India faces numerous terrorist challenges from dozens of domestic insurgent groups. Varying political, religious, ethnic, sectarian, tribal and economic ideologies motivate these groups to engage in separatist violence and to clamor for political independence. Significant to the international community is that several of the domestic insurgent organizations receive financial, human, and logistical support from neighboring countries and international terrorist groups.

India borders on several nations beset by political violence, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar, and it is near Sri Lanka. Extremists and terrorists from these nations operate in India and/or use India as a safe haven while Indian militants find support and refuge in these neighboring countries.

According to recent statistics, 2,765 people died in terrorism-related violence in India in 2006. Nearly 41 percent of the fatalities occurred in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) alone as a result of the Pakistan-backed separatist war in that state. Twenty-seven percent of the casualties resulted from the left-wing Maoist/Naxalite threat across parts of fourteen Indian states, and 23 percent of the fatalities occurred in the multiple insurgencies of India’s Northeast.

American and Indian interests converge in several areas, particularly in stemming the political instability and extremism in South Asia, combating international terrorism, and ensuring the free flow of commerce and resources through the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean.

International Islamic Extremist Threats  

India is plagued by dozens of homegrown Islamic extremist groups. Many of these groups receive training, arms, support, and safe haven from international terrorist groups and government agencies in bordering Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar and neighboring Sri Lanka.

With India having spent much funds and resources patrolling and sealing the Indo-Pakistani borders in the Kashmir region, terrorist groups are now infiltrating into India via the 2, 545-mile border with Bangladesh, the 1,088-mile Nepalese border, and the Indo-Pakistani border at Gujarat. Terrorists involved in the March 2006 Varanasi bombings came via the Bangladesh border and eleven of the Pakistani-based militants allegedly involved in the July 2006 Mumbai train attacks infiltrated India through the Indo-Nepal border in Bihar, the Indo-Bangladesh border in West Bengal, and the Indo-Pakistan border in Gujarat.

The Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM), are believed to be the most active international terrorist groups operating in India. Whereas these groups initially restricted their activities to the Kashmir region (see below), in recent years they have expanded their activities throughout India. Major terrorist attacks in the Indian heartland—in Bangalore and New Delhi in 2005, and in Varanasi and Mumbai in 2006—have been linked to LET and JEM, both U.S. State Department-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

LET, the largest insurgent group operating in Kashmir, seeks the restoration of Islamic rule over all parts of South Asia, Russia, and China. In its campaign to destabilize India, LET attacks government targets and religious sites, hoping to incite sectarian discord. Its operatives have forged links with Islamic and non-Islamic insurgent groups throughout India, particularly in eastern India, where there are several violence-ridden regions with large Muslim populations.

According to an Indian government report, the strategy of Pakistan-based terrorist groups is to channel funds and weapons into India to sustain the terrorist networks, target vital installations and economic infrastructure in India, recruit and train local militants, attack soft targets like marketplaces, public transport systems, and places of worship and congregation, and provoke communal tensions to create divisions between communities. 

Also operating in India are the Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI-B) and Jama’atul Mujahideen (JUM). HUJI-B was one of the signatories to Osama bin Ladin’s 1998 fatwa against America. Its participation in Indian-based terrorism emerged with its involvement in the January 2002 attack on the U.S. Cultural Center in Calcutta that killed five policemen and injured twenty others. 

According to Indian government sources, HUJI-B recruits Indian youth, sends them to Pakistan and Bangladesh for training, and then sends them back into India to carry out terrorist attacks.  

The three terrorist groups LET, JEM, and HUJI-B reportedly work together and are very active in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, the capital of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and a high-tech hub. Long beset by sectarian violence and containing a large Muslim population, Hyderabad poses a natural target for Islamic extremists.

Indian authorities maintain that these terrorist groups receive direct support for their activities in Hyderabad from Pakistan’s intelligence arm, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). According to one report, between 1993 and 2006, the Andhra Pradesh police arrested nearly ninety ISI-backed terrorists and agents who were responsible for minor and major bomb blasts, killings, and communal violence in the state.

In an August 2004 newspaper interview, LET founder Mohammed Hafiz Saeed was explicit about LET’s plans for Hyderabad and other Indian cities:

Pakistan is a country for Muslims of the subcontinent. Therefore, it is incomplete without Kashmir.… Pakistan is also incomplete without Hyderabad, Junagarh and Munabao … it is our duty to free these states from Hindu subjugation and assure their Muslim population that they will become part of Pakistan. This is our agenda for Pakistan’s completion. We will continue to propagate it in India through speech and writing and take these states back through jihad.

The groups have been implicated in several terrorist attacks in Hyderabad, including the first suicide bombing in the city in October 2005 that killed one policeman. It was later discovered that the attack had been planned in the Dhaka office of HUJI-B where militants from Hyderabad were involved in providing support to the strike team, which included Pakistani-trained HUJI-B militants. The terrorists and the liquid explosive used in the attack were smuggled into India via the Bangladeshi border. The investigation into the attack also revealed that as many as 500 Muslim youth from Hyderabad had undergone weapons training in Pakistan at the behest of HUJI-B. Most recently, LET has been implicated in the May 2007 Mecca Masjid bombing in Hyderabad that killed eleven people.

Facilitating the activities of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi-based militants in India are the many domestic Indian Islamic extremist groups. The Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), for example, which seeks the violent overthrow of the Indian government and the creation of an Islamic state in its stead, works with LET, HUJI-B, and others to achieve their goals. SIMI has been implicated in several major terrorist attacks in India, including the 2005 attacks on the Ayodhya temple complex, the Uttar Pradesh train bombing, and the 2006 Varanasi and Mumbai train bombings.

In the northeastern Indian state of Assam alone (see below for discussion of the Assamese insurgency), there are at least fourteen Islamic terrorist organizations, including the Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA) and the Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam (MULFA), both said to be part of the All Muslim United Liberation Forum of Assam (AMULFA), an umbrella group reportedly founded by the Pakistani ISI to coordinate the activities of Islamic extremists in northeastern India.

Bangladesh-based JUM has also been linked to the Assamese insurgency. JUM reportedly recruits unemployed youths in Assam, trains them in Bangladesh, and sends them back to Assam to strike soft human targets and economic installations. Islamic extremists and Assamese militants are believed to maintain bases in Assam’s Dhubri district, along the India-Bangladesh border. LET, JEM, and HUJI-B operate in minority-dominated pockets of Lower Assam, where suspected migrants from Bangladesh have a sizable presence. They have attacked economic installations in the oil sector and marketplaces. According to Assam police, 198 Islamic extremists were arrested in Assam between 2001 and October 2006, while fifty-six more surrendered.

Indian intelligence agencies also note that LET, again in conjunction with Pakistan’s ISI, has been trying to revive militancy in the Indian state of Punjab through Sikh militant groups like Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), the International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF), Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF), and Khalistan Commando Force (KCF). With Pakistani support, Sikh militants from BKI bombed two movie theaters in New Delhi in May 2005, killing one person and wounding sixty others. Several weeks later, Indian authorities arrested BKI’s Indian operations chief Jagtar Singh Hawara.

Al-Qaida

Al-Qaida first announced its presence in India in July 2006. A man identifying himself as Abu Hadeed, an Al-Qaida spokesman, told an Indian media outlet that Al-Qaida was launching a branch in Jammu and Kashmir. According to Abu Hadeed, the head of the J&K branch, Abu Abdur Rahman Ansari, had “expressed happiness over the Mumbai serial blasts and appreciated those who carried out these attacks.” He further stated: “The Mumbai attacks were a reaction to the oppression in India of minorities in general and Muslims in particular.... Today we have laid the foundation of the outfit in Jammu and Kashmir. We will soon make our stand and objectives known to the world.”

Since that time, there have been no overt Al-Qaida-sponsored terrorist attacks, but as mentioned above, the Islamic terrorist groups operating today in India, particularly LET, have varying degrees of connections to and affiliations with Al-Qaida.

In June 2007, a CD that again claimed Al-Qaida had opened its India chapter in Kashmir, circulated among media organizations in Srinagar. In the fifteen-minute presentation, a veiled militant warned:

America was trying to equip India with sophisticated arms and nuclear capability and Allah had already warned the Muslims against this unholy nexus among the infidels against the Muslims. America, Israel, and other Western nations in collaboration with India were trying to divide Kashmir to gain hegemony in the region and set up military bases in this region. We declare jihad against India. Jammu and Kashmir shall be the gateway for such a jihad.

Ongoing investigations into the June 2007 Glasgow airport attack have revealed an Al-Qaida-India connection to the Glasgow terrorists. Bangalore native Kafeel Ahmed, the driver of the van, reportedly had CDs in his home with Osama bin Ladin’s speeches and videos.

And in August 2007 American citizen Adam Gadahn, a.k.a. Azzam al Amriki, indicted in the U.S. for treason in October 2006, appeared in an Al-Qaida video and included India in his Islamic extremist diatribe. Accusing India of killing more than 100,000 Muslims in Kashmir with the collaboration of the U.S., Gadahn said that targeting Delhi is also “our legitimate right.”

Major Terrorist Incidents in India

• July 28, 2005: A bomb exploded on the Shramjivi express train in Uttar Pradesh state killing 12 people and injuring 52 others.
• October 29, 2005: A series of coordinated explosions targeting crowded market areas in New Delhi killed 62 people and wounded more than 150 others; The Indian government blamed LET for the attack.
• December 28, 2005: Suspected LET terrorists opened fire and lobbed grenades at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, killing a New Delhi scientist.
• September 9, 2006: In the western Indian city of Malegon, a series of blasts outside a mosque killed 38 people and wounded more than 50 others.
• November 2006: Two bombs exploded on a passenger train in West Bengal killing at least 12 people and injuring 50 others.  
• March 7, 2006: Two near-simultaneous explosions at the main railway station and at a popular Hindu temple in the holy city of Varanasi killed 21 people and injured 62 others.
•  July 11, 2006: A series of bombs exploded on crowded commuter trains in Mumbai and nearby suburbs killing 209 people and wounding more than 700 others.
• August 16, 2006: Suspected militants lobbed a grenade into the ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) temple in the northeastern state of Manipur, killing five people and injuring several others, including two American citizens.
• September 8, 2006: Three bomb explosions at a mosque in Malegaon town in the Nashik District of Maharashtra State killed 40 people and wounded 65 others.
• February 18, 2007: Bombs exploded in two coaches of the Delhi-Attari train near Panipat in Haryana, killing 66 people and wounding 13 others.
• May 18, 2007: A bomb attack at Hyderabad’s largest mosque killed 11 people.
• August 25, 2007: Twin bomb blasts in Hyderabad killed 40 people and injured 50 others.

 Jammu and Kashmir

The most significant Islamic extremist threat to India today emanates from the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), an area on the India-Pakistan border claimed by Pakistan. After the creation of the independent states of India and Pakistan in 1947, war broke out over territorial claims to the Muslim-dominated but then Hindu-ruled Kashmir region. India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir, in 1947 and 1965. In 1972, the two nations signed an accord agreeing to respect the ceasefire line known as the Line of Control (LoC), a 466-mile border that divides villages and separates families. 

Since 1989, Islamic militants have been waging a violent separatist rebellion against Indian rule in Kashmir. These militants are based in Pakistan, Pakistani-held Kashmir, and Indian Kashmir. Their targets include Indian government officials, politicians, security forces and civilians in J&K, and military and civilian targets in other parts of India.

In 1999, Pakistani soldiers crossed the Line of Control (LoC) into Indian-held Kashmir, and heavy fighting ensued for six weeks. Throughout 2000 and 2001, cross-border firing and shelling led to many civilian and military deaths. Pakistan-based terrorist groups are believed responsible for the October 2001 bombing at the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly building that killed thirty-eight people and the December 2001 assault on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi that killed fourteen people. India and Pakistan were on the verge of another full-scale war following the May 2002 Pakistani attack on the residential quarters of an Indian army base at Kaluchak, in J&K, which killed thirty-four people, mostly women and children. The U.S. played a key role in diffusing those tensions.

Despite ongoing Pakistani-Indian dialogue and on-the-ground confidence-building measures, Pakistan and Kashmir-based terrorist groups continue to wage their campaign of separatist violence. In the wake of the October 2005 earthquake in the area, Islamic militant infiltration into J&K increased.

India charges the Pakistani government, specifically the ISI, with directly controlling and managing the Kashmiri insurgency, including providing the Islamic militants with training bases, materiel, funds, safe passage, and ideological support. It is believed that over fifty terrorist training camps exist in Pakistani Kashmir and that several thousand militants are being trained to infiltrate the Pakistan-India border. The J&K government has given the Indian government a list of 120 Islamic militants that it believes are receiving safe haven in Pakistan, including senior leaders of the major Islamic extremist groups operating in J&K. Islamabad responds that it provides only moral and diplomatic support to what it calls Kashmiri “freedom fighters.”

Major Islamic extremist groups operating in Kashmir and supporting the violent liberation of J&K from Indian rule include Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), Harkat ul-Mujahideen (HUM), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM), and Hizbul-Mujahedin (HM).

The first three groups are listed by the U.S. State Department as designated foreign terrorist organizations, and HM is on the “Other Terrorist Groups” list. LET and HUM are members of Osama bin Ladin’s International Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders and signed the organization's February 1998 fatwa urging attacks on Americans and Western interests. HUM and JEM have both been implicated in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl.

In April 2007, Indian police uncovered a suspected LET plot to assassinate J&K chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad at a public rally in Ramban district. Four militants were arrested, but a Pakistani-based suicide squad that had allegedly entered Ramban district with weapons and grenades successfully fled as police foiled the plot. Later that month, another plot to assassinate Azad at a rally in Baramulla district was also thwarted. Indian police arrested suspected senior LET militant Showkat Ahmed, who reportedly revealed during interrogation that LET, JEM, and HM had joined together to assassinate Minister Azad.

As of August 3, a total of 124 civilians and 63 security force personnel had been killed in Kashmir in 2007. According to the Indian government, the number of casualties and violent incidents in Kashmir appears to be on a downward trend, but the number of infiltrations across the border has increased, and the on-the-ground terrorist capacities of Islamic extremist groups have been enhanced.

The number of grenade attacks in J&K, for example, increased from 152 in 2005 to 226 in 2006. The attacks have become more accurate as the Kashmiri militants become increasingly sophisticated, using cell phones, for example, to trigger IED blasts that target the vehicles of security forces and police patrols. The militants have also expanded their target base to so-called “soft targets” including members of Indian minority groups, tourists, and migrant workers. They are also believed to be recruiting young men and women to engage in terrorist attacks on a part time basis.

For more information on the Islamic extremist groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir, please see The Kashmir Conflict and Its Global Reach at http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=ijITI2PHKoG&b=3133321&ct=2195633.

Recent Violence in J&K (Selected Incidents)

• January 6, 2007: Suspected Islamic militants hurled grenades in Pulwama district, killing two people and injuring 24 others. In a separate incident in Baramulla district, suspected Islamic militants shot dead a People’s Democratic Party leader, Gulam Hussain Bhat.
• January 23, 2007: HM claimed responsibility for killing three Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) officers with an improvised explosive device (IED) in Pulwama. 
•  February 2, 2007: HM claimed responsibility for an attack on a police patrol in Pulwama that killed three police officers and wounded two others. 
•  March 17, 2007: A bomb exploded near a bus stand in Baramulla, killing two people and wounding nine others. 
•  March 30, 2007: In Rajouri district, suspected Islamic militants killed five laborers. 
•  April 1, 2007: Suspected Islamic militants shot dead Baramulla district Congress president Jan Mohammad Kakroo.
• April 10, 2007: Suspected Islamic militants lobbed a grenade at a security detail in Srinagar, killing one civilian and injuring ten others.
• April 16, 2007: A LET front group claimed responsibility for an attack on two Indian Railways engineers that killed the engineers’ security guard in Pulwama district. 
•  April 20, 2007: In Rajouri district, suspected Islamic militants beheaded two civilians.
• April 28, 2007: Islamic militants launched a grenade attack at a rally on the Srinagar-Jammu highway, killing a woman and injuring 53 others.
• May 30, 2007: In Doda district, suspected Islamic militants shot dead a deputy superintendent of police, Shailey Singh.  
• June 1, 2007: LET terrorists attacked Indian soldiers and police officers in Baramulla district killing two soldiers and injuring 16 others. 
• June 15, 2007: LET claimed responsibility for an ambush near a crowded market in Baramulla district that killed two people and wounded nine others.
• June 25, 2007: A suspected LET militant lobbed a grenade in a crowded area in Doda, killing two civilians and wounding 14 others.
• July 16, 2007: Islamic militants attacked the home of BJP activist Dev Raj and killed him and his young daughter in Doda district.
• July 29, 2007: A bomb exploded on a tourist bus in Srinagar, killing six people, including three young girls, and injuring 20 others.
• August 17, 2007: Suspected HM militants attacked a police vehicle in Anantnag district, killing five police officers.

The Naxalite/Maoist Threat

In September 2004, the two main left-wing extremist groups in India, the Maoist Communist Center (MCC) and the People’s War Group (PWG), merged to form the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), the most formidable left-wing extremist threat to India today. Accounting for 98 percent of left-wing extremist violence in India, CPI-Maoist was recently described by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the “single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country.”

Operating in fourteen states in eastern, southern, and central India, the Maoists seek to transform India into a Communist state through armed peasant revolution, urban uprisings, and the overthrow of the Indian Parliament.

Known as Naxalites, the Maoist extremists take their name from the West Bengali village of Naxalbari, where the movement began in 1967. The Naxalites first organized uprisings among landless workers in the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar, and Andhra Pradesh. They then spread to the mineral-rich areas of Orissa, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand. With an estimated armed force of 10,000-15,000 members, Maoist militants use regular weapons, homemade arms, and explosive devices to target civilians, police and security personnel, schoolteachers, government officials, and political party activists. In 2006 alone, according to the Asian Center for Human Rights, Naxalite militants killed 277 civilians and 135 security personnel across Naxalite-populated regions.

The Naxalites finance their activities through extortion and the collection of “taxes” from local villagers and officials. They have established a tightly structured and highly organized apparatus, with regional bureaus across a mass of nearly two-thirds of Indian territory. These bureaus are further subdivided into state and special area committees. Local leaders are responsible for mobilization and recruitment of militants, which reportedly include women and children, who are often coerced.

The Naxalites oppose New Delhi’s economic policies, specifically irrigation, mining and industrial projects, and the creation of “Special Economic Zones” (SEZ) throughout the country, all of which pose threats to traditional peasant land patterns. In 2004, the Maoists articulated a new strategy of targeting urban centers and recruiting students, the working class, and the urban unemployed.

The Maoists regularly target railways and other government transportation lines. In protest against the government’s economic policies, the CPI-Maoist implemented a major two-day economic blockade in June 2007, disrupting transportation links in six Indian states—Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, and West Bengal. Goods, including coal, were blocked from transport on railways and highways, railroad tracks were blown up, and freight trains and trucks were attacked.

After a thirty-six year hiatus, the Maoists held their Ninth Unity Congress in January-February 2007. In addition to delegates from sixteen Indian states, the Congress included Maoist delegates from Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Philippines.

The resolution issued by the Maoists called for expanding the resistance and the armed struggle and supporting other domestic Indian insurgencies and all “anti-imperialist” struggles across the globe. What follows are some excerpts from the Ninth Unity Congress Resolution that highlight these themes:

The imperialist-sponsored policies being pursued by the ruling classes are devastating the lives of the already impoverished masses of the country on a scale unheard of in post-1947 India….

… The Congress calls on the working class to throw off the chains of the revisionists, reformists, and reactionary trade unionists and take to militant struggles against the attacks on their living standards and democratic rights….

… The Unity Congress of the CPI (Maoist) calls on the people to resist the seizure of their lands and houses and beat back the demolition hordes by whatever means possible.

… The Unity Congress supports the struggles of the people of South Asia against Indian expansionism and calls on the Indian people to be in the forefront of the struggle against Indian expansionism.

The heroic struggles of the nationalities, particularly those of the Kashmiri and North East people, are continuing for decades against the oppressive Indian state. The Unity Congress of the CPI (Maoist) supports the struggles of the oppressed nationalities for their right to self-determination, including secession; and calls on the people of India not to fall prey to the hysterical Indian propaganda and lend support to these struggles.

… Finally, the Indian anti-imperialist movement is part and parcel of the worldwide movement against imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism. Particularly the heroic armed resistance of the Iraqi people and Afghan people are in the forefront of these great battles. Together with these growing movements in the backward countries and the mass upsurges in the imperialist countries, particularly those led by the Maoist Parties, is an important part of the worldwide anti-imperialist movement. The Ninth Congress of the CPI (Maoist) lends full support to these anti-imperialist movements and calls on the Indian people to strongly condemn the aggressive war-mongering policies [of] U.S. imperialism throughout the world and supports the people’s resistance, particularly those of Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Palestine.

In its fight against “world imperialism,” the Maoist leadership identifies with Islamic extremism. Muppala Lakshman Rao, alias Ganapathy, the general secretary of CPI-Maoist, said in an April 2007 interview:

In essence, we see the Islamic upsurge as a progressive anti-imperialist force in the contemporary world. It is wrong to describe the struggle that is going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestinian territory, Kashmir, Chechnya, and several other countries as a struggle by Islamic fundamentalists or as a “clash of civilizations” long back theorized by Samuel Huntington and which is being resurrected by all and sundry today. In essence all these are national liberation wars, notwithstanding the role of Islamic fundamentalists too in these struggles. We oppose religious fundamentalism of every kind ideologically and politically as it obfuscates class distinctions and class struggle and keeps the masses under the yoke of class oppression. However, “Islamic fundamentalism,” in my opinion, is an ally of the people in their fight against market fundamentalism promoted by the U.S., EU, Japan, and other imperialists.

The upsurge is bound to raise the anti-imperialist democratic consciousness among the Muslim masses and bring them closer with all other secular, progressive and revolutionary forces. I see the Islamic upsurge as the beginning of the democratic awakening of the Muslim masses despite the domination of fundamentalist ideology and outlook in the Islamic movement at present. Our party supports the Islamic upsurge and seeks a unity with all anti-imperialist forces.

The general secretary also declared that the Maoists should support other Indian insurgent groups: “We should support ‘just struggles’ of nationalities and subnationalities that demand a separate state for their development. Kashmiris and various nationalities of the Northeast, such as the Assamese, Nagas, Manipuris and Tripuris, have long been waging an armed struggle against the Indian government for their right to self-determination, including the right to secede from the so-called Union of India.”

The impoverished region of Chhattisgarh has emerged as one of the primary centers of Maoist activity and violence. In 2006, 742 people died in Maoist-related violence, with Chhattisgarh accounting for 361 of the fatalities.

The Naxalite threat is not just an internal Indian security challenge. The CPI-Maoist group has forged close ties with Maoists in Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. In June 2005, Maoists from India and Nepal launched their first joint attack leaving twenty-one dead in India’s Bihar state. Media reports suggest the existence of a joint training camp of the LTTE-Tamil Tigers, Nepalese Maoists, and Indian Maoists along the India-Nepal border.

Recent Maoist/Naxalite Violence

• January 16, 2007: In Chhattisgarh, an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) killed seven police officers.
• January 23, 2007: CPI-Maoist operatives in Andhra Pradesh assassinated Ranga Reddy, a functionary of the youth wing of the ruling Congress Party.
• January 31, 2007: In Orissa, suspected Maoist extremists killed three forest employees.
• February 8: 2007: In Chhattisgarh, Maoist extremists triggered a landmine blast that killed six security personnel and one civilian.
• February 27, 2007: In Bihar, Maoist extremists killed four police personnel.
• March 1, 2007: In Chhattisgarh, Maoist extremists triggered a landmine blast that killed six security personnel and two civilians.
• March 4, 2007: In Jharkhand, Maoist extremists assassinated Sunil Kumar Mahto, a member of Parliament belonging to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM). The attack also killed two of Mahto’s bodyguards, a civilian, and two party colleagues.
• March 5, 2007: CPI-Maoist extremists in Andhra Pradesh shot dead Prem Prakash, a Congress Party official.
• March 15, 2007: Maoist extremists massacred 55 policemen in Bastar, Chhattisgarh.
• April 6, 2007: An armed group of 300 CPI-Maoist militants attacked an Indian industrial security force camp and police station with bombs in Jharkhand, killing six people.
• May 28, 2007: Maoist militants triggered simultaneous landmine blasts in Chhattisgarh, killing nine policemen and wounding two others.
• June 5, 2007: Maoist militants triggered a landmine blast in Chhattisgarh, killing three employees of the Chhattisgarh State Electricity Board who were on their way to repair three high-tension electricity towers that were blown up by Maoists on June 1.
• June 20, 2007: Suspected Maoist militants attacked Indian Government Railway Police (GRP) on a train in Bihar, killing two security personnel.
• June 30, 2007: In Bihar, a group of 250 CPI-Maoists carried out simultaneous attacks on two police outposts, killing six police personnel and seven civilians.  
• July 9, 2007: Maoist extremists killed 24 Indian policemen in Chhattisgarh.
• August 10, 2007: Maoist militants exploded a bomb in the home of BJP legislator Vikram Usendi in Chhattisgarth; no one was injured.

United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA)

India’s northeastern states are beset by ethnic insurgencies. Ethnic Assamese-speaking people comprise the majority in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, an important center of oil and tea production that borders on Bangladesh and Bhutan. India produces about 30 million tons of crude oil annually, with Assam accounting for five million tons of the total. Assam is India’s largest tea-producing state, providing about 15 percent of the world’s total output of tea.  

The Assamese insurgency began with anti-foreigner agitation organized by the state’s student union in April 1979, with the goal of establishing a “sovereign, socialist Assam.” In its early years, the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) enjoyed the support of the Assamese people. Over the decades, however, ULFA’s resort to terrorism, extortion, and association with international terrorists has reduced its popular support among Assam’s citizens.

ULFA established its military wing, Sanjukta Mukti Fouj (SMF), in 1996. With a reported strength of about 1,000 active cadres plus supporters providing safe houses and other logistical assistance, ULFA engages in attacks on political opponents, security personnel, economic infrastructure, and civilians, particularly Hindi-speaking traders and migrant workers. In the period from January 1-June 10, 2007, ULFA carried out sixty-eight armed attacks, including shootings, grenade attacks, and bomb explosions, killing eighty-one civilians, eleven police and paramilitary troopers, and two army soldiers. Close to 100 people, including eighty-four civilians, were injured in these attacks.

As noted above, ULFA has connections in several foreign countries. In the 1990s, ULFA set up training bases in neighboring Bhutan, but in 2003 Bhutanese forces cracked down on the ULFA presence in its country and attacked and decimated ULFA bases in Bhutan. Many of the Bhutanese bases were reportedly shifted to Myanmar.

ULFA maintains both military and nonmilitary operations in neighboring Bangladesh, where it reportedly has several terrorist bases and receives safe haven and significant state support, particularly from Bangladesh’s Directorate General of Field Intelligence (DGFI). ULFA leaders Paresh Barua (commander-in-chief, ULFA military wing), Arabinda Rajkhowa (chairman, ULFA political wing), and other senior ULFA leaders are believed to be operating from undisclosed locations in Bangladesh. It is believed that in November 2006, ULFA collaborated with the Bangladeshi terrorist group Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) to engineer a bomb blast on the Haldibari-New Jalpaiguri passenger train. The Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA) and Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam (MULFA) are the chief suppliers of arms for the ULFA through Bangladesh.

In the nonmilitary sphere, ULFA is said to have business interests in Dhaka, including media consultancies, soft drink manufacturing units, hotels, and driving schools. ULFA leader Paresh Barua is said personally to own or to have controlling interests in several businesses in Bangladesh, including a tannery, a chain of departmental stores, garment factories, travel agencies, shrimp trawlers, and transport and investment companies. Along with extorting money from big and small businesses and tea plantations, and drug trafficking, these income-generating projects provide ULFA with its funding.

When husband-and-wife team and senior ULFA leaders Ghanakanta Bora and Tulsi Borgohain surrendered to Indian authorities in Assam in June 2007, they reportedly revealed that Nepal has become a major sanctuary for ULFA militants. They said that they had established an ULFA training camp in Nepal, and ULFA cadres regularly visited Maoist camps there to make deals for arms, ammunition, and explosives.

ULFA also maintains close links with Pakistan’s ISI, which is said to provide training, weapons, funds, safe havens and other logistical assistance to the militants. In May 2005, Indian authorities arrested ISI agent Mohammed Hasifuddin, on the Assam-Meghalaya border. He was alleged to have supplied explosives to ULFA for the August 2004 Independence Day bomb blast at Dhemaji town that killed 17 people, mostly children.

ULFA is on the U.S. State Department’s “Other Selected Terrorist Organizations List” (OSTO).

Recent ULFA Violence

• January 5-8, 2007: Suspected ULFA militants triggered bomb blasts and opened fire in several Assamese districts, killing at least 70 people.
• January 24, 2007: Armed ULFA militants raided the house of Chandra Chutia, a leader in the State Congress Party, and shot him dead.
• May 4, 2007: Suspected ULFA militants set off a bomb outside a tea stall, injuring 15 people.
• May 6, 2007: Suspected ULFA militants exploded a motorcycle bomb in a crowded market in Assam, wounding 19 people. 
•  May 14, 2007: Suspected ULFA militants detonated a motorcycle bomb in a busy market in Guwahati, killing two people and wounding ten others.
• May 18, 2007: Suspected ULFA militants detonated a rickshaw bomb in Guwahati’s central business district, wounding 20 people.
• May 21, 2007: Suspected ULFA militants set off a bicycle bomb in Guwahati injuring 15 people, including four schoolchildren. 
•  May 27, 2007: Suspected ULFA militants detonated a rickshaw bomb on a road in Guwahati near a maternity hospital and four schools, killing seven people and wounding 18 others. 
•  June 13, 2007: Suspected ULFA militants detonated a bomb in a Guwahati market, killing two people and injuring 36 others.
• June 23, 2007: Suspected ULFA militants set off a bomb near a Machkhowa mosque in Guwahati, killing six people, including three children, and wounding 14 others.
• June 30, 2007: Suspected ULFA militants set off four blasts in Assam, killing four people and injuring 40 others. 
•  August 7, 2007: Suspected ULFA militants set off a bomb in front of the main police station in Jorhat, killing three civilians, including a local Congress leader. 
•  August 8, 2007: Suspected ULFA and Karbi Longri North Cachar Liberation Front (KLNLF) militants shot dead eight Hindi-speaking migrant workers in Assam’s eastern Karbi Anglong district.

U.S.-India Cooperation

Recognizing the potential destabilizing effects of the terrorist threats facing India on both India and the entire South Asia region, the United States has, in recent years, stepped up its bilateral relationship with India and has increased counterterrorist cooperation with it.

Referring to India as an “important ally in the war against extremists and radicals,” the U.S. has forged anti-terrorism cooperation with India through the U.S.-India Counterterrorism Joint Working Group, which includes American military training of Indian forces in counterterrorism operations and cooperation in the areas of bioterrorism, aviation security, terrorist finance and money laundering, cyber-security, and violent extremism.

General bilateral relations between the two countries have been strengthened by several recent initiatives, including the December 2006 United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act, which calls for the sharing of civilian nuclear technology and brings India’s civilian nuclear program under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency; the April 2005 Open Skies Agreement, which aims to bolster trade, tourism, and business between the two countries; the June 2005 New Framework for the U.S.-India Defense Relationship, which includes cooperation in defense technology, continued joint and combined exercises and exchanges, expansion of defense trade, increased opportunities for technology transfer, collaboration, coproduction and R&D; and the March 2006 Maritime Cooperation Framework, which seeks to enhance security in the maritime domain. In addition, measures to increase trade between the two countries, which has risen from $ 13.49 billion in 2001 to $ 31.917 billion in 2006, continue.