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SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 1, No. 25, January 6, 2003
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
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Fissures in an
Unnatural Alliance
K.P.S. Gill
President, Institute
for Conflict Management
Both the
United States and Pakistan have dismissed last week's clashes
and exchange of fire between their troops as a 'misunderstanding',
and high level interventions have sought to undo the damage
inflicted by two incidents of friction - one of which ended
in a five hundred pound bomb being dropped on an abandoned
madrassa in Pakistani territory, killing two Pakistani
soldiers who had taken shelter there. These incidents, by
themselves, do not constitute a major crisis in relations
between the two countries and their 'cooperation' in the
war against terror; allied forces often have frictional
confrontations in the field in other theatres of warfare
as well. In the Pakistan-US case, however, the incidents
are symptomatic of a deeper malaise, a fundamental conflict
of interests and underlying ideologies between the two nations.
What is in evidence here is, in fact, the gradual emergence
of inevitable fissures in what was, from its very inception,
an extraordinarily unnatural alliance. To the extent that
this is the case, an escalation of tensions between US and
Pakistani armed forces on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border
is an inevitability, though matters have been kept from
going out of hand in the immediate future. It is clear,
moreover, that US troops on the ground are getting impatient
with Pakistan's duplicity, and are increasingly resentful
of the visible support and accommodation that the Al
Qaeda and Taliban
survivors are receiving on Pakistani soil.
Impatience, however, has another face as well. As one commentator
in the Jung Group's The News International expressed
it, "Hatred against the US is all time high in Pakistan
these days" (sic). That hatred manifested itself in a rash
of demonstrations right across the country - in Islamabad,
Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Karachi, Quetta, Lahore, Bajore, Hyderabad,
Kohat, Mansehra, Naushahro Feroze, Mirpurkhas, Larkana,
Sukkur - after Friday prayers last week, as the Muttahida
Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), the coalition of fundamentalist parties
that cornered an unprecedented 53 seats in the National
Assembly in the dubious November 2002 elections, called
upon 'the people' to wage jihad against America 'to
halt interference by imperialist forces in the affairs of
the region.' In Islamabad, Maulana Samiul Haq, head of the
notorious Haqqani madrassa that spawned the Taliban,
intoned, "the more they suppress us, the more we will rise,"
and warned that American action against Iraq would "trigger
a serious backlash from religious forces." In Lahore, Hafiz
Hussain Ahmad of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JuI) declared,
"Even before the attack on Afghanistan, we maintained that
the US concern was neither Osama bin Laden nor Mullah Omar,
but the Ummat (the world community of Muslims). The preparations
for an attack on Iraq substantiate that claim. The world
should rest assured that the next US target would be Iran,
followed by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan."
There is an entrenched lobby at Washington which has a deep
- at times personal and vested, at other times professional,
though erroneous - interest in keep America's unnatural
alliance with Pakistan alive at any costs, and this group
will underplay these trends. Nevertheless, these threats
are real, and are broader and far more compelling than a
few flashes of fire along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border
suggest. The rising anti-US public demonstrations and protests
mirror a mounting hostility within the Pakistan Army to
the American 'war against terror' agenda. Crucial in this
is the fact that it is immensely difficult for soldiers
who have been systematically indoctrinated on a steady Islamist
fundamentalist diet for over two decades now, and many of
whom have fought shoulder to shoulder with the Taliban in
Afghanistan, to suddenly abandon convictions that have become
deep-rooted and go to the very heart of their notions of
personal and national identity. At the higher levels of
military and civilian leadership, where there is greater
'sophistication' of thought and perspective, compromises
and readjustments conforming to the imperatives of the situation
are possible. Even here, though, there are many senior generals
who are simply incapable of making the necessary ideological
transition, and at least some of these have dominated the
long standing collaboration between the Pakistani Army,
its Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, and the jehadi-fundamentalist
forces. Moreover, General Pervez Musharraf himself has actively
exploited Islamist sentiments to execute military and quasi-military
campaigns, both in Afghanistan and against India, and when
he seeks, suddenly, to distance himself from such a position,
or to purge the military leadership of Islamist elements,
he sows confusion and loses credibility among his officers.
At the middle and lower levels, however, where responses
are more emotive and less analytical, the anti-Taliban -
anti-Al Qaeda campaign is deeply distressing, and tensions
can only be expected to rise, both within the Pakistani
Forces, and in the Pakistani street.
In Afghanistan, consequently, US troops are now getting
only the foretaste of what has been an everyday occurrence
in India - terrorists operating out of Pakistani soil, executing
operations across an international border, and then running
back into Pakistani sanctuaries, with the authorities denying
their existence and asserting an uncompromising sovereignty
to obstruct any legitimate punitive action. It is this 'deniability',
and the international collusion manifested in a pretended
ignorance of a reality that is widely known, that has allowed
Pakistan to create and nurture the jehadis over the
decades, and to employ them as their primary strategic force
to pursue geopolitical ambitions that are entirely disproportionate
to the country's resources and capabilities. Clearly, however,
playing this game against India is one thing; against the
US, it may prove to be entirely another. What we are witnessing,
consequently, is the emergence of a dynamic and inexorable
process, with Pakistani duplicity, intransigence, and the
collusion of its armed forces and intelligence agencies
with the jehadis - including the remnants of the
Taliban and Al Qaeda - provoking harsh US reaction; and
US reactions feeding the street anger and the resentment
in Pakistan's security forces.
Countering this process will require a radical reassessment
of American policies and orientation on Pakistan, as of
the course and character of the 'war against terror' since
9/11. The conciliation and appeasement of 'moderate Islamist
extremist' forces - if such a formulation is conceivable
- has been integral to the US policy on Pakistan. America
winks continuously at the sustained support to international
Islamist radicalism and terrorism by Pakistan, as well as
at the persistence of a vast terrorist infrastructure on
Pakistani soil, as long as these are not seen to be directed
against American targets, or to be currently engaged with
the Al Qaeda - Taliban combine. This is myopic in the extreme,
and has created the space precisely for the 'plausible deniability'
that has allowed the Al Qaeda and Taliban survivors to relocate
themselves in Pakistan, for the country to grow into the
most significant centre of Islamist terrorism, and for these
forces to increasingly direct their resources and attacks
against Western targets. Much of this orientation has been
based on a miscalculation regarding the risks of political
collapse and anarchy if the 'indispensable' Musharraf 'loses
control'. The spectre of anarchy and collapse in Pakistan,
however, is the more real if current trends in appeasement
and the consolidation of the forces of Islamist extremism
and terror persist. If these processes are to be neutralised,
the hard option will have to be seized, and a clear obligation
placed on those who claim to 'rule' Pakistan: that they
bring the conduct of their affairs in conformity with international
norms; dismantle and destroy the infrastructure of terrorism;
and cease provocation of, and support to, extremist activities
within the country and across international borders. Failing
this, the fullest force of international sanctions and direct
military intervention should be brought to bear on a lawless
nation that now not only jeopardizes the future of the South
Asian region, but the possibilities of peace in the world
at large.
NDFB: Losing Leaders,
Losing Muscle
Bibhu Prasad Routray
Acting Director, Institute
for Conflict Management Database & Documentation Centre,
Guwahati.
In the morning
of January 1, 2003, acting on intelligence inputs about
a top ranking National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB)
leader camping in the State capital, a Sikkim police team
surrounded a partly constructed apartment near the Flourmill
area in Gangtok. A few minutes later, the insurgent group's
'vice-president', Dhiren Boro alias Bipul Sonowal alias
Chungthagra Boro, had fallen into the hands of the police
authorities. Along with Boro were his wife Pratima Boro,
two children and two bodyguards. For the police in Assam,
in whose custody Boro is soon likely to find himself, the
arrest is nothing less than a prize-catch. For the underground
organisation, Boro's arrest was the second serious blow
within a period of 36 days.
Earlier, in the morning of November 25, 2002, Govinda Basumatary
alias B. Swmkhwr, General Secretary of the NDFB, was arrested
at the Rangia railway station in Kamrup district while boarding
the Kamrup Express, a train that runs between the upper
Assam district of Tinsukia and the capital of West Bengal,
Kolkata. It now appears certain that Basumatary's arrest
provided the Assam police with vital clues about Boro's
movements, who, according to his own admission, had been
camping at Gangtok for the past one year.
The 45-year-old Boro's association with NDFB dates back
to the 1980s, first as a member of the then Bodo Security
Force (BdSF) and later as the Vice President of the re-christened
NDFB in the early 1990s. The leadership of the group - comprising
Boro, Basumatary, Chairman Ranjan Daimary alias D.R. Nabla
and Publicity Secretary B. Erakdao - has been responsible
for the death of 1,262 civilians (the highest by any extremist
outfit in the State) and 167 security force personnel between
1992 and 2001. This coterie was instrumental in masterminding
innumerable acts of wanton violence and terror, targeting
not only the non-Bodo communities living in the districts
of western and lower Assam, such as Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon,
Darrang, Barpeta and parts of Nalbari, but the Bodo population
as well. According to Assam police sources, NDFB accounted
for the death of 127 civilians and 8 security force personnel
in the year 2002. The NDFB lost a total of 119 cadres in
88 operations led by both the Army and the Police during
the year.
In a game where individual leaders and their capabilities
make or break an organisation, Basumatary and Boro's arrests
are expected to curb the striking prowess of NDFB to a considerable
extent. With these arrests, the NDFB's entire operational
command passes into the hands of Chairman Daimary and publicity
secretary Erakdao. With both of them living outside the
country (Daimary stays in Bangladesh and Erakdao keeps shuttling
between the group's camps in Bhutan and safe houses in North
Bengal), they would face some difficulty in sustaining the
succession of attacks that have been executed in Assam,
till a new set of cadres are groomed to positions of leadership
and given operational responsibility. The difficulty and
loss of direction in the NDFB are intensified by the losses
inflicted on the group by the security forces - 14 cadres
have lost their lives in SF operations since Basumatary's
arrest.
The arrests will also dampen the NDFB's expansion plans,
both in terms of augmenting operational strength and finding
protected bases in countries like Nepal. Intelligence sources
indicate that the organisation, till the time of the arrests,
was planning to raise a third 'battalion' (it currently
has two, with a current estimated strength of some 3,500
personnel), to be based in Bangladesh, probably under the
direct command of the Chairman Daimary. The other two 'battalions',
located at Kalikhola and Kawai in Bhutan, presently manage
hit and run operations in western Assam. The proposed third
battalion would have facilitated an uninterrupted chain
of activity, just in case the group needed to shift its
bases from Bhutan. This plan, for the time being, will have
to take a backseat till the organisation is able to recover
its strength and reinforce its leadership.
What would also possibly be shelved are the machinations
of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan and
the elements in the Bangladeshi army to destabilise the
region. The preliminary interrogations of vice president
Boro, who amazingly is singing like a parrot, reveal the
details of ISI training programme to a group of NDFB recruits
in Bangladesh.
The possible dent in the NDFB's operational capabilities
will also work to the advantage of the Bodo Liberation Tigers
(BLT),
the other Bodo group that has, since year 2000, renounced
violence, and is on the verge of finalising an agreement
with the Government of Assam on the formation of a Bodoland
Territorial Council (BTC). The NDFB, in the competitive
game to secure dominance over the Bodo constituency, which
comprises nearly 13 per cent of the State's population,
had emerged as the principal enemy to the idea of the BTC.
The BLT's march towards finalising the agreement is now
likely to be less hazardous.
On January 2, 2002, Khabar, a vernacular daily from
Guwahati, published a front-page report on plans for a joint
team of 60 cadres of both the NDFB and the United Liberation
Front of Asom (ULFA)
to orchestrate terror attacks in populated areas of Bongaigaon
and Kokrajhar districts. The report predicted that, if everything
went according to plan, several 'bloody strikes' (raktakta
abhijan) would take place between January 12 and 18 in both
the districts. Whether such strikes eventually takes place
or not, it appears certain that, in the face of mounting
pressure in terms of a fast declining team of senior cadres,
both the ULFA and the NDFB will find strong reasons to move
closer to each other.
There is evidence of a curious pattern emerging out of the
recent arrests, a pattern that suggests the possibilities
of a split within the NDFB. Incidentally, both Dhiren Boro
and Basumatary hail from the Udalguri area of Darrang district,
one of the NDFB's areas of strength. Boro belongs to the
Rangagarat village, while Basumatary served as a teacher
in the Udalguri College nearby, before he joined the underground.
There is some speculation that both Basumatary and Boro
actually gave themselves up in order to initiate a peace
process with the government. Media reports, describing Basumatary's
arrest, had suggested that the General Secretary was on
his way to North Bengal to meet the other leaders to discuss
possible negotiations with the government. It is also interesting
that both leaders, soon after their arrests, made significant
revelations about the organisation's activities, betraying
their image of 'hard-to-crack' insurgents.
Nevertheless, the actual possibility of the NDFB as an organisation
giving up arms and entering into a dialogue for peace appears
to be remote. Two arrests, howsoever significant they may
be, are certainly not a broad enough transformation to push
a group that has obstinately and violently resisted any
efforts for peaceful settlement, to the negotiating table.
The organisation's current infirmity does, however, create
a window of opportunity which can be widened with concerted
counter-insurgency operations that can force the extremists
to see reason and embrace a process of dialogue.
J&K: The Taliban
Take on Rajouri
Guest Writer: Praveen
Swami
Special Correspondent Frontline
Beloved brothers of Hasiyot:
We have left our country to fight for your freedom. But
still you people feel no sense of gratitude. We urge you
to stop helping the Kafirs (unbelievers). After this,
no one who does so will be spared. He who helps a Kafir
is also a Kafir. If you still do not pay heed, Allah has
given his soldiers enough strength to finish you as well
as the Kafirs.
- Posted by the al-Badr Mujahideen, Hasiyot Mosque,
Rajouri, December 17, 2002.
In late November 2002, the Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami put up
posters in the village of Darhal, demanding that women students
and teachers start wearing all-enveloping burkhas (veils).
Those who defied the ban, the posters warned, would have
their noses cut off. While most in the village were terrified,
local school-uniform tailor Mohammad Rafiq believed he had
been granted a god-given opportunity to prosper. Demand
pushed up prices for basic versions of the five-metre dress
from Rs. 175 to almost Rs. 1000, while better-quality 'imports'
from Jammu sold for twice as much. Then, the local Army
unit stepped in, and told Rafiq to stop black-marketing
burkhas. Today, Rafiq's business has collapsed: his
customers, mostly poor farmers who have to work in their
fields and find the burkha enormously cumbersome
at work, just aren't sure which choice of uniform to spend
their meagre resources on.
Darhal's encounter with Taliban-style terror began with
a local spat. When troops were first deployed in the area,
they occupied part of the main higher secondary school building.
To compensate students for the space, the Army put up tented
accommodation, as well as a tin building. The school's laboratory
facilities remained available to students, but soldiers
used the other half of the main building. Parents lobbied
hard to get the whole building back, scared mainly of the
consequences of a terrorist assault on the troops. Then,
in early November, an unrelated fracas broke out. A group
of women students, out on a picnic near Kotranka were -
depending on who one chooses to believe - either harassed
by teenage boys from Darhal, or seen dancing to film music
with them. The conservative rural community was scandalised,
but sorted out the problem quietly by calling the boys concerned
in for a telling-off.
A window of opportunity had, however, opened for the soldiers
of the Islamic Right. They now claimed the picnic was the
result of the 'corrupting influence of immoral dress,' combined
with the close proximity of young army soldiers. After the
first posters appeared in Darhal, the Army also dug its
heels in. While they could not stop anyone from wearing
a burkha if they chose, officers told the community,
those who exercised the option would be stopped at the school
gates and searched. Many villagers found the idea of such
searches humiliating. Meanwhile, a second and third set
of posters were put up starting December 2, each imposing
a fresh deadline for adoption of the burkha, and
warning of a variety of punishments ranging from mutilation
to death.
"Several families who continued to send their daughters
to school," says village headman Hadi Noor, "received beatings
from the terrorists. Their girls' uniforms and books were
burned, and the terrorists warned that their noses and ears
would be cut off if they continued to offend." For the most
part, Darhal parents solved their dilemma by simply pulling
11th and 12th-grade girls students out of the local government
higher secondary school. The 80-odd girls who study there
weren't able sit for the recent examinations because of
the threats, and no alternate arrangements have been made
by the State government.
No one in Darhal doubts that the Harkat's threats are credible.
On December 17, al-Badr
terrorists shot dead three teenage women at the tiny hamlet
of Hasiyot, near Thanamandi in Rajouri. An al-Badr hit-squad
walked into the home of 12th-standard student Tahira Parveen,
who was then busy with her cousin's pre-wedding mehndi
(henna) ritual, singled her out from among a group of women,
and slit her throat with a hunting knife. Her friend Naureen
Kaunser, who lived next door, died faster: shot dead at
point-blank range. Sixteen-year-old Shehnaz Akhtar, already
married though just a 10th-standard student, faced a more
brutal end: she was marched out and decapitated. A note
found in the Hasiyot mosque makes it clear that the al-Badr
believed the three were informants. On past occasions, the
Army had raided Hasiyot shortly after terrorist groups passed
through the hamlet. This, coupled with the facts that Parveen's
father had been killed on suspicion of being an army informer
in 1997, and that Kaunser's father is a serving Border Security
Force trooper, were evidently considered adequate grounds
for the executions. "The girls' real fault", says Kaunser's
father Mohammad Sadiq, "is that they were educated and did
not treat the terrorists with the respect that they thought
they deserved."
Contrary to media speculation, the killings at Hasiyot had
little to do with the burkha issue. They were, however,
part of a string of killings of civilians, intended to make
clear the terrorists' domination of civil society. Four
days after the Hasiyot killings, 4-year old Arfaz Ahmed,
7-year old Asid Mohammad and 12-year old Nazarat Hussain
were shot dead at Surankote. Their father, Munshi Khan,
who was seriously injured in the attack on his home along
with a tenant - school teacher, Gurmeet Kaur - was believed
by terrorists to be passing on information to the State
police's Special Operations Group. Such killings are of
a piece with similar assaults on anyone resisting far-Right
fiat. Available data indicates that the overwhelming majority
of civilian victims of terrorist violence are not Hindus
[Table],
but ordinary Muslims who are believed to be inadequately
servile to the religious right.
Incredibly, despite the killings and the menacing notices,
few women have actually started wearing the burkha
in Rajouri: a tribute both to their courage and to the ground
realities of their lives in this poor mountain region. Women
in Rajouri, as in Poonch, Doda or Udhampur, work hard in
the fields and are also responsible for taking cattle to
nearby pastures. Carrying water up the hills takes up a
major part of the day, as does foraging for firewood and
fodder. The burkha simply doesn't allow for this
kind of work. What the new ban has already achieved, however,
is to strip rural women of any real shot at a higher education.
"I know of one schoolmaster from a nearby hamlet", says
Darhal Zonal Educational Officer M.A. Malik, "who was ordered
to withdraw his daughter from the Government Degree College
in Rajouri because they did not observe the burkha
there." This, in turn, is part of a long-running campaign
by the Islamic Right against women. In November 2001, 57-year-old
schoolteacher Gulzar Lone was shot dead in front of his
students at the Government Middle School in Alal, near Thanamandi
for the 'crime' of having taught his daughter Jabeera Lone
how to drive a two-wheeler.
At a rally after the Surankote killings, Chief Minister
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed said, the "time has come when the
people should also use their influence, whatever little
they have, on the militants and make them leave the gun."
The Chief Minister, however, said nothing about what he
intended to do to secure justice for those who, quite clearly,
have no influence with terrorists.
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Weekly Fatalities: Major conflicts in
South Asia
December 30,
2002 - January 5, 2003
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Civilian
|
Security
Force Personnel
|
Terrorist
|
Total
|
INDIA
|
14
|
11
|
46
|
71
|
Assam
|
0
|
0
|
4
|
4
|
Jammu &
Kashmir
|
7
|
7
|
34
|
48
|
Left-wing
Extremism
|
5
|
3
|
3
|
11
|
Manipur
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
Nagaland
|
0
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
Tripura
|
1
|
0
|
5
|
6
|
NEPAL
|
2
|
8
|
9
|
19
|
PAKISTAN
|
0
|
2
|
0
|
2
|
* Provisional
data compiled from English language media sources.
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INDIA
NDFB
'vice president' Dhiren Boro arrested in Gangtok, Sikkim:
Police on January 1, 2003, arrested Dhiren Boro, 'vice-president'
of the proscribed National Democratic Front of Bodoland
(NDFB) from Tadung in Gangtok, capital city of Sikkim.
The police also detained his wife and two children who
were with him. This is the first time that a terrorist
leader from the Northeast has been arrested in the State.
Sentinel
Assam, January 2, 2003.
DHD announces cease-fire in Assam; government to
reciprocate: The Dima Halim Daogah (DHD), a terrorist
outfit active in the Karbi Anglong and North Cachar
Hills districts of Assam, announced on December 30,
2002, a 'suspension' of its activities and 'cessation
of hostilities with the security forces (SFs) with effect
from December 31 for a period of six months.' The DHD
also said that this step is a 'goodwill gesture' to
bring lasting peace in these districts. Meanwhile, official
sources said that the DHD proposed to stop violence
and hold talks with the Union and State governments
to resolve the Dimasa issue within the framework of
the Indian Constitution. The State government has reportedly
reciprocated by agreeing to reach a cease-fire agreement
with the DHD. Sources also said that peace talks would
follow the suspension of operations and enforcement
of 'ground rules'. Assam
Tribune, January 1, 2003.
5,000 Kashmiri terrorists in various Pakistani camps,
indicates report: A report in Daily Excelsior quoting
official sources indicated that approximately 5,000
terrorists from Jammu and Kashmir were present at various
camps in Pakistan. A majority of these terrorists hailed
from the Valley, while 10 to 15 per cent belonged to
the sensitive Rajouri and Poonch districts. The report
indicates that the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI),
Pakistan's external intelligence agency, has had to
shift the Kashmiri terrorists from Pakistan occupied
Kashmir (PoK) to certain areas in Pakistan Punjab and
North West Frontier Province (NWFP) after the May 14-Kaluchak
massacre near Jammu. These details, the report says,
are mostly based on revelations made by some captured
terrorists during their interrogation in recent days.
More than 1,000 terrorists had reportedly been shifted
to a location in Pakistan Punjab near the Haripur-Taxila
Road (HTR). Those shifted to the HTR section were drawn
from four major groups - the Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami
(HuJI), Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen (JuM), Al Barq and Al Umar.
Intelligence reports revealed the presence of 1,500
to 2,000 Kashmiri terrorists in the North West Frontier
Province (NWFP). Most of them owe allegiance to the
Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM). Daily
Excelsior, December 31, 2002.
Terrorist violence claimed 471 lives in Assam in
2002: A total of 471 persons were killed in various
terrorism-related incidents in Assam in the year 2002,
according to a report on December 30, 2002. The report
quoting Assam police statistics, said that this includes
268 terrorists killed in various encounters, 177 civilians
and 26 security force (SF) personnel killed by various
terrorist groups. Giving a break up, the report further
said 126 United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) terrorists
were killed in as many as 106 encounters, and the ULFA
killed 25 civilians and 10 SF personnel. Another active
group in the State, the National Democratic Front of
Bodoland (NDFB) killed 127 civilians and eight SF personnel
this past year. A total of 119 NDFB terrorists were
also killed in 88 encounters. 23 terrorists of two more
outfits in the area, the Dima Halim Daogah (DHD) and
the United People's Democratic Solidarity (UPDS), were
killed in 18 encounters. These two groups, in total,
killed 25 civilians. Besides, the DHD killed eight SF
personnel during 2002. Sentinel
Assam, December 31, 2002.
No terrorism-related casualty in Mizoram in 2002:
Media reports of December 30 said Mizoram was relatively
violence-free throughout the year 2002. Moreover, peace
talks with the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF)
over repatriation of Reang refugees camping in North
Tripura district and the mode of self-government for
the Brus in Mizoram could not lead to a successful agreement.
Stray terrorism-related incidents did occur in the State's
areas bordering Manipur, but did not result in any civilian
or security force casualty. Assam
Tribune, December 31, 2002.
NEPAL
Maoist insurgents'
parallel government advisor surrenders in Kaski district:
Advisor-cum-member of the Joint Revolutionary People's Council
- the parallel government of the Maoist insurgents--Lok Bahadur
Thapa reportedly surrendered to the authorities in Kaski district,
on January 1, 2003. While surrendering, Thapa said reforms and
changes wished by the insurgents cannot be achieved through
murder, violence, loot and destructive activities, and declared
he would fight against violent policies. He added that he would
not be associated with any affiliates of the Maoists. Thapa
also said a solution to the current crisis should be reached
through the monarchial and multiparty system. Nepal
News, January 1, 2003
PAKISTAN
Al Badr forms
suicide squad to target J&K police chief: According to a
report in The News, a Pakistani daily, the Al Badr Mujahideen
has claimed it has formed a suicide squad to target the police
chief of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). "The director-general
of police will be the main target of our group… The group has
already formed a five-member suicide squad to target Suri [Ashok
Kumar Suri is the J&K Director General of Police]," Ahmed Yar
Gaznavi, spokesperson of the group, was quoted as saying. Jang,
January 4, 2003.
Two Pakistanis killed as US bombs seminary near Pakistan-Afghanistan
border: A US warplane on December 31, 2002, bombed an abandoned
madrassa (seminary) in the Pakistani territory after a gun-battle
between US and Pakistani troops on the border with Afghanistan.
Two Pakistani security force personnel were killed and an American
injured in the incident. The US military said that one of its
soldiers was injured in Afghanistan on December 29 in an exchange
of gunfire with a Pakistani border guard. The injured American
was part of a unit conducting a mission with the Pakistani forces
along the Afghan border when a disagreement appeared to break
out, according to a statement released by the US military at
their Afghan headquarters at Bagram air base. "A Pakistani border
scout opened fire with a G3 rifle after the US patrol asked
him to return to the Pakistan side of the border," the statement
said. "That individual and several others retreated to a nearby
structure… Close air support was requested and a 500-lb bomb
was dropped on the target area", the statement added. Mohammad
Khurshied, a local official in the South Waziristan tribal area,
later said that a seminary in Angor Adda had been hit by the
US warplane. Dawn;
The
Hindu, January 1, 2003.
|
Terrorist
Killings of Civilians in Rajouri District, Jammu & Kashmir
Year
|
Hindus
|
Muslims
|
Sikhs
|
Total
|
1997 |
9
|
17
|
0
|
26
|
1998 |
4
|
50
|
0
|
54
|
1999 |
17
|
50
|
0
|
67
|
2000 |
7
|
53
|
0
|
60
|
2001 |
12
|
75
|
0
|
87
|
2002* |
24
|
90
|
1
|
115
|
Total |
73
|
335
|
1
|
409
|
* Data
till December 25, 2002
Source: District
Police, Rajouri
|
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