to pro-actively engage with
the extremists, venturing deep into their strongholds
to clear these, quite in contrast with the earlier approach,
where the forces’ actions were principally defensive or
retaliatory. The Central Para Military Forces (CPMFs)
and State Police Forces are particularly to focus on the
Jharkhand-West Bengal-Orissa and Chhattisgarh-Orissa-Andhra
Pradesh tri-junctions – the regions of the most intensive
Maoist concentration and activity, to prevent any attempt
by the rebels to slip from one zone to another.
Realising
that wiping out Maoists from their strongholds requires
the restoration both of the rule of law and demonstrable
development, the Government has decided not to pull out
the troops after an operation. Once security has been
beefed up, there will be efforts to strengthen the civil
bureaucracy and the Government’s mechanisms for delivery
of developmental and welfare services.
Reports
suggest that, to implement the new doctrine, New Delhi
is to augment the strength of paramilitary deployments
in the worst Maoist affected States to some 70 battalions.
This would yield roughly 28,000 CPMF personnel across
an arc extending from Andhra Pradesh through Chhattisgarh,
Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Orissa, Bihar, and West Bengal.
State Police Forces have also been told to improve their
counter-insurgency capacities to back up the campaign.
The Centre, meanwhile, has declined to enhance the role
of the all ready over-stretched Army in anti-Naxal operations.
New Delhi
seems to have succumbed to media hysteria and perceived
popular pressure in the aftermath of the beheading of
Francis Induwar and the recent attack against Police personnel
in Gadchiroli, overlooking ground realities in what appears
essentially to be a knee jerk response, rhetoric on proactivity
notwithstanding. Hurried and ill-planned operations,
using troops that are unfamiliar with local conditions,
lacking hard intelligence, in many cases, under-trained,
ill-prepared and under-equipped, and in all cases, lacking
the critical mass of manpower needed to saturate the areas
in which the Maoists have established their disruptive
dominance.
The challenge
of Maoist extremism is not insurmountable. But hasty and
misdirected initiatives, far from advancing resolution,
will undermine the legitimacy and authority of the Forces
and infinitely compound the basic problems themselves.
Policymakers are yet to understand the fundamentals of
protracted war, and remain trapped in the obsolete ‘battalion
approach’ – mechanically shuffling troops around from
theatre to theatre – with little regard to Force composition
and capabilities, the imperatives of local conditions,
and the need for responses based on detailed local intelligence
and understanding.
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Weekly
Fatalities: Major Conflicts in South Asia
October
5-11,
2009
|
|
Civilian
|
Security
Force Personnel
|
Terrorist/Insurgent
|
Total
|
|
BANGLADESH
|
|
|
Left-wing Extremism
|
0
|
0
|
9
|
9
|
|
INDIA
|
|
|
Assam
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
2
|
|
Jammu and Kashmir
|
0
|
0
|
15
|
15
|
|
Manipur
|
0
|
0
|
6
|
6
|
|
Nagaland
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
|
Left-wing Extremism
|
|
|
Jharkhand
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
2
|
|
Maharashtra
|
0
|
18
|
1
|
19
|
|
West Bengal
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
2
|
|
Total (INDIA)
|
2
|
19
|
26
|
47
|
|
PAKISTAN
|
|
|
Balochistan
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
|
FATA
|
0
|
4
|
51
|
55
|
|
NWFP
|
49
|
0
|
71
|
120
|
|
Punjab
|
8
|
8
|
10
|
26
|
|
Total (PAKISTAN)
|
59
|
12
|
132
|
203
|
|
Provisional data compiled from English language media sources.
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AFGHANISTAN
17
persons killed in suicide bombing outside India’s Embassy
in Kabul: Targeting
the Indian Embassy in Kabul for the second time, a Taliban
suicide bomber on October 8, 2009 blew up an explosives-laden
car outside the mission, killing 17 persons and injuring
over 80, including three Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP)
soldiers. The Embassy staff, however, was unhurt. The blast,
which occurred near the outer perimeter of the heavily-fortified
Embassy around 8.30 a.m., damaged a wall and destroyed a
watch tower. "A suicide car bomb blast took place near the
Indian embassy in which 15 civilians and two Afghan policemen
were killed and 76 wounded. Most of the wounded are civilians,"
the Afghan Interior Ministry said. The Taliban claimed responsibility
for the attack and identified the bomber as Khalid, Al
Jazeera TV channel said. The explosion was reportedly
more powerful than the blast of July 7, 2008. In that attack,
a suicide car bomber rammed the gate of the Embassy, killing
60 people, including senior Indian Foreign Service officer
V.V. Rao and Brigadier-rank Defence Attaché R.D.
Mehta. The
Hindu, October 9, 2009.
INDIA
Union
Cabinet approves new plan to counter Maoists: On
October 8, 2009, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) cleared
the home ministry-driven coordinated offensive against the
Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) that will see
deployment of nearly 75,000 central security personnel. The
personnel are being trained alongside the army to fight the
Maoists and regain control of the so-called liberated zones
across the dense jungles of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa
and Maharashtra. The Indian Air Force (IAF) choppers will
assist in movement of forces - for operations or rescue and
evacuation - and have Garud commandos onboard in case of a
Maoist attack.
The CCS, the
top security panel chaired by the Prime Minister, is learnt
to have approved in-principle the Union Home Ministry strategy
plan. "The CCS discussed the Naxalite situation for two
hours," National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan said
after the meeting of the highest policy body. The offensive,
which will see the largest mobilisation ever of central forces
outside the north-east and Jammu and Kashmir, is expected
to gather momentum after the Legislative Assembly elections
in Maharashtra when the Government moves the full complement
of the available forces, nearly 40,000 personnel, into the
concerned States. The central forces would reportedly focus
on the heavily forested areas along inter-State borders of
Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Bihar.
Hindustan
Times, October 9, 2009.
Maoists
kill at least 18 Policemen in Maharashtra: Cadres
of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) killed
at least 18 Policemen, including Sub-Inspector C. S. Deshmukh,
in an ambush in the dense forests near Laheri Police Station
in Gadchiroli District on October 8, 2009. The incident occurred
when a 40 member Police party came under heavy fire from 150
to 200 Maoists at about 1pm (IST) when it was returning after
undertaking search operations following intelligence inputs
that Maoists had assembled in the area. District Collector
Atul Patne told PTI, "As many as two platoons of BSF
(50 personnel) and additional police force was rushed to the
spot and they could manage to save the rest of the policemen
caught in the heavy fire." Police sources said that about
15 Maoists were also killed in the gun battle. However, this
has not been confirmed. Meanwhile, Maoists beheaded one person,
identified as Suresh Alami, at Kurkheda in the same District
on October 7, suspecting him to be a Police informer.
Times
of India, October 9, 2009.
PAKISTAN
71 militants
and 49 civilians killed during the week in NWFP: Nine
Taliban militants were killed and five injured in a clash
between the Security Forces (SFs) and Taliban militants in
Darra Adam Khel on October 10, 2009.
49 persons,
including a woman and seven children, were killed and 90 others
were injured when a suicide attacker detonated his explosives-laden
car at the crowded Soekarno Chowk in Khyber Bazaar in Peshawar,
capital of the NWFP, on October 9. A Police official said
that people were busy in routine activities when a suicide
bomber detonated the explosives laden in his car. Many of
those killed and injured were passengers of a mini-bus that
was passing through the area at the time of the blast. Seven
children, many of them schoolboys, and a woman, were among
those killed. The blast destroyed around 30 vehicles and partially
damaged over 60 shops in the nearby markets. Windowpanes of
hundreds of shops and offices were also reportedly destroyed.
Among those killed or injured were patients and their attendants
going or coming out of the nearby Lady Reading Hospital, the
biggest public sector hospital in the NWFP. An official of
the bomb disposal unit (BDU) estimated that around 50 kg of
high-intensity explosives had been loaded in the car, being
driven by the suicide bomber, while another official said
the explosives were around 100 kg. "As the explosives
were loaded in the doors and side cavities, it caused more
damage to the nearby buildings rather than creating a huge
crater in the ground," a BDU official said.
SFs claimed
to have killed nine militants and arrested six besides destroying
a training camp and four other hideouts in the Tora Cheena,
Sherakai, Akhurwal and Bostikhel areas of the gun manufacturing
Darra Adamkhel town on October 9. Official sources said four
soldiers were injured in the shootout. The SFs, backed by
gunship helicopters, targeted a militant camp in Tora Cheena
area and killed nine militants, including an important ‘commander’
identified as Zubair alias Anas. Six militants were
also arrested in an injured condition during the military
operation.
The SFs on
October 8 claimed to have killed 17 militants in Swat as General
Officer Commanding, Major General Ashfaq Nadeem, asserted
that peace had been restored to 95 per cent areas of the District.
The SFs conducted search operations in Tiligram, Benjot, Ser
and Mangultan and killed 12 terrorists, the Inter-Services
Public Relations (ISPR) claimed. In another operation in Kasona,
it added that troops killed five militants. Ashfaq Nadeem,
while briefing the media at Circuit House in Mingora, said
peace had been restored to 95 percent of Swat. He said majority
of the militants had either been killed or arrested during
the Army offensive and some had surrendered. He also said
curfew had already been lifted from most areas. Further, AFP
reported that the bullet-riddled bodies of 15 suspected
Taliban militants were found in Swat on October 8. "I can
confirm that 15 bodies were found today, and our information
is that they are Taliban… They might have been the victims
of infighting among militant groups or killed by local people,"
Army spokesman Major Mushtaq Khan told AFP.
SFs claimed
to have killed six militants, including commander Nisar, in
the Swat Valley on October 7. ISPR said: "Important terrorist
commander Nisar alias Ghazi Baba from Matta Tehsil
has been killed this morning in Biha Valley." Nisar was
carrying head money of PKR 10 million, the ISPR said, adding
that he was involved in terrorist activities in Peuchar and
Matta. Nisar was a member of the Taliban central shura
and a close aide of Maulana Fazlullah. The ISPR said Nisar
was involved in the killing of SF personnel and local elders.
It said his son, whose name was not disclosed, had been arrested.
On October
7, Afghan Taliban militants killed six militant leaders of
the Hakeemullah Mehsud group for refusing to release two men
they had kidnapped. The incident occurred in the Hangu city.
According to sources, the two men, Shahid and Shah Nawaz,
had been kidnapped three days ago. An Afghan Taliban shura
(executive council) meeting held in the Orakzai Agency
of FATA asked the militants to release the men and ‘sentenced
them to death’ when they refused to do so. The sources said
bodies of Hafiz Kamal, Hafiz Mujahid, Ghulam Mohammad, Basit
and Manzoor were lying at a place on the Orakzai-Parachinar
border with bombs tied to them.
SFs killed
eight Taliban militants and arrested 13 others in Malakand
on October 5. Talking to reporters, an official spokesman
said an operation in Palai had been completed, adding that
the area had been cleared of the Taliban. Dawn;
Daily
Times; The
News, October 6-12, 2009.
51 militants
and four soldiers killed during the week in FATA: 21
militants were killed and eight others sustained injuries
when fighter planes targeted their positions in different
areas of Ladha and Makeen sub-divisions in South Waziristan
Agency on October 11, 2009. Tribal sources said two fighter
planes started bombing Ladha Sarai, Patowelai, Tangi, Bodinzai,
Makeen, Bandkhel and other areas in the afternoon. They said
that 21 militants were killed and eight others injured while
five hideouts were destroyed in the air strikes.
At least four
Taliban militants and three soldiers were killed in operations
across the FATA on October 10. Four militants, including a
key commander, were killed in the Laghari area of Mamoond
tehsil (revenue unit) in the Bajaur Agency. Security
Forces (SFs) neutralised four Taliban hideouts, sources said,
adding that a Security official was also killed and two others
injured during the attack.
Four militants
were killed in an exchange of fire with troops in the Shawal
area of North Waziristan on October 8The clash took place
after a vehicle in an army convoy going from Daber Pepli camp
to its base in Mana hit a bomb placed on the road and one
soldier was injured. Troops pursued the militants and subsequently
killed four of them. In addition, reports from Laddah stated
that five militants were killed and several others injured
when troops mounted a ground and air assault on suspected
positions of the Taliban in South Waziristan. Sources said
that three militants were killed in the Kalkala area and two
in Shawal. An unnamed official source said that militants
fired 10 missiles from Makeen at the Razmak fort and Scouts
fort in Jandola. Separately, a soldier was killed and two
others sustained injuries when a remote-controlled blast targeted
a security vehicle in the Baicheena area of Khar sub-division
in Bajaur Agency on October 8.
Troops killed
six militants and injured two others in a clash in the Razmak
area of North Waziristan on October 7. According to official
sources, the clash occurred when troops retaliated after the
militants had attacked a military base and fired 11 rockets.
An unnamed official said that the exchange of fire continued
for about two hours. He claimed that militants had taken away
bodies of the assailants who had been killed. The claim, however,
could not be verified from independent sources.
Fighter jets
bombed Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) Pakistan strongholds of Makeen
and Nawazkot in South Waziristan on October 6 - killing six
militants and injuring three others. Military sources said
the strikes came a day after TTP chief Hakeemullah Mehsud
vowed to launch attacks against the Security Forces (SFs)
in the country. "The air strikes are part of a major
offensive being planned against the terror network,"
sources told Daily Times. According to sources in Wana,
the TTP holds considerable sway in both Makeen and Nawazkot,
and the group has established its command-and-control structure
there.
Five militants
were killed when helicopter gunships targeted their hideouts
on the Gurguri hilltop in Bara sub-division of Khyber Agency
on October 5. The helicopters shelled the hideouts for over
two hours after militants attacked the Fort Saloop, eight
kilometres west of Bara bazaar. Three soldiers were injured
when rockets hit the fort, officials said. Dawn;
Daily
Times; The
News, October 6-12, 2009.
GHQ siege
ends with troops rescuing 39 hostages and killing all nine
terrorists: In a
successful 18-hour operation, the armed forces – in collaboration
with Special Services Group commandos – killed four terrorists,
arrested one and rescued 39 hostages at a security office
outside the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi on October
11, 2009 ending a siege that began on October 10. Three civilians
and two Security Force (SF) personnel were killed on October
11, while seven SF personnel and three civilians were injured
during the 18-hour operation – which culminated in the arrest
of the ringleader, Aqeel alias Dr Osman. Although Aqeel
was injured, sources said his condition is stable. Six soldiers
and five terrorists had already been killed in the siege on
October 10. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director-General,
Major General Athar Abbas, said that two army officials were
killed and seven others injured in the commando operation.
Three civilian hostages were also killed in the operation,
he added. The ISPR chief said eight SF personnel, including
a Brigadier and a Lieutenant Colonel, nine terrorists and
three civilians were killed on October 10 and 11, while the
total number of injured was 15 – 12 army personnel and three
civilians. He said the operation to rescue the hostages began
around 6am (PST), and continued for 45 minutes in the first
phase – during which commandos rescued 30 hostages and killed
four terrorists. He said the five terrorists killed in the
first phase were armed with suicide vests and tried to resist
the troops. "The terrorists had suicide jackets, improvised
explosive devices, grenades... they wanted to blow up all
the hostages and cause maximum damage," the AFP quoted
him as saying. "Terrorist Aqeel alias Dr Osman was overpowered
at around 9am in an injured condition when he tried to blow
himself up and the rest of the hostages ... triggering a blast
in adjacent offices of the security building ... five security
personnel were injured in the final phase of the operation,"
he said. The siege began just before midday on October 10,
when terrorists in military uniform and armed with automatic
weapons and grenades drove up to the Rawalpindi compound and
shot their way through a checkpoint. AFP quoted a security
official as saying that Aqeel was also wanted in connection
with a rocket attack on former president Pervez Musharraf
in 2007 and the killing of the military’s surgeon general
in February 2008. "He is a known terrorist. His name
is mentioned in several cases," the unnamed official
was quoted as saying.
Daily
Times, October 12, 2009.
Suicide
bomber kills five persons at United Nations World Food Programme
office in Islamabad: A
suicide bomber targeted the United Nations World Food Programme
(WFP) office in Islamabad on October 5, 2009 killing five
persons, including a UN diplomat and two women employees.
Six other staff members were injured. The terrorist is reported
to have entered the WFP building in Frontier Constabulary
(FC) uniform through the small gate. He walked to the reception
and blew himself up at 1217 hours, an investigation agency
source said. The WFP office is located in a tightly-guarded
residential area of the national capital. The dead included
a UN diplomat and Iraqi national Bootan Ali, in charge reception
Gul Rukh, assistant in charge reception Farzana Barkat, Abdul
Wahab and Abid Rehman. The Deputy Inspector General of Police
(Operations), Bin Yameen, said the recovery of a severed head
and two legs suggested that the attack was carried out by
a suicide bomber. Over 80 employees, including about 20 diplomats,
were inside the WFP office when the terrorist struck. The
WFP office is reportedly well protected as a 15-foot high
wall has been erected around it with barbed wire and security
cameras in place. President Asif Ali Zardari’s private residence
is situated near the blast venue apart from some other important
houses. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed on October
6 it had carried out the suicide attack and vowed further
attacks on Governments and foreign targets. Dawn,
October 7, 2009; The
News, October 6, 2009.
SRI LANKA
Ruling
United People’s Freedom Alliance wins Provincial Elections
in South: Sri
Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s party won provincial
elections in the country’s south and described the result
as a sign of public support for its victory over the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The ruling United People’s Freedom
Alliance won 38 seats in the 55-member Southern Provincial
Council, with 67.88 percent of the vote, according to the
Department of Elections. The main opposition United National
Party won 14 seats in the elections held on October 10, 2009.
The result is an endorsement of the leadership of Rajapakse,
who "liberated the country and its people from decades
of terrorism," Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said
in a statement on a Government Website. Bloomberg,
September 29, 2009.
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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. SAIR
is a project of the Institute
for Conflict Management and the
South
Asia Terrorism Portal.
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