A growing number of Afghans now believe that Pakistani support for Islamic terrorists attacking Afghanistan is more of a problem than Islamic terror groups already inside Afghanistan. This includes the Taliban, al Qaeda and ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant). Going public with this sort of thing is another after effect of the July 23 ISIL suicide bombing in Kabul that killed over 80 people. President Ghani and senior Afghan (and American) intel officials agree that this attack was only possible because of Pakistani support for ISIL. Thus Afghanistan now believes Pakistan is the biggest threat to Afghanistan because Pakistan makes the drug trade possible and supports Islamic terror groups, in addition to the Taliban, inside Afghanistan. Pakistan denies all this but most Afghans and a growing number of Pakistanis believe the accusations are true.
The Afghan government had long been complaining to Pakistan about the continued presence of Islamic terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan. These complaints were largely ignored and since 2014 the Pakistanis have been boasting about their military operation to eliminate the sanctuary in the northwest (North Waziristan). But the Afghans knew that the operation in North Waziristan was mainly about Islamic terrorists who carried out attacks against the Pakistani government. The Islamic terrorists who operated against Afghanistan were largely untouched. In early 2016 there were more and more spectacular attacks inside Afghanistan by Islamic terrorists who could be traced back to Pakistan. A lot of the evidence was collected by Afghan special operations troops. Pakistan continued to deny responsibility and the Afghan government quietly agreed to an American plan that would go after the Taliban and other Islamic terrorists operating against Afghanistan where they were. This led to the first American UAV missile attack in southwest Pakistan, which killed the head of the Afghan Taliban as he returned to Quetta after visiting Iran. President Ghani has offered to provide Pakistan with the addresses of Afghan Taliban leaders who have been living (mainly in the city of Quetta) since 2001.
Afghan and American intel officials agree that most (about 70 percent) of the ISIL men in Afghanistan are Pakistani, mainly former members of the Pakistani Taliban seeking a more hardcore group to work with. Since 2015 ISIL has been trying to establish a base area in eastern Afghanistan (mainly in Nangarhar province) but that has led to constant skirmishing with Pakistani Taliban hiding out there. The local tribes are also largely hostile to ISIL and all this has provided better intel for the security forces on what ISIL is up to and exactly where they are and who they are. Some of the tribes used their own militias to fight ISIL but more often just helpe set up defenses to keep ISIL out. This cooperation (and information) led to more effective and frequent American air strikes and raids by Afghan troops and American commandos and hundreds of ISIL men have been killed and many more wounded. Many of the wounded desert and there are fewer new volunteers. Cut off from Afghan recruits it makes sense that many of the thousand or so ISIL personnel still active in Afghanistan are from Pakistan. So are many other Islamic terrorists who operate in eastern Afghanistan. But Afghan intelligence believes the Pakistani intelligence (ISI) is now deliberately helping ISIL recruit in Pakistan as long as the recruits go to Afghanistan. ISIL is barely hanging on in Afghanistan and is largely absent in Pakistan. ISIL is not dead in Afghanistan but it isn’t growing much either.
Kashmir
India blames Pakistan for the sharp increase in Islamic terror activity in Kashmir this year. Pakistan was accused of supporting young Moslems in Kashmir to join Pakistani backed terror groups. That led to a popular (especially on social media) young (21) Kashmiri Islamic terrorist (Burhan Wani) being found and killed by police on July 8th. This led to an outbreak of massive, and often violent protests that have left sixty dead and over 6,000 wounded so far. Burhan Wani was seen as someone who could revive Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), which was once the most powerful Islamic terror group in Indian Kashmir. HM has been fading away since 2010 as more of its leaders were killed or captured and few replacements showed up. HM is unique in that it came to be dominated by Indian Kashmiris and resisted control by Pakistan. While still receiving personnel and other aid from Pakistan, HM was more sensitive to Kashmiri needs and desires, not what Pakistani foreign policy demanded. As a result, when the Kashmiri population turned against Islamic terrorism after 2001 HM began to decline but still retained more local support than the groups that were basically Pakistani inventions. Thus HM maintained its position as the major Islamic terror group in Kashmir because increased Indian success at border security hurt the groups more dependent on personnel and aid from Pakistan.
Pakistan has been sponsoring Islamic terrorism in Indian Kashmir since the 1980s and terrorism deaths in Kashmir peaked in 2001. By 2011 India had reduced Islamic terrorist related violence in Kashmir by over 95 percent from that 2001 peak. Despite that Pakistan continued recruiting, training and sending Islamic terrorists into India. For the first four months of 2016 the Islamic terrorist violence in Kashmir was running at the same levels as 2015. But in the last few months there has been a major escalation and now Islamic terrorist deaths in Kashmir are 50 percent higher than the same period in 2015.
Over 50,000 have died in Islamic militant violence in Kashmir since the 1980s. This ruined the thriving tourism based economy of Kashmir, and eventually turned the largely Moslem population against the terrorists. While the Islamic terrorists have failed to drive India out of Kashmir, they have managed, since the 1970s, to drive most (95 percent) of the Hindus from the Kashmir Valley. But many Hindu shrines, some over 3,000 years old, remain. Thousands of Hindus return each year to pray at these shrines, and the Moslems have begun agitating to restrict access to these shrines. The most militant Moslems want the shrines destroyed. Although Moslem armies first entered this region a thousand years ago, the struggle between Islam and much more ancient Hindu religion continues.
Maoists
For India Leftist rebels (Maoists) continue to be a bigger problem than Islamic terrorism. The difference is the Maoists have no outside support while the Islamic terrorists have long, and very visibly been based in Pakistan. Nevertheless the Maoists this year are reversing several years of decline (in Maoist related violence). In 2015 there were 251 deaths related to Maoist violence, the lowest level in over a decade. But so far this year it looks like Maoist violence will nearly double, going back to levels not seen since 2011. This is mainly because of the failure to deal with toe corruption that kept the Maoists popular enough for decades to keep them going.
Bangladesh
In Bangladesh Islamic terrorist related deaths for 2016 are headed for triple the 42 for all of 2015. That was down from 60 in 2014 and a record 379 in 2013. The 2013 surge was 69 percent of all Islamic terrorist deaths since 2005 and a sign that Islamic terrorism continues to have a difficult time getting a foothold in Bangladesh. Actually most of the terrorism related deaths were political rather than religious but in the last few years’ Islamic terrorism has gotten a lot more attention in the news. The government also blames rival political parties for aiding the Islamic terrorists but has not been able to produce evidence the police can act on. One thing that may reverse the trend is the massive popular and government reaction to the July 1st terrorist attack on a popular café in Dhaka that left 22 dead (including 20 foreigners). While ISIL took credit for the July 1 attack the government believes it was the work of local group JMB (Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh). JMB has been around since 1998 and wants to turn Bangladesh into a religious dictatorship. JMB turned to violence in 2005 and has been at war with the government ever since. Bangladesh also blames Pakistan for supporting Islamic terrorism within Bangladesh. This goes back to a 1971 uprising in Bangladesh that led to a war between Pakistan and India. Many Pakistani military leaders see this 1971 loss as a major reason for Pakistani obsession with India. Not only was the Pakistani army decisively defeated in 1971, but the country lost much territory (which actively sought to secede and became Bangladesh). Former Pakistani military commander and dictator (via another coup) Pervez Musharraf admitted in late 2014 that he started the 1999 Kargil border war with India as another attempt to avenge the defeat (and loss of Bangladesh) in 1971. Pakistani officers (and many other Pakistanis) have always attributed the loss of Bangladesh to an Indian conspiracy with traitorous politicians in Bangladesh (that used to be called East Pakistan). Bangladesh calls that conspiracy theory absurd and that the real reason for the rebellion was corruption and incompetent government imposed by troops from “West Pakistan” (which after 1971 was all that remained of pre-1971 Pakistan).
