Change of Strategy by ISI to Regain Control over Conflict  

It was not possible for the government to put every worker or member of banned Jamaat-e-Islami of Kashmir or OGW under detention, though higher architecture of these organisation remained disrupted but grass root level organisation remained intact and functional. Friday prayers at mosques as rallying point had ceased and the modus-operandi had changed from open subversive activities to door to door connectivity. The separatists and their sympathisers were unable to establish communication with the ISI and their handlers in Pakistan. The ISI took almost six months to re-establish some of the links and now the activities of the Jamaat and OGW is primarily restricted to grass root level through personal contact as well as restricted 2G network. In spite of the fact that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) continues to hang like a Sword of Damocles over Pakistan, yet it would not like the situation in Kashmir Valley to slip out of their control. The compulsion with the ISI is to give impetus to the proxy war to maintain momentum, at the same time make an endeavour to distance diligently from those terror organisations that are synonymous with Pakistan and Jihad such as Lasker-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM). The larger objective is to project Kashmir conflict as indigenous and a resistance movement against religious, social and political oppression.

Pakistan and its deep state have gone overboard to internationalise Kashmir issue by raising India’s lockdown and reorganisation of state as an assault on the human rights and democratic rights of the people. They have now created Kashmir freedom movement organisations in almost all countries including North America, Europe, West Asia and the Muslim Ummah. On the cross border front, Pakistan continues to face backlash for supporting global terror organisations such as LeT and JeM. No one believes Pakistan that LeT and JeM are Kashmiri resistance groups. Ashley Tellis had written that “LeT has a global vision and international ambitions, even if it may be currently limited by capacity or focus”.[1] He further writes that “LeT’s world view is far beyond India” and this perception creates a problem for Pakistan. Pakistan is trying to change the narrative by suggesting that violent extremism in Kashmir is indigenous, but as long as Hafeez Sayed and Maullana Azhar remains the head of LeT and JeM, Pakistan will not be able to cast away the tag of using terrorism as a state policy.

The War of Ideas – Calling Terror Revival as The Resistance Front

In October 2019, a grenade thrown at a street market in Srinagar city exploded wounding a few vendors. An unknown militant outfit, The Resistance Front (TRF), claimed responsibility, but the security agencies trashed it as an “act of miscreants”.[2] After six months of this incident the TRF made news when it was involved in a major gun battle with security forces where five soldiers of Special Forces along the Line of Control were killed in action (KIA). It is now believed that the TRF cadres are members of LeT and JeM – part of the Terror Revival Front – the actual TRF.

The idea behind changing the name and nomenclature of the terror outfit is a blatant attempt to give a cloak of secularism to the conflict in Kashmir and to make the world believe that it is an indigenous resistance movement since “Lashkar and Jaish-e-Mohammad had religious connotation and Pakistan didn’t want that,”[3] because that makes Pakistan culpable of using terror as a state policy.

This change of name is a new dimension to the narrative of terrorism in Kashmir. The idea behind this needs to be understood because it will have far reaching consequences in future. Pakistan has to steer clear from the tag of “incubator of terrorism” if it wants to come out of the FATF grey list in future. Thus, the strategy of ISI is to show Kashmir conflict as an indigenous movement.

Second important aspect is that the terrorist movement must be given a cloak and be made synonymous with the fight against social and political oppression. Therefore, even within India the idea is to gain traction from Left Wing Extremists, and other so-called Left Liberals. Third aspect is that this secular sounding name would help in concealing the tag of Jihadist movement and to gain sympathy and traction from global left liberals and human right activists.

So far in Kashmir religion was a rallying point for most terror outfits, but this change in strategy with an eye on future does not use religious symbolism, while still retaining its jihadist push. There are reports that these new cadres who have infiltrated from Pakistan are better trained and willing to give tough fight to the security forces. The reason for this determined fight back by well-trained terrorists of this Terror Revival Front is to show to the Kashmiri cadres their potential and fighting capabilities. If Pakistani ISI appears to have been able to convince LeT and JeM to allow their cadres to operate under the TRF name, since it would give Pakistan a breather as well as divert attention from the international terror watchdogs.

This kind of experiment has not been done or succeeded in Afghanistan, Iraq or even in Yemen. Syrian Democratic Forces were created and supported by the US in Northern Syria and Iraq to fight ISIS. SDF mainly constituted Kurdish forces but not Islamic Jihadist forces. It is difficult to predict if Jihadists like Hafeez Sayyed and Maullana Azhar, who thrived on rallying their cadres on religious Jihad, will accept secularisation of the movement or will they start operating as autonomous Jihadi groups outside the control of ISI.

There is a need to adopt two pronged strategy to deal with this new strategic shift by ISI in cross border terrorism in Kashmir. The first step should be to create a perception of “moral outrage” to depict that TRF is Un-Islamic and anti-Muslim ideology in nature that is diluting religious sentiments of the people. Though it is not easy to create this perception, but there is a need to attach a tag of secularism with this terror organisation so that LeT or JeM are either forced to claim ownership, or disown this organisation and both scenarios will defeat the new idea of ISI. Second step is to create a narrative that people don’t want to become jihadis[4] in Kashmir anymore due to failure of Hizbul Mujaheedin, LeT and JeM to achieve their objective. Thus, the Pakistani deep state’s connotation of TRF should be depicted as an organisation imposed on Kashmiri people to pursue agenda of ISI and not the agenda of Kashmiri people – a Terror Revival Front.

Conclusion

There is a need to expose this façade by the Pakistani ISI. The communication linkages of terror organisations with ISI and their ideologues sitting in Pakistan must be brought to the notice of the global community. This is a strategic shift in conflict in Kashmir by the Pakistani deep state and cannot be allowed to succeed in their endeavour. This strategic shift in secularising conflict in Kashmir cannot be allowed to become “Shining Path” that led to revival of terrorism in Peru way back in 1980s. The war of ideas is a hard battle and can best be fought when locals are integrated in these campaigns without government agencies trying to spearhead such endeavours. It would also require integration of intelligence and development of carefully crafted themes. Notwithstanding the above, targeted elimination of TRF (Terror Revival Front) cadres by security forces or “little green/ grey men” operating from the shadows must continue.

End Note

[1] Ashley J. Tellis, The Menace That Is Lashkar-e-Taiba, Carnegie, March 2012.

[2] Bashaarat Masood, ‘Pakistan trying to securalise Kashmir militancy’: Lashkar regroups in Valley as The Resistance Front, The Indian Express, May 05, 2020.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Uri Friedman, America’s Two-Front War of Ideas, The Atlantic, March 03, 2017.

Brig Narender Kumar is a Distinguished Fellow with the USI of India. He has extensive experience in counter insurgency and counter-terrorism operations. His areas of interest are Internal Security, Transnational Terrorism, Indian Ocean Region and Military Reforms. He has authored more than 200 research papers/ Chapters for books/ articles for various journals and web portals.

Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the organisation that he belongs to or of the USI of India.