Around 300 militants are waiting close to the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir for an opportunity to sneak into India and they are under pressure to infiltrate before the winter, a top army commander said on Tuesday.

General Officer Commanding of the 15 Corps Lt Gen S K Dua said there is increased pressure on militants to infiltrate before the winter and the ceasefire violation at LoC in Gurez on Monday, which left two soldiers dead, was part of an effort to push militants into Kashmir.

“It (ceasefire violation) seems to be an attempt to infiltrate more terrorists before the snowfall along the LoC,” he told reporters in Srinagar.

Dua, whose Corps is responsible for security of Kashmir Valley, cited intelligence inputs to say that around 300 militants are at various launch pads across the LoC waiting for an opportunity to infiltrate into India.

“There is increased pressure on them to infiltrate before the winter. Sometimes they just cross the LoC, open fire and then go back,” the army officer said.

He said the infiltration from across the LoC was “next to nil” this year so far and the anti-infiltration grid was fully prepared to keep it that way.

“There has been not let up in the intent (to infiltrate) but the robust anti-infiltration grid has ensured that the attempts are foiled,” Dua said.

Asked about the ceasefire violation in Gurez as it was not a traditional infiltration route, he said, “They might have changed the tactics. The grid is coordinated and we are ready to take on the challenge.”

On the killing of dreaded Lashkar-e-Taiba militant Abu Qasim last week, he said it was a major success for the security forces and would definitely dent the operational capabilities of the outfit.

 

 

firstpost.com

The splinter faction of Taliban outfit which has challenged Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor leadership as illigitimate to substitute Mullah Mohammad Omar has picked up Omar’s close aide Mullah Mohammad Rasoul as its Amirul Mominin (supreme commander of faithful Muslims) or new leader, local media reported on Tuesday.

“Mullah Mohammad Rasoul who refused to make allegiance to Mullah Akhater Mansoor was chosen by his supporters as Amirul Mominin of Taliban fighters on Monday,” Tolo television channel reported in its news bulliten.

Neither the Taliban outfit nor the Afghan government has made immediate comments on the report.

In the wake of the confirmation of the death of Taliban leader Mullah Omar in late July, The Taliban militants divided into two factions of supporters and opponents of Mullah Akhatar Mansoor.

The opponents mostly closed to Mullah Omar’s family led by Mullah Manan Niazi and Mullah Mohammad Yaqub, the son of Mullah Omar opposed Mullah Akhtar Mansoor’s legitimacy as Amirul Momin, and the challenge practically divided the armed group.

According to media reports, Mullah Manan Niazi has been appointed as spokesman and Mullah Mansoor Dadullah as deputy of the splinter group of the Taliban.

The report of choosing new leader for dissident group, if confirmed by Taliban, would deal a major blow to the Taliban militants and eventually weaken the militancy in Afghanistan, local political watchers believe.

 

 

 

asianage.com

Raising its black flag over the rugged mountainous regions of Afghanistan, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has emerged as a new threat to the war-ravaged country as it battles the Taliban for supremacy.

Employing violence and brutality to impose its will, Wilayat Khorasan, (the ancient name ISIL has chosen for the region made up of Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of neighbouring countries), has emerged in seven different areas and vowed to step up operations, where the veteran fighters – the Taliban – once held sway.

Fighting to reconstitute the historical Khorasan into the so-called “caliphate” of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group says it has grand plans for the region, starting with uprooting the Taliban and the government of President Ashraf Ghani.

Causing friction with the regional and overall leadership of the Taliban, armed battles have increased over the past few months with dozens of Taliban fighters killed in clashes, most notably in the Taliban stronghold of Nangarhar province.

ISIL’s local chapter has also managed to attract dozens of fighters from the Taliban’s ranks into its fold, while foreign fighters unable to make it to Syria and Iraq have thronged to the group’s territory.

In ISIL and the Taliban, we look at the group’s growing popularity, how it made steady inroads into the country, and the threat it poses for the future of Afghanistan.

We gain exclusive access to ISIL’s central leadership and meet children as young as five years old being trained to fight and dedicate their lives to the ‘caliphate’.

 

A report published by Al Jazeera states that Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is recruiting and brainwashing Afghan children to become the group’s fighters and suicide bombers.

Al Jazeera has visited two bases of ISIL in eastern Kunar province of Afghanistan and talked to ISIL militants including child soldiers who have said they are ready to become suicide bombers.

Two instructors have been briefly filmed in the report during training child soldiers. One instructor is seen giving a pistol to a child of about 9-10 years in front of a line of children and tells him “hold it like this…little bit down”.

After him, another instructor appears in the video to show children how to use a Kalashnikov. “Grab the Kalashnikov in this hand,” he tells children who pay close attention to him.

The same man with long hair is seen in another place training children on grenade and firing the weapon. “This is a hand grenade…pull the trigger,” he says while a group of children sitting and watching the two being briefed.

Two other children between 13 and 14 years of age are shown in the video report with Kalashnikovs in their hands who say they are trained by foreigners. They have said that they do not fear giving up their lives and ready to become suicide bombers.

Although, militants in the report are not so many in numbers but IS-Khorasan has told Al Jazeera that many, including Europeans and Arabs, are in hiding as they wished not to talk.

 

 

khaama.com

A militia fighter wearing a loose-fitting Afghan tunic and sandals, and with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher strapped to his back, stands at a checkpoint by a rickety bridge. To pass him requires the permission of Nabi Gechi.

To get married here also requires Gechi’s blessing. And to commit a robbery requires a contribution to Gechi’s arsenal. “If a person steals one watermelon, he has to buy me an AK-47,” he said. “If he steals a sheep, he has to buy me a PK machine gun.”

Gechi is neither a district governor nor a tribal elder. But in this sun-scorched territory of northern Kunduz province, where U.S. troops left long ago and there are no soldiers or police, Gechi and his fighters are the only resistance against a resurgent Taliban.

And that makes him the most influential man for miles around.

“Now, no one dares to steal anything in my area,” the militia commander said.

With its forces straining to combat a spreading insurgency, the Afghan government is partly outsourcing the war to irregular militias, many of them U.S.-funded, even as President Ashraf Ghani has pledged to disarm them. As a result, new strongmen have emerged while established ones have grown more powerful.

Operating with little accountability and accused of human rights violations, they have deepened ethnic divisions and weakened the central government’s influence in many areas.

The increasing reliance on the militias is the latest sign that the United States’ signature effort in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks — building a capable army and police force — is buckling under a challenge from the Taliban. That has prompted President Barack Obama to cancel the planned withdrawal of U.S. troops, prolonging the United States’ longest war.

In Qala-e-Zal district, power is in the hands of Gechi, a stout former mujahedeen warrior with a thick salt-and-pepper mustache, who was once bankrolled by U.S. forces and is again a beneficiary of their largesse.

In these rural parts, the ethnic Turkmen, 53, is not just the general. He is the judge, the police chief and the tax collector.

“I am the government here,” he declared, seated on a floor covered with red carpets and pillows in his headquarters, along with his followers.

His supporters, including provincial government officials, describe him as a savior who provides security where Afghan forces cannot. The U.S.-backed government is paying the salaries of 100 of Gechi’s mostly Turkmen fighters from money provided by the U.S. military. It has also supplied his militia with ammunition, olive-green Ford Ranger pickup trucks and tan Humvees.

“Commanders like Nabi Gechi are very important,” said Gen. Abdul Sabur Nasrati, the provincial police chief. “Without their support, the Afghan security forces cannot do anything.”

Gechi’s critics, however, contend that the government is legitimizing a warlord whom they accuse of abuse and extortion, particularly directed against ethnic Pashtuns, who, as a group, form the core of the Taliban. His tactics, they say, propel more people to support the insurgency.

“These militias are imprisoning the people like a bird,” said Amanullah Othmanzai, an influential Pashtun tribal elder. “If they find the slightest opportunity, they will escape from their cage.”

* * *

For much of his adult life, Gechi has been at both ends of a gun.

At 18, he left his family farm in Qala-e-Zal to join the U.S.-backed mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation. Back then, he was known as Abdul Nabi. In later years, he would earn the moniker “Gechi,” which means “goat” in the Turkmen language.

“Whenever he fought, he had quick moves like a goat,” said Hamdullah Danishi, until recently the deputy governor of Kunduz province.

The scars on Gechi’s body map Afghanistan’s numerous conflicts. In one battle against Soviet troops, a bullet went through his face and came out his neck. A second bullet grazed his face during the civil war that erupted after the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989. Gechi survived five more shootings as an anti-Taliban battlefield commander for the Northern Alliance rebels.

After the puritanical Islamist regime was ousted in 2001, Gechi put down his weapons. He moved his three wives and 11 children to the northern city of Hairatan to start a restaurant.

By 2009, though, the Taliban had seized Qala-e-Zal and other areas in Kunduz. Turkmen tribal elders and officials from Afghanistan’s spy agency, the National Directorate of Security, urged Gechi to return to fight, promising weapons and funding.

“I entered here with one Kalashnikov rifle,” he said, recounting a story that has become part of the local lore. “And the villagers all took out their weapons, their AK-47s and their muskets, and we started to fight. In 21 days, we pushed the Taliban out.”

Gechi remained in Qala-e-Zal, accepting protection money from the villagers, most of them ethnic Turkmens.

In 2011, U.S. forces also began paying Gechi’s force and other militias. They made Gechi the district head of the Critical Infrastructure Police, paying him $200 a month and his 225 fighters $150 each per month, according to U.S. military documents obtained by The Washington Post.

U.S. officials renamed the fighters “guards.” But their ranks included men with checkered pasts. At one point, Gechi’s deputy was replaced because he was in jail on human-trafficking charges. By the following year, then-President Hamid Karzai shut down the program, fearing that the militias could one day challenge the government. But kept in place were hundreds of other troubled U.S.-created irregular forces known as the Afghan Local Police, or ALPs.

In October 2012, the U.S. military commended Gechi, saying in a citation that it had the “greatest respect and appreciation” for his “leadership.”

* * *

A cellphone rings, and Gechi picks up. On the other end is an aide who informs him that two villagers are in a heated argument that threatens to escalate into a gun battle. Gechi orders one of his fighters to break up the dispute.

These days, hardly anyone in Qala-e-Zal goes to court or any other government office with their problems.

“The people come to me to solve disputes because they know if they go to the government, they have to pay a huge amount of bribes,” Gechi said. If the problem is serious, he convenes the tribal council he controls to deliver justice.

Other residents come to him for financial help when they get married or if they need a loan. He usually gives 70 kilos (about 150 pounds) of rice as a wedding gift, he said.

Gechi requires villagers to hand him Islamic taxes, about one-eighth of an individual’s earnings, similar to what the Taliban took. He takes a portion of harvests, livestock sales, land sales, any form of income. The money, he said, pays for the ammunition, food and salaries for his men not covered by the government.

“The people of Qala-e-Zal think they have to pay these Islamic taxes to someone,” said Hafizullah Safi, 45, an elder who serves on the tribal council. “So why not pay it for a good cause?”

Others call the taxes extortion.

“Nabi Gechi has become a wealthy man,” said Amruddin Wali, deputy leader of the provincial council in Kunduz city. “The government pays for 100 of his men, and yet he still charges every family.”

Human rights activists have accused the pro-government militias of extrajudicial killings, rapes, torture, kidnappings and drug trafficking. Although the militias are nowhere near as deadly as the Taliban, last year the United Nations recorded that they killed 53 civilians, nearly triple the number in 2013.

“This doesn’t happen in my territory,” Gechi said. “I don’t abuse the people.”

In interviews, though, villagers and tribal elders said that he and his force often prey on citizens, especially when they refuse to pay taxes.

“He forces people to sit on a wall, with one leg on one side, the other leg on other side,” said Othmanzai, the tribal elder. “Then he hangs some weights on their legs, to torture them into giving money.”

A 27-year-old ethnic Pashtun teacher from Qala-e-Zal, who did not know Othmanzai, described similar intimidation. Gechi’s fighters, he said, have accused villagers of being Taliban loyalists and forced them at gunpoint to pay $850 — or face arrest.

“There is no difference between Gechi and the Taliban in the way of collecting money,” said the teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared for his life.

Danishi dismissed the abuse allegations, saying that Gechi was “a worthy commander.”

“These human rights people are destroying us,” he added. “If it weren’t for their criticisms, we would finish off the Taliban.”

This month, Danishi was promoted to provincial governor.

And Gechi is now the ALP commander for Qala-e-Zal, said Kunduz provincial police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini. Gechi and his fighters receive funds through a program supported by the U.S. Department of Defense.

* * *

One hot day last summer, in the village of Jagharogh, at the edge of his domain, Gechi entered a hilltop fortress built for him by U.S. and German NATO forces. His fighters stood atop the walls with their AK-47s, fingers on the triggers. On a rickety pole, the Afghan flag sagged in the windless sky.

A Taliban position was less than a mile away. A day earlier, the insurgents had killed two of his men. Gechi stopped at an opening to a tunnel. “On good days, we fight from the rooftop, and on bad days, we fight from down there,” he said, pointing down the hole.

There were plenty of bad days this year.

“Why are the Taliban so strong in Kunduz?” Gechi asked. “It’s because the security forces are not doing enough.”

What was needed, he added, were more “local uprisers” like him.

Soon, there may be.

On Sept. 28, the Taliban seized the provincial capital, Kunduz city, the first major urban area to fall to the insurgency since 2001. For the next 15 days, the militants wreaked havoc. In response to the assault, the government is considering a plan to increase the number of ALP fighters from 29,000 to as many as 45,000. A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, which oversees the forces, said that ALP abuses were not a widespread problem and that the ministry is creating structures to better vet recruits and control the militias.

“Our army and police cannot reach everywhere,” said Sediq Sediqqi, the spokesman. “We’ll continue to invest in the ALP because they are a very important element of our security forces.”

Many observers are skeptical. A recent report from the International Crisis Group concluded that the ALP program had done little to improve security and “even exacerbated the conflict in a number of districts.” When the Taliban seized Kunduz, the ALPs fled instead of fighting back.

Gechi, in the end, also was unable to protect his territory. In the Kunduz offensive, the Taliban fighters also took control of almost two-thirds of Qala-e-Zal. Even after the insurgents withdrew from the city Oct. 13, they remained in the district.

“Sometimes we attack them; sometimes they attack us,” Gechi said in a recent phone interview. “But we will clear them out.”

The fortress, though, is now under Taliban control, he said.

 

 

stripes.com

The island nation of the Maldives has passed a law allowing authorities to install cameras in the homes of people they suspect of being sympathetic to the Islamic State group and arrest them if they try to join the militants overseas, the home minister said Thursday.

The anti-terror legislation, signed by President Yameen Abdul Gayoom on Wednesday, follows reports that many IS recruits were coming from the Indian Ocean archipelago of just 350,000 people.

The opposition criticized the law as draconian and warned it could be used to crack down on dissent.

“This is an unconstitutional law that will be used to suppress dissent and jail opposition leaders,” opposition Maldivian Democratic party spokesman Hamid Abdul Gaffoor said.

The actual number of Maldivian fighters in the extremist Sunni group is unknown, but local newspapers carry frequent reports of Maldivians wounded or killed while fighting in the Middle East.

Home Minister Umar Naseer said the government has details on seven Maldivian IS fighters, while another 10 people were stopped in Sri Lanka and Malaysia on suspicion of trying to get to Syria to join the group. They were not arrested because there previously was no legal provision, Naseer said. The new law, however, would allow for arrests.

The law defines terrorism broadly, including cases of endangering another person, hijacking a transportation vessel, kidnapping, endangering public safety, vandalism and causing health hazards.

The government can now seek a court order to fit suspected IS sympathizers with electronic monitoring tags, listen to their phone conversations and prevent them from traveling abroad if the trip is deemed suspicious.

The legislation allows the president to declare any group a terrorist organization. Anyone belonging to such an organization would then be in danger of being imprisoned for up to 15 years.

Anyone who gives a speech that authorities believe encourages terrorism can be prosecuted, along with any media that report on such speeches. Authorities can hold suspects for 96 hours for questioning without a court hearing, and suspects are allowed to meet with their lawyers only in the presence of police.

Naseer said the government would not abuse the powers, and insisted the intention of the law is to prevent violence.

But in a country where the vice president, former defense minister and former president are all currently behind bars in different cases, critics say the legislation is a major cause for concern and evidence that the politically tense nation is sliding back toward autocracy.

Former President Mohamed Nasheed’s lawyer, Amal Clooney, recently said the Maldives has the world’s highest IS recruitment per capita, but gave no details or numbers.

Nasheed is appealing a 13-year prison sentence for ordering the arrest of a judge while he was president in 2008-11. He was forced to resign amid opposition protests following the judge’s arrest, which courts said was unconstitutional.

Gayoom’s former defense minister, Mohamed Nazim, was imprisoned for 11 years for firearm possession, and current Vice President Ahmed Adeeb was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of treason for allegedly plotting to assassinate Gayoom in a boat explosion on Sept. 28.

 

asianage.com

Pakistani Premier Mohammad Nawaz Sharif’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs has said that Pakistan has influence on Taliban but do not control them, the country’s state media Radio Pakistan reported on Wednesday.

“The international community has concerns about the Afghan issue and no world power wants war in Afghanistan. Pakistan and the US want resumption of talks between the Afghan government and Taliban.” Sartaj Aziz said, according to Radio Pakistan.

“It was up to the Afghan government to resume talks with Taliban and our job is just of a facilitator.”

His remarks come after the country’s former President and military ruler Pervez Musharaf admitted that Taliban were trained and sent to Afghanistan by Pakistan.

“We trained Taliban and sent them to fight against Russia. Taliban, Haqqani, Osama Bin Laden and Zawahiri were our heroes then.” Musharaf quoted by CNN-IBN as saying in an interview on Tuesday.

Afghan government has long asked Pakistan to stop supporting Taliban and other militant group against Afghanistan but so far only empty promises have been given.

Pakistan-based Afghan Taliban have announced war against the government of Afghanistan and its international allies.

 

khaama.com

CIS security officials have met in Moscow to discuss interaction in revealing persons who took training in terrorist camps in Syria and Afghanistan.

The 39th session of the Council the Council of Heads of Security Agencies and Special Services of CIS Member Nations was held in Moscow on October 28.

According to the CIS Executive Committee, the discussion focused on key aspects of antiterrorist activities on the territories of the CIS nations and ways of counteracting terrorist organizations and groups trained in Syria and Afghanistan.

They also discussed the procedure of mutual exchange of information about threats of unlawful interference into activities of objects of the transport infrastructure.

Besides, the meeting participants discussed the draft program of collaboration between the CIS member nations in combating terrorism and other violent manifestations of extremism designed for 2017-2019 and the draft agreement on exchange of information on the fight against terrorism and other violent manifestations of extremism as well as terrorism financing.

The Council members also considered issues related to forensic support to counteraction against chemical and biological terrorism on holding of socially significant events.

They also discussed the results of activities of the commissions for scientific and technological cooperation, the fight against international drug trafficking, etc.

Russian media report that speaking at the session, Director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov said yesterday that joining the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group by part of the Taliban movement has intensified the threat of the terrorists’ invasion of Central Asia.  “The escalation of tension in Afghanistan causes serious concern. Numerous IS gangs that are part of the Taliban movement are currently concentrated on the northern borders of that country. Some of them have joined the Islamic State ranks, which has dramatically intensified the threat of the terrorists’ invasion of Central Asia,” said the FSB chief.

“Unfortunately, there have been incidents recently at the frontiers of our regional partners,” he said.

TASS news agency reports that according to the official around 40% of Islamic State members are foreign mercenaries.  The FSB chief reportedly estimated that people from more than 100 countries are now fighting for IS in Syria and Iraq, including “about 10 gangs…of citizens of Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Central Asian countries.”

Bortnikov stressed that “an extensive network of training camps has been set up in Syria and Iraq, as well as in neighboring countries, to train recruits.”

Bortnikov said the threat for CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries is growing as militants are returning from hot spots.

The FSB head called for “increasing exchange of preventive intelligence information about terrorists’ personal data, their plans and supporters.”

The Council of Heads of Security Agencies and Special Services of CIS Member States was set up under a resolution of the Council of CIS Heads of State of March 28, 1997, to interact and coordinate actions of the security agencies and special services in combating international organized crime.  The meetings are held as necessary, at least twice a year, alternately hosted by the CIS member states.

 

 

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