Published: April 08, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Crossfire War - India Intelligence - Islamic Militants Plan Attacks Late April
By Willard Payne
Crossfire War - Tehran - Islamabad - Beijing Watch - South Asia Theatre: Tehran - Beijing - Kabul - Tashkent - Kathmandu - Dhaka - Jaffna - Nay Pyi Taw - Islamabad/Srinagar - Jammu - Delhi; India Police Intelligence State Islamic Militants Planning Suicide Attacks on Srinagar Later This Month - Harwan Meeting
Night Watch: SRINAGAR - "It's a matter of numbers. If we have sufficient police, we can operate alone." That was a quote from India Director General of Police in Jammu - Kashmir Gopal Sharma, when asked if he had enough units to work with when the expected increase in attacks take place later this month. According to intelligence reports Sharma has received, Islamic militants from two of the major organizations, Al-Badr and Lashkar-e-Toiba, are planning to launch suicide attacks against Srinagar later this month as India shifts its administration of the province to the city after the melting of the snow. As in every year attacks along the heavily patrolled Line of Control (LoC) are reduced with the rains and snows of winter, but the drier weather means more attempts at infiltration by Islamic militants, which is how the first two wars between India/Pakistan began in 1947, 1965. Friday a divisional leader of Al-Badr was killed. He was born in Pakistan. [
KASHMIROBSERVER]
Sharma mentioned a recent meeting of the two groups on the higher reaches of Harwan and that they have mapped out a strategy. This could be an extension of the three man suicide unit that attacked in Srinagar, at mid-morning last October, and engaged Indian security units for the rest of the day. The Islamic unit came from the Al-Mansurian group. For the past few years crossfirewar.com has reported estimates of the number of Islamic militants, supported by Tehran-Islamabad, on "launching pads" waiting for the word to infiltrate en masse into India. Militants captured last year admitted some of them are now actually using Nepal to infiltrate. The estimates ranged from between 1,500-3,000. They are essentially the vanguard of Pakistan President General Musharraf's "Action Plan" that he presented to Iran two months ago as part of his nine nation tour.
This is not like previous years where you have some infiltration and engagements on a seasonal basis and it doesn't go beyond that. Under those circumstances the current number of Indian police in the province, under Director General Sharma's command, would be enough with perhaps only some occasional reinforcements. But nearly all last year Tehran conducted offensive maneuvers, continuing into this one, and the Speaker of Iran's Parliament has just concluded a three day visit to Pakistan as a further indication of regional military preparations and cooperation between the two governments which have increased ever since the Islamic uprising in Kashmir began November 1989.
When Islamabad responded in 1998, to the nuclear explosion tests by Delhi, by setting off several of its own, Pakistan was openly visited by Iran's then Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, who publicly praised what he called the "Islamic Bomb." He never said it was only Pakistan's bomb. Both governments have been enaging in offensive military preparations for years and now it is time to put that into action.
Then last November Beijing's Ambassador to Delhi actually stated publicly India's northeast, Arunachal Pradesh, is Chinese territory, the very same area China attacked India in 1962. That offensive statement was followed by ground forces maneuvers between Beijing-Islamabad last December just west of Kashmir. The same month Saudi Arabia had maneuvers with Pakistan in the eastern Punjab not far from India's border.
These governments are waiting for the Jihad militant attacks later this month to begin the fourth war, which they are poised and eager to enter. Riyadh will use the war to test the accuracy of the 50-60 CSS-2 missiles they purchased from Beijing in the mid-1980s. The missile has a 2,500 mile (4,000 km) range. Later on this year, as the dry season begins along the Bay of Bengal in October, militant activity could increase to the point of an invasion on the volatile India/Bangladesh border,which would force Delhi to divide and deploy its military on more than one front.
It is quite possible Delhi will decide to enact its "hot pursuit" policy as militant attacks increase later this month, something India has threatened to do if and when Islamic attacks from Pakistan's part of Kashmir or across from Bangladesh reach major levels. Delhi would then attack the militant training bases in both countries. India could do so even before Iran-China enter the conflict and the fourth major war on the subcontinent, since 1947, would be fully engaged. As a result of the Khomeini 1979 revolution in Iran, Pakistan has never had this amount of support before and Islamabad is going to take advantage of it.
I always suspected India was the Tehran's first main target.
Night Watch Information Service
www.crossfirewar.com
* The views of Opinion writers do not necessarily reflect the views of NewsBlaze
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