PAKISTAN: Tribal Elders: Living on a Sword’s Edge,INDIA: Manipur: Xenophobic Excess :: South Asia Intelligence Review (SAIR),Vol. No. 9.8
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SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 9, No. 8, August 30, 2010

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


ASSESSMENT

 

PAKISTAN
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Tribal Elders: Living on a Sword’s Edge
Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

A bomb blast at a meeting of tribal elders killed seven persons and injured another seven in Khumas village, about 10 kilometres east of Parachinar, in the Kurram Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on August 23, 2010. Two days earlier, on August 21, suspected Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists had killed the son of a pro-Government tribal elder and active member of the Charmang Peace Committee, Malak Gul Khan, in an attack on his house in the Charmang area of the Bajaur Agency. Two others were injured in the attack. In the same night, militants attacked the house of another pro-Government tribal elder, Malak Sher Zamin Khan, with hand grenades, in the same area. However, no casualty was reported in this incident.

Before this, at least 65 people, including women and children, had been killed, and another 110 sustained injuries, when a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into the office of Rasool Khan, the Mohmand Assistant Political Agent, in the Yakka Ghund tehsil (revenue unit) of Mohmand Agency, on July 9, 2010. Hundreds of tribal elders had gathered around the office for a meeting. Claiming responsibility for the attack, the TTP spokesman for the Mohmand chapter, Ikramullah Mohmand, disclosed that their targets were the offices of the political administration and the local peace committee, which had arranged an anti-TTP jirga (tribal assembly) there. "We have no enmity with the people," he added.

Since the beginning of United States (US)-led operation in Afghanistan in 2001 and the consequent influx of Afghan Taliban into the tribal areas, an unspecified number of tribal elders and pro-Government tribal militia members have become victims of a sustained campaign of annihilation that has virtually destroyed the structure of traditional tribal power in these regions. Though there is no specific official statement regarding the number of tribal militia/tribal elders’ casualties, Mohmand Agency Additional Political Agent (APA) Ahmed Jan stated, on January 6, 2010, that about 104 pro-Government elders and volunteers of peace committee were killed in the Mohmand Agency in the year 2009 alone. The South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) data, based on erratic reporting in the Pakistan media, records the killing of at least 86 tribal elders since 2005 in 54 incidents.

Tribal elders killed in Pakistan: 2005-2010

Year
Incidents
Killed
2005
7
14
2006
8
7
2007
4
6
2008
7
24
2009
6
7
2010*
22
28
Total
54
86
*Data till August 29, 2010.
Sources: SATP

Some of the other significant attacks targeting tribal elders include the following:

May 27, 2010: TTP militants armed with rockets and grenades stormed the home of a pro-Government tribal elder, killing him, his wife and son, before blowing up the house in Asghar village, about 40 kilometers northwest of Khar, the main town in Bajaur Agency.

March 29, 2010: The bodies of three anti-TTP tribal elders, with their throats slit, were recovered in the Chinarak area of Kurram Agency.

November 6, 2008: 22 tribesmen were killed and 45 others injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Salarzai jirga in the Charmang area of Bajaur Agency.

October 23, 2008: TTP militants killed at least eight pro-government Ferozkhel tribal elders in an ambush in the Orakzai Agency.

October 10, 2008: TTP militants beheaded four elders from the Charmang tribe after they had attended a pro-Government jirga in Bajaur Agency.

June 13, 2008: Militants shot dead five tribesmen, including a pro-government tribal elder, Malik Zahideen, near Miranshah in North Waziristan Agency (NWA).

August 10, 2005: Four persons died when the vehicle of a tribal elder hit a landmine in the Taza Ghondai area of South Waziristan Agency (SWA).

July 22, 2005: Unidentified gunmen assassinated nine tribesmen, including two leading pro-Government tribal elders, in different parts of SWA.

May 29, 2005: Former federal minister and Senator, Malik Faridullah Khan Wazir, was assassinated along with two other tribal elders by four suspected terrorists in the Jandola area of SWA.

These attacks on the tribal elders and their families demonstrate their vulnerabilities in the FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP, formerly known as North West Frontier Province) areas. The attacks mainly target tribal elders who support Government operations against the militants.

Significantly, the tribesmen, fed-up with the increasing brutality of the TTP, and encouraged by state agencies and the Army, have widened armed resistance against the Islamist extremists in the area since 2008. By the beginning of September 2008, the tribal elders had organised a private army of approximately 30,000 tribesmen to fight the TTP. The tribal militia have set ablaze houses of TTP ‘commanders’ in Bajaur, near the Afghan border, and have vowed to fight them until they have been expelled from the region. A local jirga had decided to create armed militia in the wake of the increasing presence of the TTP in the area. Earlier, the fear of Taliban reprisals and uncertainty about the sincerity of the Government and the Army’s commitment to fighting militancy had prevented the communities from challenging the militants. However, though the Government has stirred up the tribal militia against the TTP, these have largely been left to their own devices, and abandoned to vicious retaliation by the extremists, relying on own old-fashioned guns against the sophisticated weapons of the TTP.

Among the most noteworthy anti-TTP uprisings, to date, took place in the Buner District of KP, on August 30, 2008, when tribesmen retaliated by killing a group of six TTP extremists, who had attacked a Police Station in the Kingargalli area killing eight Policemen. Since then, other anti-TTP armed militia have been encouraged to hunt for the terrorists. Mukhtar A. Khan, a Pashtun journalist, on November 27, 2008, had noted that that, after successive failed attempts to tackle the rising militancy in FATA and the adjoining KP, the Government was encouraging local tribal people to stand up against the TTP and al Qaeda and flush them out of their regions. Conspicuously, Lakki Marwat was the first District in KP to raise a volunteer militia to evict militants from the area.

Significantly, over the past five years, tribal elders have signed several agreements with the Government, and also have convened innumerable jirgas, to fight terrorism and consolidate peace in the tribal areas. The most significant among these include:

March 11, 2009: Political authorities and elders of three tribes of Bajaur Agency signed a 28-point agreement to bring peace in the area. About 1,400 tribal elders of Khar, Salarzai and Atmanzai tribes signed the agreement in a grand jirga in Khar.

March 9, 2009: The Mamoond tribe and the authorities signed a 28-point agreement to bring the law and order situation under control in Bajaur Agency.

October 20, 2008: About 300 elders from the Salarzai tribe vowed to resist TTP in their areas during a grand jirga (council) held in Bajaur.

October 6, 2008: A press release by the FATA Secretariat’s media cell said tribal elders from the Khyber, Bajaur, Mohmand and Orakzai Agencies and the Frontier Regions assured the Government of support against the TTP in separate jirgas.

March 26, 2007: Tribesmen in the Bajaur agency gave an undertaking to the Government to deny shelter to "locals as well as foreigners, including Afghans" involved in terrorist or anti-State activities.

March 9, 2007: A deal was signed between the NWA political agent representing the KP Governor and "Tribal leaders of North Waziristan, local Mujahideen and elders of the Utmanzai tribes".

Despite several losses of life and Pakistan Government’s apathy, the tribal elders and tribal militia continue their support to the Government in its ‘war against terror’. Notably, on September 4, 2007, the Pakistan Government had asked a tribal jirga to help free some 275 Pakistani soldiers and officers, who had been taken hostage on August 30, 2007, by pro-TTP militants in the SWA. The militants had demanded troop withdrawal from the Agency and the release of 15 of their men from Government custody. Significantly, a leading member of the jirga, Senator Maulana Salih Shah, met then TTP ‘commander’ Baitullah Mehsud on the Government’s behalf. During subsequent negotiations through tribal elders, the Government was able to secure the release of 272 soldiers on different dates. Three soldiers were, however, executed on October 4, 2007 as a warning to the Government not to launch a rescue operation. Unofficial reports said that a letter left with the soldiers’ bodies said: "We will gift three bodies everyday." The Government also released 25 militants, including Sohail Zeb, a relative of slain Taliban ‘commander’ Abdullah Mehsud, in exchange for the soldiers’ release. Officials had then revealed that the soldiers and militants had been exchanged through jirga members at Tiarza tehsil, 25 kilometres northeast of Wana.

In a recognition of their contribution, when Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani visited troops in Mohmand Agency on February 6, 2009, he made sure he met with the tribal elders as well. He expressed appreciation of their efforts to evict ‘foreign elements’ from their areas, and declared that the support of ‘local people’ was critical for success of Army operations to purge area of ‘miscreants and terrorists’. The tribal elders, in response, once again expressed their full support for the military operations. Demonstrating their resolve to eliminate the extremists from their areas and to bring back peace and security, they declared that, "They were, they are and they will always remain the first line of Defence for Pakistan."

Despite unqualified support from and immense help from the tribal elders, Islamabad had demonstrated little concern for the safety, and for the development of the tribal regions. The populations of FATA and KP continue to suffer under sweeping and indiscriminate military operations, largely executed through haphazard bombing and artillery attacks on populated areas, which has forced vast numbers to become refugees in their own country, languishing in different Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), by June 15, 2010, there were more than 3.3 million conflict IDPs in Pakistan, since the start of the fight between Pakistan’s Armed Forces and militant groups in 2008.

The tribal elders and populations in Pakistan’s troubled FATA and KP regions are under constant threat from both terrorists and indiscriminate Army operations, living on the very edge of a sword. Their difficulties have now been immensely compounded by the floods that have enveloped large parts of Pakistan, displacing millions more, even as radical Islamist groupings expand their activities and influence under the guise of ‘relief operations’, while state agencies look the other way. The absence of a consistent counter-terrorism policy in Pakistan, and the alternating strategy of support some terrorist formations, even as the state fights others, has brought chaos and devastation to the lives of millions in Pakistan’s tribal regions, with no relief in sight in the foreseeable future.

INDIA
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Manipur: Xenophobic Excess
Sandipani Dash
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management
Chennabasaveshwar A. Patagundi
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

Afflicted with multiple insurgencies for the past 46 years, Manipur is now the most violent State in India’s troubled Northeast, with all its nine Districts tainted with varying degrees of extremist activity. The ethnocentric perversion, particularly of the Meitei insurgency, has, over the years, become more pronounced in the Manipur Valley and beyond. In their quest to project a pan-Mongoloid identity, the Meitei armed groups have moved beyond rejecting the Bengali script and the mayangs (outsiders settled in the Valley), and are now striking at the Hindi and Bengali speaking migrant populace in the State.

There are an estimated 50,000 ‘outsiders’ in Manipur, mostly from the States of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Jharkhand. A majority of these are petty vendors and labourers. With the August 24, 2010, killing of a non-local by suspected militants at Wahengbam Ningol Chaibi in Imphal West District, one estimate reveals that the number of migrant workers and labourers who have been killed by armed insurgents in Manipur since February 2009 has reached 34. The South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) database, in its partial estimate (a preponderance of such cases go unreported, or are not uniquely categorized as casualties among ‘outsiders’) records that 74 persons have been killed and 13 injured in as many as 48 militant attacks on non-locals in all the four Valley Districts and three Hill Districts since 2001. The violence unleashed against non-locals in the State has registered an irregular trajectory during 2001-2010 with sharp increase in the years 2008 and 2009.

Militant Attacks on Non-Locals in Manipur: 2001-2010

Year
Number of Attacks
Killed
Injured
2001
2
7
0
2002
0
0
0
2003
0
0
0
2004
1
3
0
2005
1
2
0
2006
0
0
0
2007
3
7
0
2008
11
18
5
2009
24
30
8
2010
6
7
0
Total*
48
74
13

*Data till August 29, 2010
Source: SATP

Some of the major militant attacks (resulting in three or more than three killings) on non-locals in the State since 2001 include:

June 11, 2009: Four non-local labourers were killed and one was injured, when unidentified militants opened fire on them inside the Central Agriculture University campus at Iroisemba under Lamphel Police Station in Imphal West District.

May 11, 2009: Unidentified militants killed nine non-locals inside the Keibul Lamjao National Park at Khordak Awang Leikai area in Bishnupur District.

March 17, 2008: At least seven Hindi-speaking people were shot dead by unidentified militants at Mayang Imphal Hanglun in the capital Imphal. The victims were sellers of tobacco products, which were ‘banned’ by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

March 18, 2008: Unidentified militants killed seven Hindi-speaking labourers and injured two others. While five persons were killed at Thumbi foothill in the Kangla Sangomsang area of Imphal East District, two others were shot dead at Kakching in Thoubal District.

March 8, 2007: Five migrant workers were shot dead by unidentified militants at Ningthoukhong Kha-Khunou Patmang in Bishnupur District.

November 9-10, 2004: Suspected militants killed three non-local traders after abducting them from their rented house at Khurai Lamlong in Imphal East District.

June 14, 2001: Three non-local traders were killed by unidentified militants at Yumpok Wakhong in Imphal East District.

June 7, 2001: Five persons, including four traders from the State of Bihar, were killed by suspected People’s United Liberation Front (PULF) cadres at Kakching in Thoubal District.

On January 10, 2010, Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP), Imphal West District, A. K. Jhaljit Singh, claimed the involvement of outfits like the People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK), United National Liberation Front (UNLF), PLA and Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL) in the targeted elimination of non-locals in Manipur. The assessment was based on confessions of two PREPAK cadres [arrested on January 9, 2010], who were reportedly involved in lobbing hand-grenades and other terrorist activities, including the killing of non-locals. The ASP also had claimed that the serial gunning down of migrant labourers in Manipur over the preceding months was the handiwork of these groups, which had together decided to engage in such crimes to destabilise the Okram Ibobi Singh Government.

PREPAK and PLA, however, subsequently denied their involvement in these crimes. A statement issued by the PREPAK alleged that the arrest of its cadres by a combined team of the Imphal West District Police and Assam Rifles and charging them with elimination of non-locals, as well as linking other underground outfits to these crimes, exposed the ‘dubious character’ of the Okram Ibobi Singh Government in its effort to ‘please their masters’ at Delhi, and to create hatred between underground groups.

Nevertheless, on March 6, 2010, the Revolutionary People’s Front (RPF), the political wing of the PLA, set May 31, 2010, as the deadline for non-local people to leave the State. In its statement, the RPF said that all those who came to Manipur after 1949 (the year of Manipur’s merger with the Indian Union) were considered non-Manipuris, and entry of outsiders to the State was illegal. T. Leisemba, ‘publicity secretary’ of the RPF, declared that living and working in the State by non-Manipuris had become ‘dangerous’ as ‘hatred’ among the residents was growing, and attributed the recent ethnic killings to this factor. In addition to this, ‘oppression and murder’ since the late seventies by the Security Forces, and the introduction of ‘agents’ under the guise of labourers for ‘espionage activities’, had caused more hatred among the people of Manipur. Further, the Government had failed to protect the lives of non-Manipuris, so the RPF asked transporters not to bring in any more ‘outsiders’. It also asked the people not to rent out rooms or sell land to non-Manipuris, or allow them to head business houses in the State. The outfit, however, said that it would allow the entry of non-Manipuri people for "temporary work", such as education-related activities, experts or scholars visiting on a temporary basis, tourists and sportsmen. "Entry of other non-Manipuris is prohibited for their welfare," it warned.

The RPF’s quit notice appears to have provoked a retaliatory response from its strategic ally from the country’s ‘mainland’, the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist). A member of the Tirhut (in Muzzafarpur District of Bihar) sub-zonal committee of the Maoists, Sher Khan, a resident of the State of Uttar Pradesh, who was in the Sheohar-Champaran region in Bihar to review the group’s organisational set-up, stated on April 20, 2010, that a CPI-Maoist delegation had visited recently Manipur, and found reports of the militants' ultimatum accurate. Khan said, further, "We are with the labourers of Bihar and Jharkhand. If they are forced to leave the State, we will not remain silent on the issue." Khan added that the CPI-Maoist would also issue an ultimatum to Manipuri students enrolled in different educational institutions in Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, to leave these places by June 30, 2010, and people working in other organisations in the four States would not be spared: "We have clear stand on the issue. If ill-treatment being meted out to Bihari labourers is not stopped immediately, we will decide other course of action also." Khan stated, further, that the decision to issue a counter ultimatum to the residents of Manipur to leave Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal was taken at a meeting of Maoist leaders of the four States on the Bihar-Nepal border.

The CPI-Maoist, however, subsequently tried to hush up the possible inner contradictions unfolding in its current strategy to rope in the ‘peripheral’ armed movements in the Northeast, and quickly disowned the counter ultimatum issued in its name. A statement put out by the outfit’s Bihar-Jharkhand-North Chhattishgarh Special Area Committee ‘spokesperson’, Gopal, declared that the counter-ultimatum was the ‘handiwork’ of intelligence agencies, aimed at creating ‘confusion and distrust’ among the people of Manipur and India, and to ‘slander’ the image of CPI-Maoist, which supports the movement of the Manipuri people for ‘independence’: "It is a just movement and the people of Manipur are making great sacrifices to achieve it. We respect it. We support the movements of various nationalities of India for self-determination/ independence."

Meanwhile, the Hindustani Samaj of Manipur, an association of non-locals in the Northeastern State, sent a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on April 15, 2010, complaining that the State Government had done nothing to ensure the safety of the non-Manipuri people, despite the RPF’s deadline to quit their work places. "As many as 32 non-Manipuris have been killed by militant groups in the State since January, while the RPF has asked transporters not to transport non-Manipuri people into the state," Nareshwar Kumar, President of the Hindustani Samaj, wrote, "In some areas, these elements are visiting the houses of non-Manipuris and threatening them to leave. As a result, there is a panic among non-Manipuris." The distress letter, however, has failed to elicit significant response to put an end to the plight of the targeted groups in Manipur. Since then, at least four non-locals have been killed in three militant attacks in Imphal West and Imphal East Districts in the Valley and Ukhrul District in the Hills.

These attacks coincide with a Press Statement issued on July 30, 2010, by the RPF ‘publicity secretary’, T. Leisemba, reiterating that RPF had earlier asked non-Manipuris to leave Manipur before May 31, 2010, ‘for their own safety and welfare’; but the deadline had passed. The statement further declared that the RPF could no longer be held responsible for any untoward actions taken up against the non-Manipuris, and actions would also be initiated against those who were found giving shelter to the non-Manipuris.

The ethnocentric radicalisation of the Meitei identity has secured traction along the multiple faultlines in the State that have entrenched the myriad violent sub-national movements in Manipur. The steady xenophobic excesses in this theatre are just another index of the failure of counter-insurgency strategies, and the callous complacency, indeed, complicity, of politics in the State.


NEWS BRIEFS

Weekly Fatalities: Major Conflicts in South Asia
August 23-29, 2010

 

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

BANGLADESH

 

Left Wing Extremism

1
0
1
2

INDIA

 

Assam

0
0
4
4

Jammu and Kashmir

3
0
6
9

Manipur

1
0
1
2

Nagaland

0
0
2
2

Left-wing Extremism

 

Bihar

1
6
0
7

Chhattisgarh

0
5
1
6

Jharkhand

1
0
3
4

Orissa

4
0
0
4

West Bengal

5
0
6
11

Total (INDIA)

15
11
23
49

PAKISTAN

 

Balochistan

5
0
0
5

FATA

46
5
30
81

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

4
0
2
6

Sindh

1
1
0
2

Total (PAKISTAN)

56
6
32
94
Provisional data compiled from English language media sources.


INDIA

ISI trying to revive Punjab militancy, warns Intelligence Bureau: The Intelligence Bureau on August 25 warned that "inimical agencies" operating from "international bases" were trying to revive militancy in Punjab by forging an alliance between Khalistani outfits and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Times of India, August 27, 2010.

Maoist threat looms over Delhi and NCR towns, say security agencies: According to security agencies, the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) is planning to strike in a big way in Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR) towns to take revenge over the arrest of Maoist politburo member Kobad Ghandy (September 21, 2009) and the killing of another politburo member Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad (July 2, 2010). Hindustan Times, August 27, 2010.

Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram warns against ‘saffron terror’: While inaugurating a three-day conference of Directors-General and Inspectors-General of Police in New Delhi on August 25 Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram cautioned the Chiefs of State Police and security and intelligence officials against continuing attempts to infiltrate militants into the country as well as the phenomenon of ‘saffron terrorism’. The Hindu, August 26, 2010.

No credible response yet from Maoists on talks, says Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram: In the first formal response after Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) leader Koteswar Rao alias Kishan's recent three-month cease-fire offer to the Centre, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on August 25 rejected any move which lacked commitment on the ground and said the Government had so far not received any "credible response" to its talks offer to the Naxals [Left Wing Extremists] who had to first "abjure violence". Times of India, August 26, 2010.

HNLC against peace talks in Meghalaya: The Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) changed its earlier pro-talk stance stating that it had no "agenda" to have peace talks with the Government. Shillong Times, August 28, 2010.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for non-lethal crowd control measures in Jammu and Kashmir: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on August 26 called for revisiting standard operating procedures and crowd control measures to deal with public agitations with "non-lethal, yet effective and more focussed measures" in Jammu and Kashmir. The Hindu, August 27, 2010.

2010 witnesses dramatic decline in number of incidents and casualties in Northeast, says Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram: Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on August 25 said that while the year 2009 was a distinct improvement on the year 2008, it is in the 2010 that we have seen a dramatic decline in the number of incidents and in the number of casualties in the Northeast. Assam Tribune, August 26, 2010.


NEPAL

UCPN-M presents divided opinions in the CC meeting: The Central Committee (CC) meeting of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M) which was held on August 25 in Kathmandu witnessed a division among the leadership opinions. According to sources, the vice-chairmen of UCPN-M, Baburam Bhattarai and Mohan Baidya, presented a "counter report" against the political document presented by Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda. Kantipur Online, August 26, 2010.

CPN-UML high-level team to negotiate consensus proposal: The Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) on August 24 formed a high-level team to hold dialogue with the other parties in a bid to build national consensus and break the political crisis that has intensified in the wake of the standoff in Prime Ministerial Elections. Himalayan Times, August 25, 2010.

Fifth round of Prime Ministerial elections end inconclusively: The fifth round of Prime Ministerial (PM) elections ended inconclusively on August 23 after both the candidates - Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda and Nepali Congress (NC) Parliamentary Party leader Ram Chandra Poudel - failed to secure a majority. Kantipur Online, August 25, 2010.


PAKISTAN

46 civilians and 30 militants among 81 persons killed during the week in FATA: Asian Tigers or Punjabi Taliban ‘chief’ Usman Punjabi and five of his cadres were killed in a shootout between two factions of the outfit in the Dandy Darpakhel area of North Waziristan Agency in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on August 29.

A United Sates (US) drone strike on August 27 killed four militants in the Shahidano village of Kurram Agency along Afghan-Pakistan border. "All those killed militants belong to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)," a security official said.

26 persons, including a former member of the National Assembly (NA), were killed and 40 others injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque in the Wana town of South Waziristan at 3pm (PST) on August 23. In addition, missiles fired from a US drone killed 13 militants and seven civilians in the Dandey Darpa Khel area, about five kilometres from Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan Agency on August 23. Also, a bomb blast at a meeting of tribal elders on August 23 killed seven persons and injured another seven in Khumas village, about 10 kilometres east of Parachinar, in Kurram Agency.

Three militants were killed and as many injured when SFs repulsed an attack on a check post in the Safi tehsil (revenue unit) of Mohmand Agency. Dawn; Daily Times; The News, August 24-30, 2010.

10 politicians on terrorists’ hit list, says report: The Ministry of Interior on August 25 issued an alert for 10 politicians that they were on terrorists’ hit list. The terrorists’ targets included Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Member of National Assembly (MNA) Ahsan Iqbal and Khurram Dastagir, Minister of State for Communications Imtiaz Safdar Warraich, Defence Minister Ahmad Mukthrar and a Member of Provincial Assembly from Punjab. Dawn, August 26, 2010.

TTP threatens to attack foreign aid workers: The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on August 26 threatened to launch attacks against foreigners helping in the flood relief efforts, saying their presence was "unacceptable". Meanwhile, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen said on August 28 that TTP must be taken seriously. Daily Times, August 27-29, 2010.

Terrorists will try to exploit flood crisis, says President Asif Ali Zardari: President Asif Ali Zardari on August 24 warned that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) could take advantage of the country’s floods crisis while defending the Government’s handling of the catastrophe. Daily Times, August 25, 2010.

Terrorists exploiting floods, says US official: The United States (US) has seen evidence that Pakistani terrorists and the charities affiliated with them are deepening their involvement in flood-relief effort in a bid to win popular support, an unnamed senior US official said on August 27. Daily Times, August 28, 2010.

Al Qaeda shifting base to Pakistan’s urban areas, indicates report: A report on August 24 said that al Qaeda is gradually shifting its base from the unsafe and spy-infested tribal belt of Pakistan – which is under the radars of virtually all intelligence agencies – to more secure, urban areas of the country, which according to a Western diplomat, are "immune to drones". Daily Times, August 25, 2010.

National Security Adviser of Afghanistan Rangin Dadfar Spanta calls for sanctions against Pakistan: The National Security Adviser of Afghanistan Rangin Dadfar Spanta urged the United States to sanction Pakistan and refuse visas to Pakistani Generals. Dawn, August 27, 2010.

US asks Pakistan to take decisive action against terrorists, says State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley: US asked Pakistan to take "decisive action" against extremism within its territory, even as it expressed satisfaction over the progress made so far, State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley said on August 24. Indian Express, August 25, 2010.

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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