SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 10, No. 4, August 1, 2011

PAKISTAN

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Kurram: Operation Eyewash
Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

Koh-i-Sufaid (White Mountain), the Pakistan Army’s first major counter-terrorism operation since the May 2, 2011, killing of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, was launched at midnight, July 2-3, 2011. Over 4,000 troops were deployed for a full-fledged air and ground offensive, purportedly to secure the heights and plains of the Central Kurram Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). By July 5, 2011, Brigadier Basharat Ahmed, Sector Commander, Central Kurram Agency, disclosed, some 40 militants had been killed and several areas were ‘cleared’ of militants, including Manato, Dombeki, Gawaki and Sungroba. The forces, Basharat claimed, ‘continued to advance’. On July 25, 2011, Major General Athar Abbas, Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), added that Operation Koh-e-Sufaid was “continuing successfully”. He said the Army was trying to flush out the militants from the Agency, and that tribal lashkars (militia) were lending their support to Security Forces (SFs).

According to the partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal, at least 133 ‘militants’ [no independent verification of this categorization is possible, as media access to areas of conflict is severely restricted], nine SF personnel and four lashkar members had been killed till July 31, 2011.

The strategically located Kurram Agency, which projects into Afghanistan on three sides, has always been of critical importance for Pakistan. It shares the major portion of its borders with the troubled Logar, Paktia, Khost and Nangarhar Provinces of Afghanistan. The al Qaeda and Taliban infested Tora Bora Mountain range in the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan shares its boundaries with the Kurram Agency. In the north-east, it borders with the Khyber Agency; Orakzai Agency lies to the east; the Hangu District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) lies south-east, and the North Waziristan Agency lies south. The Kurram Agency connects the tribal areas of Pakistan to Afghanistan through lower, central and upper Kurram. Crucially, the Thal-Parachinar route is the shortest route to Kabul.

Escalating sectarian violence and growing terrorist activities have devastated the region since 2007, though sectarian violence is nothing new to the Kurram Agency, which is the only tribal Agency with a significant Shia population. Kurram comprises three sub-divisions: Upper, Central and Lower Kurram. Some 58 per cent of its population is Sunni, and 42 per cent Shia (according to the 1998 Census). The majority of the Shias live in Upper Kurram, while Sunnis dominate Lower and Central Kurram. The present cycle of escalation started when three people were killed and 13 were injured, in and attack on a Shia Imambargah (Shia place of worship) in the morning of April 6, 2007. The Thal-Parachinar Road, the only artery linking Kurram with other parts of the country, has remained closed to normal traffic since November 2007, when clashes broke out in the area. Three years of sectarian fighting has left over 2,000 dead and at least 3,500 injured.

A truce was declared between Sunni and Shia tribes on February 3, 2011, to end bloodshed between the two sects. A grand jirga (tribal council) composed of tribal elders and parliamentarians from the FATA announced a peace accord. Headed by Malik Waris Khan Afridi, a former Federal Minister from the Khyber Agency, the 225-member tribal jirga took two years to arrange a negotiated settlement. Member of National Assembly (MNA) Sajid Turi from NA-37 (Tribal Area III) and MNA Munir Khan Orakzai from NA-38 (Tribal Area III) constituencies in Kurram Agency played leading roles to bring the two sides to the negotiation table. Federal Minister of the Interior Rehman Malik attended the News Conference announcing the accord, to demonstrate the Government’s support for this ‘historic’ event.

The truce did not last long. On March 25, 2011, at least 13 passengers were killed and eight injured, while another 33 were abducted by suspected Sunni militants in an attack on a convoy of Shia passenger vehicles in the Kurram Agency. The Thal-Parachinar route was shut down again after March 25. The issue of the forced closure of the Thal-Parachinar road in the Kurram Agency was raised in the National Assembly on April 13, 2011. Sajid Turi, the Shia legislator from Kurram Agency, demanded that the Government take action against the militant groups responsible for the attacks on this route. A military operation had appeared imminent for some time.

On May 19, 2011, Lieutenant-General Asif Yaseen Malik, XI Corps Commander, while addressing a jirga on Parachinar, disclosed that a strategy was being chalked out to empty the area of ‘trouble-makers’. “Result-oriented action will be taken very soon,” he declared. The tribal elders assured the military officials of full support for restoration of peace, and demanded that paramilitary forces be replaced with the Army in the area.

The offensive came days after senior Tehreek--e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) ‘commander’ and its Kurram chapter ‘chief’ Fazal Saeed Haqqani deserted the group on June 27, 2011. He claimed that he had broken with the TTP, and would form his own anti-American group Tehreek-e-Taliban Islami (TTI). Hours after reports of the split emerged, unidentified assailants in a car opened fire at Shakirullah Shakir, a senior ‘commander’ and ‘spokesman’ for the Fidayeen-e-Islam faction of the TTP. It is believed that Fazal Haqqani’s defection was a calculated move by the Government and SFs to engineer a split in the TTP before the start of operation.

Despite the ongoing operation, on July 16, 2011, unidentified militants ambushed a bus carrying Sunni Muslims and killed all 10 passengers near Parachinar town. In retaliation, unidentified assailants attacked a convoy of trucks, abducted 10 Shia persons and set ablaze six vehicles near Charkhel village on the Thal-Parachinar road.

These incidents raise crucial questions about the proclaimed ‘success’ of Operation Koh-i-Sufaid. Further, doubts have also been raised regarding the timing and the motive of the military Operation. Specifically, there have been sustained reports regarding a powerful extremist consolidation in the neighbouring North Waziristan Agency. If Islamabad was serious about fighting terror, it would have been expected that this would be the first target of an urgent military operation. Sources indicated that the Operations in the Kurram Agency are, in fact, intended to prepare a safe-haven for militants, especially of the Jalaluddin Haqqani Network, who would need such a refuge when operations are launched in NWA. Indeed, the Shiite News Monitoring desk has described Operation Koh-i-Sufaid as “a State sponsored drama to secure the Taliban terrorists of Waziristan and Orakzai agency as they were facing the US drones attack on their hideouts”.

The Haqqani Network has used the Kurram Agency area as a transit point to launch attacks against NATO Forces across the border in Afghanistan. The Haqqani Network was also involved, with implicit support from Islamabad, in the Kurram Peace Accord of February 3, 2011. The Network’s intervention in the Kurram peace process, in fact, dates back to 2007. Moreover, the Network’s presence in the Kurram Agency was demonstrated by US drone strikes on June 20, 2011, in which 12 militants, nine of them from the Haqqani network, were killed in a compound in the Khardand area. Khardand is a stronghold of the TTP Kurram Agency ‘chief’ Fazal Saeed Haqqani, who has a close association with the Jalaluddin Haqqani network. Indeed, the disassociation of Fazal Saeed Haqqani from the TTP on June 27, just before the start of Operation Koh-i-Sufaid has been interpreted as an effort to shield its ally, the Jalaluddin Haqqani Network. Significantly, there is no report of any cadre of the Jalaluddin Haqqani Network being killed or captured by the Pakistan Army in Operation Koh-i-Sufaid.

There are already allegations that representatives of the United Nations and other international organizations have been barred from visiting the internally displaced persons (IDPs) camp in Upper Kurram, because it has become the safe haven of militants. Significantly, by July 26, 2011, the number of IDPs exodus from Kurram Agency had reached 100,000, according to Sahibzada Anis, the District coordination officer for Peshawar.

There is much to suggest that military operations in the Kurram Agency are part of Pakistan’s ongoing and duplicitous campaigns against a small minority of sectarian and anti-Islamabad terrorist formations, even as the state seeks to protect and provide spaces to other groupings that are seen to be instrumental in securing Pakistan’s supposed strategic interests. Indeed, voices of dissent are now rising in the Kurram Agency, questioning the motives and purpose of Operation Koh-e-Sufaid and concern over the increasing displacement of civilian populations is mounting. The ‘success’ of the operation has also been called into question as a result of continuing terrorist and sectarian attacks in the Agency, as well as the continuing disruption of normal life and the principal transportation routes in the region.

INDIA	BANGLADESH

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HuJI-B: Potent Threat
Sanchita Bhattacharya
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

The July 13, 2011 Mumbai blasts (13/7) which killed 26 people has once again brought the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B) into the radar of a frantic international security search. Indian agencies believe that the suspected mastermind of the blasts, Abdullah Khan of the Indian Mujahideen (IM), was hiding in Bangladesh, under protection of HuJI-B. Khan’s movements had been tracked over the past months by the National Investigation Agency, and he was known to have been operating the IM module which was assigned to maintain liaison with the HuJI-B. His module was known to have recruited some new jihadists in what may have been a joint venture with the HuJI-B. Another key link between the HuJI-B and IM was identified as Jalaluddin Mullah alias Babu Bhai, a resident of South-24 Parganas District of the Indian State of West Bengal, currently lodged in a prison in Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh (India), who has also been questioned by 13/7 investigators.

A July 12, 2011, media report had noted that a dossier prepared by the Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) indicated an increase in HuJI activities in the recent past, after a significant decline since 2008. There had been a spurt in recruitment, with at least 150 youths from West Bengal going ‘missing’. Investigations suggest that these youths were picked up by HuJI-B cadres and recruiters and were presently being trained to launch operations against India. These recruits are meant to set up sleeper cells, with each of the recruits offered INR 10,000 per month. This intelligence was developed principally on communications intercepts by the IB, and which also indicated that these sleeper cells would first be set up in North India, and later would expand into the South.

Against this backdrop, Indian Minister of External Affairs, S. M. Krishna’s statement, on July 9, 2011, asserting that it was imperative for India and Bangladesh to combat terror together, gains particular significance. Krishna declared, “We face new challenges and non-traditional security threats. The rise of religious fundamentalism, extremism and terrorism are not unfamiliar to our region. Such forces sap away the strength of our societies, threaten our state systems and are an impediment to our advancement.” Though Krishna did not name specific terrorist organisation, HuJI-B is certainly a concern for both the Indian and Bangladeshi security establishment.

Amidst these rising concerns, a Bangladesh Court, on July 3, 2011, issued arrest warrants against, Tarique Rahman (46), the fugitive eldest son of former Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and the Senior Vice President of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and 17 others, over the August 21, 2004, grenade attack on an Awami League (AL) rally that killed 24 people and injured another 300, including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) formally charged Rahman and 29 others for the attack after an "extended investigation" into the case. The Special Superintendent, CID, Abdul Kahhar Akhand, disclosed that their re-investigations indicated that operatives of HuJI-B had carried out the attack, backed by former State Minister for Home Lutfuzzaman Babar, Khaleda Zia's Political Secretary Harish Chowdhury, former minister and Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) leader Ali Ahsan Mujaheed, and incumbent BNP lawmaker, the fugitive Mofazzal Hossain Kaikobad.

Accordingly, the charge-sheet included names of HuJI-B leaders and operatives – Maulana Sheikh Abdus Salam, who later floated a new outfit, the Islamic Democratic Party (IDP); Maulana Abdul Malek; Maulana Shawkat Osman alias Sheikh Farid; Mufti Shafiqur Rahman; Ratul Babu; and Indian national Abdul Majed Bhat associated with Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).

The exposure of these linkages between HuJI-B and other terror based Islamist factions with the BNP have created a new dynamic in Bangladesh politics of, particularly at a time of present crisis for radical Islamist forces in the country. The ongoing War Crime trials have put these forces under tremendous pressure, in turn provoking a concerted bid on their part to enlarge their own spaces for maneuver.

HuJI-B has been implicated in a number of terrorist attacks in Bangladesh and abroad, particularly India, and had been named among 12 militant outfits in a report by the Awami League (AL) Government placed before Parliament on March 16, 2009. HuJI-B cadres had gone deep underground after this report, and none of its senior cadres have been killed since then, though at least 39 members of the outfit have been arrested. Prominent among these arrests are:

May 25, 2011: Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested two HuJI-B militants, identified as Mohammad Abdus Salam (39), 'secretary' of the Sylhet District unit and Mohammad Ashraful Islam (30), 'secretary' of the Ishwardi sub-district unit of Pabna District, from Savar sub-district in Dhaka District.

April 26, 2011: RAB arrested acting chief of HuJI-B, Rahmatullah alias Sheikh Farid alias Shawkat Osman (47), from the Tongi Railway Station area of Gazipur District.

April 25, 2011: RAB arrested two HuJI-B militants, including its acting ‘Chief’ Abdul Hannan Sabbir and Ainul Haq, the recruitment and secret training coordinator, from a hideout at Keraniganj in Dhaka District.

April 15, 2010: The Detective Branch of the Police arrested the alleged UK unit ‘chief’ of HuJI-B, Golam Mostofa (55), from Osmaninagar in Sylhet District.

November 2, 2009: Police arrested Moulana Sheikh Abdus Salam, founder of the HuJI-B, for suspected links with the August 21, 2004, grenade attack on an AL rally.

These arrests have had significant impact on the organization, and there have been no attacks recorded by HuJI-B in Bangladesh since April 2009. At least 65 civilians had been killed by the outfit between March 11, 2000, and March 15, 2009. No act of violence involving the group has since been recorded within the country.

In neighboring India, however, HuJI-B continues to pose a significant threat. Apart from its suspected involvement in the 13/7 attacks, the outfit is also believed to have been behind the February 13, 2010, Pune (Maharashtra) blast, in which 17 persons were killed – the first major attack in the Indian heartland since the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.  Significantly, two days after the blast, Ilyas Kashmiri’s 313 Brigade, which controls HuJI-B, claimed responsibility for the attack. Subsequently, on July 9, 2010, intelligence agencies issued an alert about the possible penetration of 31 operatives of Bangladesh-based outfits — HuJI-B and JeI — into India, with the intention of carrying out terror strikes. Prior to the 26/11 attacks, HuJI-B had been involved in a large number of joint and independent strikes, including at least one suicide bombing, in India.

Nevertheless, the surviving leadership at large still possesses the capacity to create trouble. HuJI-B was angered following the arrest of its top leaders, including Sheikh Farid. Intelligence sources indicate that Maulana Yeahia has now taken charge of the outfit. Yeahia received training in Pakistan in 1998 and, on his return to Bangladesh, joined HuJI-B. He is known to have been involved in the fighting in Afghanistan. Despite the increasing pressure on the organization, finances do not present any significant problem. The arrested HuJI-B leader Rahmatullah alias Sheikh Farid alias Shawkat Osman, disclosed, on April 26, 2011, that the organization received financial aid from some 3,000-4,000 associates working in different countries of the Middle East.

Bangladesh has taken firm steps to quell violent Islamist extremist groupings operating on and from its soil, but it is clear that these groups have not abandoned their ideology or their objectives, and that they retain significant capacities, though pressure by intelligence and enforcement agencies has pushed them underground. Recent evidence, however, indicates some increased activity, including joint efforts with other Islamist formations such as IM, to expand capacities. The network of supporting establishments in Bangladesh, including a large number of sympathetic mosques and madrassas, as well as training establishments, has not been dismantled. Some of the Government’s recent measures, including the introduction of the 15^th Amendment Bill of the Constitution on June 30,2011, which gives Islam the status of the ‘State Religion’, may well expand the spaces for radical Islamist politics in the country, legitimizing extremist formations and radical political parties such as the JeI. These are the very forces that have repeatedly jeopardized stability and development in Bangladesh in the past, and the state will have to remain extraordinarily vigilant if they are not to return to prominence in the proximate future.

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

INDIA

Jammu & Kashmir

Maharastra

Manipur

Left-wing Extremism

Bihar

Chhattisgarh

Odisha

Total (INDIA)

PAKISTAN

Balochistan

FATA

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Sindh

Total (PAKISTAN)