Author: Peter Chalk
Publication: www.rand.org
Date:
URL: http://www.rand.org/hot/op-eds/090101JIR.html
This opinion article appeared in
Jane's Intelligence Review on September 1, 2001 and is reproduced with
permission from Jane's Information Group.
Peter Chalk investigates the extent
of Pakistan's support for groups in Kashmir and how this assistance has
impacted on the course and development of the conflict.
Over the past two years, increased
attention has focused on Pakistan as a significant force behind the growth
of Islamic radicalism and extremism in Kashmir. The US State Department's
most recent report on Patterns of Global Terrorism, released in April 2001,
specifically identifies Islamabad as the chief sponsor of militant groups
fighting in the disputed Indo-Pakistani region. The same conclusion was
reached in an earlier report by the National Commission on Terrorism and
reflects current thinking in most US and Western policy-making and intelligence
circles.
Reasons for Pakistani backing
There are currently five main groups
fighting in Kashmir, all of which benefit from Pakistani support:
- Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM);
- Laskhar-e-Tayyiba (LeT);
- al Badr;
- Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM); and
- Harakat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM).
Islamabad's backing for these groups
revolves around the perennial conflict with India - a militarily, economically
and demographically superior state viewed as posing a fundamental threat
to Pakistan's long-term viability and integrity.
Sponsoring militancy in Kashmir
is regarded as a relatively cheap and effective way of offsetting existing
power symmetries (essentially through the philosophy of a 'war of a thousand
cuts') while simultaneously creating a bulwark of instability along the
country's vulnerable southern flank. Both are considered vital to ensuring
that Pakistan has sufficient strategic depth to undertake a protracted
conventional war on the sub-continent, should this ever become necessary.
Religious imperatives also come
into play, particularly on the part of the Inter- Services Intelligence
(ISI) Directorate, which enjoys a high degree of autonomy and executive
space within Pakistan. The agency has specifically sought to replicate
and transplant the success of the anti-Soviet Afghan campaign in Kashmir,
exhorting foreign militants to participate in the conflict as part of the
wider moral duty owed to the jihad. The medium to long-term aim, according
to intelligence sources in New Delhi and Srinagar, is to trigger a generalised
Islamic revolution across the northeast and eventually India as a whole.
The nature of the support
Pakistani assistance to Kashmiri
insurgents covers the ambit of training, logistical, financial and doctrinal
support.
At least 91 insurgent training camps
have been identified in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), the bulk of which
lie contiguous to the Indian districts of Kupwara, Baramulla, Poonch, Rajauri
and Jammu. Basic courses run for between three and four months, focusing
on weapons handling, demolitions and urban sabotage. Training for the more
able recruits lasts somewhat longer and typically emphasises additional,
specialised skills in areas such as heavy arms, reconnaissance and sniper
assaults.
Responsibility for managing these
courses falls to the ISI's Operations Branch and tends to be conducted
through two sub-divisions: Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous (JIM) and Joint
Intelligence North (JIN). Islamist-oriented military officers are also
believed to periodically 'moonlight' from their regular duties to supplement
ISI instructors and help provide critical training in the fundamentals
of guerrilla/jungle warfare and escape and evasion techniques.
Most of the camps are located near
major military establishments (within 1-15km), which Indian intelligence
maintains provide the bulk of military-related resources, including light
weapons (assault rifles, carbines, pistols, machine guns, rocket- propelled
grenades/boosters), ammunition, explosives, binoculars and night vision
devices, communications equipment and uniforms.
Financing the militants
Apart from military backing, Pakistan
plays an important role in financing Kashmiri insurgents. According to
India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), annual ISI expenditure to the
main militant organisations runs to between US$125 and $250 million a year.
These funds are used to cover salaries for fighters (which run from 5,000
to 10,000 rupees a month), support to next of kin, cash incentives for
high- risk operations and retainers for guides, porters and informers.
In addition, the ISI helps to fund
militant proxies through the circulation of counterfeit currency and by
laundering profits derived from the heroin trade. The agency also handles
foreign contributions and donations (most of which come from Saudi Arabia),
funnelling these to Pakistani bank accounts that are opened under the auspices
of insurgent political, religious or charitable fronts. Many of these payments
are co-ordinated through Rahimyar Khan, a small town in the deserts of
southern Punjab where every year thousands of wealthy Arabs come to hunt
the region's wildlife.
Ideological indoctrination
Besides acting as a major source
of military and financial assistance, Pakistan remains a pivotal centre
of ideological indoctrination for the Kashmiri conflict, much of which
is co-ordinated through the country's burgeoning network of theological
madrasahs. Many of these schools equate the concept of the jihad - which
most Islamic scholars interpret as 'striving for justice' - with guerrilla
warfare and explicitly exhort their students to fulfil their 'spiritual
obligations' by fighting in the name of the pan-Islamic cause.
The total number of existing madrasahs
including satellite institutions in Pakistan is estimated at between 40,000
and 50,000. Of these, only about 4,350 are currently registered with the
government. The most prominent extremist-oriented schools include the Dar-ul-Uloom
Haqani at Akora Khattak; the Markaz-ad-Da'awa-wal- Irshad at Murdike; the
Dar-ul-Loom at Pashtoonabad; the Dar ul-Iftah-ul-Irshad at Nazimabad; and
the Ahle-Sunnat-wal Jammat at Rawalpindi.
All of these madrasahs are associated
with the most extreme sections of the Pakistani politico-religious lobby,
such as the Jamiat e Ulema Islam (JUI), and retain close links with openly
terroristic organisations. The Markaz-ad-Da'awa-wal-Irshad madrasah, for
instance, constitutes the main recruiting base for the LeT, one of the
most violent and feared groups presently fighting in Kashmir.
Pakistan's impact
Pakistan has fundamentally altered
the dimensions of the conflict in Kashmir. On one level, the provision
of arms, training and finance has dramatically heightened the firepower
and overall proficiency of the militants on the ground. This has been reflected
by:
- the range and type of operations
now carried out which include everything from improvised explosive attacks
to suicide car bombings and full frontal assaults;
- the quantity of military hardware
available to the insurgents; in 2000 alone Indian authorities recovered
482 AK47 assault rifles, 53 rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), 16 sniper
rifles, 59 rocket launchers, 4,807 hand grenades, 292 anti-personnel mines,
555 rockets, 1,508kg of RDX explosive, 460 wireless sets and 20 night-vision
binoculars; and
- the number of militant-inflicted
casualties, which increased from an annual average of 608 deaths during
the first five years of the insurgency to over 760 fatalities a year between
1996 and 2000.
More intrinsically, the nature of
the Kashmir conflict has been transformed from what was originally a secular,
locally- based struggle (conducted via the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front
- JKLF) to one that is now largely carried out by foreign militants and
rationalised in pan-Islamic religious terms.
With the exception of HM, all of
the main organisations currently active in Kashmir are non-indigenous,
composed mostly of Punjabi mercenaries from Pakistan. Indicative of this
were the 1,102 foreign insurgents killed in Kashmir between 1998 and the
end of January 2001 - 63% more than those slain in the eight years from
1990 to 1997. Most of those who come to fight define their objectives in
both local and global terms, with the rhetorical enemy specified as any
state perceived to be anti-Islamic.
A case in point is the LeT, whose
annual diary specifically asserts its intention to bring the jihad to the
USA, Israel, Russia, the UK and France, announcing plans to 'plant Islamic
flags in Delhi, Tel Aviv, Washington, Paris and London'.
Risks for Pakistan
While Islamabad may view involvement
in Kashmir as a viable way of provoking unrest in India, the policy carries
definite risks. In fact, it is no longer apparent that the army or ISI
exercise complete control over the proxies they have helped to create,
some of which are now openly talking about fomenting a fundamentalist revolution
in Pakistan itself.
Should the insurgency in Kashmir
end, there is a perceptible risk that groups such as al Badr, LeT and JeM
will re-direct their energies and attention to the pursuit of this very
objective. Indeed this may now be the main reason why Islamabad continues
to infiltrate militants across the disputed line of control: to keep them
busy and, therefore, out of Pakistan.
(Peter Chalk is an expert on transnational
crime and terrorism at the RAND Corporation, Washington, USA.)
