The Hindu : Militants still active along LoC: report

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 30, 2002

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International

Militants still active along LoC: report

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON JUNE 29. The scale of cross-border infiltration along the Line of Control in Kashmir may have come down but the flow has not stopped. And despite Islamabad's "crackdown'' on extremist groups, they continue to operate "with impunity,'' a British newspaper said today.

The Daily Telegraph, in a report from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, said that contrary to official denials, it had discovered "ample evidence'' of continuing extremist activity in the region and found that the militants of Osama bin Laden's network were "prospering amid unflagging popular support'' from the locals. They included members of the Harkat-ul-Mujahdeen, and activists of the Al-Qaeda driven out of Afghanistan by the U.S. forces.

``In the remote highlands, President Musharraf's authority carries little weight,'' it said. A Harkat activist, Shabir Ahmed Madani, was quoted as saying that the Pakistani Army "won't dare come across this Valley and try to close us down.'' He claimed that his group had sent "all of our Afghan friends to Kashmir.''

According to The Telegraph's account, the remote regions of PoK were rife with militant activity, with the "jehadi'' groups openly advertising "military lessons.'' The Musharraf Government, it said, appeared to have little control over such organisations which answered only the "senior mullahs.'' "Villagers near the spectacular Nanga Parbat mountain said the Al-Qaeda fighters preached to them in their bazaars about the need for self-sacrifice and struggle,'' the report said.

A road leading to the LoC near Kupwara, frequently used by the infiltrators bound for India, was being "paved'' by the Pakistani military engineers with the help of local villagers, the newspaper said, extensively quoting a jeep driver, Nasir Ali, who claimed that he had helped several "jehadis'' cross over into India.

"Hundreds have entered Kashmir in the last several months. In some cases, they left their new, four-wheel drive vehicles with us and rode further into Kashmir with our trucks.''

The report follows a warning by the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, earlier this week that the U.S. government had "snippets'' of information about the Al-Qaeda operating in Kashmir.

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