Pak Saudi nexus spreading terror in North-East

Rakesh K Singh
New Delhi

Publication: The Pioneer

Date: April 5, 2008.

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The Pak-Saudi intelligence alliance is pressurising the caretaker

Government in Bangladesh to bolster the Islamist outfits and
insurgent groups with a view to create trouble in the North-East
States. The caretaker Government in Bangladesh had taken some
measures to contain the radical outfits as well as Indian insurgent
groups after it came to power.

Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has asked Saudi

authorities to limit the number of visas to Bangladeshi citizens
working there. According to estimates, about one million
Bangladeshis are learnt to be engaged in various professions in
Saudi Arabia and a limited number of visa to the workforce would
help in pressurising the Bangladesh Government to fall in line, senior
intelligence officials said.

Weapons are now being procured by the Indian insurgent groups

from Chinese Kunming province bordering Myanmar. Intelligence
inputs had earlier indicated that the insurgent outfits are also getting
weapon supplies from Yunnan province of China. The arms also
come through the Arkaan areas of Myanmar and from the sea off
Cox's Bazaar to Chittagong, the officials said.

National Security Adviser MK Narayanan had recently stated in a TV

interview that Bangladesh was used as a springboard and Pakistani
ISI's direct involvement in exporting terrorism into India through
Bangladesh and supply of arms is also quite obvious.

Police in Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Mumbai have arrested

a number of Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (HuJI) activists from Bangladesh
involved in attacks on Indian targets in association with Pakistani
terrorist groups, Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and Jaish-e-Mohammad.

The scale and sophistication of HuJI can be gauged from the fact that
the United States last month declared it as an international terrorist
outfit due to its involvement in international terrorism and its links with
the ISI and other Pakistan-based terrorist groups.

On March 12 this year, two HuJI activists from Bangladesh, one of

them identified as Mohammad Ali, were shot dead by the anti-terrorist
squad of Maharashtra police. They were in possession of two
kilogram of RDX, a revolver, a pistol and fake Indian currency notes.
They were moving around with a pre-determined plan to strike
sensitive installations in Mumbai.

Jaish-e-Mohammad, which has close links with Al Qaeda, has also

been found to be training the HuJI activists in Bangladesh. Sheikh
Abdullah Gul, a Pakistani Jaish operative, was in Bangladesh in
November 2007 to train and recruit HuJI mujahideen to join the fight
in Jammu & Kashmir and also in Afghanistan.

Bangladesh is harbouring several militant leaders of Indian insurgent

groups like, the ULFA, NSCN (I/M), BODO outfits like NDFB and a
number of other insurgent groups active in Tripura. Arabindo
Rajkhowa, Chairman of the ULFA lives in Chittagong Hill tracts.
Another senior leader Paresh Barua lives in Dhaka. While some
Bangladeshi agencies are giving them benign patronage, Chinese
intelligence agencies have been supplying them with arms, senior
intelligence officials said. Moreover, China with a view to strategically
encircle India, is arming Bangladesh armed forces, especially the
Navy, with weapons that can be considered offensive and targeting a
particular country with ship-to-ship, ship-to-air and ground-to-air
missiles. Bangladesh has been part of the larger Chinese strategic
enclosure policy against India, intelligence officials said here while
explaining the rationale behind the tie-up between Pakistan, China
and Saudi authorities.
China also had pressurised the BNP Government to award control of
infrastructure projects like telecommunications, strategic Chittagong-
Myanmar- Kuming highway, oil/gas exploration rights and port
development projects through a combination of kickbacks and cheap
military supplies, the officials said.