A_Gupta wrote:NTJ assets worth Rs. 7 bn to be confiscated – Police
http://island.lk/index.php?page_cat=art ... tle=203805The CID is to obtain a court order to confiscate over Rs. 7 billion in properties and Rs. 140 million in gold and cash owned by the proscribed National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) terrorist group.
Terror Trail-II: How south India became terror central (IANS exclusive)
IANS | New Delhi
Last Updated at May 8, 2019 08:15 IST
Even as India and its security apparatus grapple with the imponderables that emerge constantly with Pakistan's proxy war in Kashmir Valley, the death by a thousand cuts asymmetrical warfare takes its toll on our forces continuously. The rapid use of the dark web and the onion router (TOR which provides annonymity) to subliminally indoctrinate the youth in the Valley with a bent towards Wahhabi Salafisim is not lost on our sleuths. However, that does not for a moment mean that our deep state can take its eyes off the ball in the rest of the country.
India's vast swathe of counter-terrorism grid which combines the skills of hardcore investigation, dogged information reporting and ground level intel gathering on knowing who your adversary picks up every nano or sliver or nugget of information and processes it. Following the 3D approach of detect, deter and destroy, in the wake of 26/11, it is a much more robust network.
While RAW provides the external inputs, IB domestic, NTRO algos pick up chatter, it is the state police and its CIDs and Q Branch, say, in Tamil Nadu or Special Branch in other states who collate, disseminate and act on the information packs. In states like Maharashtra and southern states, these state police investigators are reportedly top of line and have achieved many kills and successes.
There are designated counter terrorism groups within RAW and IB and of course, there is now a full-fledged NIA which is part of a seamless information sharing and acting main frame. Ministry of Home Affairs now has a counter-terrorism and counter radicalisation division.
How and why did India manage to provide solid information leads to Sri Lanka is based on this grid and its strategic imperatives. Right from the beginning, Jamaat Inayat Ansural Momin(JIAM) has for long been active in Kerala and on the radar of India's deep state, it follows pure Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) ideology. Progenitor of the LeT grand plan to use the fertile breeding grounds of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Maldives for fresh recruits to wreak havoc on India - Muzzamil Bhat - wanted at first to use JIAM to come to Lanka and train there and return as suicide bombers to India.
In 2009, in a celebrated case, a Malyalee Muslim was found wandering around suspiciously in Kashmir till he was arrested by the security forces. Kerala has a history of communal violence, none more famous than the Marad massacre which saw the killing of eight Hindus by a Muslim mob on May 2, 2003 at the Marad beach of the Kozikhode district.
In the early evening, eight Hindus were hacked to death by a Muslim mob on the beach after reeling in their catch for the day. The killers then escaped into the local Juma Masjid, the Marad enquiry commission's (Justice Thomas P Joseph) report notes the submission of then Kozhikode Police Commissioner T.K. Vinod Kumar that hundreds of local Muslim women converged on the mosque to prevent the police from entering it to catch the attackers.
Police commissioner, T.K. Vinod Kumar stated: "It was an operation carried out by a well-knit organization. It was a quick and sudden attack which was over in 10 minutes. The attack came from a particular community. "One of the attackers, Mohammed Ashker, was also killed during the incident. The police recovered explosives and arms from the local Juma Masjid two days after the killings as well as special investigation team of the Kerala Crime Branch filed chargesheets against 147 people accused of involvement or complicity in the crime. Some suspected a JIAM hand in this.
Terror central, many reckon, was always in north India, but actually it has existed in Maharashtra and southern states for many years. Its genealogy can be traced to JIAM. Middle-eastern terror networks have been known to flirt with JIAM and that is how the Bhatkals in Karnataka emerged as a follow up to the Shahid Bilal network and dreaded Amjad LeT promoted terror cell in Hyderabad busted with his arrest in 2010.
An existential crisis gripped Bhatkal in Karnataka with the rise of Mohammed Ahmed Zarar Siddibapa who became a poster boy of indigenous terror as the dangerous and deadly Indian Mujahideen terrorist Yasin Bhatkal. What did not help the town in coastal Uttara Kannada district was that other IM top guns, brothers Riyaz and Iqbal Shabantri, also became branded as Riyaz and Iqbal Bhatkal.
The town was subsumed by their identity. Its genesis can be traced to a clash in 1991 during the Lok Sabha polls followed by communal clashes which erupted in 1993. A police officer who did not want to be named said, "The town remained tense for nearly six months, during which 17 people were killed, three were reported missing and property worth Rs 12 crore was destroyed." Tension rose alarmingly in April 1996 after the then local MLA Dr U Chittaranjan was murdered, leading to a police crackdown.
Investigators now claim that birthed seven years later was Yasin Bhatkal along with six other young men who sat together in the town and decided to form the Indian Mujahideen. Muslims in Bhatkal are primarily known to be either Nawayaths or Dahknis. The Nawayaths trace their origins to Arab countries and believe their ancestors came to the seashore town in the 8th century.
The Dakhnis are referred to as original inhabitants. IM became a terror power house -- in signature moves it planted bombs all over the country leaving behind a trail of blood. It was only the combined operation of RAW under Alok Joshi and IB under Syed Asif Ibrahim that Yasin Bhatkal was captured after a stakeout in Nepal in August 2013 since when he remains incarcerated.
This is one of the biggest wins of Indian intelligence which helped dismantle the IM network which killed hundreds in different locations in India.
In early 2010, captured Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative T Naseer reportedly told his Kerala police interrogators that Hyderabad was Pakistani-based LeT's Indian headquarters and the epicentre of all anti-national activities. Information provided by security agencies revealed that Hyderabad had the most number of alleged terror operatives who had gone missing or are currently believed to be residents in Pakistan.
Mohammed Shahid Bilal, the alleged mastermind in the August 2007 twin blasts in the city and the Mecca Masjid blasts in May that year, who is said to have been killed in an encounter in Pakistan, continues to remain a hero in the area where he lived. A youth from his area, who preferred not to be identified for this report, says, "Saab jab tak Bilal tha, paani or current ka problem nahin tha (when Bilal was alive, we did not have water or power problems)."
In 2002 the Lashkar decided to get aggressive. In October 2002, 14 men were sent to Pakistan for training. Various reasons like the liberation of Hyderabad and the demolition of the Babri Masjid were given to brainwash these men. In 2007, when the Lashkar gave a call for jihad, the likes of Bilal and Rehman Khan became full-fledged terror operatives. They were among the 14 men who had been sent to Pakistan and told to set up Lashkar networks in the city.
At the time, during a meeting of FBI agents and Indian security officials, it emerged that 21 terrorists operating in Pakistan, including Abu Jundal, had Hyderabad origins. Hyderabad, the IB sources say, has surpassed Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh and Kerala as a breeding ground for Indian terrorists. Intelligence Bureau sources say Bilal was gunned down in Karachi, Pakistan, on August 30, 2007, along with his brother Samad.
But the story of south India as epicentre - terror remains incomplete without mention of Mohd. Amjad, the HuJI boss who completed the triad along with Yasin Bhatkal and Shahid Bilal. Arguably one of the most dangerous, in January 2010, days ahead of Republic Day, Mohammed Amjad alias Khaja, the south India chief of terror outfit HuJI who was tasked by ISI to carry out some attacks was arrested by Hyderabad police.
Twentyseven year-old Khaja, a native of Malakpet, had close links with Jaish and Lashkar. Jamestown Foundation (a Washington-based institute which educates policy makers about events and trends, which it regards as being of current strategic importance to the United States) writes that IB officials achieved a breakthrough on January 17 when they arrested a self-styled HuJI commander identified as Mohammad Abdul Khwaja (a.k.a. Amjad) from Chennai.
The 27-year-old native of Andhra Pradesh had intended to strike major installations in South India during the forthcoming Republic Day (January 26) celebrations. According to his confessional statements, he planned to target the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) depot on the outskirts of Hyderabad city as well as refineries in Visakhapatnam and Chennai. Besides these installations, he also plotted to carry out assassinations in Hyderabad, mostly targeting police officers involved in terror investigations.
For these activities, Khwaja scouted at least 25 other Muslim youths from south India and reportedly sent them for terror training in Pakistan. The most disturbing aspect of Khwaja's activities was the transnational linkages he had established over the years. Khwaja was found to be operating in and out of India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in the past few years, coordinating with the LeT, Jaish-e Muhammed (JeM) and IM leadership and establishing close ties with IM's elusive mastermind, Riaz Bhatkal (a.k.a. Ismail Shahbandri).
Khwaja, who had worked closely with HuJi's slain operative Shahid Bilal and underwent terrorist training in Pakistan, was found to be using three passports - Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani - in three different names.
Neutralising this trinity meant that the terror network in south India was well on its way to walking the road to peridition.
(To be continued)
--IANS
prs/
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sir,ramana wrote:So Tuan, How would one go about analyzing these disconnected dots about the Easter Sunday attacks.
Give us a framework and a template.
Guide us if possible.
But don't tell us the answer.
Make the readers do their own investigation or architecture.
Sir,ramana wrote:Not that. How would one go about looking at information in the public domain.
And am editing out your contact info.
President Maithripala Sirisena had been informed of the recent terrorist attack at the Security Council (SC) for more than 15 times but he had nodded off the repeated warnings, Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka said today.
He told parliament that those who had participated at the SC had confirmed the fact that the President was informed of the imminent disaster but he had not given any instruction and nodded it off. He said it was unreasonable to pass the buck to others after the calamity.
Police Hq probe how nine received bail
May 8, 2019, 10:04 pm
By Shamindra Ferdinando
The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) yesterday arrested a 26-year-old person named Mohammed Siphan, who had allegedly tried to bribe the OIC of the Horowpathana police station to secure the release of Moulavi Abdul Majeed Mohamed Niyaz taken into custody in the Horowpathana police area, in the wake of the Easter Sunday carnage.
Law enforcement sources told The Island that the officers of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) had apprehended the suspect in the act of handing over Rs. 250,000 to Inspector Roshan Sanjeewa, in his office.
Sources described the Moulavi as a close associate of Zahran Hashim, who died in a suicide attack on the Shangri-La Hotel, in, Colombo on April 21.
The Horowpathana police took the suspected Moulavi into custody on April 28 after his close relationship with the suicide bomber transpired.
Having held the Moulavi, who had his own Mosque in Mukkarawewa, Horowpathana, for 72 hours, the police produced him before the Kebitigollewa Magistrate. Sources said that attempt was made to bribe IP Sanjeewa to suppress information regarding the suspect in remand custody.
We have to remember that these are all due to 'Project Karachi' by the ISI.Lilo wrote:Second part outlines in detail the terror network in South India serving the transnational Jihad and how it was unravelled & busted by the Indian antiterror agencies.
ramana, I do not subscribe to that view because there is involvement of international players. SL is not reckless like Pakistan. India-SL relationship is *NOT* India-Pakistan relationship.ramana wrote:SS, Could it be these NTJ were being allowed to be nurtured by Sri Lanka as payback to India?
A_Gupta wrote:More fingerpointing:
Prez nodded off repeated SC alert on recent terror attack: SF
http://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking_news ... 108-166698President Maithripala Sirisena had been informed of the recent terrorist attack at the Security Council (SC) for more than 15 times but he had nodded off the repeated warnings, Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka said today.
He told parliament that those who had participated at the SC had confirmed the fact that the President was informed of the imminent disaster but he had not given any instruction and nodded it off. He said it was unreasonable to pass the buck to others after the calamity.
Tell me about it. I was trying to point out how and why this "journalist" with one simple statement that Srisena doesn't like Fonseka, attempts to drawing analogies from Roman Empire to Shakespeare. Point is that this is the best example of contemporary journalism and storytelling that beats around the bush. Hope you get my point.habal wrote:Tuan, maitripala hating fonseka or fonseka hating rajapakse is not the core issue here.
I had read that in my regular post-Easter scan of Sri Lanka news but had decided not to post that here.Tuan wrote:
Please read this article and see how the writer attempts to frame Fonseka and Srisena
Why Maithripala Sirisena Hates Sarath Foneska
https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index. ... h-foneska/
Terror Trail-III: The missing pieces of Kerala & Bangladesh -IANS
The LeT along with Jaish-e-Mohommad are the two principals in the proxy war against India, both have skin in the terror game and in many ways are the mirror image of ISI C Wing.
IANS|May 09, 2019, 10.42
NEW DELHI: The bulwark of Lashkar-e-Tayiba's ideology is to use political Islam as the tip of the spear in its hatred for India. Using Islamic fundamentalism as the instrumentality to lure disaffected educated and uneducated youth in jihad against India, LeT has spread its wings in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and as far away as Malaysia.
The LeT along with Jaish-e-Mohommad are the two principals in the proxy war against India, both have skin in the terror game and in many ways are the mirror image of ISI C Wing which runs, controls and minds the military-jihad complex in Pakistan.
The Lashkar, however, gets precedence as it is led with ruthlessness by a man who has a $10 million bounty on his head -- Hafiz Mohd. Saeed -- in the overarching hierarchical matrix. As co-founder and chief of the Jamaat-ud-Dawah, he is followed by Zakiur Reham Lakhvi (supreme commander of operations in Kashmir and a key member of LeT's General Council), Azeem Cheema (training camps are supervised by Professor Azeem Cheema alias Babu, who used to be a teacher of Islamic studies at a government degree college in Faisalabad.
He is the same Azeem Cheema whom the Mumbai police chief identified as the person who trained Pakistan militants accused of triggering the Mumbai blasts) and Abdul Rehman Makki (second-in-command of Jamaat-ud-Dawah, a Pakistani Islamic welfare organization of Ahl-e-Hadith and the political arm of the UN-designated terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba).
In this mix can be added the shadowy figure of Muzzamil Bhat; architect of the India encirclement strategy and taking the war against India offshore to neighbouring countries.
'Washington Post' in the immediate aftermath of the Easter Sunday bombings stated India, despite having the second-largest population of Muslims in the world, has seen only around 100 citizens fall for the magnetism of the Caliphate to fight alongside their Muslim brethren. But this is fewer than the number of such recruits from the Netherlands.
"Yet there are regions where the Islamic State has managed to draw adherents, including in the northern part of Kerala. The state has the highest literacy rates and development indicators in the country, as well as deep historical ties to the Middle East through migration and trade. In 2016, a group of five families left Kerala hoping to reach Islamic State territory via Afghanistan.
"By the time their relatives realized they were missing, five families - some with small children - had left their comfortable bungalows and jobs as doctors and businessmen to make the perilous journey to Islamic State-held territory in Afghanistan. Authorities believe that 19 adults and three children are settled in Nangahar province, on the mountainous border with Pakistan. Their departure raised alarms about the Islamic State's reach in India as well as growing extremism in Kerala, a southern state with deep ties through migrant workers to the Persian Gulf.
"Two of the Keralites were killed by drones in Nangahar, including one on April 11 that year, family members said. Then, on April 13, US forces dropped a Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb on a cave complex where militant commanders were believed to be hiding."
An estimated 100 Indians have left to fight for the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, according to Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi - a fraction of the number of foreign fighters who have taken up the cause in the past two years.
Over 20 Muslim youngsters have reportedly disappeared from Kerala and out of these, at least 11 were believed to have reached the IS terror camps in Syria. Firoz Khan, a 24-year-old from Trikaripur in Kerala's Kasargod district, was arrested by IB from Mumbai. He was nabbed from a hotel in Dongri in Mumbai. Firoz had left for Mumbai on June 22 on the pretext of going to Kerala's Kozhikode city. A phone call Firoz made to inform his family about his whereabouts is what trapped him. During the call, he said some others who went missing from his village have reached IS camps in Syria, stated a Manorama report.
The Middle East Institute writes: IS' main recruiter, Shafi Armar, who, based in Bhatkal, was believed to be operating in Syria, has been responsible for officially forming two major cells: the Janood-ul-Khalifa-e-Hind and Ansar ut-Tawhid fi Bilad al-Hind. However, over the past five years, these groups have not gained the traction they expected and have struggled to carry out any attack.
Simultaneously, IS only did marginally better in attracting Indians to its heartlands in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan as mentioned earlier.
The danger though is clear and present. Our vigil and guard cannot be lowered in this 24x7 war against terror. Nevertheless, over the past year, the Islamic State has seemingly tried to expand its presence. The January 2019 and December 2018 plots were not the only evidence of their activities. In September 2018, probe agencies disrupted another plot to break a top IS operative out of a jail in Tamil Nadu.
Moreover, in October 2018 Kerala police discovered that ten individuals had joined IS in Afghanistan. This is in addition to IS' persistent presence in Kashmir, where most recently, the mounted at least ten operations that produced 22 casualties. Furthermore, in the new issue of IS' magazine, Al Risalah, the group dedicated a few articles to political issues taking place in Kashmir.
Maintaining excellent ties with Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina has meant that India has the intelligence edge in our eastern neighbourhood where the leader herself brooks no nonsense from terror outfits.
While the tony Holey Artisan Bakery attack by educated Bangladeshi youth exposed the underbelly, Sheikh Hasina's response was brutal. Jamaat Mujhaidheen terrorists were hunted down and retribution completed.
The United States says that a faction of the Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) serves as the local branch of the Islamic State. It has designated the group as a terrorist organisation. "They talk like ISIS and behave like ISIS," said Tasneem Khalil, a Bangladeshi journalist who lives in Sweden and tracks militant groups.
Meanwhile, Islamic State propaganda channels targeting Bengali speakers - operating primarily on the messaging app Telegram - have become active again after a lull last year, he said. "Obviously they are regrouping and trying to excite their base."
The centrifuge in this is Major General Tarique Ahmed Siddique, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's security adviser who has effective control over the country's armed forces and intelligence agencies. General Siddique is considered one of the most influential members of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government and a very close personal ally; his brother is married to the Prime Minister's sister, Sheikh Rehana.
His niece is the UK Labour member of parliament, Tulip Siddique.
The seeds of Islamic militancy were sown by LeT's Muzzamil Bhat who used the HuJI, Bangladesh as a beach head, as it combined with the Jamaat to make inroads. In fact, very soon the LeT subsumed HuJI and even elements of Jamaat and became all pervasive as the paragon of Islamist ideology.
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, Bangladesh is the Bangladeshi branch of the terrorist group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI). It is banned in Bangladesh. The founder of the group was Maulana Abdus Salam. Other well-known leaders include Shaikhul Hadith Allama and Azizul Haque, who was the chairman of the political party Islami Okiya Jote.
Muhammad Habibur Rahman (alias Bulbuli Huzur) was a leader of the HuJI and initially a leader of Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish. The principal of Lalkhan Madrasa in Chittagong, Mufti Izharul Islam Chowdhury, was also a leader of the HuJI. Mufti Abdul Hanan is the current leader of the Bangladeshi branch of the HuJI. He is currently incarcerated, convicted of various terrorism charges and has been sentenced to death. He is charged in 25 criminal cases involving terrorism.
The Islami Chhatra Shibir or Shibir (student's wing of Jamaat-e-Islami) also began to owe allegiance to LeT. Its objectives are to struggle for changing the existing system of education on the basis of Islamic values, to inspire students to acquire Islamic knowledge and to prepare them to take part in the struggle for establishing Islamic way of life.
A significant aim of the outfit is to establish an Afghanistan-Taliban type Islamist regime in Bangladesh. Consequently, the outfit is opposed to forces of modernization, secularism and democracy. The ICS is one of the strongest student fronts in the universities of Chittagong, Dhaka, Rajshahi and Jahangirnagar.
It is also emerging as a dominant group in the Khulna and Sylhet universities. Within the vast madrassa (religious seminary) structure in Bangladesh, the ICS is reported to be a dominant and uncontested organisation.
The Indian deep state has understood the enemy outside Kashmir Valley and busted all the terror modules within the country and through active information sharing with neighbouring nations, plugged and played into the Islamist network in these countries.
Sheikh Hasina government's "zero-tolerance" policy is to counter violent extremism. She has also positioned the Awami League as a secular nationalist party, emphasising its prosecution and execution of hardline Jamaat-e-Islami leaders who were found guilty of war crimes during the Liberation war in 1971.
According to a US State Department's Country Report on Terrorism, 2017, since Gulshan's Holey Artisan attack, at least 79 suspected radicals have been killed and more than 150 others arrested in an aggressive anti-militancy crackdown. To support counter-terrorism, the Bangladesh government also enacted the country's first anti-terrorism law in 2009, which was amended in 2013.
Pakistan and its jihadi arms haven't given up on bringing her down. A sensational plot to assassinate Sheikh Hasina and her family members besides top leaders of the ruling Awami League ahead December 30, 2018 parliamentary polls was foiled. Lt. General Navid Moktar from ISI was believed to have played a pivotal role in the plot, where several ISI agents apart from some members of the Bangladesh Navy and Coast Guard were involved.
ISI and LeT, in many ways have tried to facilitate the return of pro-Pakistan BNP and radical Jamaat-e-Islami to power, but unsuccessfully and this is a tribute to Indian agencies liaising with Dhaka effectively.
One of the biggest breakthroughs in this war against subterranean terror came in 2009 in south Asia and in the main Bangladesh. In a big catch, intelligence sleuths captured Mohd Omar Madani, his links to the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and also other terror strikes in the country proved to be a treasure trove of valuable information.
Perhaps the most important bit was his handling and knowledge of Bangladesh as conduit for Lashkar operatives. This was used with deadly impact over the next few years by RAW which communicated the coordinates of the entire cell and its managers to Dhaka.
Delhi police and the Intelligence Bureau grilled Madani after he revealed that he had links with Lashkar-e-Tayiba chief Hafiz Saeed, Abu Hamza, Sabahuddin and Fahim Ansari all of whom have were involved in the Mumbai attacks.
Madani has also told the police that he had states like Karnataka and Kerala on his radar and the Lashkar had plans to carry out deadly strikes in these states. He was a crucial piece in the jigsaw, for the probe and questioning revealed Madani was responsible for making Bangladesh a transit point for the Lashkar cadres waiting to cross over into India.
Police sources said he was in constant touch with Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi regarding recruitment in India. Madani was specifically directed to look for youth in the metros and coastal areas.
But they are only for clearing shrubs!Government Information Director General Nalaka Kaluwewa today instructed media institutions to refrain from publicising photos or videos of swords and kris-knives which are being seized during the special operations carrying out by security forces.
At a meeting held with heads of media institutions at the Government Information Department, Mr. Kaluwewa said President Maithripala Sirisena had instructed the department not to publicise swords and knives as parents would fear to send children to schools after seeing such photos and videos.
Mr. Kaluwewa also instructed media institutions only to publish news that come through the police spokesman.
Here is a beautiful Tamil proverb.Lilo wrote:Terror Trail-III: The missing pieces of Kerala & Bangladesh -IANS
The LeT along with Jaish-e-Mohommad are the two principals in the proxy war against India, both have skin in the terror game and in many ways are the mirror image of ISI C Wing.
IANS|May 09, 2019, 10.42
NEW DELHI: The bulwark of Lashkar-e-Tayiba's ideology is to use political Islam as the tip of the spear in its hatred for India. Using Islamic fundamentalism as the instrumentality to lure disaffected educated and uneducated youth in jihad against India, LeT has spread its wings in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and as far away as Malaysia.
The LeT along with Jaish-e-Mohommad are the two principals in the proxy war against India, both have skin in the terror game and in many ways are the mirror image of ISI C Wing which runs, controls and minds the military-jihad complex in Pakistan.
The Lashkar, however, gets precedence as it is led with ruthlessness by a man who has a $10 million bounty on his head -- Hafiz Mohd. Saeed -- in the overarching hierarchical matrix. As co-founder and chief of the Jamaat-ud-Dawah, he is followed by Zakiur Reham Lakhvi (supreme commander of operations in Kashmir and a key member of LeT's General Council), Azeem Cheema (training camps are supervised by Professor Azeem Cheema alias Babu, who used to be a teacher of Islamic studies at a government degree college in Faisalabad.
He is the same Azeem Cheema whom the Mumbai police chief identified as the person who trained Pakistan militants accused of triggering the Mumbai blasts) and Abdul Rehman Makki (second-in-command of Jamaat-ud-Dawah, a Pakistani Islamic welfare organization of Ahl-e-Hadith and the political arm of the UN-designated terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba).
In this mix can be added the shadowy figure of Muzzamil Bhat; architect of the India encirclement strategy and taking the war against India offshore to neighbouring countries.
'Washington Post' in the immediate aftermath of the Easter Sunday bombings stated India, despite having the second-largest population of Muslims in the world, has seen only around 100 citizens fall for the magnetism of the Caliphate to fight alongside their Muslim brethren. But this is fewer than the number of such recruits from the Netherlands.
"Yet there are regions where the Islamic State has managed to draw adherents, including in the northern part of Kerala. The state has the highest literacy rates and development indicators in the country, as well as deep historical ties to the Middle East through migration and trade. In 2016, a group of five families left Kerala hoping to reach Islamic State territory via Afghanistan.
"By the time their relatives realized they were missing, five families - some with small children - had left their comfortable bungalows and jobs as doctors and businessmen to make the perilous journey to Islamic State-held territory in Afghanistan. Authorities believe that 19 adults and three children are settled in Nangahar province, on the mountainous border with Pakistan. Their departure raised alarms about the Islamic State's reach in India as well as growing extremism in Kerala, a southern state with deep ties through migrant workers to the Persian Gulf.
"Two of the Keralites were killed by drones in Nangahar, including one on April 11 that year, family members said. Then, on April 13, US forces dropped a Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb on a cave complex where militant commanders were believed to be hiding."
An estimated 100 Indians have left to fight for the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, according to Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi - a fraction of the number of foreign fighters who have taken up the cause in the past two years.
Over 20 Muslim youngsters have reportedly disappeared from Kerala and out of these, at least 11 were believed to have reached the IS terror camps in Syria. Firoz Khan, a 24-year-old from Trikaripur in Kerala's Kasargod district, was arrested by IB from Mumbai. He was nabbed from a hotel in Dongri in Mumbai. Firoz had left for Mumbai on June 22 on the pretext of going to Kerala's Kozhikode city. A phone call Firoz made to inform his family about his whereabouts is what trapped him. During the call, he said some others who went missing from his village have reached IS camps in Syria, stated a Manorama report.
The Middle East Institute writes: IS' main recruiter, Shafi Armar, who, based in Bhatkal, was believed to be operating in Syria, has been responsible for officially forming two major cells: the Janood-ul-Khalifa-e-Hind and Ansar ut-Tawhid fi Bilad al-Hind. However, over the past five years, these groups have not gained the traction they expected and have struggled to carry out any attack.
Simultaneously, IS only did marginally better in attracting Indians to its heartlands in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan as mentioned earlier.
The danger though is clear and present. Our vigil and guard cannot be lowered in this 24x7 war against terror. Nevertheless, over the past year, the Islamic State has seemingly tried to expand its presence. The January 2019 and December 2018 plots were not the only evidence of their activities. In September 2018, probe agencies disrupted another plot to break a top IS operative out of a jail in Tamil Nadu.
Moreover, in October 2018 Kerala police discovered that ten individuals had joined IS in Afghanistan. This is in addition to IS' persistent presence in Kashmir, where most recently, the mounted at least ten operations that produced 22 casualties. Furthermore, in the new issue of IS' magazine, Al Risalah, the group dedicated a few articles to political issues taking place in Kashmir.
Maintaining excellent ties with Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina has meant that India has the intelligence edge in our eastern neighbourhood where the leader herself brooks no nonsense from terror outfits.
While the tony Holey Artisan Bakery attack by educated Bangladeshi youth exposed the underbelly, Sheikh Hasina's response was brutal. Jamaat Mujhaidheen terrorists were hunted down and retribution completed.
The United States says that a faction of the Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) serves as the local branch of the Islamic State. It has designated the group as a terrorist organisation. "They talk like ISIS and behave like ISIS," said Tasneem Khalil, a Bangladeshi journalist who lives in Sweden and tracks militant groups.
Meanwhile, Islamic State propaganda channels targeting Bengali speakers - operating primarily on the messaging app Telegram - have become active again after a lull last year, he said. "Obviously they are regrouping and trying to excite their base."
The centrifuge in this is Major General Tarique Ahmed Siddique, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's security adviser who has effective control over the country's armed forces and intelligence agencies. General Siddique is considered one of the most influential members of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government and a very close personal ally; his brother is married to the Prime Minister's sister, Sheikh Rehana.
His niece is the UK Labour member of parliament, Tulip Siddique.
The seeds of Islamic militancy were sown by LeT's Muzzamil Bhat who used the HuJI, Bangladesh as a beach head, as it combined with the Jamaat to make inroads. In fact, very soon the LeT subsumed HuJI and even elements of Jamaat and became all pervasive as the paragon of Islamist ideology.
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, Bangladesh is the Bangladeshi branch of the terrorist group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI). It is banned in Bangladesh. The founder of the group was Maulana Abdus Salam. Other well-known leaders include Shaikhul Hadith Allama and Azizul Haque, who was the chairman of the political party Islami Okiya Jote.
Muhammad Habibur Rahman (alias Bulbuli Huzur) was a leader of the HuJI and initially a leader of Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish. The principal of Lalkhan Madrasa in Chittagong, Mufti Izharul Islam Chowdhury, was also a leader of the HuJI. Mufti Abdul Hanan is the current leader of the Bangladeshi branch of the HuJI. He is currently incarcerated, convicted of various terrorism charges and has been sentenced to death. He is charged in 25 criminal cases involving terrorism.
The Islami Chhatra Shibir or Shibir (student's wing of Jamaat-e-Islami) also began to owe allegiance to LeT. Its objectives are to struggle for changing the existing system of education on the basis of Islamic values, to inspire students to acquire Islamic knowledge and to prepare them to take part in the struggle for establishing Islamic way of life.
A significant aim of the outfit is to establish an Afghanistan-Taliban type Islamist regime in Bangladesh. Consequently, the outfit is opposed to forces of modernization, secularism and democracy. The ICS is one of the strongest student fronts in the universities of Chittagong, Dhaka, Rajshahi and Jahangirnagar.
It is also emerging as a dominant group in the Khulna and Sylhet universities. Within the vast madrassa (religious seminary) structure in Bangladesh, the ICS is reported to be a dominant and uncontested organisation.
The Indian deep state has understood the enemy outside Kashmir Valley and busted all the terror modules within the country and through active information sharing with neighbouring nations, plugged and played into the Islamist network in these countries.
Sheikh Hasina government's "zero-tolerance" policy is to counter violent extremism. She has also positioned the Awami League as a secular nationalist party, emphasising its prosecution and execution of hardline Jamaat-e-Islami leaders who were found guilty of war crimes during the Liberation war in 1971.
According to a US State Department's Country Report on Terrorism, 2017, since Gulshan's Holey Artisan attack, at least 79 suspected radicals have been killed and more than 150 others arrested in an aggressive anti-militancy crackdown. To support counter-terrorism, the Bangladesh government also enacted the country's first anti-terrorism law in 2009, which was amended in 2013.
Pakistan and its jihadi arms haven't given up on bringing her down. A sensational plot to assassinate Sheikh Hasina and her family members besides top leaders of the ruling Awami League ahead December 30, 2018 parliamentary polls was foiled. Lt. General Navid Moktar from ISI was believed to have played a pivotal role in the plot, where several ISI agents apart from some members of the Bangladesh Navy and Coast Guard were involved.
ISI and LeT, in many ways have tried to facilitate the return of pro-Pakistan BNP and radical Jamaat-e-Islami to power, but unsuccessfully and this is a tribute to Indian agencies liaising with Dhaka effectively.
One of the biggest breakthroughs in this war against subterranean terror came in 2009 in south Asia and in the main Bangladesh. In a big catch, intelligence sleuths captured Mohd Omar Madani, his links to the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and also other terror strikes in the country proved to be a treasure trove of valuable information.
Perhaps the most important bit was his handling and knowledge of Bangladesh as conduit for Lashkar operatives. This was used with deadly impact over the next few years by RAW which communicated the coordinates of the entire cell and its managers to Dhaka.
Delhi police and the Intelligence Bureau grilled Madani after he revealed that he had links with Lashkar-e-Tayiba chief Hafiz Saeed, Abu Hamza, Sabahuddin and Fahim Ansari all of whom have were involved in the Mumbai attacks.
Madani has also told the police that he had states like Karnataka and Kerala on his radar and the Lashkar had plans to carry out deadly strikes in these states. He was a crucial piece in the jigsaw, for the probe and questioning revealed Madani was responsible for making Bangladesh a transit point for the Lashkar cadres waiting to cross over into India.
Police sources said he was in constant touch with Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi regarding recruitment in India. Madani was specifically directed to look for youth in the metros and coastal areas.
Tuan ji,Tuan wrote:I read all the three series of that IANS report and put myself in the author's shoes. And I realized how terrified and panicked the author has been about Islamic extremism in the Indian subcontinent.
P/s: it is not the terrorist, who terrorize us but actually the media does.
Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.Lilo wrote:Tuan ji,Tuan wrote:I read all the three series of that IANS report and put myself in the author's shoes. And I realized how terrified and panicked the author has been about Islamic extremism in the Indian subcontinent.
P/s: it is not the terrorist, who terrorize us but actually the media does.
Probably the author/expert who penned those articles realized the self evident fact that society in both (South)India or Srilanka is not "panicked enough" as it should be to pressurize their politicians to deal with the threat of Islamicextremismterrorism as one of the top priorities?
Maybe he was trying to set things right like many here want them to be?
If citizens pressured their politicians enough before 26/11 or SL Easter day bombings to deal with an Iron hand Islamic terrorism , such mass slaughter incidents wouldnt have occurred... dont you think?
I understand SL may have a tourism centered economy (i plan to visit soon - eff the attacks) but reality is reality - about the threat of Islamic terrorism facing the region.
Terror Trail-IV: How India buried the domestic terror time capsule (IANS Exclusive)
IANS | New Delhi
Last Updated at May 10, 2019 08:11 IST
When there is only one bullet in the chamber, you don't want to expend it needlessly, you want to ensure that you claim a victim with it. Indian deep state has been behind the eight ball for a long time in quelling terror, but 26/11 metamorphosed it and since then it has strong-armed the terror modules in a stone cold manner, enjoying win after win as documented by the earlier three parts of this series. Barring Kashmir Valley, where it continues to grapple with local and proxy fidayeen and mujhaidheen, it has pretty much bottled up the terror genie in the rest of the country and impressively enough made gains across the immediate neighbourhood.
Intelligence bloodhounds have busted linkages between Pakistan and Sri Lanka, Pakistan and southern India and Pakistan and Bangladesh. All the zealots have been buried in time capsules, hopefully never to return. The challenge, however, remains because the danger is clear and present.
Attempts at mainstreaming Kashmiri militancy and thought process to the national consciousness have been made sporadically and sometimes successfully, but agencies have been alive to them. The one thing that Indian deep state is fully aware of is that Pakistan will remain Janus faced and duplicitous and never ever to be trusted.
So while they display a sense of victimhood over domestic terror, the reality the world has come to realise that this narrative is a chimera. As a haven for alleged non-state actors fully backed by the military-ISI-jihadi establishment, Pakistan simply is a toxic and rogue state. Elements nurtured and supported by the ISI C Wing-jihad complex now have a free run within and outside Pakistan.
In many ways the Frankenstein that they created has come back to haunt them like Banquo's ghost did to Macbeth in the Bard's much acclaimed theatrical gargantuan. By creating Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and unleashing them to foment terror in FATA since 2007, what started out was as a B Team for the Afghan Taliban has pushed pure political Islam theology and ideology across Pakistan.
The LeJ has claimed responsibility for various mass-casualty attacks against the Shias in Pakistan, including multiple bombings that killed over 200 Hazara Shias in Quetta in 2013. It has also been linked to the Mominpura graveyard attack in 1998, the dramatic abduction and slaying of Daniel Pearl in 2002, and the spectacular attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team in Lahore in 2009 using the now signature buddy-pairs attack teams.
Playing victim, Pakistan's polity has portrayed the LeJ as one of the country's most virulent terror outfits. Tehrik-i-Taliban, alternatively referred to as the Taliban, is a radical extremist armed group which is an umbrella organisation of various militant groups based on Afghan side of the Durand line. Most Taliban groups in Pakistan coalesce under the TTP.
....
The military, the sources said, had also taken physical control of the three passes from Afghanistan into Tirah - Mzatal, Kandao Gharibi and Dramudrad situated at 7,300 to 9,300 feet altitude above the sea level. Two of the passes have been physically taken over by the military, while the third is under direct fire power, thus putting an end to any movement through that pass.
But the success did not come easily. The military lost more than 50 men, including officers, in the second phase of Operation Khyber, while another 100 or so were wounded. While the Pakistan Army has been raining hell on the TTK and LeJ to rein them with successive operations, it is impossible to have a cogent counter-insurgency doctrine in a nation where jihad has become a way of life.
India has to remain vigilant at all times. Zarb-e-Azb was followed by Operation Radd-ul-Fassad which began in February 2017, following a resurgence in terrorist incidents. The operation entailed the conduct of Broad Spectrum Security (Counter Terrorism) operations by Rangers in Punjab, continuation of ongoing operations across the country and focus on more effective border security management.
Countrywide disarmament and explosive control were also given as additional objectives of the operation. The National Action Plan was pursued as the hallmark of this operation. Further, given the nature of the beast unleashed against India and the brutalised psyche of Pakistan which wants revenge for the vivisection of Pakistan in 1971, the Kashmir pot will continue to be stirred. India cannot sit on its haunches, it has to be watchful at all times.
Indian deep state is now priding itself for its human intelligence across the country and immediate neighbourhood. In fact such is its efficacy that in 2014, a group of Sikh extremists who were undergoing training in Thailand under the aegis of LeT at a Rohingyas camp were shut down by a Thai counter-terrorism team with inputs from New Delhi.
Close cooperation and information sharing with several countries is resulting in these wins. The swoopdown by the Thais at the Rohingya camp led to arrest of Jagtar Singh Tara and Harminder Singh Mintoo. Last year, Tara, who is undergoing life imprisonment till death for the assassination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, expressed threat for his life in Burail jail, Chandigarh. Tara said this while expressing doubt over the death of Khalistan Liberation Force chief Harminder Singh Mintoo who died of cardiac arrest in Patiala Central Jail. Three others had been sent back by the Thais, including Bathinda resident Ramandeep Singh, alias Sunny, who was arrested in November 2014 with a handmade bomb and explosives.
Ramandeep was allegedly provided training by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence in Bangkok and Malaysia as he was in touch with Tara who was absconding at that time and was arrested later. Authorities in Thailand arrested Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) militant, Gurmeet Singh alias Jagtar Singh Tara, convicted for his involvement in the 1995 assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh.
Tara, who escaped from Chandigarh's Burail Jail, entered Thailand in October 2014 and was arrested in the eastern province of Chonburi at a Rohingya camp. The tip-off came from Punjab intelligence which reported ISI-trained Khalistani terrorists in Thailand (2014) were planning to launch strikes in India.
One of the things that PM Modi doesn't get adequate credit for the Indian diplomatic encirclement of Pakistan by cutting off the intellectual and monetary feed stock from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and even Qatar.
The PM in conjunction with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and the Ministry of External Affairs has systematically suffocated Pakistan by cutting the umbilical cord from its erstwhile theological supporters and purveyors of Wahhabi Salafisim. The inputs are coming from these areas because the Crown Princes Mohd bin Salman, Mohd bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Mohd bin Rashid Al Maktoum enjoy an excellent relationship and rapport with PM Modi.
(To be continued)
--IANS
Tuan, we know what we are talking about. Just nobody has panicked in India. Calm down. The article states facts and has given an excellent overview.Tuan wrote:I read all the three series of that IANS report and put myself in the author's shoes. And I realized how terrified and panicked the author has been about Islamic extremism in the Indian subcontinent.
P/s: it is not the terrorist, who terrorize us but actually the media does.
Wiki: VirtusaSri Lankan police on Friday said they had arrested an employee of information technology services company Virtusa Corp in Colombo in connection with Easter Sunday bombings that killed more than 250 people.
The Virtusa employee was arrested on April 27th, police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera told Reuters, adding the action was taken “as part of the ongoing investigations” into the attacks.
A spokeswoman for the Massachusetts-headquartered company confirmed the arrest, but did not say why the employee was arrested.
“We have been informed by the authorities that one of our employees has been taken into custody,” Julianne Garry, Virtusa’s chief marketing officer, said in an emailed response to a Reuters query about the arrest at its Colombo office.
“In light of recent events, we have enacted enhanced security protocols. We have been engaged with local authorities related to the safety of our employees.”
Virtusa Corporation (NASDAQ: VRTU) is an American information technology services company founded in 1996 in Sri Lanka and has its headquarters in Westborough, Massachusetts, United States. The company provides IT consulting, business consulting, systems implementation and application outsourcing services to large enterprises and software vendors.
The company has several delivery centers in India and Sri Lanka with the ones in Hyderabad, Chennai and Colombo being the largest.
Terror Trail-V: The politics of abduction in Kashmir (IANS Exclusive)
IANS | New Delhi
Last Updated at May 11, 2019 08:11 IST
Considering the threat percept to India's crown jewel - Jammu & Kashmir - India's deep state knows its intensity and while it has developed responses, how does one deal with a fidayeen who is ready to die? State-sponsored terror now dovetailed with rising levels of local militancy are taking their toll on Indian security forces, asymmetrical warfare bleeding us through the famed military doctrine of death by a thousand cuts stratagem.
While this may have paid handsome dividends to ISI C Wing and the Jihadi complex that it nurtures, Kashmir Valley was thrown into chaos with a different tactic in the winter of 1989. The template was abduction and it paid handsome dividends.
Terroism/militancy/extremism was birthed out of this strategy. Since then the game plan has been changed repeatedly with great felicity and precision. The play list has seen many signature moves like the round of ethnic cleansing where well-known Kashmiri Pandits were systematically gunned down as ethnocentrism came centre-stage in Kashmir. For brutalising the psyche of the minority Hindu community to stampede them out of their home and hearth in the Valley, instilling the fear factor through a combination of kidnappings and race extermination -- the power of the gun was unleashed.
The bleed India strategy has been predicated on keeping the pot boiling as nearly 700,000 Indian troops and paramilitary forces are at hyper vigil in Kashmir at very low cost to Pakistan, ensuring enormous expenditure to keep our military and polity bogged down.
Rewind to December 8, 1989, after much tumult and controversy with a V.P. Singh National Front government recently in place, a tumultuous event takes place. Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's daughter Rubaiya is abducted by JKLF militants and the world is turned upside down. Top erstwhile Jan Morcha leaders arrive at the house of Sayeed, where he is inconsolable as Arun Nehru, Arif Mohammad Khan and Satya Pal Malik (now Governor of J&K) are trying to convince him to appear on the national television to say that she is the nation's daughter and it's imperative that she be set free.
But a tearful Sayeed has lost all reason to think, overcome by extreme emotion, for obvious reasons. He refuses to do anything - stunned and struck by inertia.
Just six days earlier Mufti Saheb had taken oath as the first Kashmiri Muslim Home Minister in V.P. Singh's government. At the same time, JKLF's Asfaq Majid Wani wanted to do something spectacular in Kashmir Valley. His charter was to kick-start the "revolution" and he didn't know where to begin.
Watching the oath-taking of Mufti Saheb, he thought of an audacious PLO-type of plan to rattle the newly formed government. The original plot, conceived by Wani, was to kidnap Mufti's son, reportedly a doctor in Lal Ded hospital. But once recces were carried out, the son turned out to be a daughter - Dr Rubaiya Sayeed. As she finished her shift and left for home around 3 p.m. on December 8 boarding a bus at Exhibition Crossing, JKLF militants took over the bus with Wani and others following in a car.
Around 5.30 p.m., JKLF top brass Javed Mir called up 'Kashmir Times' and relayed the news of abduction of the Union Home Minister's daughter. All hell broke loose, with phones ringing non-stop in the Valley and Delhi. The triumph of V.P. Singh slaying Rajiv Gandhi was lost in translation as panic gripped the security mavens.
After 122 hours in captivity, against the wishes of then J&K Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, five top separatists were released for Rubaiya. It became a watershed moment for Kashmiris as they brought India to its knees.
Since then the trajectory in Kashmir has been southwards.
One would think that the next big play was the hijacking of IC 814, taking it to Kandahar and securing the release of Maulana Masood Azhar, but then we are missing the wood for the trees.
The swapping of three militants for 155 hostages of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane was not the first incident of its kind after Rubaiya Sayeed's kidnapping in 1989, but one of several high-profile kidnappings which have gone unnoticed. Following the Rubaiya playbook, innumerable abductions took place and the release of many militants took place. The period between December 1989 and January 1992 saw frenetic abductions.
Prominent among them was the abduction of Tassaduq Dev, brother-in-law of then Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad by Al Umar Mujahideen in January 1992. Three jailed activists of Al Umar were set free in exchange for Dev's release on January 17. Before this came the abduction of Nahida Soz, daughter of then National Conference MP Saifuddin Soz, by Jammu and Kashmir Students Liberation Front (JKSLF) in August 1991. Nahida was released when the government set free a Pakistan-trained hard-core militant, Mushtaq Ahmed.
Indian Oil Corporation Executive Director K. Dorraiswamy was abducted by activists of Ikhwan-Ul Muslimeen in Srinagar on July 29, 1991. His release on August 21 was possible when the government set free six militants. The released militants, included Javed Shalla, main accused in the kidnap and murder cases of Kashmir University Vice-Chancellor Mushir-Ul Haq and HMT General Manager H.L. Khera in 1990. Seven more militants were set free to seek the release of Mir Nassar Ullah, son of former J&K Minister G.M. Mir Lasjan, A.K. Dhar, scientist and T.K. Raina, retired Deputy Commissioner, abducted in March 1992.
There have been many other such instances - kidnappings of Dr Mustafa Aslam, son-in-law of then PCC President Ghulam Rasool Kar (February 24, 1992), Fayaz Ahmed Sheikh, son of then Additional Chief Secretary Sheikh Ghulam Rasool (March 21, 1992) and Ghulam Hassan Zia, assistant station director of AIR (April 1992). It is not known how the Government made their release possible.
Similarly, Allah Tigers militant outfit abducted former Member of Legislative Council (MLC) Habib-Ullah Bhat on March 2, 1992 and released him a month later on April 3. The number of militants, if any, set free in exchange for his release is not known. Likewise, J&K Bank chairman M.S. Qureshi was abducted on June 28, 1992 and later released unconditionally.
The Rubaiya Sayeed case had set a precedent for kidnappings for seeking release of jailed militants. According to government statistics, the state witnessed an upsurge in abductions after Rubaiya's kidnapping. While only one kidnapping, that of Rubaiya, was reported in 1989, 169 abductions were reported in 1990, 290 in 1991, 281 in 1992, 349 in 1993 and 368 in 1995. It virtually became a cottage industry.
Incidentally, in one of these kidnapping cases, no militant was released for seeking release of Kashmir University Vice-Chancellor Mushir-Ul Haq and HMT GM H.L. Khera in 1990. They were killed by the captors.
In a first, six Western tourists were kidnapped by Al-Faran, an Islamist militant organisation from the Liddarwat area of Pahalgam in the Anantnag district on July 4, 1995. The government refused to succumb to their demands. The six victims included two British tourists, Keith Mangan (from Middlesbrough) and Paul Wells; two Americans, John Childs of Simsbury, Connecticut, and Donald Hutchings of Spokane, Washington; a German, Dirk Hasert; and a Norwegian, Hans Christian Ostrø. Mangan's and Hutchings' wives were left behind by the kidnappers as their husbands were abducted.
A note released by the kidnappers a day after the kidnappings read, "Accept our demands or face dire consequences. We are fighting against anti-Islamic forces. Western countries are anti-Islam, and America is the biggest enemy of Islam." Childs managed to escape and was rescued four days later. Ostrø was beheaded by his abductors and his body was found near Pahalgam on August 13, 1995. His body was taken to AIIMS, New Delhi, where a postmortem was conducted by Professor T.D. Dogra, who established the beheading as ante mortem and reported that the words 'Al Faran' were carved onto his chest.
The kidnappers demanded the release of Pakistani militant Maulana Masood Azhar who had been imprisoned by India and 20 other prisoners.
Several national and international organisations issued appeals to Al-Faran to release the tourists. Representatives of the embassies of the victims' countries also visited Kashmir frequently to seek their release, without success.
In December 1995, the kidnappers left a note that they were no longer holding the men hostage. Mangan, Wells, Hutchings, and Hasert have never been found and are presumed to have been killed. In May 1996, a captured militant told Indian investigators and FBI agents that he had heard that all four hostages had been shot dead on December 13, 1995, nine days after an Indian military ambush that killed four of the original hostage-takers, including the man said to have been leading them, Abdul Hamid Turki.
Journalists Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark claim, however, in their book 'The Meadow', that the remaining hostages were sold from Al-Faran to Ghulam Nabi Mir, also known as Azad Nabi, who held them for months before shooting them dead on December 24, 1995.
(Concluded)
--IANS
http://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking_news ... 108-167026Police curfew was imposed within the Kuliyapitiya, Hettipola, Bingiriya, Rasnayakapura, Kobeigane and Dummalasuriya police areas with immediate effect until 4 am tomorrow (14), Police said.
Police curfew was imposed in the North Western Province with immediate effect until further notice, Police spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekera said.
Several firearms and ammunition buried in a land at Kuda-Oya in Wellawaya were recovered by the Kuda Oya Police and the army personnel today.
Can someone decipher the ammo being found? Where are the rifles that use the ammo?A_Gupta wrote:http://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking_news ... 108-167014Several firearms and ammunition buried in a land at Kuda-Oya in Wellawaya were recovered by the Kuda Oya Police and the army personnel today.