Post the terrorist attack in Zakhura area of Srinagar on November 17, the Islamic State, through its new platform ‘Amaq’, has claimed its first kill in J&K. The ISI supported Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen (affiliated to the Salafi Ahle-Hadith) simultaneously made a counter-claim. Government says it has taken note of the Islamic State claim and appropriate course of action would be adopted after examination.
In the incident on November 17, three terrorists in a car opened fire on a police team at Zakura crossing on the Srinagar-Ganderbal road, killing Sub-Inspector Imran Tak and injuring another special police officer (SPO). The retaliatory action left a most wanted local terrorist dead, whose body was wrapped in ISIS flag during funeral procession. The Srinagar-based Army Corps Commander and DGP J&K addressed a joint press conference (first ever – to convey political message?) stating there is no evidence of presence of ISIS in J&K.
The perception is that the security forces having killed 190 terrorist this year (including 110 foreign terrorists) may have led to the googly of the ISIS claim. At the same time, there are rumours of a pan-Islamist group having entered the Valley from the general area of Gulmarg few days back, reportedly admitted unofficially by an intelligence official.
It may be recalled that on May 12, a video by Zakir Musa Bhat went viral rejecting all kinds of nationalism and condemning politicians of all hues including Hurriyat; calling for an Islamic Caliphate – being covertly propagated in few radicalized districts of the Valley past six months but not talked about in hushed tones. ISIS flags have been periodically unfurled in the Valley past year and half plus especially atop mosques in Srinagar after Friday prayers.
In the beginning these were perhaps bravado of radicalized youth influenced by propaganda photos of armed youth in military-like fatigue bearing ISIS flags, not different from a radical mullah distributing ISIS T-shirts in south India some months back. But then the burgeoning population of the youth in the Valley, unemployment, and the reward of joining the terrorist organizations are cumulatively attracting more youth into militancy – something that the Army too is worried about. So, has the Islamic State entered the Valley? The answer may be ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
Who is the Islamic State? Called Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) till early 2014, onslaught of the Islamic State (IS) brigades into Iraq starting in June 2014 was part of a carefully planned military-intelligence operation supported covertly by the US-NATO. The US has been past master in irregular warfare.
Way back, Ronald Reagan was entertaining the Islamists in White House to fight the Soviets. Paul Joseph Watson, wrote in December 2011 that just as Al-Qaeda terrorists were used to oust Gaddafi, hundreds of Libyan rebels with Al Qaeda willing members were being airlifted into Syria to aid opposition in carrying out attacks against government forces. There was talk of US, Jordan and Turkish Special Forces operating inside Syria. In October 2012, Mitt Romney, US Presidential candidate vowed to arm Al Qaeda in Syria. While Obama contemplated bombing Syria, US bloggers accused US would be providing air support to Al Qaeda. Later, in her book ‘Hard Choices’, Hillary Clinton wrote she would have armed “moderate” Syrian rebels much earlier.
In March 2014, Iraqi scholars spoke of CIA pumping in money for terrorism in Iraq. US Senators like John McCain were openly hobnobbing with Al-Qaeda and ISIS leaders in the making months before the ISIS was unleashed on Iraq. There are enough indications the West was supplying the ISIS arms and ammunition and providing air support, while bombing the moderate factions and the Syrian forces.
In August 2013, UK’s Telegraph News Service reported Saudi Arabia had secretly offered Russia a sweeping deal to control the global oil market and safeguard Russia’s gas contracts, if Kremlin backs away from the Assad regime in Syria, an offer Putin turned down. Up to now the belief was that the US, UK, NATO with backing of Saudi Arabia were instrumental in training the ISIS, but now evidence has emerged that Pakistan too had a hand in this; according to a Russian middle-east expert says that ISIS cadres were also trained by the ISI in Pakistan.
Canadian scholar Michel Chossudovsky is more explicit about Pakistani involvement in writing that the rise of the Islamic State was with active support of Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), Ri’āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-’Āmah It is also known that the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had established presence in Iraq-Syria to fight along the ISIS and Al Qaeda and the latter two also had collaborated to some extent.
Significantly, Muhammad Amir Rana wrote in the Dawn on July 03, 2014, “ISIS could play a very dangerous, inspirational role in Pakistan, where more than 200 religious organizations are operating on the national and regional level. These organizations pursue multiple agendas such as transformation of society according to their ideologies, the enforcement of Shariah law, establishment of Khilafah (caliphate) system, fulfillment of their sectarian objectives and achievement of Pakistan’s strategic and ideological objectives through militancy”. However, Rana was perhaps only referring to the ISIS operating in Syria-Iraq.
It took time for the US intelligence to finally reveal that the Khorasan branch of ISIS (called ISK) is “amalgamation of primarily disaffected and rebranded former Afghan Taliban and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) members”. It was left unsaid that they were cobbled together in Peshawar region under tutelage of Pakistan’s ISI and pushed west into Nangarhar province of Afghanistan. That they found sympathizers in Afghanistan and expanded is also established. The ISK was different from the ISIS in Syria-Iraq; Afghans were actually referring to ISK as “ISI”.
In 2016, Voice of America had reported Afghanistan officially telling Pakistan that Hafiz Saeed, former LeT chief was directing ISIS operations in Afghanistan. So the so called ISIS in Afghanistan is obviously mixed with LeT and other Pakistani proxies like JeM etc, along with ISI cadres and personnel from Pakistan’s Mujahid Battalions disguised as civilians. Pakistan claims to be fighting the Haqqani Network and the TTP but both Taliban have coalesced with efforts of the ISI-supported Haqqani network. The Taliban leader killed by the SAS in 2008 in Helmand region of Afghanistan in 2007 was a Pakistani army officer. The ISK to start with was different from the ISIS, but were establishing links with the latter.
In July 2016, James B Comey, then Director US FBI had said, “Eventual victory against the Islamic State could well lead to an uptick of terrorist attacks in the West, not a reduction in them ….. hundreds of really dangerous people, and they are going to flow primarily to Western Europe, but some could well end up in the United States”. So it was expected that they would be diverted elsewhere. Now reports have emerged that hundreds of ISIS terrorists were smuggled out of Raqqa during October 2017, as part of a US-UK deal and freed to spread out far and wide across Syria and beyond according to BBC documentary ‘Raqqa’s Dirty Secret’. This included large number of foreigners from Pakistan, China, France, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Yemen, Saudi, China, Tunisia, Egypt; the escape convoy comprising some 50 trucks, 13 buses and over 100 ISIS owned vehicles carrying hundreds of ISIS fighters, family members and loads of arms on October 12.
The footage showed lorries towing trailers crammed with armed men despite an agreement to take only personal weapons; 10 trucks were loaded with weapons and ammunition. With the purge in Iraq-Syria, ISIS cadres have begun arriving in Af-Pak. The ISIS in Afghanistan has recently released photographs of new Islamic State fighters who have just completed their training in Kunar region of Afghanistan.
Islamic State Training in Kunar, Afghanistan
It has often been portrayed that Pakistan is threatened by Pan-Islamism. Nothing can be farther from the truth; where Pakistan army’s bible is the ‘Quranic Concept of War’ (authored by Brigadier SK Malik in 1979) that justifies killing all non-Muslims and calls for every Pakistani citizen to rise in ‘jihad’. So, ISIS cadres returning from Iraq-Syria will be welcomed by Pakistan army with open arms and used for cross-border attacks, even as they fight the moderate cadres – same as the ISI has done in the case of Al Qaeda and TTP.
Pakistan is using JeM to attack both India and Afghanistan but China still continues to put its so-called ‘technical hold’ at the UN to stop Azhar Masood being branded terrorist; ‘technical hold” being an euphuism for abetting Pakistani terrorism. This, despite China being only country that is drilling oil commercially in Afghanistan since 2012, and making huge profits in copper mines extraction. While Pakistan is using the LeT, JeM and HM to terrorize India, the deadliest remains LeT with some 60 militants in J&K, 70% of whom are foreigners.
Our security forces recently gunned down six terrorists including Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi’s nephew Owaid, for which the LeT is expected to react strongly – recent threat to Hindon airbase being one example. It may be recalled that LeT which was established primarily to target India, grew into an international terrorist organization filling up vacuums in Al Qaeda and later joining in the proxy war in Afghanistan. Ironically, the US Department of Defence (DoD) has prevailed upon the key Congressional committees to drop a provision linking financial aid to Pakistan with Islamabad taking demonstrable action against LeT, despite the provision being part of the bill meant to finance the US armed forces for 2018 known as the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA).
When Qamar Javed Bajwa, Pakistani army chief succeeded Raheel Sharif in November 2016, Pakistani scholar Ayesha Siddiqa wrote about the latter, “General Sharif will be remembered for positing the military as a state within a state more than many of the guys before him. The manner in which he pushed the envelope was unbelievable.” Bajwa has continued to play the radical constituency, masterminding the proxy war on India and Afghanistan. He is buoyed not only with China’s support but Raheel Sharif heading the Saudi coalition aimed at Iran (Iranian terrorism?), coupled with the US-Iran estrangement, gives him extra buoyancy. Where and how he plans to employ the Pakistan and China origin ISIS cadres returning from Syria-Iraq needs to be taken into consideration. And that is not all; add to this Pakistani support to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) in Myanmar and the West-China oil-game underway in Myanmar’s Rakhine province.
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