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Former
rebels new Nepal envoys
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Nepal
has appointed four former Maoist rebels
as ambassadors to France, Denmark, Australia
and Malaysia, the country's cabinet said
Thursday. The new appointees are already
serving in parliament and the cabinet. The
Maoists ended a bloody civil war late last
year in a peace deal and have entered government.
Krishna Bahadur Mahara, a government spokesman
and Maoist minister of communication, confirmed
the nominations to AFP. Nepal's diplomatic
missions have lacked ambassadors since last
April, when massive protests forced King
Gyanendra to end a 14-month period of direct
rule. A new interim government, led by Prime
Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, then recalled
envoys appointed by the king. Nepal's Maoists
launched a so-called "people's war" in 1996.
Courtesy:
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C08%5C31%5Cstory_31-8-2007_pg4_14,
August 31, 2007
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Terror's
new face Babu Bhai sits in UP jail, joins
dots from Dhaka to Hyderabad via Delhi
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Shahid
Bilal, prime accused in Saturday's blasts,
worked with this man who claims he delivered
RDX nationwide, even dropped 20 kg of it
in Delhi weeks before the Sarojini Nagar
blasts; for 3 months, security agencies
have been sitting on this startling confession
of Indian national Babu Bhai linked to Bangladesh's
Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami. Now Andhra police
are waking up
Forty
eight hours after the twin blasts in Hyderabad,
investigators are looking at questioning
a 40-year-old born in a village in West
Bengal, who is now sitting in a Lucknow
jail. Going by his startling interrogation
statement after he was arrested this June
by the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force
(STF), a copy of which has been obtained
by The Indian Express, Jalaluddin Mullah,
alias Babu Bhai, has admitted to being a
key piece in a jigsaw of terror that stretches
from Bangladesh to Pakistan, goes via terror
camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, touches
New Delhi, Mumbai, Varanasi, Bijnore and
Unnao in UP and now even Hyderabad. Not
only has Babu Bhai confessed to making several
deliveries of explosives, including RDX,
across the country since 2004, he has claimed,
according to his interrogation, of having
delivered 20 kg of RDX to an operative in
New Delhi barely weeks before the Sarojini
Nagar blasts that killed 59 people. A key
member of the Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami
(HUJI), Babu Bhai's claims have so far been
gathering dust but now are the subject of
renewed investigation. Top Andhra police
officials have confirmed to The Indian Express
that a police team is expected to land in
Lucknow this week to take Babu Bhai into
custody. If the police want him to help
them join the dots, they could start with
his 17-page statement itself. For, the fact
is that both Babu Bhai and Shahid Bilal,
the prime accused in Hyderabad's twin blasts,
were working for Munir-ul-Islam alias Assadullah,
a HUJI commander in Dhaka and who runs a
madrasa there. Significantly, Assadullah's
name also figures in the interrogation of
Waliullah, a Phoolpur cleric with HUJI linkages,
one of the main accused in the March 2006
Sankatmochan blasts in Varanasi. Says Ajit
Doval, former Director, Intelligence Bureau:
"The assault from the east and entrenchment
in the hinterland are two disturbing trends
on the terrorist front. What is lesser known
and more serious is HUJI's intimate and
old Al-Qaeda linkages. Now that Al Qaeda
the world over is in the business of outsourcing
terror through franchise, this organisation
should figure high on the security radar."
Consider the following revelations Babu
Bhai made about his "deliveries" of explosives
and training of terrorists: l40 kg of RDX
in Varanasi in early 2004: He carried this
on board Jammu Tawi Express from Howrah
to Varanasi and gave it to one "Raju" the
next day outside the station. STF verified
his claim that he stayed in the name of
Amanullah Mandal (name on his fake driving
licence) in Hotel Sagar at Gowdhulia chowk.
Investigators
now believe that this RDX may have been
used in the February 2005 blasts at Dashashwamegha
Ghat, which killed nine people.
o
40 kg of RDX in Mumbai in June-July 2004:
Babu Bhai claims he delivered this to one
"Ravi" outside the Victoria Terminus station.
Although Babu Bhai has described "Ravi",
he is untraced. Agencies are not clear whether
this explosive was used in Mumbai train
blasts of 2006.
o
20 kg of explosives in Delhi in August-September
2005, weeks before the Sarojini Nagar blasts:
The timing is critical as this was weeks
before October 29, 2005 blasts in Delhi.
Babu Bhai's report says that 10 days before
the beginning of Ramzaan (August-September
2005) he delivered 20 kg of RDX to one "Guru
alias Rocky" outside Jama Masjid Gate No
1. He adds he stayed with his friend Qadir
in Turkman gate for two days before returning
to Kolkata.
o
He sent at least 23 youths, from Bijnore,
Unnao and 24 Parganas in West Bengal, for
arms and explosive training to Pakistan
via Bangladesh.
Babu
Bhai claims he received weapons and explosive
training in Kotli in PoK in April-May 2001
along with jihadis from Malaysia, Thailand,
South Africa and Pakistan. His interrogation
report reveals that Babu Bhai was inducted
into terror by Asif Raza Khan, the main
accused in Partho Burman kidnapping case
in Kolkata and later killed by Gujarat police
in 2001. Before the UP STF picked him, Babu
Bhai was being handled by his younger brother
Amir Raza Khan, who is now in Pakistan;
Qamar, a Bihari settled in Dhaka's Mirpur
Colony, and the younger brother of a Bangladesh
minister by the name of Miraj. What this
shows, experts say, is a new network of
terror where the brains trust may have links
across the border, in Pakistan and Bangaldesh,
but where locals are increasingly being
used to plan, plot and conduct the strikes.
Courtesy:
Courtesy: www.indianexpress.com/story/213080.html+ajit+doval+indian+express&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=in,
August 28, 2007
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Naxals-LTTE
nexus is growing in Tamil Nadu
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The
Naxalite presence in Tamil Nadu has been
discovered with a training camp conducted
by former People's War Group Naxals in the
Periyakulum forests, Theni district, on
June 25. Three persons were arrested by
the police from the site while the hunt
for seven other Naxals continues. Traditionally,
the Naxalite presence has been confined
to Dharmapuri, Vellore, and the northern
districts of Tamil Nadu bordering Andhra
Pradesh. This is for the first time that
it has been noticed in the southern districts
like Theni, Tirunelveli, Thuthookudi and
Ramanathapuram. Significantly, these districts
are also believed to have strong sympathy
for the LTTE, which has led security agencies
to suspect a renewed nexus between the Naxals
and the LTTE. Although no links have been
found yet, it is time to speculate on the
possibility of an alliance between them,
overt or covert, in the near future, and
its resultant security implications. A cursory
look at the history of both these groups
in the state is illuminating. Links between
them can be traced to the formation of the
Tamil Nadu Communist Party- Marxist-Leninist
in 1984-85, which had advocated a separate
Tamil Nadu. Its military wing, the Tamil
Nadu Liberation Army (TNLA), allegedly had
close ties with the LTTE and indulged in
several minor bomb blasts and looting of
weapons till the mid-1990s, when some of
its leaders were killed.
The
resultant leadership crisis coupled with
massive police crackdown, following the
proscription of TNLA under POTA on July
2, 2002, led to the arrest of many members
that weakened the group. The Tamil Nadu
police managed thereby to contain the spread
of Naxalism, bar stray incidents. A new
context for the revival of their old linkages
might have been provided by some recent
developments. One, the past few months have
witnessed a surge in Naxal violence with
increasing attacks on security personnel
and the use of sophisticated weapons. The
technical capability of the LTTE can be
a compelling factor behind the Naxals choosing
to align with them to intensify their armed
struggle against the state. In particular,
the recent measure by the government to
use aerial surveillance in the forest regions
of Chhattisgarh can inspire the Naxals to
seek training from the only terrorist outfit
that has successfully carried out an aerial
attack against any state. Although the Government
of India recalled the two unmanned aerial
vehicles deployed in Chhattisgarh in August
last year, it delivered a strong warning
to the Naxals of possible aerial attacks
on their camps in the future. The prospect
of Naxals receiving training from the LTTE,
however, threatens to add greater violence
to the operations against left-wing extremism
in India. A second strong motivating factor
for the Naxals could be the increasing use
of child soldiers, as reported from states
like Chhattisgarh and Orissa. Recently,
some 10-12 children were found distributing
leaflets with the Naxals in Kisinda village,
Sambalpur, Orissa. This has led the security
forces to suspect an expansion of their
Bal militia wing. Given that the LTTE is
notorious for its extensive use of child
soldiers as part of their strategy, it is
possible that the Naxals would seek their
training in the mobilization, recruitment
and use child soldiers in their struggle
against the state. The LTTE, for its part,
has equally strong reasons for befriending
the Naxals in India. It has suffered serious
reverses in Sri Lanka over the past few
months culminating in its eviction form
the east. This has caused them great problems
not only because of the loss of resources
and territory but also because of greater
concentration of the Sri Lankan Army in
the north. Hence, the likelihood of the
LTTE infiltrating into India to escape from
the crackdown of the Sri Lankan security
forces is high. In addition, they would
also be looking to set up new training camps
for their cadre. For meeting these objectives,
a Naxal presence in Tamil Nadu would help
them. The security implications of this
possibility must be taken seriously. The
state of Tamil Nadu has its vulnerabilities
like caste politics, Dalit oppression, continuing
strands of Tamil nationalism, a 'soft' government
led by Karunanidhi (as opposed to Jayalalithaa's
hard approach to extremism) and forested
regions. It is crucial therefore for the
state government to remain vigilant to ensure
that none of these vulnerabilities are exploited
by either group.
Courtesy:
http://naxalwatch.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=50,
August 28, 2007
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It's
terror, no use denying it
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It's
difficult to escape the sense of deja vu.
The response to the latest terror outrage
in Hyderabad was followed by the by-now
familiar and stale drill: vows to bring
the culprits to book, levelling, even if
well-founded, charges against Pakistan and
Bangladesh, condolences for victims and
review meetings by the Prime Minister downwards.
People cannot be accused of being cynical
if they dismiss these declarations as hollow
and seem resigned for the next jehadi strike.
For a country that for more than two decades
now has been bled by relentless terror attacks,
India has offered knee-jerk and sporadic
attack-specific responses. In fact, it has
been in a state of denial, first by claiming
that no Indian was messed up with Al Qaida,
and when that proved to be wrong, describing
this vicious campaign of violence as the
handiwork of a "handful of misguided youth".
The response has to change if the bleeding
is to stop. The first corrective will come
by recognising the huge problem. The right
diagnosis is a pre-requisite for cure, and
it ranges from acknowledging that the scourge
is no fabrication by agencies to creating
synergies among agencies, strengthening
policing and by creating the necessary political
will. Just raising elite teams isn't enough
nor is holding out threats to Pakistan sufficient.
The key to the success of an honest counter-terrorism
initiative lies in painstaking and sustained
campaign to strengthen the criminal justice
system and law enforcement machinery. For
all our aspiration to be a superpower, the
harsh fact is that a lethal blend of corruption,
inefficiency and political meddling have
enfeebled our criminal justice administration
and have sapped the police of will and strength
to take on those killing the innocent. Investigation
into the Hyderabad carnage is still on,
but there are pointers that the loss of
life on Saturday could have been averted.
Courtesy:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/specialcoverage/2311390.cms,
August 28, 2007
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India:
Terror axis tilts southwards
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In
the aftermath of Saturday's twin synchronised
blasts in Hyderabad which killed 44 people
and injured several others, top terrorism
experts and intelligence officials assert
that the South is now firmly in the gunsights
of Islamic jihadist groups. Mumbai, the
country's financial nerve-centre, has always
been a "high-value, perennial soft target"
- the latest being last year's serial commuter
train bombings - but the IT hubs of Bangalore
and Hyderabad are now seen as increasingly
attractive targets. The main reason for
this is the possibility of crippling the
country's global IT companies, by weaving
uncertainty and creating an overall climate
of fear, explained security officials. These
sources told DNA that the terror attacks
may not any longer be confined to the IT-savvy
of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, but also
include cities like Chennai and Coimbatore.
Sundeep Waslekar of the Mumbai based think-tank
Strategic Foresight Group - which had contributed
to better diplomatic climate between India
and Pakistan - says that the recent spurt
in terrorist activities centred around the
South follows a policy decision adopted
by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence
Directorate (ISI) some time around 2002
to effectively "export" jihadist activities
outside of Kashmir and across India. "The
ISI had then decided to take terrorism out
of Kashmir and effectively export it to
other major international cities in the
country. That points to and justifies recent
patterns in regard to cities like Hyderabad,
Mumbai and Bangalore as 'handpicked' terror
targets. And we had mentioned the emerging
trend, in our journals, as early as in 2002,"
Waslekar adds. According to top counter-terrorism
expert KPS Gill, who dealt effectively with
terrorism in Punjab, "Terrorist groups of
the Islamist jihadist stripe always seek
to tap on Muslim discontent and so tend
to choose cities having a sizable minority
population." The local "discontent" factor
explains the recent attacks on Hyderabad's
Mecca Masjid and Bangalore's Indian Institute
of Science some time back. "There is a readymade
logistical support infrastructure among
the disaffected population," adds an intelligence
official. This explains why IT hubs like
Hyderabad and Bangalore are being chosen
as targets by groups like the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami
(HuJI), Laskar-e-Tayyaba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad.
"We can't deny that jihadi terrorism is
geared toward hitting at the backbone of
the country's economy. Which makes it also
the more plausible that Mumbai and Hyderabad
had to bear the brunt of back-to-back terrorist
strikes," says Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism
Squad chief KP Raghuvanshi. Intelligence
sources say HuJI has been "consistently"
recruiting terror operatives in Hyderabad
since the mid-90s.
Courtesy:
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/india-terror-axis-tilts-southwards.html,
August 28, 2007
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We're
our own worst terrorists
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As
the front page of the TOI highlighted on
Monday, with the exception of war-riven
Iraq, India has emerged as the world's No.
1 target for terror: in the past few years,
this country has suffered more fatalities
through terrorist attacks than all the Americas,
North, South and Central, and Europe put
together. Part of the reason seems obvious.
Our neighbour and arch-foe Pakistan is the
biggest exporter of terror in the world.
And we're fighting a 'proxy war'with it
in Kashmir. Geography is against us. But
are we also against ourselves? Do we, through
myriad sins of omission and commission,
invite such attacks? It is often said that
India is a 'soft', instead of a 'hard',
state. This means that we, collectively
and individually, are willing or unwilling
accomplices to a flagrant flouting of the
laws of the land. From the street constable
who can be bought for Rs 50 to let an errant
trucker or motorist go free, to a chief
minister who, indicted in a scam, can openly
defy the legal system by saying that he
is answerable only to the 'court of the
people', the Indian state - as exemplified
by its representatives at various levels
- is commonly seen to be up for sale or
otherwise open to subversion from within.
Time and again, our top law enforcement
agencies have been reprimanded by the judiciary
for hopelessly bungling or inexcusably delaying
investigations with regard to crucial criminal
cases, be they terror related or otherwise.
The
inevitable suspicion arises as to whether
the perpetrators of such acts enjoy political
or other patronage which puts them out of
reach of the truncated arm of our law: they
are above or beyond the law. On the other
hand, many thousands of anonymous undertrials
are buried alive in jails for years without
hope of release or redress: they are not
above the law; they are so far beneath it
that the law literally can't see them. Every
now and then the state, in the avatar of
its legal system, finds high-profile scapegoats
(a Sanjay Dutt or Salman Khan who make for
good photo-ops for our law enforcement machinery
but are 'safe'whipping boys in that their
fans won't go on a rampage to secure their
release, as the minions of a political or
communal leader certainly would) to whom
it metes out showcase punishment for relatively
minor misdemeanours and feels it has done
its job. In the meantime, large swathes
of the country have become virtual parallel
states, ruled by so-called Naxals. Violent
mobs can with impunity smash retail outlets
of a corporate major which has dared to
try and enter the retail food and vegetable
business, for long the unchallenged domain
of rapacious middlemen and big farmers.
What is the Indian state doing to prevent
all this? Precious little. It is too busy
ensuring that no one below 25 can have an
alcoholic drink in a bar. It is such tokenism
that has made a mockery of the Indian state,
a state which dithered ineffectively before
caving in submissively to terrorist demands
in the Kandahar hijacking episode by releasing
convicted subversives. Little wonder we're
a soft target for terror. We've drawn an
inviting bullseye around ourselves. Can
we - ought we to - pay the price of becoming
a 'hard'state, like Israel? Or the US after
9/11, where civil liberties have been curtailed
but where terrorist incidents have also
been reduced? A 'hard'state has to learn
to be tough on itself first, in upholding
its own rule of law and being seen to do
so, before it can be tough against terror.
Do we - should we - build the political
and ethical sinews to do this? It's a question
for our collective conscience. And till
we decide, we'll have to learn to live with
terror from outside, and our complicity
with it within.
Courtesy:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/specialcoverage/2311390.cms,
August 28, 2007
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Terror
attacks in Iraq may dominate the headlines,
but there's another, older democracy habitually
targeted by terrorists: India. On Saturday,
two bombs exploded in the southern city
of Hyderabad, killing more than 40 people
and injuring around 50. As with the Madrid
and London terror attacks, the bombs were
set off in public places -- in Hyderabad's
case, an amusement park and a popular restaurant
-- in a bid to inflict the maximum amount
of casualties and incite fear. A number
of children were among those declared dead.
And it could have been worse: Police later
found unexploded bombs as well. Terrorist
tragedies like this are becoming depressingly
familiar in India. Saturday's attacks follow
a bombing at a Hyderabad mosque in May that
killed 11 people. Last September, two bombs
at Malegaon claimed 30 lives. And last July's
Mumbai train bombings took the lives of
187. The motivations behind these bombings
are unclear, in part because India faces
a multiplicity of domestic and international
terror threats. Abroad, Indian authorities
have fingered Pakistani and Bangladeshi
groups. At home, the Naxalite rebellion
is responsible for a wide swathe of violence
across the country's poorer states. India's
security forces haven't been as swift as
their American and British counterparts
in retooling their operations to fight a
more agile foe. Most new military spending,
for instance, still goes to fight Cold War-era
threats. No one has been arrested for May's
mosque bombing, and there's fear that the
perpetrators of Saturday's attack may go
unpunished, too. Fortunately, terrorists
cannot easily sow discord in India, where
democracy and tolerance are deeply rooted.
Saturday's bombings provoked horror across
the country, not religious or race riots.
The more frequent the bombings, however,
the less patient the public will become.
Here's hoping that Delhi learns the right
lessons from Saturday's tragedy.
Courtesy:
http://naxalwatch.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=50,
August 27, 2007
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India
loses maximum lives to terror except Iraq
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The
US and UK may like to believe that they
are leading the war on terror globally,
but the country that has had to face the
worst of terrorist attacks on its own soil,
barring war-torn Iraq, is India. In fact,
India has since 2004 lost more lives to
terrorist incidents than all of North America,
South America, Central America, Europe and
Eurasia put together. All of these vast
swathes of the globe lost a total of 3,280
lives in terrorist incidents between January
2004 and March this year. India alone lost
3,674 lives over the same period of three
years and three months. In yesterday's edition
of TOI, in our front page lead report on
the Hyderabad blasts, we had said that terror
groups have left India with perhaps the
highest number of civilian victims of terror
(apart from war-torn countries like Iraq).
Later, on Sunday, when we looked in detail
at the worldwide numbers, we found India
not only had the highest number of deaths
after Iraq, but also the highest number
of terror-related incidents and injured
among all countries (again, barring Iraq)
- more than all the war zones around the
globe. India has been hit by terrorists
at will and with chilling regularity - Mumbai,
Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Malegaon, Varanasi,
J&K - the list is endless. It's only on
one count - hostages taken by terror groups
- that India's at No 3, to Iraq's No 2.
Guess which country was No 1? Nepal, that
too by a huge margin, thanks to large-scale
kidnappings by Maoists. Indeed, if one had
to pick a terrorist hotspot on the globe
it would have to be South Asia. Outside
of Iraq, 20,781 people were killed in terrorist
violence between January 2004 and March
2007, according to data available from the
Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS)
of the US National Counter-Terrorism Centre
(NCTC). Almost half of them, 9,283 to be
precise, were killed in South Asia. Besides
India, Afghanistan has seen 2,405 lives
being lost while more than 1,000 each have
been killed in Pakistan and Nepal. Sri Lanka
has had 866 terrorism-related deaths and
Bangladesh 158. Bhutan and the Maldives
are the only South Asian nations not to
have lost lives to terror in this period.
Courtesy:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/specialcoverage/2311390.cms,
August 27, 2007
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Hitting
Hyderabad gives mileage to jehadis'
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In
January 2005, there was considerable consternation
in old quarters of Hyderabad. A section
of people living there were agitated because
the king of Saudi Arabia was coming to Delhi
but not visiting Hyderabad. Their agitation
was covered extensively by the Urdu press
and the aggrieved ones were bitter that
in the good old days, when oil had not been
struck in Arabia, it was the Nizam who used
to be the benefactor of Saudi kings. "The
rest of the city found this behaviour strange.
But modernity and economic development have
bypassed these sections. They hark back
to the past in search of the golden era
when the Nizam's was the biggest Muslim
kingdom in the world," says an analyst who
would rather not be named. In these circumstances,
Pakistan's ISI and the Harkat-Ul-Jehad-Al-Islami
(HuJI) have found the old city of Hyderabad
a fertile ground for recruiting jehadis.
This is especially so in the aftermath of
9/11, which gave an impetus to the process
of radicalisation. "Our religion doesn't
teach killing. But with these activities
not only are they shaming Islam but also
making us vulnerable," says Moazzam Khan,
a retired professor. "But then, enemies
across the borders are least concerned about
peace in India. They want to incite one
community against another. It should be
noted that at least 10 of those killed in
Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat are Muslims."
But
liberal voices like Moazzam represent a
largely ineffectual Muslim middle class
in Hyderabad. This is especially in the
context of politics practiced in the old
city where the Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen
(MIM) lords over one Lok Sabha seat and
five assembly consituencies. Hyderabad's
troubles can be traced back to the mid-1990s
when ISI began picking up recruits from
Hyderabad. But as Indian intelligence agencies
got smarter, the ISI outfits began donning
other identities. "Pakistani operators realised
that the Indo-Bangladesh border was more
porous and infiltration was easy," says
a top cop. Helping them was the fact that
for some strange reason, there has been
an economic connection between Hyderabad
and Bangladesh. Over the last few years,
many technicians - mostly fitters, tradesmen
and artisans - have found part-time employment
in Bangaladesh. "Small companies have taken
up contracts in Dhaka for six months and
have been sending men there. This has made
infiltration and indoctrination easier,"
a source said. The process received a jolt
only when there was a blast on Dussehra
day in the office of the task force of the
Hyderabad police commissioner. The perpetrator
died but the police identified him as a
Bangladeshi. "This was the first time the
Bangladesh angle came up prominently," the
police official said. In reality, however,
there was a Bangladesh angle earlier, too,
but had been ignored. Then, the IT era in
Hyderabad truly began in 1999 when US president
Bill Clinton brought Microsoft along with
him. In the years since Clinton's trip,
investments in software buttressed the BPO
boom. So, when Clinton's successor George
W Bush too decided to drop by in Hyderabad
in March 2006 (five weeks after the Saudi
king decided to skip the city), he thought
it fit to order the opening of a full-fledged
consulate in Hyderabad. This was significant
because there is already a US consulate
in Chennai. By zeroing in on Hyderabad,
Bush also ignored the claims of Bangalore.
"All this means that from the point of view
of jehadis, Hyderabad is an attractive target.
Hitting Hyderabad can give a massive mileage
to the jehadi point of view," says a senior
police officer. Added to all this the unpreparedness
of Andhra police. Geared up to deal with
Naxalites, the police has largely ignored
the terrorist threat.
Courtesy:
http://naxalwatch.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=50,
August 27, 2007
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15
suspected Qaeda men nabbed in Moreh
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Troops
of 24 Bn Assam Rifles, in a pre-dawn operation,
rounded up at least 15 suspected al-Qaeda
activists from Moreh town on the Indo-Myanmar
border on August 17. But the news was leaked
only on Sunday. Sources said that the suspected
al-Qaeda operatives were arrested from a
house at Moreh Ward number 3, Old Post Office
line. Colonel Lalit Mohan, Assam Rifles
PRO however told this correspondent that
all of them were Myanmarese Muslims. "No
al-Qaeda link has been established during
the two days interrogation", the officer
said. These illegal immigrants mostly manual
workers reached Moreh, after coming all
the way from Bangladesh border passing Tripura,
Silchar and Imphal. It is also said that
all of them used to send money to their
relatives in Myanmar through the border
town of Namphalong (Myanmar). Meanwhile,
Assam Rifles team handed over suspected
al-Qaeda activists to civil police around
6.30 on Monday evening. According to Clay
Khongsai, SP Imphal west district police,
the arrested 'immigrants' would be further
evacuated to it's concerned police station
at Moreh on Tuesday. Efforts to contact
the Inspector General of Assam Rifles (South),
Major General BK Chengappa also drew blank
on Monday. Another Assam Rifles source said
the 15 arrested men are all Myanmarese Muslims
adding that no links with the al-Qaeda have
been established so far and added that they
were picked up in the first place because
they are foreigners who had entered Indian
territory. No significant documents have
been recovered from them other than some
work permits. Out of the 15 arrested, 10
are from the Arakan region on the Bangladesh-Myanmar
region, while the other four are from Bangladesh
and one Myanmarese Kuki. During interrogation,
six of the arrested persons identified as
Md Hussain (40), Md Nasim (50), Md Abdullah
(20), Md Rehman (26), Md Zunided (17) and
Md Rohit (16) were reported to have admitted
that they are al-Qaeda operatives. All the
arrested who were under close scrutiny,
were been brought to Imphal on August 18.
Three cadres of the Laskar-e-Taiba originally
from Manipur were arrested from Delhi some
time back.
Courtesy:
www.assamtribune.com, August 21, 2007
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Easy
availability of Bangladeshi SIM cards along
the West Bengal border rings alarm bells.
Now there are fears that Huji militants
are using them to plot terror attacks in
India. On May 18, 2007, a blast had brought
Hyderabad on the terror map. Investigations
showed a Bangladesh connection - the militant
group of 'Harkat-ul Jihad Al Islami' that
is alleged to qwe its roots to Bangladesh.
The connection grew stronger when investigators
found these little chips or in other words,
the mobile SIM cards. Intelligence agenices
are worried that similar SIM cards were
found with the Huji militants arrested in
the border areas of West Bengal. TIMES NOW
has found that Bangladeshi SIM cards are
easily available in the adjoining areas
along the border of West Bengal. In the
North 24 Parganas district, which is close
to the Indo-Bangla border, one can operate
mobiles using signals from the 'Bangladesh-Grameen'
phone service. It's not just the signal,
one can also buy a 'Grameen' phone SIM card.
This service hails from a Bangladeshi phone
company but it has dealers on the Indian
side too. This is a completely illegal procedure
followed in lieu of an easy transaction,
wherein a SIM card can be bought for less
than Rs 200 rupees. These SIM cards function
also pretty smoothly, in most areas along
the International border, without giving
any trouble. According to a Bangladeshi
local resident, "The SIM cards are available
in India, these cards are of 'Seva World
Grameen Phone', you can get it at Rs 1,000
rupees and incoming is free for one year.
You can call at 30 paise per minute. I stay
here and my parents live in Bangladesh,
I talk to them regularly and the signal
is quite clear at night." This man is connecting
with his family but somebody working for
'Huji' could again, use such Bangladeshi
SIM cards, to plot a terror attack in India.
Now the Intelligence agencies are pretty
worried with this recent development.
Bangladeshi
SIM cards: Features
All
these facts have made the police take notice
of these little weapons signalling alarm
bouts. These sophisticated little chips
may help people to stay connected but in
the hands of 'Huji' militants, they could
just be a handy tool to unleash terror.
Courtesy:
www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, August
18, 2007
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12
Manipur ultras nabbed from MLAs' residences
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In
a major breakthrough, police commandos rounded
up 12 suspected militants belonging to Manipur-
based outfits - Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup,
People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak,
People's Liberation Army and Kangleipak
Communist Party from the official quarters
of ruling MLAs on Friday morning. Police
also recovered a disassembled parts of one
M-16 rifle, one 9mm pistol along with 10
rounds of M-16, five rounds of pistol and
five 'demand letters' of KYKL addressed
to different businessmen here, from the
quarter of Congress MLA W Brajabidhu of
Lamsang Assembly consituency in Imphal West
district. The others include sitting Congress
MLAs Bijoy Koijam of Thongju, K Meghachandra
of Wangkhem and ex-MLA N Sovakiran of Oinam.
Among the arrested persons, eight are KYKL
members while two are KCP and one each of
Prepak and PLA. Friday's incident took place
at the high security MLA's quarters colony
known as Babupara VIP colony following a
cordon and search operation carried out
by Imphal West district police personnel
under the directive of DIG range M Karnajit
and SP Clay Khongsai around 4.30 in the
morning. Later, briefing the mediapersons,
Yumnam Joykumar, DGP Manipur said, Friday's
operation was conducted as part of intensifying
the counter insurgency operations in the
State. An FIR has been registered at Imphal
police station and investigation is on,
the DGP said. Four other cases have also
been registered. When asked about the presence
of the MLAs at the time of the UGs arrest,
the police chief confirmed, "I think most
of them(MLAs) were present". Ruling MLA
W Brajabidhu and ex-MLA N Sovakiran were
present at the time of arrest of eight KYKL
members and one KCP member from their respective
official quarters. The DGP said "we'll take
up the investigation very seriously and
necessary action will be taken" adding "no
one is above the law". Till the filing of
this report, operation is on in the Babupara
VIP colony. "We intend to carry out more
raids based on our intelligence inputs",
he added. The other KCP cadre and a bailed
out PLA member were arrested from MLA Meghachandra's
quarter while bailed out Prepak member was
nabbed from Bijoy Koijam's place.
Courtesy:
www.assamtribune.com, August 18, 2007
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11
Hindi-speakers massacred in Assam
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Separatists
gunned down 11 Hindi-speaking migrant workers
in one of the deadliest attacks in India's
northeastern state of Assam even as two
separate explosions killed a child and wounded
18 more, officials said Saturday. A police
spokesman said a group of about 10 to 15
heavily armed militants late Friday attacked
sleeping villagers at Dolamara in Karbi
Anglong district, about 250 km east of Assam's
main city of Guwahati. 'The militants went
berserk and killed 11 people belonging to
two Hindi-speaking families after entering
their houses,' Lajja Ram Bishnoi, deputy
inspector general of police in Karbi Anglong
district, told IANS. All the victims were
petty cultivators engaged in tilling the
land of local villagers in the area. The
police blamed the attack on the outlawed
United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and
the Karbi Longri National Liberation Front
(KLNLF), both working in tandem in parts
of Karbi Anglong district. 'We suspect it
to be a joint attack with the militants
entering their houses and gunning down some
of the victims who were sleeping at that
time,' Bishnoi said. The dead includes four
women and two children belonging to two
families originally hailing from Bihar but
who have been residing in Assam for decades.
Stepped
up attacks and a wave of bombings since
Sunday have so far claimed 27 lives and
wounded close to 50 people in Assam. In
two separate bombings late Friday, the ninth
such explosions in the state since Sunday,
a child was killed and 18 more wounded in
parts of Karbi Anglong district. 'There
was a grenade explosion in a small village
killing a two-year-old child and injuring
nine others. Prior to that a bomb exploded
at a marketplace in the district headquarters
of Diphu wounding nine more,' the police
official said. This is the second major
attack on Hindi-speaking migrant workers
in the last four days - eight people from
two families were killed in a similar attack
Wednesday in the same district. The attacks
are reminiscent of the wave of killings
by the ULFA in January targeting Hindi-speakers
in which about 80 people were killed. Thousands
of migrant workers from Bihar have been
living in Assam for decades and doing odd
jobs as brick kiln workers, fishermen, and
daily wage labourers. The ULFA, a rebel
group fighting for an independent homeland
since 1979, had earlier vowed to free the
state of all non-Assamese workers saying
people from outside the state were eating
into local jobs. 'The attacks are barbaric
and show the militants' inhuman nature as
they killed women and children without any
qualms,' Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi
told IANS. The Assam government Saturday
announced a massive military deployment
in the area and pledged to thwart further
attacks linked to the upcoming Independence
Day celebrations next week. Rebels in insurgency-hit
Assam, the largest among the seven northeastern
states, have for years been boycotting Independence
Day and Republic Day celebrations to protest
the central government's rule over the vast
region rich in oil, tea and timber. The
run-up to the events has always been violent,
with rebels of the outlawed ULFA striking
vital installations including crude oil
pipelines, trains, road and rail bridges,
and security personnel. More than 30 rebel
armies operate in the northeastern states,
their demands ranging from secession to
greater autonomy and the right to self-determination.
Courtesy:
http://in.news.yahoo.com/070811/43/6jbdl.html,
August 11, 2007
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Many
states still ill-equipped in bomb disposal
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As
terrorists go hi-tech using remote-controlled
devices, many states in the country continue
to be ill-equipped to diffuse bombs, say
experts. Most states in the country are
ill-equipped in carrying out bomb detection
and post blast investigation and the country
has only one -the National Bomb Data Centre
(NBDC) at Maneshar in Haryana which is a
specialised centre, says a retired army
official. Apart from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Assam, Tamil Nadu,
Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Addhra Pradesh,
the remaining states in India are still
following the traditional ways of bomb diffusing
process, he adds. "We are still backwards
when it comes to bomb diffusing technologies.
If you compare with USA or UK, they are
far ahead of us. Even they use robots to
diffuse the bombs," he says. Colonel Ajay
Ahooja, Director,National Security Guards
(NSG), declines to comment on the present
condition of BDS of other law enforcing
agencies but says that NSG has all the facilities
and equipment to fight the menace. London
BDS acted on time and diffused the bombs
in jeep driven by Kafeel Ahmed with a great
sense of planning and perfect implementation
in the recent terror plot which took the
whole world with surprise. But, on the other
hand, Indian policemen looked helpless and
without clue in diffusing bombs kept in
tiffin boxes in the Hyderabad Mosque blast.
Newspaper pictures, which showed them diffusing
bombs without having mask and cover, was
a classic example of bravery and misfortune,
experts say. Two bomb disposal squad personnel
of the CID were killed while defusing a
bomb at the Maoist-infested Jhitka area
under Lalgarh police station in West Bengal's
West Midnapore district on September 21,
2006.
The
blast occurred when a bomb concealed in
an aluminium tiffin box found on a road,
was being defused by the bomb disposal squad.
Police and eyewitnesses said the bomb disposal
squad personnel were using their bare hands
and a chisel and a hammer to break open
the tiffin box. Neither were they wearing
protective jackets. A similar blast was
engineered by the maoists two years earlier
at Bankisole in the same district killing
six Eastern Frontier Rifle personnel. "There
are states using the modern equipment such
as optical fibroscope for their Bomb Disposal
Squad. They are Delhi, UP, Chhattisgarh,
Orrissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Andhra
Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Jammu Kashmir,"
says an official of a company which provides
equipment to the BDS of different states.
There were 295, 354, 372 and 233 bomb explosions
in the country during the years 2002, 2003,
2004 and 2005, according to a study conducted
by the National Bomb Data Centre (NBDC).
The NBDC has been collating, analysing and
disseminating information on bombing incidents
to all government agencies. The NBDC forwards
advisory reports to the states based on
the lessons learnt from the various post
blast investigation and analysis. Now terrorists
use (Improvised Explosive Devices) IEDs,
which have been responsible for hundreds
of casualtties in the terrorism affected
areas of the country. In 2005, out of the
national total of 233 bombing incidents,
J-K dominated the national scenario with
97 incidents followed by Assam, Manipur
and Jharkhand. According to a security expert,
naxal affected Jharkhand and Chattisgarh
taken together witnessed more blasts in
2006 than J-K. Compared to 78 IED blasts
in J-K in 2006, a total of 91 explosions
took place in these naxal affected states.
Modern technology has enabled the terrorist
groups to plan and execute over a larger
canvas killing large number of people and
presenting challenging task to the government
agencies and that's why it can be easily
seen that the number of blasts in the last
few years have gone down but number of casualties
have gone up. There has been growth of explosives
made out of innocuons items such as fertilizers
or plaster of paris. "Till recently, terrorism
was considered a regional phenomenon but
with globalisation and advancement in science
and technology, terrorists have now trans-national
reach and their operations have become more
lethal," says Brigadier (Retd.) Virender
Kumar. "Behind every blast, the terrorist's
basic aim is to cause injuries, create confusion.
In most of the cases, BDS gets information
regarding the bomb after the blast has already
taken place," he says. On policemen diffusing
bombs without wearing mask or cover, Brig.
Kumar says, "They are morons. They should
wait for the full BDS team having sniffer
dogs, endoscatic mirrors, video cameras
and portable X-ray devices." Suspected actuating
mechanism of bomb explosion can be Anti
Handling (device set off by handling), Command
wire (device connected by long wire), Timed
(device set to detonate at a predetermined
time) and landmines. An official of BDS
team in New Delhi says, "our ninety per
cent work is of Anti Sabotage Cell (ASC).
We check the venue and the roads to which
a VVIP is expected. A large number of the
policemen are into safeguarding the life
of these important personalities. There
are very few people in the team who are
experts in handling the bomb disposal. Most
of the time we get hoax calls about bombs.
"In Orissa, the main security threat is
of Naxalites. They use RDX, landmines and
even some conventional bombs like nitro-glycerin,
trinitrate, RDX C3, C4 and TNT," says a
senior official of Orissa Intelligence.
The arms and explosive wing of German military
developed high-stexplosive called trinitrotoluene'
(TNT) in 1902 by the action of nitric and
sulphuric acid on Toluene. Then after manufacture
of TNT, research and development explosive
(RDX) was developed. Named chemically as
yclotrimethylene trinitramine, it is cast
with some amounts of TNT 40 to 45 per cent
and is used where the highest degree or
power of shattering effect is needed. In
Hyderabad Mosque blast, which claimed nine
lives during Friday prayers, a highly sophisticated
bomb with deadly RDX and TNT was used. The
bomb disposal squad recovered 300 gm of
RDX and TNT after defusing the unexploded
IED. Malegaon explosion that claimed 38
lives at a graveyard on the occasion of
Shab-e-Barat in the textile town in Nasik
district of Maharashtra, RDX was used in
all the four bombs that rocked the communally
sensitive town. "Our BDS is divided into
two wings- one looks after the security
forces threat and the other for the safety
of VIPs. Recently central government has
granted a huge fund for the establishment
of BDS at every police station in the state.
We are working towards providing bullet
proof vehicles to the BDS, which is now
only available to the VIPs," he adds. Bomb
Disposal is an emcopassing term to describe
the separate but interrelated functions
in military (Explosive ordinance disposal)
and public safety (public safety bomb disposal).
Courtesy:
www.hindu.com, August 10, 2007
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Terror
run in Assam by militants, Hindi-speakers
fresh targets
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Assam
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