EFL
There are dramatic signs of shifting strategies in the covert war in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), as Pakistan reorients its position to take advantage of the rising sentiment in favour of peace, even as it seeks to sustain terrorism on Indian soil. The Muttahida Jehad Council (MJC), which was shifted from Islamabad to Muzzafarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) in order to assert the pretence of its 'autonomy', has been reorganized; component terrorist groups have been instructed by the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to drop the expressions jehad, lashkar, jaish or mujahiddeen in their names in order to project a 'secular political' rather than Islamist image. As a result, three new 'alliances' have emerged: the Kashmir Resistance Forum (KRF); the Kashmir Freedom Forum (KFF); and the Hizbul-Mujahideen (HM). Simultaneously, cries of 'human rights violations' by the Indian security forces, and orchestrated protests against these, are sweeping across Kashmir, even as terrorist groups escalate violence. The most significant of recent terrorist operations was, of course, the grenade attack on Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's political rally at Beerwah in Budgam district on February 27, 2004.
Nevertheless, the pressure on terrorist formations in the State is enormous, and rising. Overt support from Pakistan - including artillery cover that was routinely provided to infiltrating groups - has diminished, as the Pervez Musharraf regime comes under mounting international - particularly US - pressure for a wide range of transgressions, including its support to international terrorism and Pakistan's role in the proliferation of nuclear technologies to rogue states, including Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Counter-terrorist operations by Indian security forces have also been enormously successful over the past months, and, apart from a continuous stream of arrests and killings of terrorist cadres, most major formations operating in J&K have lost frontline leaders over the past months. Since May last year, after Prime Minister Vajpayee's 'offer of friendship' to Pakistan in April 2003, at least 27 frontline terrorist leaders in J&K have been killed, including, in the current year itself, Abdul Majid Wani, 'divisional commander' of the HM (February 24, 2004); Ishfaq Ahmad Rehmani, 'district commander' of the Al Badr Mujahideeen (February 21, 2004); Ehsaan Elahi, 'district commander' of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT, February 20, 2004); Rafeeq Ahmed Dar 'chief commander operations', Al Omar Mujahideeen (February 6, 2004); Ghulam Rasool Dar, 'chief commander operations', HM (January 16, 2004); Abbas Malik, 'district commander', Doda, HM (January 15, 2004); and Javed Ahmad, 'operational commander', LeT (January 13, 2004).
| Wonder if the Paks are fingering them? Wouldn't surprise me, though it probably surprises them to realize they're expendable. |
The steady losses inflicted on the terrorist leadership have enormously affected operational capacities, and also brought pressure on 'overground' organisations, including factions of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) as well as a number of 'human rights' fronts to orchestrate systematic political campaigns, agitations, and judicial actions to blunt security force operations. This has been a consistent strategy of terrorist groups across India - and not only in J&K - particularly in periods of terrorist reverses and of 'political negotiations' for the 'settlement' of conflicts. The modus operandi is particularly visible in what are being referred to as the 'Bandipore atrocities' involving two separate incidents in which six civilians were killed.
These are familiar stories. In the end 1980s and early 1990s, battered by sustained counter-terrorism operations, and with increasing political interference as a result of a number of terrorist sympathisers and former terrorists finding a place in the country's democratic processes due to the Centre's efforts to find a 'political solution' to the Khalistani terrorist movement in the Punjab, precisely the same pattern had been massively employed. Any assessment of current trends in the State, including the shifting pronouncement of the Hurriyat factions, must factor in the reality that these protests and agitations are part of a coordinated campaign to obstruct security forces from carrying out legitimate counter-terrorism operations, and to further the terrorist agenda by means that exploit the institutions and freedoms of democracy. Any aberrations and highhandedness by security forces, must not, of course, go unpunished. However, while allegations of human rights abuses must be taken seriously and investigated at the highest level, there is urgent need to understand, equally, the dynamic in which 'human rights' claims become an integral element of the negotiating strategy of the front organisations of terrorist groups and sympathetic political formations, as well as of the state sponsors of such terrorist groups and front organisations. |