Stratfor accepts India's concerns

By Rao Malladi
New Delhi,(Surya,April23, 2007): Finally, American security and intelligence community seem to accept India’s concerns over the threat posed by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to the country’s northeast, through its bases in Bangladesh, and also about its networking with jihadi and secessionist outfits in the region.

The Texas based intelligence service, Stratfor, virtually echoed the Indian view in its latest security report on Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. The ISI is working with Bangladesh's intelligence agencies to facilitate cooperation between northeast militant groups like ULFA and other jihadist outfits in the South Asian region besides Tamil rebels in Lanka, the Stratfor said in its latest report, “India: The Islamisation of the Northeast”.

According to its assessment, there is a growing Islamisation in the region and it has been ‘spurred’ by ISI.

The Pak agency, it says, has strong nexus with Bangladesh's intelligence agencies. Both are working clandestinely to bring all the northeast-based insurgent outfits and jihadist elements under one umbrella.

This is a view India has been holding for long, though there were few takers among the American intelligence community. At least until now. The Stratfor comment shows that the situation is changing and that there is some willingness to look at the issue afresh without the cold war mindset.

The Stratfor also charges Pakistan with exploiting the instability in Bangladesh for its clandestine activity in India’s north east. In fact, its view is that the instability in Bangladesh is giving foreign powers a gamut of exploitable secessionist movements to use to prevent India from emerging as a major global player.

Other points made in the Stratfor report are no less interesting. And these also amount to endorsing the Indian concerns.

It notes for instance, the ISI has facilitated cooperation between ULFA and other north-eastern militant outfits with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), POK based Kashmir militant groups, Islamist groups like JMB of Bangladesh and other jihadist groups operating in the region

About ULFA's suicide bombs, the American group says, it looks to be the result of the group's increased Islamisation caused by collusion with Islamist outfits in the region. ULFA doesn’t have many Muslim in its ranks. So, Stratfor conjecture is that these suicide squads could be made of Bangladeshi refugees, who had joined the ULFA ranks with some nudging from the ISI.