ISI proxy war comes a full circle

SRINAGAR, MARCH 7: In mid-1990s nearly 150 Pakistani outfits were floated in to pre-empt talks with the Indian Government. While the obje...

SRINAGAR, MARCH 7: In mid-1990s nearly 150 Pakistani outfits were floated in to pre-empt talks with the Indian Government. While the objectives remain the same, the Inter-Services Intelligence8217;s latest moves have embraced concerted efforts to evolve one foreign-dominated single-line organisation.The ISI-led conglomerate of Pakistan-based terrorism exporters8217; have effected a series of emergency8217; measures that have triggered a flight of cadres and money from all outfits to the foreigner-dominated Lashkar-e-Toiba, vertically split the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen by imposing a fund squeeze on it, and resorted to training of Pakistanis in Kashmir itself.

The aim is to cut down the reliance on local militants. The ISI moves have marginalised the Hizb as never before, placing the reigns of militancy firmly in the hands of the foreigners. What is now clear is that Kashmir remains afflicted by an quot;insurgencyquot; less so and increasingly by the quot;proxyquot; or even a quot;directquot; war waged by Pakistan, as DGP Gurbachan Jagat termedit.The latest step has been to squeeze the fund flow to the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen. quot;The ISI would like to deal with a single-line organisation controlled by foreigners as they distrust the local militants completely,quot; said IGP, Kashmir, P S Gill.

Of the Rs 5 crore distributed monthly by the ISI to the Lashkar, Harkat and the Hizb, the local-dominated Hizb8217;s share has fallen drastically from the Rs 1 crore it hitherto was sanctioned with the lion8217;s share being channeled to the Lashkar, which is almost 95 per cent composed of foreigners. Of the estimated 800 militants active, nearly half are foreigners.

The first step in the Hizb8217;s marginalisation was the ISI move to splinter the ruling troika of militant outfits in Kashmir by getting the Pakistani Punjabi, Afghans and the PoK militants to leave the Hizb and form the Al Badr outfit. The foreign militants felt cramped by the style of functioning of the Kashmiris of the Hizb, whom they accused of lacking in fighting spirit, shying away from killing civilians andmisappropriating Jehad funds.Senior Police and Army officers clearly discern the Pakistani gameplan. Says SSP, Anantnag, Farooq Khan, quot;To avert any sell-out or compromise, Pakistan first backed the Hizb to literally decimate the pro-Independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front JKLF. Later, they floated nearly 150 outfits in the mid-1990s to subvert talks and now with the rise of the Al Badr, three of the four main outfits in Kashmir are foreigner-dominated.quot;

The ISI8217;s reliance on the foreigner, especially the Punjabi, has taken on a new dimension. SP, Operations, Srinagar, Manohar Singh, points to a new trend of the Kashmir-trained foreign militant8217; KTFM in contrast to the old categories of the Pakistan-trained militant PTM and the local-trained militant LTM.

quot;The deputy supreme commander of the Harkat, Saifullah, who was shot in Pattan in January last, was a resident of Chitral, Pakistan, but had learnt Kashmiri well, the bus routes, the road networks and was almost a local. The Kashmiriguide will no longer be necessary,quot; Singh said, adding that foreign militants were infiltrating more and more with the help of Pakistani guides who went back once they had seen the militants safely into Kashmir.