NEW DELHI, Aug 7: Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) is planning a major campaign to “reignite” jihad in Jammu and Kashmir to match the timetable of draw down of US-led NATO forces from Afghanistan, a noted American security expert, and author of “Storming the World Stage: The Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba”, has cautioned.
Pakistani militants have their own “Pivot East” plan, Stephen Tankel of the Carnegie Foundation said in his latest commentary on LeT, while referring to the US plans to evolve its pivot in Asia.
“Indications that Pakistan-based militants plan to reignite jihad in Indian-administered Kashmir. Lashkar-e-Toiba, a Pakistani militant group, I follow closely, has been telling everyone, who will listen-the press, their own rank-and-file, Kashmiri separatist leaders when they visit Pakistan, me when I last communicated with them-that they plan to ramp up in Kashmir as US troops draw down in Afghanistan,” the American scholar, who is also a Senior Editor, War on the Rocks, and an Assistant Professor at an American University, wrote in his commentary under the heading, “Pakistan militants plan their own Pivot East”.
According to him, the Pakistani militant group is working closely with Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) to make the violence to appear as indigenous.
“Hizb ul Mujahideen (HM) is somewhat of a stalking horse for the LeT. The two groups appear to be working in tandem to slowly reignite the conflict, taking care to make any violence appear indigenous,” Prof Stephen Tankel said.
This not only provides plausible “deniability” to Pakistan-based actors, but also is likely part of a strategy to trigger a genuine grassroots uprising, according to him.
“Beyond launching more high-profile attacks, militants are recruiting locals to engage in ad hoc attacks. They are also working through above ground supporters to provoke civil unrest, of which Indian-administered Kashmir has seen plenty since the conflict subsided,” he added.
On how the LeT communicates, he said the militants appear to be using Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) to send instructions to their supporters. LeT is also sending money to support those stoking civil unrest.
Yet, Prof Tankel is convinced that Kashmir no longer retains the tag of being the most dangerous fault line in the world. It will remain a flash point.
Though “Kashmir may no longer be the most dangerous fault-line in the world, but it will remain a flashpoint for conflict for the foreseeable future,” Prof Stephen Tankel, who has held numerous ‘conversations’ with key people in Kashmir on both sides, summarized in his report.
He also does not think that Kashmir would return to the bad old days when roughly 2000 militants were chalking up attacks on a daily basis.
“In the past, it was the separatists call for freedom from India. Increasingly, it may mean freedom from an overly-securitized environment in which encounter killings still occur and the army remains immune from prosecution. It also increasingly may mean freedom to pursue the same opportunities as other Indians,” Prof Tankel, a non-resident scholar in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, observed in his assessment of the Kashmir situation today.
“Many of the complaints one hears in Kashmir are similar to those voiced elsewhere in India and pertain to corruption, poor governance and lack of economic opportunity. The difference is that it seems Kashmiris view these quotidian complaints through their troubled history of violent conflict.” he added.
There were 340 violent incidents in 2011, the last year for which data is available from the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs. Contrast that with 2565 in 2004, when the insurgency was already flagging, or the 1990s when whole cities like Sopore were “liberated” by the insurgents.
“Regenerating that level of conflict is too tall an order, especially with a population that has seen enough of war and wants very little to return to it, the American expert asserted in his commentary.
He, however, slipped in a caveat.
“However, real grievances remain and because violent incidents are now the exception not the rule and there are so few militants in Kashmir, even a relatively modest uptick can have a disproportionate impact: on how the army, paramilitary forces and police respond; on the economy; on the population; and on India-Pakistan relations,” Prof Tankel wrote in his commentary. (UNI)
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