Hindu Vivek Kendra
A RESOURCE CENTER FOR THE PROMOTION OF HINDUTVA
   
 
 
«« Back
Terror machine has not halted; new outfits asked to create mayhem in Kashmir

Terror machine has not halted; new outfits asked to create mayhem in Kashmir

Author: Agencies/New Delhi
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: January 30, 2002

Former Pakistani activists in the Taliban have set up a new terrorist outfit to carry on jehad in Jammu and Kashmir, according to informed Afghan sources here.

The outfit, Shoora-e-Furqan (Assembly of Believers), comprises thousands of Pakistani Taliban fighters airlifted by Islamabad in the wake of the siege of the northern Afghan town of Kunduz by the US-led forces, the sources said. The sources, who claim to be privy to inside information in Afghanistan and Pakistan, told IANS that the new outfit, which would be based in PoK, might step up violence in Jammu and Kashmir in the coming weeks and months to prove that jehad in Kashmir was not dead.

They also said the Taliban militia, which had only made a "temporary retreat" from Afghanistan, would soon launch an offensive in a bid to return to power in that country. The militia was still led by its supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, who is supported by Osama bin Laden. The sources added that Bin Laden was very much alive.

"Both are very much alive somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan," said the sources and noted that no senior Taliban leader had been killed or taken into custody by the US forces.

The sources, referring to reports now surfacing in the Western media that between 3,500 and 5,000 Taliban and Al-Qaeda activists had been airlifted from Kunduz by Pakistan, said their number was much higher.

Well-known American journalist Seymour M. Hersh, writing in the New Yorker, had quoted National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra as having told him that New Delhi had sent "diplomatic notes" to Britain and the US, protesting Pakistan's airlifting its nationals and Taliban fighters after they were surrounded by Northern Alliance fighters.

Hersh said Mishra told him that the Indian Government estimated that some 5,000 Pakistanis and other Taliban fighters were rescued by Pakistan. But a source in Kabul, close to assassinated Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Masood, said there were between 25,000 and 30,000 Pakistani and other Taliban fighters in Kunduz at that time. While about 6,000 of them surrendered, Pakistani military aircraft evacuated the others.

"It was a day and night operation which continued for several days. It could not have taken place without the knowledge of the US forces," the source said.

Western sources said the rescued Taliban could pose a serious threat to Jammu and Kashmir and the newly installed interim Government in Kabul. "It is not only top Taliban leaders who have disappeared. Hundreds of missiles, tanks and artillery guns which the Taliban had in its armoury have also disappeared without a trace," one Western diplomatic source said.

"It is unlikely that they have been shifted to Pakistan. Most probably they have been cleverly camouflaged in the snow-covered mountain ranges," the source said, adding the Taliban would come out of their hideouts and use those weapons once winter is gone.

The London-based Asia Pacific Foundation (APF) had said terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of India could increase substantially as a result of the evacuation of Taliban, Pakistani and Al-Qaeda fighters by Pakistan.

"The portents of this secret evacuation are not good for other nations in the region because these several thousand hardcore Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters will join hands with the terror groups based in Pakistan and intensify jehadi activity in the Chinese Xianjiang, Uzbekistan, Chechnya and Kashmir," it said.

"They can also, of course, commence cross-border terror activity against the new Government in Kabul and incite the local Afghan Pushtuns with whom they have close links and we could find ourselves back to square one again in the war against terrorism," APF president M J Gohel said in a report.
 


Back                          Top

«« Back
 
 
 
  Search Articles
 
  Special Annoucements