Emerging Situation in Nepal: Implications for India

General
The Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) organised a seminar on “Emerging Situation in Nepal: Implications for India” on September 23, 2008 at the CLAWS Seminar Hall. The seminar was attended by a large number of serving officers and members of the strategic community. The seminar was chaired by Maj Gen Ashok Mehta (Retd). The speakers included Maj Gen A K Chaturvedi, ACIDS Int A, HQ IDS, Ambassador K V Rajan and Brigadier Arun Sahgal (Retd)

Discussion Summary
Nepal is a base of drugs, narcotics, and illegal arms. The ISI activities in Nepal are continuing and have further indulged into anti-India activities. Madhesh is a terrain area in Nepal, and from a Nepalese perspective, Madhesh is the rest of India. There is resentment against the Madheshee entrenchment in the system and even their entrenchment in the ruling class. Nepal has asked India to revise the India-Nepal Treaty of 1950. The perception of the Nepali people is that the India-Nepal Treaty 1950 is an absolute one-sided treaty. Human development index of Nepal is very low, and there is abject poverty. The Maoists do not have political experience. China’s influence in Nepal is rising with the coming of the Maoist regime. India needs to a keep a tab on this fact. The responsibility mainly lies on the leaders and institutions to solve these issues. Civil society should not be underestimated in Nepal since it functions as a political force also. What would be the changes in the 1950 Treaty, and what would be its impact on India? Will it affect India’s security? India should work urgently towards addressing these questions.
(Report Prepared by Dr. Shah Alam, Research Fellow, CLAWS)
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Emerging Situation in Nepal: Implications for India

Mumbai Mayhem: Taliban new hierarchy emerges

Taliban sources in Pakistan and Afghan intelligence sources say that the Taliban now has a recognizable hierarchy of leaders - some operating from Afghanistan and some from the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan's volatile Northwest Frontier Province.

At the top of the military command structure is Mullah Beradar, who hails from Deh Rawood in Urozgan, the home village of former supreme Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Underneath Mullah Beradar are a number of Taliban commanders and religious leaders assigned to different territories.

The most active region - from Nimroz Province to Helmand, on up to Kandahar, Zabul, and north to Urozgan - is under the joint control of Beradar's top three deputies. Akhtar Usmani was the Taliban corps commander in Kandahar. Mullah Abdur Razzaq was the Taliban Interior Minister. And Mullah Dadullah was the military chief in the northern city of Kunduz, on the front lines against the Northern Alliance when the Taliban lines crumbled.

According to eyewitnesses, the men who captured an Ecuadorian Red Cross aid worker, Ricardo Munguia, in Urozgan Province last month, called up Mullah Dadullah on their satellite phone and under Dadullah's orders, shot Munguia dead.
Taliban appears to be regrouped and well-funded

Narco-trafficking is fueling the Taliban, and fat profits from poppies and opium are partially responsible for the militants' resurgence. Indeed, Afghanistan is supplying about 90 percent of the world's opium and nearly all of the heroin that ends up in Europe. Emerald trading from SWAT Valley has been taken over by Taliban. Smuggling and gun running go hand in gloves.
Losing the war in Afghanistan
Pakistan blames Taliban for Lahore attack which leaves 11 dead
Indian Army Ready for Tackle Any Threat from Pakistan

Mumbai Mayhem: Taliban at the doorstep

... school bombing in Pakistan
The events in Pakistan on its 69th National Day, showing bombed out buildings, bullet ridden walls and weapon carrying men everywhere, indicate that the influence of those who seek to seize control of the country is increasing with each passing day.

TWENTY FOUR HOURS is a long time, they say in politics. It seems it is even longer in the life of a nation. On the morning of March 23, 2009, a British news channel was busy showing a special programme covering the situation in Pakistan’s Swat valley. The scenic valley has been in the news for months now for its detiorating security situation and the capitulation of the Pakistani government to the militants there. It is, however, being presented as an accord to implement Sharia law and not a caving in to the diktat of the Taliban.

When interviewed by the TV journalist, President Zardari made a complete denial of the reports of Pakistani territories being in the control of militants. The channel then panned to the town of Mingora in the Swat valley. If the ticker below the screen shots were to not indicate that this is a Pakistani town, the average viewer could have been forgiven for assuming these to be shots of war scarred Afghanistan.

Bombed out buildings, schools razed to ground, bullet ridden walls and only weapon carrying men everywhere. Every street showed the same scenes of rugged, bearded men, most with black turbans. Nowhere were any women to be spotted, not even burqa clad ones.
Taliban at the doorstep: A President in denial

Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 27, 2009; 8:44 AM
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Mar. 27 -- A suicide bomber detonated his explosives Friday in a crowded mosque in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 50 people and leaving more bodies buried in the rubble of the building, officials said. Officials said many of those killed and wounded Friday were members of the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force that patrols the tribal zones. The mosque that was targeted was located in Jamrud town, near the main highway leading to the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan. It is very close to a major Frontier Corps barracks that dates back to British colonial rule.
Suicide Bomber Kills at Least 50 in Pakistan Mosque

Kupwara encounter
Eight members of the Army, one of them a Major, and 17 terrorists are reported to have been killed in a series of encounters between patrols of the Army and five different groups of terrorist infiltrators from the Pakistani territory in densely forested areas of the Kupwara district of Jammu & Kashmir. The encounters, which started on March 20, lasted five days.
The ploy behind the Kupwara encounter

Mumbai Mayhem: Musharraf confirms Pakistan is cash starved speaking on the "Challenge of Change" at the India Today conclave

Pakistan has admitted that a part of the Mumbai conspiracy was hatched on its soil. While six Pakistanis have been arrested for the attacks, Islamabad says it is waiting for more evidence from India before starting their trial.

Musharraf's presidential tenure saw the December 13, 2001, attack on the Indian Parliament that brought the two countries to the brink of war. However, the second half of his tenure saw the resumption of the peace process and the launch of new cross-border bus and train links.
Musharraf to check out Delhi restaurants, keen to meet Vajpayee

Comment: When quizzed by the Russian chess player as to why, "cash and sophisticated arms supply to terrorists was not cut off." Musharraf confirmed Pakistan has neither money nor cash, but it comes from Afghanistan druglords. Dawood who is most the wanted in India is also a warlord fuelling terror... source of money is from smuggling and hawala transanctions in India. Jaswant Singh handed over in a platter millions of dollars to Taliban openly. What goes on behind the scenes covertly will be mind boggling to conceive! If the money trail from India is snapped, terrorism will die!