Even as the much-publicized war on terror labours on, the world at large and the Indian sub- continent in particular, remains oblivious to the happenings in the occupied mountainous region of Pakistan, better known as the Northern Areas (NAs) or Balawaristan. Since the beginning of year 2002, the surviving dregs of the Afghanistan-based terrorist infrastructure have reportedly moved over into Pakistan, with the active connivance of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). Initially, they moved into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan and have since spread out from there, along with many cadres of proscribed Pakistani terrorist groups, to Pakistan held Kashmir (PhK), including Balawaristan (Pakistan occupied Gilgit Baltistan). President Musharraf's own domestic 'war' on the jehadi apparatus has remained a non-event thus far. During July 2002, while there were many raids by Pakistani security agencies during their hunt for suspected terrorists in Sindh, Punjab, Baluchistan, the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the FATA, there was not a single raid reported from PhK and the NAs. There have been consistent indications that, in order to avoid detection of their presence in Pakistani territory by the US intelligence agencies, and possible cross border punitive strikes by US forces operating in Afghanistan, the Pakistani military regime has commenced shifting important leaders of the Al Qaeda network to the Punjab province, PhK, Gilgit Baltistan and other places, which are now emerging as the primary hub for the elusive Al Qaeda terror network.

Over June and July, two groups of Taliban and one of Al Qaeda cadres arrived in the NAs, after entering the Dahrkoot Valley from Broghol in the Chitral district of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), of Pakistan, which links with the Wakhan corridor, Badakhshan province, Afghanistan. Each group consisted about 30-50 persons. Their movement was facilitated despite protestations from the local Ismailia Muslims by the Wahabi fundamentalist administration of Yasen Tehsil in Ghezar district of Balawaristan. The first group of Taliban cadres reportedly stayed at Giyekooshi in the Dahrkoot valley for a month and were later transported towards Gilgit to head to the Darel and Tangir valleys of district Diamar. Unmarked ISI vehicles were used to transport Al Qaeda terrorists from Dahrkoot Valley to Gilgit City between 1 AM to 5 AM.

There has, in fact, been a steady inflow of Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives into the Ghezar valley in recent months. Terrorist training to Afghan mercenaries and various groups active in Indian held Kashmir (IhK) is being provided in the remote hilly areas of Hazara, Darel Yashote, Tangir, Astore, Skardu city and Gilgit city. These Pakistan-sponsored terrorist camps remain active despite President Musharraf's apparent crackdown against terrorism. Besides the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (previously Harkat-ul-Ansar) camp in Tangir, Diamar district, camps were located in Ghowadi village in Skardu, Juglote near Gilgit and Konodas, Gilgit. A large camp was established near Mansehra in the NWFP on the Karakorum Highway (KKH), from where the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, Kashmiri, Pakistani and other terrorists are deputed to different parts of occupied Balawaristan, PhK, and across the borders to Afghanistan and IhK.

Reports in December 2001 indicated that approximately 12,000 Kalashnikovs had been stored in Skardu city alone. Many Wahabi youth of Balawaristan had reportedly been recruited by the ISI to join the jehad, earlier in Afghanistan and subsequently in IhK. Indeed, in the light of evidence thus far, it would not be far fetched to say that Pakistan, and not Afghanistan, has been the center of the 'terror factories.'

After the post-January 12, 2002, 'crackdown' on jehadis, while the offices of certain terrorist groups have been closed down in Pakistan, many cadres of banned groups have been shifted to the NAs. No reports of arrests of terrorist cadres have been made from this region. As many as 3,000 terrorists are said to have recently secured training in the HuM camp in the Darel and Tangir area. Pakistan's mutating policies in the light of its 'frontier state' status have evidently led to the movement of terrorist cadres from Afghanistan to IhK via the NAs.

After Operation Anaconda (March 2-18, 2002) in Afghanistan, approximately 1,000 Al Qaeda cadres are reported to have escaped to Pakistan and of these, some 600 are believed to have been re-located around Gilgit-Baltistan (mostly in Darel and Tangir), with another 200 pushed into the upper reaches of the Pir Panjal region in IhK.

Pakistan occupied Gilgit Baltistan is administered directly by Islamabad as a virtual Pakistani colony. The population here, primarily Shia Muslims, was brought under one federally administered territory after Pakistan occupied Balawaristan on November 16, 1947, in the name of Islam. Balawaristan, or the Northern Areas, comprises five districts of Gilgit, Skardu, Ghezar, Diamar and Ganchhe, where basic human, political and civil rights have not been conferred on the people, and which are out of bounds to foreigners and journalists, except for occasional tightly controlled guided tours selectively organised by the Army or the intelligence agencies. Some nationalist groups beginning to protest against the prevailing situation have embarrassed Islamabad, and the response has been a crackdown against the fledgling political organisations here. The entire region is governed by a Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas Affairs (KANA) Division of Islamabad, and the local elected body, called Northern Areas Legislative Council, has no power even comparable to that of a municipal body in a Pakistani city. KANA runs the administration from Islamabad through non-local officers, including a Judicial Commissioner (Chairman Chief Court) against whose judgements there is no right to appeal in any High Court or Supreme Court. The area has been under virtual Martial Law for almost five decades. Under the existing Frontier Crime Regulations (FCR), framed during the colonial era, every resident of Balawaristan has to report regularly to local intelligence personnel, and all movements from one village to another have to be reported to the authorities.

The Pakistani administration has also been involved in efforts to alter the demographic profile of Pakistan Occupied Gilgit Baltistan, reducing the indigenous people to a minority. In the Gilgit and Skardu areas, large tracts of land have been allotted to non-locals, violating the UNCIP resolutions and the J & K State Subject Rule. Other outsiders have purchased substantial stretches of land since they are, by and large, economically better off than the locals. As of January 2001, the old population ratio of 1:4 (non-locals to locals) had been transformed to 3:4. The rapid induction of Punjabi and Pakhtoon outsiders has created a sense of acute insecurity among the locals. Balawaristan is also a deprived region in terms of education and infrastructure, and there is only a negligible presence of daily newspapers, radio or TV stations.

In May 1999, the Supreme Court of Pakistan had ruled that Balawaristan (Pakistan Occupied Gilgit Baltistan) 'is a disputed territory and the Government of Pakistan has no claim over it'. The region has also been used as a battleground for Pakistan's sectarian agenda, and soured Shia-Sunni relations have claimed many lives in the ongoing sectarian violence. The military regime had used Afghan and Pakistani Wahabis, along with tribal sympathizers, to suppress the indigenous Shia population of Gilgit in year 1988. Gilgit witnessed widespread unrest for a fortnight commencing the last week of June 2001, due to protests by certain religious organizations against a decision by the Pakistani regime to impose religious text books in the schools, based on the ideology of a particular sect of Islam, and neglecting the majority Shia sect. Pakistani authorities terminated all movement between Gilgit and the rest of Pakistan and also imposed strict censorship on the publication of details of the Gilgit unrest during the agitation.

The political and administrative circumstances in Pakistan Occupied Gilgit Baltistan, with total control exercised by Islamabad through the Pakistan Army, with no popular freedoms or rights, and tight censorship of all information flows, makes the region an ideal and secret place for the relocation of the dislocated hub of international terrorism. This alone, if not the neglected rights of the people, or the region's systematic demographic destabilization and transformation, should be a matter of urgent concern for the international community. 

Author is the Chairman, Balawaristan National Front (BNF), Gilgit

By special arrangement with Institute of Conflict Management, New Delhi

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