Special Emphasis on Terrorism (Nov-2014)

Terrorist Activities in Pakistan

Suicide Attacks
Three militants, a suicide bomber among them, and a Policeman were killed in a fierce clash which followed an attack on Thall Police Station in Hangu District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on September 15, reports Dawn. According to Police, 30 to 40 militants using heavy weapons and grenades stormed the Police Station at about 5:45am. A Policeman was killed and four others were injured. Police fired back and a suicide bomber who had failed to enter the police station because of stiff police resistance blew himself up after having been injured. The Ansarul Mujahideen, wing of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which operates in Hangu, Thall and Kohat, has claimed responsibility for the attack on Thall Police Station. Earlier, The News reported that a Policeman and the suicide bomber were killed.

Two persons, identified Abdul Ghaffoor (60) and Kaleemullah (30), were killed and at least seven others were injured in a suicide attack targeting chief of the Criminal Investigation Department’s (CID) Special Investigation Unit (SIU), Farooq Awan, in Gizri locality of Clifton Cantonment in Saddar Town of Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh, on September 25, reports Dawn. Awan escaped unhurt. It was the third attempt on his life. The Bomb Disposal Squad confirmed the blast was carried out using a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.

There were some sources that pointed towards the Abid Mucchar group of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, while CID pointed at Jundullah’s involvement in the attack. Intelligence agencies had earlier issued a warning about possible attacks on senior Policemen in Karachi a few days back.

Bomb/IED Blasts
At least 29 shops were destroyed when an explosive device planted by unidentified militants exploded in China Market of Timergara Bazaar in Lower Dir District on August 25. However, no casualties were reported as the market was closed at that time. Timergara Station House Officer (SHO) Roshanzada said the device was planted in a pressure cooker adding that a search operation was under way to arrest the militants. The Bomb Disposal Unit (BDU) said that 10 kilograms of explosives were used in the device.

A grenade attack on a check-post in Karachi on September 3 injured at least four Policemen, reports Central Asia Online. Police said that two unidentified miscreants on a motorcycle hurled a hand grenade at the check-post under the Nursery Bridge on Shahrah-e-Faisal Road

At least three persons including one Frontier Corps (FC) personnel were killed and 22 others were injured in a remote controlled bomb explosion on September 13 in Satellite Town area of Quetta, reports Dawn.

Three cadres of Amr Bil Maroof Wa Nahi Anil Munkar sustained injuries in a roadside blast in Bar Qamber Khel in Bara tehsil (revenue unit) of Khyber Agency in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on September 12, reports The News. The sources said that the cadres, identified as Reshad, Haroon and Mumtaz, were on their way to a village in a car when an explosive device planted on roadside went off in Bar Qambarkhel.

Separately, three watchmen of a market sustained injuries when unidentified assailants lobbed a hand-grenade into a room in Anjani Bazaar area of Orakzai Agency, on September 12, reports The News. Sources said Suleman, Gul Khan and Nadir Khan were sitting in a room in Anjani Bazaar when unidentified assailants persons hurled a hand- grenade into the room around 5am early in the morning. As a result, the sources said, all the three watchmen sustained critical wounds in the attack.

Targeted Killings
Three persons, including a woman, were killed in Panjgur District of Balochistan Province on August 26, reports Daily Times. According to reports, unidentified armed men barged into a house in Prom tehsil (revenue unit) of Panjgur District and killed two men, identified as Anwar Baloch, Firdos and a woman.

Meanwhile, two persons including a child were killed in a firing incident in Pashtunabad area of Quetta on August 25, reports Dawn. Police told that unidentified gunmen opened fire at a rickshaw and killed its driver. A child playing in the street was also killed when a stray bullet him.

Two Policemen, Khurram (40) and Junaid Akram (38), were shot dead and another pedestrian, Saddam (14), was injured when unidentified armed assailants opened fire at them at Naggan Roundabout in New Karachi Town on August 27, reported Daily Times.

Separately, one Sub-Inspector, identified as Sahib Dino (50), was shot dead at Matkay Wali Pulia in Korangi Town on August 27, reports Daily Times.

In another incident, a Shia doctor, identified as Dr. Naseem Hussain Jaffri (50), was shot dead by unidentified militants in Korangi Town on August 27, reports Daily Times.

Elsewhere, an assistant producer, identified as Nadir Ali Shah (42), was shot dead in Korangi Town on August 27, reports Dawn. Shah worked for private TV channel, Jaag.

Another man, identified as Abdullah (35), was shot dead by unidentified armed assailants in Orangi Town on August 27, reported Daily Times.

Also, a man, identified as Hafiz Mehboob Shah (45), was killed by unidentified militants at Bilal Roundabout in Korangi Town on August 27, reports Daily Times.

In a separate incident, a man, identified as Muhammad Zahid (50), was shot dead by unidentified armed assailants at Qasba Colony in Orangi Town on August 27, reported Daily Times.

In addition, an unidentified man was shot dead by near Ghareeb Shah Shrine in Lyari Town on August 27, reports Daily Times.

A man, identified as Abdul Qayum (23), was shot dead while Haji Adam (25) was injured in a firing incident near Memon Society at Kharadar Market in Saddar Town of Karachi on August 28, reports Daily Times.

Separately, a man, identified as Shah Rasool (28), was shot dead by unidentified armed assailants near Qabar Chowk in SITE Town on August 28, reports Daily Times. Police said that he hailed from Buner District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

In another incident, unidentified militants shot dead one Asif (36) at Mir Jam Goth in Malir Town on August 28, reports Daily Times.

In a separate incident, an unidentified man shot dead near Boat Basin in Clifton area of Saddar Town on August 28, reports Daily Times.

Elsewhere, two people, identified as Haris (7) and Naseer Ahmed (40), were injured when unidentified armed assailants opened fire on them at Essa Goth in Malir Town on August 28, reports Daily Times.

Senior journalist and Secretary General of Balochistan Union of Journalists (BUJ) Irshad Mastoi, trainee reporter Abdul Rasul and an accountant Mohammed Younus of a news agency were shot dead in Kabir Building near Jinnah Road in Quetta on August 28, reports The Express Tribune. According to Station House Officer (SHO) Bijli Road Police Station, Hashim Shah, two militants barged into the office of the news distribution agency Online News and opened fire at the people inside.

Separately, three Security Forces (SFs) personnel were injured when militants attacked a SF convoy that was guarding gas fields in Harnai District on August 28, reports Dawn.

Unidentified militants opened fire on worshippers at a shrine in Awaran District of Balochistan, killing at least six persons and wounding seven others on August 29, reports The News. The attack came at a shrine of the Zikri community in the Awaran District. “Three gunmen came on two motorbikes and fired at the worshippers, praying at sunset. “At least six people have been killed and seven others are injured,” Akbar Harifal, the senior administration official in the area said.

Three missing Baloch men, two of them said to be related, were found shot dead on the outskirts of Malir town of Karachi (Karachi District) on the morning of August 29, reports Dawn. Two bodies were found behind the bushes by the roadside near Jam Goth, according to Memon Goth Station House Officer (SHO) Azam Hayat. Both bodies, each with a single bullet wound in the head, were wrapped up in a blanket and a bedspread. Another victim with a single gunshot wound in the head was spotted in the Malir riverbed in Shah Latif Town, said Shah Latif SHO Arshad Awan. The victims were identified as Rafiq (28), Ismail (30), and Pervez Saleem (35). An examination of the crime scene showed they had been kidnapped and gunned down somewhere else before their bodies were dumped there, said SHO Hayat. He added that no spent bullet casings were found at the crime scene.

Separately, an official of the Sindh government, Nadeem Ahmed (43) was gunned down in Shah Faisal Colony on August 29, reports Dawn. Nadeem Ahmed, a grade-16 officer, was going to office in the secretariat building on a motorbike when he was targeted, said Shah Faisal SHO Abdul Khaliq.

Meanwhile, Police Constable, Lutfullah (45), was gunned down near Al Asif Square in the Sohrab Goth area on August 29, reports Dawn. Lutfullah, was going to his workplace in Sohrab Goth on a motorbike when he came under attack. Five Policemen have been killed during the past three days in Karachi, according to the officials. With the latest incident, the number of Policemen killed in the city this year (2014) has raised to 116.

At least 12 militants and one Frontier Corps (FC) official were killed in exchange of fire in Gomazai area of Turbat District in Balochistan on August 31, reports Daily Times. An FC spokesperson said the security personnel, on secret information, launched a search operation in Gomazai area of Turbat. The militants present in the area offered resistance which led to exchange of fire.

Separately, a private container’s driver was shot dead and a cleaner was injured by unidentified assailants on the National Highway in Dera Murad Jamali area of Nasirabad District on August 30, reports Daily Times. The attackers managed to escape from the scene.

At least two Policemen were killed when unidentified assailants opened fire at them in the Bakra Mandi area of Malir Town in Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh, on September 1, reports Dawn. Both the officials were performing their duties when they were attacked in the Bakra Mandi. The tally of Policemen killed in this year has reached 127.

At least three persons were killed in separate incidents of violence in Karachi (Karachi District) on September 1, reports Daily Times. A person, identified as Farzana (35), was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Malir Bakra Piri area.

In a separate incident, Akbar Ali (30) was shot dead by unidentified assailants in MPR Colony of Orangi Town on September 1, reports Daily Times.

Separately, Temoor (20) was killed in firing by unidentified assailants near Mujahid Crown area of Orangi Town on September 1, reports Daily Times.

In another incident, Mueen (20) was injured by firing of unidentified assailants in Machhar Colony on September 1, reports Daily Times.

Also, another person, Yousuf (40) was injured by firing of unidentified assailants near Burhani Hospital in Arambagh area.

At least three persons were killed in separate incidents of violence in Karachi (Karachi District) on September 2, reports Daily Times. Raja Amanullah (40), a Muttahida Qaumi Movement activist and an employee of the defunct Karachi Development Authority, was shot dead by unidentified assailants on Ghaus Pak Road in Korangi Town.

Separately, an MQM activist, identified as Aqeel Abbas (45), was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Hassan Colony of Gulbahar area on September 2, reports Daily Times.

In a separate incident, a Hindu businessman, identified as Raja Chawla (55), was shot dead near Zamzama Park in Clifton area on September 2, reports Daily Times.

Unidentified militants on September 4 shot dead a Balochistan National Party (BNP) leader, Eid Muhammad, near Pak Quran Chowk, an intersection in Sarawan area of Panjgur town (Panjgur District) in Balochistan, reports Daily Times. Police said Muhammad shopped at a market and was on his way home when the assailants on a motorcycle opened fire on him near Pak Quran Chowk. The attackers managed to flee from the scene.

At least six persons were killed in separate incidents of violence in Karachi (Karachi District), the provincial capital of Sindh on September 5, reports The News. Two Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) activists, identified as Syed Yasir and Ahmed were killed by unidentified assailants in Humaira Town of Model Colony.

Separately, a person, identified as Syed Mohsin Raza (50), a member of the Shia community, was killed by unidentified assailants in Federal B Area in Gulberg Town on September 5, reports The News.

In a separate incident, Syed Kashif Hussain (35), a member of the Shia community, was shot dead at his electronics shop in Nazimabad No-1 of Rizvia area on September 5, reports The News.

In another incident, a suspected gangster, identified as Amanullah (25), was shot dead in Nawa Lane area of Kalakot on September 5, reports The News.

Also, a dead body was found in Old Sabzi Mandi area on September 5, reports The News.

At least five persons were killed in separate incidents of violence in Karachi (Karachi District), the provincial capital of Sindh on September 7, reports Dawn. Three militants belonging to the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Swat group), were killed in an ‘encounter’ with Police in Site area. Police conducted a raid in Metroville on a tip that militants were present in the area.

Separately, a prominent Shia leader, identified as Allama Ali Akbar Kumaili and his guard were shot dead on September 6 by unidentified assailants near Bhangoria Goth in Azizabad area, reports.

At least four persons were killed in separate incidents of violence in Karachi on September 9, reports Express Tribune. A person, identified as Zubair, and his son were shot dead by unidentified assailants near Cheel Chowk in Lyari area.

Separately, one person was shot dead near University Road in the Gulshan-e-Iqbal area on September 9, reports Express Tribune.

In another incident, an unidentified person was shot dead in Orangi Town on September 9, reports Express Tribune.

At least six persons were killed in separate incidents of violence in Karachi on September 10, reports Daily Times. Eminent religious scholar, Maulana Masood Baig, son-in-law of renowned scholar and head of Jamia Binoria Mufti Naeem, an international Deobandi Islamic educational institute, was shot dead in Hyderi locality of North Nazimabad area. According to reports, four suspected militants on two motorcycles stopped his vehicle near Hyderi Market when he was heading home from Karachi University and fired at it indiscriminately. Baig died on the spot while his driver was injured.

In another incident, two persons, identified as Ghulam Hyder (26) and Shabbir Hussain (50), were killed by unidentified assailants at Irani Camp in Orangi Town.

Separately, a person was shot dead near Liaquat Market of Malir Town on September 10, reports Daily Times.

In a separate incident, a person, identified as Yasir, was shot dead by unidentified assailants near Islam Chowk in Orangi Town on September 10, reports Daily Times.

Meanwhile, a dead body was found from Orangi Town on September 10, reports Daily Times.

Unidentified militants shot dead a peace committee member in the Tank Bazaar of Tank Town (Tank District) on September 11, reports Daily Times. According to reports, the militants ambushed the peace body committee as he came out of his house near Tank Bazaar. He died on the spot while the militants fled from the scene.

Meanwhile, one militant was killed and another sustained injury during an encounter with the Police near the Mashogagar Police post in the limits of Badaber Police Station in Peshawar, the provincial KP, reports The News. Police said a group of militants opened fire on the armoured personnel carrier (APC) of police and mobile van near the Mashogagar Police post. Police repulsed the attack and killed one of the militants identified as Qaiser. Another militant sustained injuries.

Two persons were killed in separate incidents of targeted killings in Orangi Town of Karachi on September 11, reports Daily Times.

Unidentified gunmen opened fire at Akram aka Shahji in Ghaziabad area of Orangi leaving him dead on the spot.

Meanwhile, armed men shot dead another man at Rehmat Chowk of Baldia Town within a span of one hour from the first killing.

A prayer leader of the Frontier Constabulary (FC) was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Nasir Bagh area of Hayatabad in Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on September 14. According to the Police, Maulana Qari Javed Afridi, a resident of Mullagori, Khyber Agency, was shot dead on his way home from Ghundai Pump House.

Separately, a Policeman was killed and two others sustained injuries when unidentified militants launched an attack on Tal Police Station in Hangu District on September 14, reports The News. Exchange of fire between the militants continued for almost an hour while more Police contingents were also called in to cope with the situation. A senior Police official said that a suicide bomber was also among the attackers who blew himself up. He said a wall of the Police Station collapsed in the aftermath of the explosion.

Two brothers of a senior Policeman were killed and another sustained injuries when militants attacked his house in Rora village in the limits of University Police Station in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on September 14, reports The News. The sources said a group of militants affiliated with a banned outfit forced their entry into the house of Saifur Rehman, Station House Officer (SHO) at Kulachi Police Station, at 10 pm and fired at his brothers identified as Fakhar Zaman, Muhammad Ismail and Asghar Khan. The militants opened indiscriminate fire on them, leaving Fakhar Zaman and Muhammad Ismail dead on the spot while Asghar Khan sustained injuries. The militant group led by their commander Amin Jan alias Malang stated that they avenged the killing of a colleague, Salim Shah, who was killed by the SHO Saifur Rehman in an encounter in Loni area on September 13.

Later, a member of the peace body was killed by unidentified gunmen in the Kabal tehsil (revenue unit) of the Swat District on September 15, reports The News. The sources said that the member of the peace committee and schoolteacher Zahir Shah was on his way to the Government High School in Kabal when unidentified gunmen shot him dead near the Defence Ground.

A Policeman on September 25 shot at two prisoners in Rawalpindi District, killing Christian pastor Zafar Bhatti, who was accused of blasphemy and wounding Briton Muhammad Asghar (70), who is condemned to death on the same charge, reports Dawn. Zafar Bhatti later succumbed to his injuries. Bhatti, worked to protect the human rights of the country’s Christian minority, and was on trial after he was accused in 2012 of sending blasphemous text messages. According to details given by his family, the phone was not registered in his name and he had received death threats in prison from both inmates and guards.

Miscellaneous
Two militants were killed and another sustained injuries in a clash between two groups in Akakhel area of Bara subdivision in Khyber Agency of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on August 1, reports The News. The sources said the militants affiliated with Abdul Wali and Ghalchakai-led groups exchanged gunfire. A militant belonging to Abdul Wali Group was killed on the spot while two militants from each group were wounded. One of the injured militants succumbed to his injuries later.

Meanwhile, one security official was killed when militants attacked a Security Forces’ check post in border area of Ghakhai pass in Mamond tehsil (revenue unit) of Bajaur Agency on August 1, reports Daily Times. According to ISPR, a group of militants entered Pakistani territory from Afghanistan’s Kunar province and attacked the border post in Ghakhai pass area. The assault was carried out using heavy weaponry, killing one FC official.

Two levies personnel were injured in a hand grenade attack on a check post in Parsh area of Khar tehsil (revenue unit) in Bajaur Agency of Federally Administered Tribal Areas on August 25. The political administration launched a search operation after the incident but no arrests were made.

At least 32 militants were killed on August 30 when Security Forces (SF) targeted the suspected hideouts of militants as a part of Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan Agency (NWA) of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Daily Times reported quoting according to the Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR). The ISPR spokesman said that the Army aviation gunship helicopters targeted the suspected hideouts of miscreants in different areas of the tribal areas. As a result of the firing with machinegun, at least 32 terrorists were reportedly killed while three of their hideouts were razed to ground. Twenty three (23) explosives-laden vehicles and four ammunition dumps of the militants were also dismantled in the action.

Separately, an official of the Khasadar Force (Tribal Police), identified as Hamidullah was killed and five others sustained injuries when a group of unidentified militants opened indiscriminate fire on a Khassadar check post in the Jamrud subdivision of Khyber Agency on August 31, reports The News.

A cargo plane escaped attack just before landing at the Bacha Khan International Airport in Peshawar in the night of August 31, reports The News. “The plane carrying NATO cargo has landed safely at the airport for refueling as per schedule. It was hit with a single bullet. The location from where it might have been fired is being confirmed,” SSP Peshawar Najibur Rahman said. An official confirmed they were carrying out a search operation in the limits of the Badaber Police Station.

The Army on September 8 killed 10 militants, destroyed an explosives cache and five vehicles in fresh air strikes as part of Operation Zarb-e-Azb in Boya Degan area of North Waziristan Agency (NWA) in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), reports The News. “The Army Aviation gunship helicopters struck in the area ahead of Boya Degan in North Waziristan. In a precise strike on a terrorist hideout, gunship helicopters destroyed one explosive dump and five vehicles and killed 10 terrorists,” the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement. The latest attacks came a week after the Army announced it had killed more than 900 militants and lost 82 soldiers since the start of the operation.

Separately, a Government-run school for girls was blown up in Kamangara area of Nawagai tehsil (revenue unit) in Bajaur Agency on September 8, reports The News.

Sixty-five terrorists were killed and five terrorist hideouts destroyed in air strikes by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) jets on September 10 in the North Waziristan Agency, reports The News. Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that the military first carried out air strikes early on September 10 in the Dattakhel area of NWA, killing 35 terrorists and later targeted a village in the Shawal Valley, killing another 30. The PAF jets carried out precision strikes after getting credible intelligence about the presence of militants there.

Meanwhile, Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif on September 10 said that the Operation Zarb-e-Azb would continue till the elimination of last terrorist, reports The News. He emphasised that terrorists would be pursued even in the remotest areas and all their sanctuaries would be taken out during the Operation Zarb-e-Azb.

Separately, unidentified militants killed a member of the Levies Force, identified as Nawab escorting an anti-polio team in Damadola area in Mamond tehsil (revenue unit) in Bajaur Agency on September 10, reports The News. The sources said the attack took place on the last day of a three-day anti-polio campaign in Bajaur Agency. The immunisation drive continued after the attack under stringent security.

Unidentified militants on September 11 blew up a railway track in the Bala Nari area of Bolan District in Balochistan Province, reports Daily Times. According to the official sources, the militants had planted explosives close, which resulted in blowing up of two-foot track. The train service was suspended temporarily following the blast.

Police on September 12 killed a Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) ‘commander’ while apprehended an injured accomplice after an encounter in Badhaber area of Peshawar, reports Daily Times. Police said the killed and injured were involved in attack on Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Abid Abdul Rehman. The DSP and his driver were wounded during an attacked on Frontier Road on July 22, 2014.

Separately, a soldier was killed in exchange of fire with unidentified militants in Charbagh tehsil (revenue unit) of Swat District in the night of September 11, reports The News. The sources said unidentified militants stormed the house of Hazrat Rehman in Salanda village at night in which he and his daughter Rabia Bibi sustained injuries. After hearing the gun shots, the Security Forces (SFs) in plain clothes reached the spot where the gunmen opened fire on them. A solider identified as Ajmad was killed in the attack. The SFs also returned the fire that continued for some time but the militants managed to escape from the scene.

Meanwhile, the bomb disposal unit (BDU) on September 12 defused a 20-kilogram improvised explosive device (IED), which was planted on a roadside in Shero Jhangai in the limits of Khazana Police Station in Peshawar, reports The News.

Unidentified militants shot dead a peace committee member in the Tank Bazaar of Tank Town (Tank District) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on September 11, reports Daily Times. According to reports, the militants ambushed the peace body committee as he came out of his house near Tank Bazaar. He died on the spot while the militants fled from the scene.

Meanwhile, one militant was killed and another sustained injury during an encounter with the Police near the Mashogagar Police post in the limits of Badaber Police Station in Peshawar, the provincial KP, reports The News. Police said a group of militants opened fire on the armoured personnel carrier (APC) of police and mobile van near the Mashogagar Police post. Police repulsed the attack and killed one of the militants identified as Qaiser. Another militant sustained injuries.

At least three militants and a civilian were killed and another sustained injuries on September 14 in cross-fire erupted after attack on the convoy of the Security Forces (SFs) in Dogra area in Bara tehsil (revenue unit) in Khyber Agency in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), reports The News. The sources said that two dozen militants equipped with automatic and sophisticated weapons attacked the convoy of the SFs which was on the way from Alam Gudar to Fort Salop. The gun battle continued for half an hour.

Separately, three Frontier Corps (FC) personnel were killed and two others were injured in a rocket attack at Spinwam area of North Waziristan Agency (NWA) on September 14, reports Daily Times. Sources said that militants fired 20 rockets at an FC fort due to which three FC personnel were killed and two others were injured.

Earlier, unidentified militants killed a Khasadar force personnel along with his wife in Shalobar Qamberabad of Bara tehsil in Khyber Agency on September 13, reports Dawn. Official sources said the Khasadar personnel was going out of his house in Shalobar Qamberabad when the assault left him and his wife dead on the spot.

Military air strikes on September 15 killed at least 15 suspected militants in the North Waziristan Agency (NWA) of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), reports The News. A statement released by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that Army Aviation combat helicopters in precise attack strikes in Tabai area of NWA also destroyed 10 explosive-laden vehicles. Five terrorist hideouts were also destroyed in the action.

At least 20 militants and four Security Force (SF) personnel of the Tochi Scouts Wing of the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) were killed and another sustained injuries when Afghanistan-based militants attacked the Dandi Kach checkpost in Spinwam tehsil (revenue unit) in North Waziristan Agency of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on September 16, reports The News. Sources said that some 700 Afghanistan-based militants stormed the Dandi Kach checkpost near the Afghan border at around 6:20am and killed four soldiers manning the picket. The slain soldiers were identified as Lance Naik Hamid Akbar from Kohat, Lance Naik Abid Jan from Charsadda, Lance Naik Sajid from Kohat and Abdul Rahman.

Separately, SFs claimed to have killed 23 militants in air strikes by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) jet fighters in the Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency on September 16, reports The News. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) press release said that the jet fighters pounded the positions of militants in Dwa Toi, Tor Darra and Wacha Wano areas in Tirah Valley. It said about 23 militants were killed and five others injured in the bombardment. Three hideouts and two ammunition dumps were also destroyed in Tor Darra and Kukikhel areas during the bombardment. Official sources said the dead and injured militants were affiliated with the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group.

Pakistan

TTP ‘commanders’ form new splinter group
Key ‘commanders’ belonging to the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan on August 26 announced the formation of a new group by the name of TTP-Jama’at-ul-Ahrar, with Maulana Qasim Khurasani as the new ameer (chief) and also comprising of other ‘commanders’, reports Dawn. Former TTP ‘spokesperson’ Ehsanullah Ehsan, who has been nominated as the ‘spokesman’ for the splinter group, mostly comprising the Mohmand Agency TTP Chapter said from an undisclosed location that the new group was not willing to take sides in the current political tussle in Islamabad as they only wanted the Shari’ah (Islamic Law) system to prevail in the country.

Senior militant commander killed in KP
A senior militant commander, Waleed Akbar, associated with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) was killed and one of his accomplices injured on August 27 during a Police encounter in the Hari Mor area of Prova tehsil (revenue unit) in Dera Ismail Khan District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, reports Dawn. The commander was killed in the encounter that ensued when militants attacked District Police Officer (DPO) Sadiq Baloch in the Chodwan area of Prova tehsil following which Police repulsed the attack. The DPO said the Police was conducting a search operation when the militants led by Akbar ambushed their convoy in the Hari Mor area. Subsequently, Akbar was killed in the encounter.

Akbar had several charges on him, including planning suicide attacks on funeral processions and law enforcement agencies’ personnel. The TTP commander was also allegedly involved in the killing of Shia community leaders and police personnel during the Ashura bombing near a Muharram procession in Dera Ismail Khan on November 25, 2012. The D I Khan police had arrested Akbar along with four others allegedly involved in the Ashura bombing in Dera Ismail Khan during raids on January 2, 2013. However, in July 2013, Akbar managed to flee during the Dera Ismail Khan jail break incident when dozens of heavily-armed Taliban insurgents had freed nearly 175 inmates, including 35 ‘high-profile militants’, during a brazen overnight attack on the central jail in 2013.

TTP ‘chief’ Maulana Fazlullah says his men too could lay siege to Islamabad
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan ‘chief’ Maulana Fazlullah on August 31 said that launching an attack on Islamabad won’t be a difficult task for his fighters after having observed how unarmed protestors were able to lay siege to the seat of power in the federal capital and paralyse the Government, reports The News. “About 30,000 people have besieged the capital of Pakistan for the last two weeks and the Government is unable to deal with them,” he said in an audio clip received by The News. He said, “Taliban fighters could easily seize the Parliament House as our numbers are far bigger than these people and we are well-equipped with sophisticated arms.”

910 militants killed, five towns cleared in NWA, says ISPR
A press release by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on September 3 said that 910 militants had been killed in the operation Zarb-e-Azb that was launched in North Waziristan Agency (NWA) of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on June 15, reports The News. ISPR stated that since the start of operation 82 soldiers had embraced martyrdom in the entire country in the fight against terrorism and another 269 were injured. The 82 martyred soldiers include 42 in NWA, 23 in rest of FATA other than NWA and 17 in the remaining parts of the country, including Balochistan and Karachi.

The ISPR said 88 kilometers long road, Khajuri-Mir Ali-Miranshah-Dattakhel, and the Gharyom-Jhallar road had been cleared. It stated that the Security Forces (SFs) had cleared five town including Miranshah, Mir Ali, Dattakhel, Boya and Degan, which were considered the strongholds of terrorists. As many as 27 factories making improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and rocket and ammunition factories had also been destroyed, it stated. It said a huge cache of arms and ammunition, communication equipment and other logistics facilities used by terrorists had been destroyed, uprooting their ability to attack as a coherent force. It said that 2,274 Intelligence-led coordinated counter terrorism operations had been carried out throughout the country to forestall any blowback of the operation.

Punjabi Taliban shift focus to Afghanistan
Punjabi Taliban ‘chief’ Ismatullah Muawiya on September 5 said it would abandon insurgent activity inside the country and redirects its energies towards Afghanistan, reports Dawn. Muawiya said the faction will operate in Afghanistan under the guidance of Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of Afghan Taliban, while its activities in Pakistan will be confined to preaching Islam. Punjabi Taliban is an influential militant faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. The announcement indicates further fragmentation in the umbrella TTP, which suffered a setback on September 4 when a new bloc declared its split from the group’s official leadership. The groups within TTP have not accepted Mullah Fazlullah, which has caused a serious split in the organisation.

Three persons killed in an terrorist attack on Karachi Navy Dockyard
Two unidentified militants were killed and four others arrested when Pakistan Navy’s security personnel on September 6 foiled an attempt by unidentified militants who tried to target Pakistan Navy (PN) Dockyard in Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh, reports The News. During their engagement with the terrorists, one Navy official was martyred while an officer and six sailors sustained injuries. During these raids, large quantity of arms and ammunition was also recovered. No material loss has taken place, said the spokesperson, adding the area was cleared for normal activities the same day.

Meanwhile, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan on September 8 claimed responsibility for the attack, Dawn reports.

Three navy officials were arrested‏ from Balochistan in connection with Karachi dockyard attack
Security Forces (SFs) arrested three Navy officials involved in an attack at West Wharf Naval dockyard in Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh, from the Lak Pass area of Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan on September 12, reports Dawn. A security official, who requested anonymity, said that acting on intelligence reports, SFs conducted raids in the outskirts of Quetta and picked up three suspects. “The suspects are Navy officials,” he added, giving no details about their ranks. They were shifted to Karachi on a plane from Quetta for further interrogation. The suspects were trying to escape to Afghanistan, when they were intercepted by SFs. He said some suspects were also apprehended by SFs from Ormara and Karachi after the initial interrogation.

REGIONAL

Bangladesh – Internal Dynamics

Channel ‘I’ presenter Moulana Shaikh Nurul Islam Faruqi killed in Dhaka city
Unidentified armed assailants killed Moulana Shaikh Nurul Islam Faruqi, presenter of religious programmes on Channel i, at his own residence in Dhaka city’s Pashchim Rajabazar area on August 27, reports Dhaka Tribune. Faruqi was also the Presidium member and International Affairs Secretary of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat – an organization known better for opposing the views of Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI). He also served as the Presidium member of Islamic Front Bangladesh – a platform of several Islamist groups. Apart from anchoring programmes titled “Shantir Pothe” and “Kafela” on Channel i, he owned Faruque Tours and Travels Private Limited, a Hajj agency, and served as the imam of Supreme Court Mosque in Dhaka city.

Meanwhile, Syed Bahadur Shah Mozaddedi Al Abedi, chairman of Islamic Front Bangladesh and Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat on August 27 announced that a down-dusk countrywide hartal (shut down) has been called for August 31 in protest against the killing of Moulana Faruqui, reports New Nation.

PBCP-Jonajuddha leader killed in Chaudanga District
Police recovered the body of an outlawed party leader of Purba Banglar Communist Party-Jonajuddha faction (PBCP-Jonajuddha) from under a banyan tree at Botiya Para village of Chaudanga District on August 28, reports Daily Observer. The deceased was identified as Tokon (40). Police said Tokon was accused in several cases including murder and extortion cases.

Six arrested for preaching radical Islam
Police arrested one man and five women in Barisal city of Barisal District on August 27 on suspicion of preaching a radical version of Islam, reports The Daily Star. The arrestees were identified as Lokman Hossain, Jahanara Begum, Amena Begum, Mahinur Begum, Nasima Begum and Mohaimena Begum. Police said the arrestees belong to Kalamaye Jamaat, a radical Islamist organization led by Abdul Majid of Charfession sub-District in Barisal District.

Meanwhile, on August 28, the family members of Sheikh Nurul Islam Faruqi, the chief imam of the Supreme Court Mosque who was murdered at his East Rajabazar house in Dhaka city on August 27, said that Faruqi received threats several times from Hefajat-e Islam (HeI) since May 5, 2013, reports The Daily Star. Faisal Faruqi, son of Faruqi said “My father had been getting threats for the last one and a half years since HeI men waged the movement. His vehicle came under attack in Tangail District while returning to Dhaka about six months ago.”

ICS cadres explode 8 crude bombs in Chittagong
Chittagong University Cadres of Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), allegedly exploded eight crude bombs at two railway stations in Chittagong District on September 1, demanding reopening of two dormitories, which are reportedly dominated by the student body, reports The Daily Star. None was reported hurt in the blasts at Sholoshohor and Chowdhury Hat stations, but there was panic among commuters and a disruption in the movement of the shuttle trains.

Weapons cache uncovered in Sylhet
Security Forces (SFs) on September 2 unearthed a large weapons cache at Sylhet District’s Satchari reserve forest from what was once perhaps the headquarters of the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF), reports tripurainfo.com. The recovery area was barely 3 kilometers from the international border of Tripura (India). The recovered weapons include rocket launchers, four machineguns, a rifle, five machine-gun barrels, 222 anti-tank weapons with 248 charges, 19 machine-gun drum chains, 19 magazines, 12,987 bullets of various kinds and weapon lubricants.

JMB militant arrested in Dhaka
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) personnel on September 7 arrested a fugitive Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) militant in connection with the August 17, 2005 countrywide serial bomb blasts from Dhaka city’s Bhatara area, reports The Daily Star. RAB told that the arrestee, Mohammad Sagir Hossain (45), is a charge sheeted accused in a case for blasting bombs near the then Zia International Airport terminal, now Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport of Dhaka city. RAB further said two other JMB militants, who were arrested earlier in connection with the bomb attacks, in their confessional statements said Sagir was directly involved in the airport bomb blasts.

On August 17, 2005, around 500 bombs went off at 300 locations in 63 out of the 64 Districts across the country. The bombs exploded in half an hour from 11:30 am. JMB claimed responsibility for the blasts.

16 injured in ICS’ cadres bomb attack
Twelve teachers and four others of Chittagong University (CU) were injured in a bomb attack allegedly by cadres of Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), at two CU buses in Chhararkul area of Chittagong city of Chittagong District on September 10, reports The Independent. The attack was carried out in support of a strike at the CU that has been in effect since August 31 demanding reopening of two ICS-dominated dormitories. Police further, arrested five ICS cadres from Chowdhury hat and Fatehabad area of Chittagong city for their alleged involvement in the attack

Bangladesh Bank identifies 10 private banks accounts trans acting large amounts of money suspected to have been used for financing militant activities
Bangladesh Bank identified 10 accounts of private banks that were used for transacting large amounts of money suspected to have been used for financing militant activities, including purchase of weapons and organizing subversive activities, reports Dhaka Tribune. According to a report of Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) at Bangladesh Bank, the 10 accounts were used to deposit money to account number 34015379 of Al-Arafah Islami Bank’s Dhanmondi branch that belonged to Jasim Uddin, the chief of the banned militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT). The money was reportedly deposited to finance the militants’ meetings, seminars, and for helping to carry out violence

Five militants arrested from Dhaka
Detective Branch (DB) of Police arrested three Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh militants and two Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) militants from different parts of Dhaka city, reports The Independent. The three HuJI-B militants, identified as Saiful Islam (24), Shafiqul Islam Shafiq (35) and Mohammad Hasanullah (24), were arrested from Rampura area on September 24 along with explosives, bomb-making substances and electronic circuits used for remote-controlling explosions. Police told that the trio was working to organize Rohingyas with the aim of carrying out destructive activities in Myanmar.

The two JMB militants, identified as Asif Adnan (26) and Fazle Elahi Tanjil (24), were arrested from Shegunbagicha area on September 25. Police claimed that the duo admitted their involvement with the Ansarulla Bangla Team. They also claimed that they were preparing to fly to Syria to join the Islamic State militants.

India – Internal Dynamics

3 militants killed in IED blast
The Sentinel reports that on August 26, three militants of the independent faction of United Liberation Front of Asom died in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) explosion at Mongre Gaon under Agia Police Station at Goalpara District. The incident took place when the militants took shelter at the house of an individual identified as Malaijeet Rabha with an IED device, when it suddenly exploded. Two ULFA-I militants have been identified as Kanteswar Rabhaalies Parama Asom and Akon Rabha. The other cadre, reportedly a linkman, is yet to be identified. Two pistols one grenade and some documents were recovered by the Police.

Explosives seized in Bihar
Bihar Police seized about five kilograms of explosives, 3550 detonators and 1811 gelatin sticks from Barahiya Bag village in Rohtas District on August 26, reports The Times of India. Rohtas Superintendent of Police (SP) Chandan Kumar Kushwaha said three persons, identified as Anish Pasi, Arun Kumar and Dharmendra Kumar, were arrested in this connection. However, Police officials were probing whether the arrested people had any links with the Communist Party of India-Maoist.

The Shillong Times reports that a school teacher, identified as Cromwell Mawroh, a former headmaster of Laishnong Secondary School at Mawlangsu under Mawthadraishan block in West Khasi Hills has joined the proscribed Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council. “I have taken this decision after studying the ideologies and principles of the outfit thoroughly. I took this decision after the former Khasi Students’ Union-KSU vice president Frederick Kharmawphlang joined the militant outfit,” Mawdoh said in a statement issued on August 25. Kharmawphlang had left the KSU in February to join the HNLC. He hoped that being part of the outfit he would be able to contribute towards development of education in remote areas. “I want to remove all the misleading informations which are being taught in the schools relating to the history, culture of the Khasi tribe,” Mawdoh said.

Meanwhile, the HNLC, on August 26, sent an open invitation to Government employees to join the outfit as “part-time workers” while throwing the ball back at the Mukul Sangma Government to “give peace a chance”, reports The Telegraph. Welcoming Cromwell Mawroh, into its fold, the militant outfit said government employees are “also free to join” its ranks.

’77 civilians killed in Assam in six months’, says report
The Sentinel reports on August 26 that against the backdrop of the Assam–Nagaland border crisis, the Centre has said that Assam has witnessed the maximum number of civilian casualties in the past six months in violent incidents. The State has witnessed the killing of as many as 77 innocent civilians, which is the highest in the entire northeastern region during the period. A government report in possession of this correspondent said that 43 extremists were also killed in violent incidents between January and June this year. At least four security personnel have also lost their lives during the period. In 2013, at least 35 civilians were killed in Assam, whereas the figure was 27 in 2012 and 18 in 2011. The report mentioned that “incidents of violence have slightly increased in the States of Assam and Meghalaya.” Meghalaya witnessed the killing of 16 civilians in the past six months, whereas 18 extremists were also killed by the security forces in the State. Tripura continue to remain a peaceful State with only one violent incident in the past six months. Interestingly, 33 extremists have also surrendered before the security forces since January in this Left–ruled State.

Meanwhile, representatives of eight organizations, on August 26, submitted three memoranda to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Rajnath Singh and Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi demanding a permanent solution to the Assam-Nagaland boundary problem, reports The Telegraph. In the four point-charter submitted to the Prime Minister and Union home minister, the organizations demanded a permanent solution to the boundary problem, ensure the safety of lives and property of the people living along the border areas, a visit by a ministry team to the area on a stock-taking situation, immediate withdrawal of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) posted as neutral force and deploy any other security forces along with Assam Police Battalion on the border. In the memorandum submitted to Gogoi, they have given a deadline of a week to the State Government to give a positive response in respect of their demands, otherwise they would launch a mass movement against the government. AASU central executive member Raju Phukon said along with the stated demands, they also asked the chief minister to publish a white paper on the status of the title suit filed in the Supreme Court to determine and delineate the constitutional boundary of each state.

Maoists attack a Police camp in Jharkhand
A two-hour long encounter between Police and the Communist Party of India-Maoist took place after a group of Maoists attacked a Police camp at Kuku village under Chhipadohar Police Station in Latehar District on August 30, reports The Times of India. Around midnight, the Maoists encircled the camp and started firing, however, the Police were quick to retaliate forcing the Maoists to flee into the forest. There was no report of casualty from either side, Latehar Superintendent of Police (SP) Michael Raj said.

Meanwhile, a joint team of the 26th Battalion of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and District Police found a Maoist-run gun and grenade factory during an integrated combing operation near the Beltharwa forests in Jhumra in Bokaro District on August 31, reports The Telegraph. A live grenade, a pistol, two mortars, a dozen live cartridges, 100 bullet covers and drilling machines used for making guns among other things were recovered from the raid. No arrests could, however, be made because the Maoists perhaps received a tip-off on the search, Bokaro SP Jitendra Singh said.

Al-Qaeda announced India wing, renews loyalty to Afghan Taliban chief
Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri on September 3 announced the formation of an Indian branch of his militant group he said would spread Islamic rule and “raise the flag of jihad” across the subcontinent, reports Dawn. In a 55-minute video posted online, Zawahiri also renewed a longstanding vow of loyalty to Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar, in an apparent snub to the Islamic State armed group challenging al Qaeda for leadership of transnational militancy. Zawahiri described the formation of ‘Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent’ as a glad tiding for Muslims “in Burma, Bangladesh, Assam, Gujarat, Ahmedabad, and Kashmir” and said the new wing would rescue Muslims there from injustice and oppression. Counter-terrorism experts say al Qaeda’s aging leaders are struggling to compete for recruits with Islamic State, which has galvanised young followers around the world by carving out tracts of territory across the Iraq-Syria border. Islamic State leader Abu Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi calls himself a “caliph” or head of state and has demanded the loyalty of all Muslims. The group fell out with Zawahiri in 2013 over its expansion into Syria, where Baghdadi’s followers have carried out beheadings, crucifixions, and mass executions.

Former home guard abducted and killed
The Communist Party of India-Maoist cadres allegedly killed a former home guard, identified as Sarat Khora (30), suspecting him to be a ‘Police informer’, in Panasput village in the cut-off area across Balimela reservoir in Malkangiri District on September 5, reports The Times of India. About two days ago, the Maoists visited the village and asked Khora to accompany them on the pretext of having some discussion and subsequently his body was found lying in a pool of blood in a forested area near the village. Khora left his job about six months ago because of alleged Maoist threat. He was posted at Chitrakonda Police Station in the District.

GNLA threaten serial bomb blasts
The Shillong Times reports that on September 5 Garo National Liberation Army ‘commander-in-chief’ (c-in-c) Sohan D Shira threatened to conduct a wave of serial blasts in Garo Hills targeting Government institutions and Congress offices in retaliation against Chief Minister Mukul Sangma for allegedly sidelining Garo outfits in talks while preparing the groundwork for peace negotiations with the Khasi outfit Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council.

Maoists blow up railway track in Jharkhand
Suspected cadres of the Communist Party of India-Maoist blew up around one meter railway track between Latehar and Bendi railway stations of Dhanbad division under South Eastern Railway in Latehar District early on September 8, after which several bogies of a goods train were derailed disrupting railway services, reports The Times of India. Maoists ped some posters at the incident site. Latehar Superintendent of Police (SP), Michael S Raj confirmed the incident. The content of the posters are not known yet because forces who had left for the incident site, could not be contacted.

Earlier, the Maoists mounted an attack on Bareysarn Police Station in Latehar District on September 7, reports The Pioneer. Confirming this, Latehar SP Michael said the attack was repulsed and the rebels were forced to retreat. The firing on the Police Station began at 11pm last night which went on for an hour or so, said the SP. Later in the morning the Security Forces recovered three grenades with UBL, eight live ammunitions, and one cell phone charger.

Assam Students’ Union (AASU) has hit out against the State Government and Government of India (GoI) on the threat issued by terrorist outfit al Qaeda to establish bases in Assam, and alleged that this happened because of the failure of the Government to solve the problem of infiltration of foreigners, reports Assam Tribune on September 9. AASU ‘adviser’ Samujjal Bhattacharya said that AASU had been warning the Government that fundamentalist forces managed to establish roots in the State because of inaction on the part of the Government to deal with the problem of infiltration. With the al Qaeda threat, it is now proved that the warnings were correct.

Meanwhile Times of India on September 9 reports that Assam State Jamiat Ulema (ASJU) has asserted that Muslims in the state would not subscribe to al Qaeda ideology.

Journalist Jaiklong Brahma, who was arrested on September 2 for alleged links with IK Songbijit faction of National Democratic Front of Bodoland was on September 8 sent to nine-day judicial custody, reports The Telegraph.

Meanwhile more than 700 people from organisations such as All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU), AASU, Bodo Sahitya Sabha (BSS), All Bodoland Minority Students’ union (ABMSU) Bodoland Students’ Union (BSU) and local residents participated in the rally demanding unconditional release of Jaiklong Brahma , reports The Sentinel.

AASU blames state government for al Qaeda threat
Assam Students’ Union (AASU) has hit out against the State Government and Government of India (GoI) on the threat issued by terrorist outfit al Qaeda to establish bases in Assam, and alleged that this happened because of the failure of the Government to solve the problem of infiltration of foreigners, reports Assam Tribune on September 9. AASU ‘adviser’ Samujjal Bhattacharya said that AASU had been warning the Government that fundamentalist forces managed to establish roots in the State because of inaction on the part of the Government to deal with the problem of infiltration. With the al Qaeda threat, it is now proved that the warnings were correct.

Meanwhile Times of India on September 9 reports that Assam State Jamiat Ulema (ASJU) asserted that Muslims in the state would not subscribe to al Qaeda ideology.

Meanwhile more than 700 people from organisations such as All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU), AASU, Bodo Sahitya Sabha (BSS), All Bodoland Minority Students’ union (ABMSU) Bodoland Students’ Union (BSU) and local residents participated in the rally demanding unconditional release of Jaiklong Brahma , reports The Sentinel.

One police commando killed in Manipur
The Sangai Express reports that on September 9 a Manipur Police Commando identified as KS Thotyo was killed and two other Police Commandos identified as Khumukcham Amuthoi and Kapminlian Mangsuan were wounded in two separate ambushes by suspected Isak-Muivah faction of National Socialist Council of Nagaland at Nungshangkong in the Ukhrul District and Shangkai village under Litan Police Station in the same District. KS Thotyo was killed in Nungshangkong and the other two were injured at Shangkai village in Ukhrul District. Ukhrul District Superintendent of Police (SP) S. Selvan escaped unhurt. The Times of India further adds that the incident comes after a day of lifting the 144 Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) from Ukhrul area which was imposed after the July 12 killing of Ukhrul Autonomous District Council (ADC) member Ngalangzar Malue. Meanwhile, the State Government, on September 9, condemned the ambushes in Ukhrul, reports E-Pao.

Policeman suspended for ‘helping’ Maoists
A Police Head Constable in Narayanpur District was put under suspension for allegedly revealing the movement of Security Forces (SFs) to Manjhiram Kashyap, a Communist Party of India-Maoist informer arrested in Bastar District on August 26, which resulted in the killing of 11 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel, four Policemen and a civilian near Tahakwada village in Sukma Districtoin March 11, 2014, reports The Hindu. “Mahadev Nag has been put under suspension pending inquiry,” S.R. Kalluri, the Inspector General (IG) of Police, Bastar range said. Mahadev Nag was posted in Tongpal (Sukma District) when the incident took place.

Police constable killed by Maoists
A Police Head Constable, identified as Elaji Potti was killed and another Constable Hariram Mandavi was severely injured when cadres of the Communist Party of India-Maoist, attacked a team of Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF) in the Ilmidi village under Awapalli Police Station limits in Bijapur District on September 10, reports The Hindu. The attack took place in a market when the CAF personnel were returning to their camp. Some plain-clothed Maoists attacked the CAF personnel with sharp weapons and snatched away two Self Loading Rifles (SLRs), two hand grenades and 80 rounds of fire.

Anti-Muslim VHP leaflets surface in Gujarat
The Gujarat police are investigating the distribution of anti-Muslim leaflets by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state, especially in the two constituencies vacated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the September 13 by-elections.

The flyers in Gujarati being circulated on a large scale in the Vaododara Lok Sabha constituency and the Maninagar assembly constituency asks Hindu girls to be ‘wary’ of well-dressed Muslim boys seeking to ‘dangerously trap them into prostitution’.

The inflammatory hand-out carries addresses of the VHP offices in Gujarat’s three major cities and has a bullet-point graphic explanation of the ‘fate’ that Hindu girls would meet as victims of ‘love jihad’, and urges Hindu parents to ensure that their ‘young daughters are not vulnerable to the conspiracy of minorities to entice them’.

A VHP office-bearer, however, told reporters that the distribution of the leaflet ahead of Saturday’s by-elections was only coincidental and was a routine awareness campaign before Navratri, the nine-night festival of dance and rhythm.

One person killed and two injured in Assam
One person died and two others were injured in a grenade blast at a tea garden manager’s office in Dalgaon area in Darrang District on September 13, reports The Telegraph. Police said the grenade was thrown at the Borgarah tea garden manager’s office. Kamal Chand Jain, who was present in the office, died while he was being brought to Guwahati. The manager Rakesh Kureshia and assistant manager Ramakant Tiwari injured in the incident. Four persons on two bikes entered the garden from the northern side and threw the grenade at the garden manager’s office where the three persons were sitting. Police said that militants of the IK Songbijit faction of National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB-IKS) are believed to be behind the incident.

One IRB trooper killed in blast
One Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) trooper, Chetan Salve was killed while four others were injured in a Claymore mine blast allegedly triggered by the Communist Party of India-Maoist near Yerkad in Dhanora tehsil (revenue unit) in Gadchiroli District on September 15, reports The Times of India. A combined squad of 18-member Security Force (SF), comprising District Police and IRB, deployed at Yerkad Armed Outpost was heading towards weekly market at Yerkad village when the mine planted on the side of the road exploded, killing one trooper instantly and injuring four others.

Shia team to bring back Indians recruited by IS, says report
A delegation of six members from Anjuman-e Haideri (AEH), a Shia committee from Delhi, will go to Iraq to provide help and appeal to Indian Muslims, who have allegedly joined the Islamic State (IS), to come back, The Times of India reports on September 16. The Shia body is in touch with the Indian and Iraq governments and around 6000 volunteers are lined up to go to the war-torn country.

When AEH asked people to volunteer, over INR 2,00,000 people signed up. “Not only Muslims, even people from different religions have come forward to volunteer. There are doctors and engineers in the list and these will be sent to Iraq.” The members of the committee said that anyone who supports ISIS, Boko Haram, al Qaida isn’t a Muslim as no religion allows anyone to kill innocent people. They have also urged the Indian government to take IS seriously as it has threatened to attack Kashmir.

Maoists hold public gathering in Odisha
Thousands of tribals led by Vijay Laxmi, ‘commander’ of the Korukonda (Andhra Pradesh) Dalam (squad) of the Communist Party of India-Maoist, gathered in Ralegada forest in the cutoff region of Chitrakonda in Malkangiri District on the Andhra-Odisha Border (AOB) on September 13, reports The Pioneer. Senior Maoist leaders from outside Odisha participated in the ‘Prajameli, the reports added. Maoists are observing a ‘Prisoners of State Sympathy Week’ in the Ralegada forest since September 13, sources said. Organisers of the week said the programme is being observed to express sympathy towards the hundreds of innocent tribals and their family members in Districts like Malkangiri, Koraput, Gajapati and Rayagada who are rotting in various jails after being implicated in false cases and branded as Maoists by the Police. Maoist leaders are explaining to people about the Maoist ideology. Maoist cultural troupes are also staging plays and dances. During the meeting, Vijay Laxmi is said to have slammed both the Odisha and Andhra Pradesh governments for “failing” to work for the welfare of tribals. In a meeting said to have been held for over four hours, nearly 1,000 tribals from around 30 villages, besides 140-150 Maoists participated, adds The Times of India.

Monthly Fatalities
The following deaths related to ongoing insurgencies and acts of terrorism occurred during the period August 25, 2014 to Sept 26, 2014:

	Civilian	Indian Security Personnel	Militant	Total
Assam	04	00	11	15
Manipur	04	04	02	10
Meghalaya	06	00	01	07
Left-wing	09	04	13	26
Total	23	08	27	58

Sri Lanka – Internal Dynamics

Two Indian nationals arrested for possessing sensitive pictures
Sri Lankan Police on August 26 arrested two Indian citizens for allegedly recording and possessing photographs and video footage of Parliament and the Prime Minister (PM)’s residence, reports Colombo Page. Police spokesman Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ajith Rohana said that acting on a tip off, they were arrested by the Police while travelling in a three wheeler taxi in Colombo. According to the Sri Lankan news paper, News First, Rohana added that the two men were from Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Police are conducting further investigations in this regard.

LTTE money for arms now diverted for lobbying, says Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in the United Kingdom, Chris Nonis
Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in the United Kingdom (UK), Chris Nonis said that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam use its money for lobbying and the international ‘propaganda war’ has to be fought with the same focus and same strategy as the physical war that was fought and finished, reports Daily News on September 1. He said that, “I don’t think it can be laughed off in terms of ‘lack of communication’ or ‘lack of marketing’. It is literally a war, because the funds used by the rump of the LTTE to procure arms are now being diverted to fight this propaganda war, and I think it’s important that we understand the seriousness and gravity of that, and the resources therefore and strategy that needs to be put in to combat it, because it uses social media and other media, and an enormous network of international money laundering and financial transactions.”

Indian investigation agencies suspect revival of LTTE in Australia
The arrest of four human traffickers while trying to transport six Sri Lankans to Australia through the Prakasam coast, Andhra Pradesh in India earlier this week has raised the suspicion among Indian investigators that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam may be trying to revive in Australia, reports Colombo Page on August 31. According to a report in The Hindu, the officials from agencies including the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Tamil Nadu Police, conducting the investigations suspect that the LTTE is trying to regroup itself in Australia after lying low for five years since their defeat at the hands of Sri Lankan Security Forces (SFs).

According to Police sources, the illegal emigrants to Australia from Sri Lanka were from, among other places, Mullaitivu, Northern Province and Mattakalappu, Eastern Province and are in the age group of 24 to 28 years. The investigation has found that the traffickers have used satellite phones with Global Positioning System (GPS) to keep in touch with their counterparts in the high seas. It has been revealed that they have also illegally transported Sri Lankan Tamils to other countries such as Ireland, United Kingdom (UK) and Canada.

Sri Lanka to begin own probe on war crimes allegations soon
According to a report by the national news agency, Lankapuvath, Sri Lanka will soon begin a probe on alleged war crime violations parallel to the investigations conducted by the Presidential Commission to Investigate into Complaints Regarding Missing Persons (PCICMP), reports Colombo Page on August 31. Maxwell Paranagama, the Chairman of the PCICMP said that probe on the war conducted by them will begin soon parallel to the public hearings of the Commission. The inquiries will go hand in hand with the investigations being conducted by the PCICMP. Paranagama added that the Commission is making preparations to commence inquiries under the new mandate it was given.

INTERNATIONAL

West will be next target of Jihadists, warns Saudi king
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has warned that the West will be the next target of the Jihadists sweeping through Syria and Iraq, unless there is “rapid” action. “If we ignore them, I am sure they will reach Europe in a month and America in another month,” he said in remarks quoted on Saturday, Aug 30 by Asharq al-Awsat daily and Saudi-backed Al-Arabiya television station.

“Terrorism knows no border and its danger could affect several countries outside the Middle East,” said the king who was speaking at a welcoming ceremony on Friday for new ambassadors, including a new envoy from Saudi ally the United States.

The Islamic State (IS) Jihadist group has prompted widespread concern as it advances in both Syria and Iraq, killing hundreds of people, including in gruesome beheadings and mass executions. Lack of action would be “unacceptable” in the face of the phenomenon, King Abdullah said.

“You see how they (Jihadists) carry out beheadings and make children show the severed heads in the street,” he said, condemning the “cruelty” of such acts. “It is no secret to you, what they have done and what they have yet to do. I ask you to transmit this message to your leaders: ‘Fight terrorism with force, reason and (necessary) speed’.”

President Barack Obama has yet to decide whether the United States should launch raids against positions held by the Islamic State Jihadist group in Syria to follow US air strikes on IS activities in Iraq.

US Secretary of State John Kerry called on Friday for a global coalition to combat Islamic State fighters’ “genocidal agenda”. Writing in the New York Times, Kerry said he and Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel will meet European counterparts on the sidelines of a Nato summit in Wales next week, to enlist assistance.

They will then travel on to the Middle East to build support “among the countries that are most directly threatened”. “With a united response led by the United States and the broadest possible coalition of nations, the cancer of ISIS will not be allowed to spread to other countries,” Kerry said in Friday’s op-ed piece.

Asharq Al-Awsat said the king urged other countries to join the UN Counter-Terrorism Centre, set up in 2011 to respond to new threats, and to which Saudi Arabia has made a grant of $100 million.

Saudi Arabia, a major US ally in the region, has taken an increasingly active role in criticising ISIS. Earlier this month, the country’s top cleric described ISIS and al-Qaeda as Islam’s No. 1 enemy and said that Muslims have been their first victims. State-backed Saudi clerics who once openly called on citizens to fight in Syria can now face steep punishment and the kingdom has threatened to imprison its citizens who fight in Syria and Iraq.

Gulf countries struggle to build anti-Jihadist front
Gulf countries, while siding with Washington against Islamic State Jihadists, are struggling to build a common front because of differences within their own ranks and with non-Arab Iran. US President Barack Obama is sending his Secretary of State John Kerry to the Middle East to try to build strong regional support against IS, which is rampaging through Iraq and Syria.

But “we don’t have a strategy yet” to defeat the Jihadists, he acknowledged on Thursday.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal has over the past week been at the centre of diplomatic efforts to stand up to the challenge posed by IS to the status quo.

He and his counterparts from Egypt, Qatar and the Emirates held talks on Syria and “the rise of terrorist extremist ideology”, according to an official statement.

They agreed on “the need to seriously work to deal with these crises and challenges to preserve security and stability in Arab countries”, it said.

The Saudi minister also hosted talks with Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, in a rare high-level encounter between the long-time rival states.

They discussed the situation in Iraq and “means to confront extremism and terrorism”, an Iranian official said, without elaborating on how Riyadh and Tehran could cooperate against the Jihadists.

And Prince Saud, accompanied by the kingdom’s interior minister and intelligence chief, travelled to Qatar at the start of a regional tour also taking in Bahrain and the Emirates.

Ukraine accuses Russia of ‘direct invasion’
Ukraine’s ambassador to the OSCE accused Russia on Thursday, Aug 28 of a “direct invasion” but Moscow’s envoy denied reports that Russian troops were active in the conflict-torn east of the country.

“We registered a direct invasion by the Russian military into the eastern regions of Ukraine,” Kiev’s envoy Ihor Prokopchuk told journalists following a special meeting of the European security body to discuss the latest developments in Ukraine.

“The situation has significantly aggravated,” he said in English, citing the capture “by regular Russian forces” of the key southeastern town of Novoazovsk and several other surrounding towns.

He described Russia’s latest moves as a repeat of its strategy in the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in March after initially denying its troops were there.

“It is the same scenario that is played out now in the eastern part of Ukraine… The scenario was tested in Crimea and what we witness today is the invasion and direct entry of Russian forces into the eastern part of Ukraine.”

IS executes ‘dozens’ of Syrian troops in new atrocity
Islamic State (IS) Jihadists have executed “dozens” of fleeing Syrian soldiers, a monitor said on Thursday, Aug 28 the latest in a string of brutal abuses alarming Western powers who fear a global spread of the terror. News of the killings comes as US President Barack Obama is reportedly weighing air strikes on IS positions in Syria and coming closer to greenlighting a mission to aid Turkmen trapped in an Iraqi town by the Jihadists. French President Francois Hollande on Thursday added his voice to the disquiet that has been growing since the Jihadists marauded through Iraq and beheaded US journalist James Foley.

The latest killings took place during the night in the northern province of Raqa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that the victims were soldiers fleeing towards government-held territory to the west after the Jihadists overran their air base at Tabqa. The Jihadists boasted on Twitter that they had killed 200 defeated troops and posted video of what they said was the garrison in headlong flight.

“Dozens of Syrian soldiers captured while fleeing… after the IS overran Tabqa airbase were executed by the Jihadists during the night,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Jihadists seized the airport on Sunday after weeks of bitter fighting with loyalist forces, cementing their control over Raqa province, capital of their self-declared Islamic “caliphate”. Abdel Rahman said the defeated garrison comprised 1,400 soldiers, 200 of whom were killed and 700 of whom managed to escape. The other 500 remain on the run. Dozens were captured on Wednesday night as they attempted to cross the desert to government-held territory in the Orontes Valley to the west.

IS posted video footage showing young men in underwear being marched barefoot along a desert road. Militants shouted “Islamic State” and “There’s no going back”. A UN-mandated probe charged on Wednesday that public executions, amputations, lashings and mock crucifixions have become a regular fixture in Jihadist-controlled areas of Syria.

The UN has also highlighted the plight of the thousands of mainly Turkmen residents of the northern Iraq town of Amerli, who face danger both because of their faith, which Jihadists consider heresy, and their resistance against the militants, of the sort that has drawn deadly retribution elsewhere.

42 children killed in Syria
At least 42 children have been killed in government air strikes and shelling across Syria in the last 36 hours, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Sunday, Aug 31. The Britain-based Observatory said 25 children had been killed between midnight on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, with 17 more killed between Friday and Saturday night.

The deaths came in regime shelling and air strikes across the country, though most took place in the northern province of Aleppo and northwestern Idlib, Observatory director Rami Abdul Rahman said. Many of the deaths came in raids involving the use of explosive-packed barrel-bombs, a weapon that has been criticised by rights groups as indiscriminate.

Among the dead on Sunday were at least five children killed along with five adults in a barrel bomb attack on the town of Hobait in Idlib province, said the monitor.

In northern Aleppo province, another five children and three adults were killed in an air raid in the west of the province, it added.

In the capital Damascus, meanwhile, regime planes continued to pound the eastern rebel-held district of Jubar, where the government began a fierce offensive earlier this week to wrest back control.

Security meeting in Nigeria as Boko Haram attacks intensify
Foreign ministers from Nigeria and neighbouring countries met on Wednesday, Sept 3 to discuss Boko Haram, as the militants’ rapid land grab intensified in the far northeast, raising fears for regional security.

The one-day meeting of representatives from Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger also includes officials from the United States, Britain, France and Canada plus the African Union and United Nations.

Nigeria’s ministry of foreign affairs said the talks were aimed at “reviewing progress” of earlier meetings in Paris and London as well as the Africa Summit held in the United States last month.

In particular, it would examine “the extent of foreign assistance, including efforts by the Nigerian government, in the continued fight to… rout the Boko Haram insurgency”, it added.

Regional powers vowed to play a greater role against the Islamists after the mass kidnapping of more than 200 girls from their school in northeast Nigeria in April, which caused global outrage.

International powers sent intelligence and surveillance specialists and equipment to Abuja to help trace the missing teenagers, 217 of whom are still being held captive.

But nearly five months on from the abduction, Western diplomats have indicated that there has been little progress, despite a claim from Nigeria’s military that they had located the girls.

‘Britain actively considering arming Kurds’
United Kingdom: Britain is considering providing arms directly to Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State in northern Iraq, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Thursday, Sept 5 after Jihadists threatened to kill a British hostage.

“Britain has been helping get arms to the Kurds and we are prepared to do more. We are considering actively whether to give them arms ourselves and whether we can do more directly to train Kurdish militia,” the prime minister told ITV television.

The Royal Air Force (RAF) has been transporting ammunition supplied by allies and British non-lethal equipment to the regional government in Irbil, including 10 tonnes of British body armour overnight on Wednesday.

But London is moving closer to directly arming the Kurds and providing them with training following the increased threat posed by IS militants who have seized territory across Iraq and Syria.

Somalia on high alert after Shebab leader confirmed dead
Somalia’s government warned on Saturday, Sept 6 of a wave of retaliatory attacks by the country’s al-Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels after their leader was confirmed to have been killed in a US air strike. The Horn of Africa nation’s president also offered Shebab fighters the chance to lay down their arms and seize on a 45-day amnesty, telling them government troops and the African Union’s AMISOM force was on the brink of overrunning their territory.

On Friday the Pentagon confirmed that Ahmed Abdi Godane, the leader of al-Qaeda’s main affiliate in Africa, perished in an attack on Monday in which US drones and manned aircraft rained Hellfire missiles and laser-guided bombs on a gathering of Shebab commanders.

There was no comment from the Shebab, who throughout the week have refused to confirm or deny reports of Godance’s death. Somalia’s national security minister said he believed they were now bent on revenge.

“Security agencies have obtained information indicating that Al-Shebab is now planning to carry out desperate attacks against medical facilities, education centres and other government facilities,” Kalif Ahmed Ereg told reporters.

Godane, 37, who reportedly trained in Afghanistan with the Taliban, had also overseen the group’s transformation from local insurgency to major regional guerrilla threat, widening the group’s reach with attacks in countries that contribute to AMISOM. He claimed responsibility for the July 2010 bombings in the Ugandan capital Kampala that killed 74 people, and the group also claimed the September 2013 massacre in the Kenyan capital’s Westgate mall, a four-day siege in which at least 67 people were killed.

In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Godane’s demise represented “a major symbolic and operational loss to the largest al-Qaeda affiliate in Africa” and that the operation to kill him came after “years of painstaking work by our intelligence, military and law enforcement professionals. The State Department had listed Godane as one of the world’s eight top terror fugitives, and a top US intelligence official said there was no obvious successor in the waiting. He said the government was “willing to offer amnesty to Al-Shebab members who reject violence and renounce their links to Al-Shebab and al-Qaeda – but for the next 45 days only.”

Families of beheaded US reporters warned not to pay ransoms
The families of two journalists beheaded by Islamic State Jihadists were both warned by US government officials they could face prosecution if they raised a ransom for their release.

The recent executions of James Foley and Steven Sotloff by Islamic State (IS) extremists triggered worldwide revulsion and Washington has since declared it is at war with the radicals.

The United States has a policy of never paying ransoms, contending that doing so would endanger Americans all over the world.

Late on Friday, Sept 12 a spokesman for Sotloff’s family said the murdered journalist’s parents were told by a White House counterterrorism official last May that they could face prosecution if they paid a ransom in an attempt to secure the release of their son.

“The family felt completely and utterly helpless when they heard this,” Barak Barfi told Yahoo News. “The Sotloffs felt there was nothing they could do to get Steve out.”

Brotherhood says leaders to leave Qatar
Leaders of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood exiled in Qatar will leave the Gulf country after it came under enormous pressure to cut support for the Islamist group, a Brotherhood official said. Amr Darrag, a leader of the Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, said several members were relocating to “spare Qatar embarrassment”, in a statement posted on his Facebook page late on Friday, Sept 12.

Two Brotherhood officials in Qatar reached by AFP confirmed Darrag´s statement. Egypt designated the Brotherhood a “terrorist organisation” after the military ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in July 2013.Since then, the group´s exiled leaders set up headquarters in several countries including Turkey, where the leadership in Doha may now relocate to.

The Brotherhood is blacklisted in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and both countries withdrew their ambassadors from Doha partly over Qatar’s support for the group. The conservative states of the Gulf view the Brotherhood´s political Islam as a threat to their stability, while Qatar was seen to be backing the movement and other Islamists in a bid to extend its influence in the region.

With the leadership in Qatar likely to relocate to Turkey, where other Brotherhood figures are already based, Istanbul is poised to host the regional headquarters for the 86-year-old movement. Other leaders are based in Britain, which has conducted an inquiry into the Brotherhood´s alleged links to militants. Qatar has come under tremendous pressure, mostly from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to stop supporting the Brotherhood and other Islamists such as the militias that have overrun the Libyan capital Tripoli. But the decision to relocate the Brotherhood´s leaders will leave an estimated dozens of Islamist activists in Doha, and does not suggest a major change in Qatar’s policies, said Andrew Hammond, an analyst with European Council on Foreign Relations.

Cairo and its Gulf allies have also campaigned against the Doha-based Al-Jazeera broadcaster, whose journalists have been imprisoned in Egypt. The network’s Arabic channels have strongly opposed Mursi´s overthrow.

Libyan Islamists attack airport
Islamist fighters launched another offensive on Wednesday, Sept 17 on the airport in Libya’s Benghazi, the final redoubt in the eastern city of an ex-general who has been waging war on them, an AFP correspondent said.

The fighters of the Shura Revolutionary Council, which includes the Islamist Ansar al-Sharia group, have been trying since early September to capture the facility, which houses both civilian and military airfields.

Oil-rich Libya slid into chaos after Muammar Gadhafi was toppled in a Nato-backed uprising three years ago, with interim authorities confronting powerful militias that fought to oust the veteran dictator.

On Wednesday, the AFP correspondent in Benghazi said heavy artillery fire could be heard since dawn in the southern suburb of Benina, where the airport is located. Nine soldiers from a special forces unit loyal to renegade former general Khalifa Haftar have been killed and another 30 wounded in the fighting over the past three days, according to one of their commanders.

In May, Haftar launched a campaign to wipe out Islamists in Libya. There has been almost daily fighting between his forces and the militias, which now control nearly all of Benghazi, Libya’s second city and the cradle of the 2011 uprising.

15 Nigerian students killed
Gunmen stormed a higher education college in northern Nigeria on Wednesday, Sept 17 firing on fleeing students and setting off an explosion in an attack that killed at least 15 people and wounded 35, police said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in the region’s main city of Kano, but the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which has repeatedly targeted civilians in the north, is likely to be a prime suspect. A police spokesman added that officers arrived on the scene and killed two of the attackers.

US House votes to arm Syrian rebels
The US House of Representatives approved President Barack Obama’s plan on Thursday, Sept 18 to train and arm moderate Syrian rebels, but questions remain over whether it will give them the advanced weapons they say they need to defeat Islamic State militants.

The House voted 273-to-156 to authorise the plan, a test of support for Obama’s stepped-up campaign to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State fighters who have seized a third of both Iraq and Syria, declared war on the West and seek to establish a caliphate in the heart of the Middle East.

Yemen rebels seize govt HQ, PM resigns
Rebels seized the Yemeni government headquarters on Sunday, Sept 21 and prime minister Mohamed Basindawa resigned, accusing the president of being “autocratic”, senior officials said. The rebels, demanding a wider political partnership and the government’s resignation, have been locked in deadly clashes for days with Sunni fighters and troops.

The Ansarullah rebels, also known as Huthis, “seized the government headquarters and the radio, as well the Fourth Brigade,” an official said.

A spokesman for the rebels, Mohammed Abdulsalam, confirmed on his Facebook page that the government complex had been taken and the premier had stepped down. He also said parts of “the military and security apparatus have supported the popular revolt”, in reference to weeks of protest by the rebels.

Abdulsalam said these included “the general command of the armed forces, the radio”, the government and other official institutions in Sanaa. The council of ministers released the text of a letter signed by Basindawa in which he said: “I have decided to present to you my resignation as prime minister.” “The partnership between myself and the president (Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi) in leading the country only lasted for a short period, before it was replaced by autocracy to the extent that the government and I no longer knew anything about the military and security situation.”

The official Saba news agency announced Basindawa’s departure, but without saying why. Sunday’s developments come despite UN envoy Jamal Benomar announcing late the day before that a deal had been reached between authorities and the rebels.

Yemen’s interior ministry urged the security services on Sunday to avoid confronting rebels who have seized key institutions in Sanaa, in a statement posted on its website.

Interior Minister Abdo al-Tarib urged “all members of the ministry not to confront Ansarullah (rebels)”, the website statement said. The minister urged “cooperation” with the rebels “to strengthen security and stability, preserve public property and guard government installations… and to consider Ansarullah friends of the police,” the statement said.

Islamic State urges attacks on US, French citizens, taunts Obama
Islamic State urged its followers on Monday, Sept 22 to attack citizens of the United States, France and other countries which have joined a coalition to destroy the ultra-radical group.

Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani also taunted US President Barack Obama and other Western “crusaders” in a statement carried by the SITE monitoring website, saying their forces faced inevitable defeat at the insurgents´ hands. The United States is building an international coalition to combat the extremist force, which has seized large expanses of territory in Iraq and Syria and proclaimed a caliphate erasing borders in the heart of the Middle East. Adnani said the intervention by the US-led coalition would be the “final campaign of the crusaders”, according to SITE´s English-language transcript of an audio recording in Arabic.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the groups call showed once again, “if it needed to be shown, the barbarity of these terrorists, and shows why we must fight them relentlessly…” In a statement, he added, using an Arabic acronym for the militants: “We must also eliminate the risk that Daesh represents to our security.

Adnani mocked Western leaders over their deepening military engagement in the region and said Obama was repeating the mistakes of his predecessor, George W. Bush. “If you fight it (Islamic State), it becomes stronger and tougher. If you leave it alone, it grows and expands. If Obama has promised you with defeating the Islamic State, then Bush has also lied before him,” Adnani said, according to the transcript.

Addressing Obama directly, Adnani added: “O mule of the Jews, you claimed today that America would not be drawn into a war on the ground. No, it will be drawn and dragged … to its death, grave and destruction.

‘Chinese militants get training from IS militants’
Chinese militants from the western region of Xinjiang have fled from the country to get “terrorist training” from Islamic State fighters for attacks at home, state media reported on Monday, Sept 22. The report was the first time state-run media had linked militants from Xinjiang, home to ethnic minority Uighur Muslims, to militants of the Islamic State (IS), a radical group which has seized large parts of Syria and Iraq.

China´s government has blamed a surge of violence over the past year on Islamist militants from Xinjiang who China says are fighting for an independent state called East Turkestan.

Many Uighurs in Xinjiang resent what they call Chinese government restrictions on their culture, language and religion. Human rights groups say heavy-handed treatment of Uighurs leads to frustration but authorities deny imposing such restrictions.

In the latest violence in the region, which borders central Asia, state media said two people were killed and several injured in at least three explosions on Sunday. The Global Times, which is run by the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People´s Daily, said militants from Xinjiang had recently been involved in IS activities in Syria and Iraq as well as with IS “branches” in Southeast Asia.

The newspaper said in the report on its website that four suspected militants from Xinjiang were arrested in Indonesia this month. Indonesian police said last week four foreigners were being questioned but did not identify them. The four fled to Cambodia from China, and then went to Thailand where they obtained fake Turkish passports, before flying to Indonesia through Malaysia, the newspaper said. Indonesia has raised concern about a possible spillover of IS support after revelations that Indonesian citizens had travelled to Syria and Iraq to join fighters there. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said on Monday that Uighur separatist groups had sent members abroad to work with militants.

Iran bulwark against ‘terrorists’ in ME: Rouhani
Iran is a cornerstone of stability in the Middle East in the face of the “terrorists” rocking the region, President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday, Sept 22 before leaving for the United Nations. “The peoples of the region are defending themselves, and will continue to defend themselves, against the terrorists,” Rouhani said in a speech marking the anniversary of the start of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

“The government and armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will help them everywhere,” he pledged. “Iran is a cornerstone of stability in this sensitive Middle East region… today dominated by unrest, security problems, massacres and fear.”

Rouhani´s comments came after US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday that Iran had a role to play in tackling Islamic State militants who have overrun large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Kerry “discussed the threat posed by (IS)” with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in a meeting in New York lasting more than an hour on Sunday, a US official said.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said he rejected a US offer to join the international coalition it has been building against the Jihadists.

Egypt forces kill four Jihadists in Sinai
Egyptian security forces on Tuesday, Sept 23 killed four fighters from the country´s deadliest militant group on the Sinai Peninsula, where troops regularly battle Jihadists, officials said.

The four Jihadists from Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem) were killed when the car they were travelling in was struck by artillery fire south of the town of Sheikh Zuweid, the security officials said. Eight other members of the group were arrested in separate raids in the towns of Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis has orchestrated a string of attacks targeting security forces to avenge a deadly government crackdown on supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi.

Yemen leader warns of ‘civil war’ as rebels control capital
President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi warned on Tuesday, Sept 23 of “civil war” in Yemen and vowed to restore state authority as rebels appeared to be in near-total control of the capital.

Hundreds of rebel fighters manned checkpoints on the airport road and other major thoroughfares on Tuesday while heavily armed patrols cruised the streets in four-wheel-drive vehicles, AFP correspondents reported. Insurgents alongside small detachments of military police stood guard outside public offices they entered on Sunday, which include the main government building, parliament, army headquarters and the central bank.

UN envoy Jamal Benomar, who mediated the accord aimed at ending deadly fighting between the rebels and Islamists, said the rebels´ taking of key institutions virtually without resistance seemed to signify the “collapse” of the security forces in Sanaa.

The Huthi rebels, who last year rebranded themselves as Ansarullah (Supporters of God), claim direct descent from the family of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).

Yemeni authorities have repeatedly accused Iran of backing the Huthi rebels, who also appear heavily influenced by Hezbollah, Lebanon´s powerful militia that is backed by Tehran.

Ansarullah waged a decade-long insurgency in the mountainous north before launching a bid for power in Sanaa last month.

The speed of the rebel advance reflected the fragility of Yemen´s regime three years after a deadly uprising forced veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh from power. Saleh was himself a Zaidi, a community which forms 30 percent of Yemen´s population but is the majority in the northern highlands, including Sanaa province. Under Sunday´s deal, Hadi had three days to bring a rebel representative into government as an adviser and to name a neutral replacement for prime minister Mohamed Basindawa.

Before the deal was struck, Basindawa tendered his resignation as the security forces surrendered state institutions without a fight, although it has yet to be formally accepted by the president.

US, Arab allies strike IS Jihadists in Syria
The United States and its Arab allies unleashed deadly bomb and missile strikes on Jihadists in Syria on Tuesday, Sept 23 opening a new front in the battle against the Islamic State group.

Dozens of IS and al-Qaeda militants were reported to have been killed in the raids, which Washington said had partly targeted extremists plotting an “imminent attack” against the West. Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates joined the US-led operation, which involved fighter jets, bombers, drones and Tomahawk missiles fired from US warships.

The strikes marked a turning point in the war against IS militants, who have seized swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, and declared an Islamic “caliphate”. The fact that the five Arab nations joining the strikes will also be of crucial symbolic importance in the fight against the extremists of IS.

Washington had been reluctant to intervene in Syria´s raging civil war, but was jolted into action as the Jihadists captured more territory and committed atrocities including the beheadings of three Western hostages.

President Bashar al-Assad´s regime gave a muted initial response, saying it had been notified in advance of the strikes and supported “any international effort” against the Jihadists.

The Pentagon said the raids had destroyed or damaged IS fighter positions, training compounds, command centres and armed vehicles in the Jihadist stronghold of Raqa and near the border with Iraq. An anti-regime activist in Raqa, Abu Yusef, said that IS had redeployed its fighters in response.

The raids prompted many residents to run from their homes, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group. It follows a recent exodus of tens of thousands of residents into neighbouring Turkey in response to a Jihadist assault on a strategic Kurdish town in northern Syria.

IS militants have warned the US-led campaign would be met with a harsh response, and an IS-linked Algerian group on Monday threatened to kill a French hostage within 24 hours if Paris did not end its participation in air strikes in Iraq.

The group said it was responding to an IS call to kill Westerners whose nations are among 50 countries that have joined the campaign to battle the Jihadist group.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls ruled out negotiation and said Paris would continue its air strikes.

Washington said it launched 14 strikes — including 47 Tomahawk missiles — against IS targets around the Jihadist stronghold of Raqa, as well as in Deir Ezzor, Albu Kamal and Hasakeh on the border with Iraq. Its five Arab allies “participated in or supported” the attacks. Jordan and Bahrain said they deployed warplanes.

Manila rules out talks with militants
The Philippines said on Thursday, Sept 25 it would not negotiate with a militant group threatening to behead one of two German hostages, saying it was a “criminal” gang seeking to cash in on its self-proclaimed allegiance to Islamic State Jihadists.

The SITE terrorism monitoring group said on Tuesday that the Abu Sayyaf warned it would carry out its threat within 15 days unless a huge ransom is paid and Berlin halts support for the US-led campaign against the Islamic State group. “We do not negotiate with terrorists,” Philippine Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin told reporters when asked about the 250-million-peso ($5.62-million) ransom demand.

Germany also insisted it would not withdraw support for US action against the Jihadists in Iraq and Syria despite the ultimatum. Gazmin confirmed that the Abu Sayyaf, a small band of Islamic militants based in the southern Philippines, abducted a German man and woman at sea earlier this year as they sailed a yacht off the western island of Palawan.

President Benigno Aquino, who is on a visit to the United States, said the Philippines’ struggle against domestic Muslim extremists like the Abu Sayyaf was similar to the global fight against Jihadists from the Islamist State group. Speaking in a media interview while on a US trip, transcripts of which were released on Thursday by the presidential palace in Manila, Aquino said that these local groups could not be assumed to be part of the Islamic State. He also said his foreign secretary would discuss with US State Department officials what kind of help they could provide to the American-led global fight against the Jihadist movement.

“Of course, we want to do something that is do-able and within our capabilities without posing undue risks,” said Aquino whose country is a close US ally.

Over 120 Muslim scholars reject IS ideology
Over 120 Islamic scholars from around the world have issued an open letter denouncing the Islamic State militants and refuting their religious arguments. The 22-page letter, written in Arabic and heavy with quotes from the Quran, is just as clear as those groups in condemning the torture, murder and destruction the Islamic State militants have committed in areas they control.

“You have misinterpreted Islam into a religion of harshness, brutality, torture and murder,” the letter said. “This is a great wrong and an offence to Islam, to Muslims and to the entire world.”

Its originality lies in its use of Islamic theological arguments to refute statements made by self-declared Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani to justify their actions and attract more recruits to their cause. The letter is addressed to al-Baghdadi and “the fighters and followers of the self-declared ‘Islamic State’”, but is also aimed at potential recruits and Imams or others trying to dissuade young Muslims from going to join the fight.

Nihad Awad of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which presented the letter in Washington on Sept 24, said he hoped potential fighters would read the document and see through the arguments of Islamic State recruiters. “They have a twisted theology,” he said in a video explaining the letter. “They have relied many times, to mobilise and recruit young people, on classic religious texts that have been misinterpreted and misunderstood.”

The 126 signatories are Sunni men from across the Muslim world, from Indonesia to Morocco and from other countries such as the United States, Britain, France and Belgium.

Amongst those who signed were the current and former grand muftis of Egypt, Shawqi Allam and Ali Gomaa, former Bosnian grand mufti Mustafa Ceric, the Nigerian Sultan of Sokoto Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar and Din Syamsuddin, head of the large Muhammadiyah organisation in Indonesia. Eight scholars from Cairo’s Al-Azhar University also put their names to the document.

In the letter, the scholars not only denounced the killing of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines as murder, but also rejected it based on the Muslim custom of protecting emissaries between groups.

The letter described as “heinous war crimes” several cases of militants killing prisoners, totalling at least 2,850. To stress this point in an Islamic way, it gave several quotes from the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) forbidding such practices.

It said that Arab Christians and the Yazidis, followers of an ancient religion derived from Zoroastrianism, were both “people of the book” meant under the Islamic Sharia law to be protected.“Reconsider your actions, desist from them, repent from them, cease harming others and return to the religion of mercy,” the letter concluded.

France launches fresh Iraq strikes
France carried out a fresh round of airstrikes in Iraq on Thursday, Sept 25 as it renewed its determination to fight Islamic State Jihadists after the beheading of hostage Herve Gourdel.

President Francois Hollande pledged “determination, composure and vigilance” in the face of Jihadi threats at a cabinet meeting and announced that flags nationwide would be flown at half-mast for three days from Friday to mourn the loss of the 55-year-old mountaineer.

“Faced with this threat, we need national unity,” he told the meeting, according to government spokesman Stephane Le Foll, who also announced France had carried out air strikes in restive Iraq on Thursday morning — the second in the space of a week.

France opposed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq but was one of the first to sign up for an active role in the campaign against the IS group that has rampaged through large areas of Iraq and Syria. Paris has six Rafale fighter jets and just under 1,000 soldiers based in the United Arab Emirates, and on Friday carried out its first air strike on IS targets in Iraq, destroying a logistics depot.

As the cabinet meeting ended, Hollande went straight into crisis defence talks during which, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has said, “everything would be looked at again,” including “what we want to do in Iraq and what will happen in Syria.”

France has vowed to conduct aerial operations against Iraq in support of local forces fighting IS but has stressed it will not deploy ground troops, nor will it expand operations to Syria, as the United States has done.US, Saudi and Emirati warplanes bombed oil installations in eastern Syria overnight in a bid to cut off a significant source of funding for the IS group.

However, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian seemed to open the door to possible action in neighbouring Syria, telling French radio on Thursday it was “a question that had to be asked.” Nevertheless, the minister stressed it was “an opportunity that is not on the table today. We have an important task to carry out in Iraq.”

Gourdel’s public execution at the hands of IS-linked Algerian group Jund al-Khalifa, or “Soldiers of the Caliphate,” sparked global outrage and an outpouring of grief and anger in France. Flags flew at half-mast in his home town of Nice, as residents expressed their shock at the violent end of one of their citizens.

Kurdish peace process in jeopardy
The advance of Islamic State (IS) Jihadists Syria’s Kurdish areas has thrown a serious obstacle in the way of efforts to make peace between Turkey and Kurdish militants, just when an end was in sight to a 30-year insurgency. The outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has for three decades waged a rebellion against the Turkish authorities aimed at winning self-rule for Kurds living in Turkey’s southeast. The insurgency has claimed some 40,000 lives on both sides but in recent times optimism has increased that a historic end to the conflict could be in sight.

The PKK agreed a ceasefire in 2013 as the ruling party of then prime minister, now President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered greater rights to Kurds, partly in hope of their support in elections. Peace talks rapidly become mired in wrangling, but Turkey’s presidential elections in August, where Erdogan once again reached out to the Kurds, created hope of a breakthrough.

Erdogan loyalist and secret service chief Hakan Fidan has been leading direct contacts with the jailed leader of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving out a life sentence on the prison island of Imrali in the Sea of Marmara off Istanbul.

Still seen as the number one overall leader of Turkey’s Kurds, Ocalan in August declared that Turkey was on the verge of “historic developments” and the “30 year war” was at the stage of coming to an end. But the advance of IS Jihadists has again ripped open the raw wounds between the two sides and exposed the fragility of Turkey’s peace process.

In sharp contrast to his previous optimism, Ocalan issued a new statement this week accusing Ankara of dragging its feet in the peace process. Ocalan complained that while the Kurdish peace process had stalled, Turkey had been negotiating with IS to secure the release of dozens of its citizens abducted from the Iraqi city of Mosul.

Hasip Kaplan, an MP from the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), said if the government does not unveil a roadmap by September 30, then this would signal it does not want to “come to the table with Kurds.” “The government has fuelled distrust with each step,” he told AFP.

Current Threat Levels:

City/Region	Threat	Level
Islamabad	Level 2	**
Karachi	Level 2	**
Lahore	Level 2	**
Punjab	Level 2	**
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa	Level 3	***
Peshawar	Level 2	**
Quetta	Level 2	**
Upper Balochistan	Level 3	***
Lower Balochistan	Level 2	**
Upper / Rural Sindh	Level 2	**
Gilgit and Northern areas	Level 3	***
Tribal areas, close to Afghan border	Level 3	***

Index to Threat Level Perceptions
Threat Level 1 *
Indicates there is no threat to foreigners although there may be isolated incidents involving petty crime. No security precautions are required

Threat Level 2 **
Indicates there is no specific threat to foreigners; however because of the overall general law & order situation, some security precautions are advised if traveling.

Threat Level 3 ***
Indicates that law and order situation is cause for concern and travel should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Level dictates that foreigners should rehearse plans for evacuation.

Threat Level 4 ****
Indicates complete breakdown of civil administration and law & order leading to anarchy. All foreigners advised to remain indoors and confined to their own city. Families and staff not required to be evacuated retaining only a skeleton staff.

Threat Level 5 *****
Indicates complete breakdown of law and order, enemy action/hostilities, invasion /occupation by enemy.