India-Pakistan: Who Needs Terrorists When You Have All These Gangsters

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May 9, 2007: India has accused Pakistan of allowing Islamic militants to double the number of terrorist training camps (to about fifty) in the last few months. Most of the camps supply terrorists for operations in Kashmir, which India and Pakistan dispute control of. India has it, Pakistan wants it and the Islamic terrorists fighting there are very popular throughout Pakistan. Thus the government tends to leave those training camps alone/ The Kashmir terrorists have tried to stay away from al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists, but there is some shared activity in some camps. Moreover, some individual terrorists have moved from group to group.

May 8, 2007: In Pakistan, a bomb set off a parked truck carrying fuel across the border into Pakistan. Eight other trucks caught fire and 11,000 gallons of fuel were destroyed. Fuel, and just about everything else, has to be trucked into Afghanistan, which lacks railroads. It's uncertain if the bomb was placed by Islamic terrorists or gangsters. The latter was more likely, as criminal gangs offer "protection" to truck drivers operating in the often lawless border region. The truck transport business is very lucrative, and growing rapidly with the booming Afghan economy.

May 7, 2007: Pakistan has increased troop strength along the Afghan border from 80,000 to 90,000. Another ten border posts were set up, for a total of 110.

May 6, 2007: One group of about 200 Taliban tribesmen set up roadblocks, checking cars for cassette players and cameras. Both items were destroyed as un-Islamic, and clean shaven men were urged to grow beards. The local government does not have the firepower or manpower needed to shut down these vigilante operations.

In northeast India, a bomb went off in a market, wounding fifteen. Tribal separatists, bandit gangs and corrupt politicians have made the area very unstable.

In central Pakistan, Sunni terrorists killed two Shia clergy. Sunni extremists have been persecuting Pakistani Shia for decades. This has become worse in the last decade, as al Qaeda grew in popularity and power.

In central India, police arrested a senior Maoist leader. Elsewhere in the region, Maoists killed two tribesmen suspected of being police informants. In part, this was because another Maoist leaders had recently been arrested in the area. But Maoists have been expending their operations, aided by corruption and feudal economic arrangements with many farmers in central India.

May 5, 2007: In Bangladesh, Islamic terrorist groups, after having hundreds of members, and several key leaders, imprisoned or executed, have joined together to survive and resume attacks. Even though the Bangladesh Islamic terrorists have used mainly small bombs (that wound rather than kill), they are still disliked by much of the population, making it difficult to operate. The new combined terrorist organization plans to pay more attention to security and avoiding police informers.

May 3, 2007: In Kashmir, a district leader of the Hizbul Mujaheedin terrorist gang, was killed by police. The man, Reyaz Ahmad Deva, had been active in the area since the 1990s. In the last few years, the number of experienced terrorist leaders getting killed or arrested has gone way up.

In northwest Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, pro-Taliban tribesmen have increased their attacks on soldiers and police. Tribal elders are eager to quiet things down, but don't have the firepower to do so. A deal is in the works where the security forces will work with the tribal elders to quiet down the pro-Taliban gangs.

 

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