LAHORE – Banned outfits operating from Afghan soil near Durand-Line have planned launching separate offences inside Pakistan and prepared their foot soldiers for this purpose, security officials told The Nation yesterday.
TTP Fazalullah group, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a splinter of TTP, Hafiz Gul Bahadur group and Lashkar-e-Islam (LI), who all were uprooted from Fata by Pakistan army, have found refuge in Nangarhar, Kunar, Nuristan, Khost, Paktia and Paktika province of Afghanistan along the Pak-Afghan border.
According to the intelligence inputs, these terrorist organisations have planned to infiltrate their sorties of militants into Pakistan to stage acts of terrorism, security officials informed the paper.
The intelligence about the new threat from militant outfits operating from Afghan soil have been gathered through communication intercepts and network of informants on Durand-Line, they said.
The biggest threat comes from Gul Bahadur group which has planned to send more than 300 militants. Working in groups of different sizes, these militants would cross the border from Khost province of Afghanistan possibly at Alwara Mandi area to enter parts of South Waziristan and North Waziristan to target the security targets, said the officials quoting intelligence reports.
Security forces have already launched follow up Search and Strike (S&S) operations coupled with Search and Comb (S&C) operations on Tuesday in thick forest of Rajgal valley in Tirah area of Khyber Agency.
As many as 15 terrorists were killed and 11 were injured in ground and air offensive in the difficult areas of Rajgal and Sattar Kalay while they were trying to infiltrate from Afghanistan taking cover of the dense forest. The security forces are also increasing troop presence at sensitive areas and soft points of militant infiltration.
The Khyber Agency was once a hub of Lashkar-e-Islam and TTP Geedar group. LI head Mangal Bagh and Geedar group chief Umar Naray – who masterminded the APS Peshawar massacre – were killed in US drone strikes in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan last month, after a premier intelligence agency of Pakistan provided leads about their presence to western secret services. According to some international media reports Gul Bahadur had also been killed in a US drone strike, but this has not been confirmed from other independent and credible sources. The intelligence reports suggest that all the above said groups have been launching attacks inside Pakistan from Afghan soil with the help of Indian secret service RAW and Afghan top security service NDS.
According to intelligence dispatches early this month, key secret services have spotted movements of TTP and its major splinter Jamaat-ul-Ahrar at the Pakistan border with Nuristan province of Afghanistan.
Another alarming intelligence dispatch reveals that movements of foreign fighters – Uzbek, Tajik and those of Arab origin – have also been spotted in Nuristan.
The terrorist outfits, in an effort to determine the readiness and strength of Pakistani security forces, sent more than a dozen infiltrators to cross into Pakistan from Nuristan.
In the scuttled infiltration bid, five terrorists were killed in a gun battle with Pak Army troops in the remote land of Kalash Bamborat Valley in Chitral district. The remaining members of the terror gang slipped back into Afghanistan.
Following the intelligence dispatches, the security forces have been directed to take extraordinary measures.
According to these dispatches, Kamdesh district of Nuristan is housing the militants of TTP, JuA and foreign fighters. The Afghan authorities claim Kamdesh falls in the areas where they have no writ.
According to the security agencies’ inputs of June, Afghan security service, NDS, had planned increasing its offensive operations at Durand Line and use TTP groups in an aggressive covert warfare against Pakistan to sabotage its border management arrangements.Kabul’s army used force when Pakistani security forces constructed a gate at Torkham border for better border management as part of its counterterrorism measures. Now intelligence agencies’ informants have reported extraordinary movements at NDS stations in Nangarhar, Kunar, Nuristan, Paktia, Paktika, Helmand and Kandahar.
A four-nation mechanism known as the Quadrilateral Cooperation and Coordination Mechanism (QCCM) in counterterrorism has been agreed in Chinese city of Urumqi by Pakistan, China, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. However, it has not yielded any fruit so far.http://nation.com.pk/national/18-Aug-2016/nds-baked-militants-planning-new-war-against-pakistan
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