KASHMIR: POLICE REPORT TERRORIST INFILTRATION

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 006523 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/25/2016 TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER PINR PBTS MOPS KDEM KISL PK IN SUBJECT: KASHMIR: POLICE REPORT TERRORIST INFILTRATION RISING NEW DELHI 00006523 001.2 OF 003 Classified By: PolCouns Ted Osius for Reasons 1.4 (B, D) ¶1. (S) Summary: Military leaders in India sounded an ominous warning last week, just as Prime Minister Singh was leaving for his meeting with Pakistani President Musharraf in Havana, that terrorist infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir had risen sharply this year. Like many similar press releases in the past, this one gave no mention of numbers and lacked detail as to how India's intelligence services know how many militants come into Jammu and Kashmir. During a recent trip by PolOff to Srinagar last week, however, police intelligence sources gave a glimpse into their service's methodology, demonstrating why they believe they can say with confidence that the number of terrorists infiltrating from Pakistan in the first half of this year nearly doubled over the total for all of last year. End Summary. Sharp Increase Follows Overall Decline -------------- ¶2. (S) Director General of J&K Police Gopal Sharma spoke openly with PolOff about the assessment of a sharp rise in infiltration numbers this year by intelligence officers under his command. To put the numbers in context, he explained that infiltration was at its highest levels in the early 1990's, in 1996, and again in 2002 and 2003. During peak years, attacks in Srinagar came nearly once an hour on average. Since then, police officials had witnessed a sharp decline in infiltration, which he speculated came from a cease fire that year and agreements between Musharraf and then-Prime Minister Vajpayee. The numbers overall had decreased steadily since 2003. Now, however, Sharma said police officials are worried that infiltration levels are rising again. Most striking to his forces was the number of grenade attacks they had witnessed in recent months, with militants handing children grenades to throw into crowds of civilians. Sharma noted that his forces had recovered over 2,000 grenades from terrorists this year alone, out of approximately 57,000 during the entire conflict. ¶3. (S) Specifically, he said that terrorists were infiltrating in groups of 4 or 5 and up to 20, with a sharp spike in numbers this year from May through June. He listed numbers of individual terrorists infiltrating into Jammu and Kashmir from Pakistan from 2003 to the first half of this year as the following: 2003 -- 1,300 2004 -- 500 2005 -- 260 2006 -- 450 (in the first half of the year) Although he said infiltrations generally tend to slow down after the summer months, he was concerned that the numbers would far surpass totals in 2004 by the end of the year. He also said India's fencing of the Line of Control led terrorists to change their tactics slightly, bringing more people along with each group of infiltrators. Methodology -------------- ¶4. (S) Additional Director General of Police Kuldeep Khoda, who heads the J&K police intelligence unit -- called the NEW DELHI 00006523 002.2 OF 003 Criminal Investigation Department -- reported a similar sharp rise in infiltration. When asked how J&K police intelligence service calculates the number of militants, he said there were several inputs used to compile the information: -- Interrogations -- Interviews of captured terrorists was the most prominent means of gathering information. Terrorists usually reveal how many people were in their group and which route they used to enter the country. (Comment: It is unclear whether widely reported incidents of torture are involved in these interviews, and therefore, how accurate the information is, especially when comparing information year by year. We also don't know if a decline in torture levels as the Jammu and Kashmir government focuses on improving human rights abuses as part of an overall hearts and minds campaign also impacted the information. End Comment.) -- Sightings along the border -- Police officials said terrorists often force civilians near the LOC to give their groups shelter, and that they frequently take along a member of the family to prevent the civilians from informing the police until the family member is released and the militants are a safe distance away. He said that these civilians often voluntarily provide security forces with extensive information about the militants. -- Cover fire -- He also said the Pakistan army and security forces frequently report incidents of Pakistani military cover fire for a group of terrorists, allowing them to add an estimated number to the total. -- Fence cutting incidents -- Security forces also take as a given that when they see an incidence of fence cutting that a terrorism group has infiltrated. -- Sightings inside J&K -- Civilians also report encounters with militants to the police forces, adding to the overall count of militants. -- Terrorists talking to terrorists -- He said through intercepts of terrorist groups talking to one another across the border, his forces were able to learn that there are regular launching bases in Pakistan, especially in the Poonch area along the LOC. Acknowledging that so many separate sources may result in varying degrees of reliability, he said there was probably a plus or minus 10 point difference in the count of militants statistically from year to year. Terrorist Camps in Pakistan -------------- ¶5. (S) Khoda also said terrorist training camps continued to operate inside Pakistan. He said intercepts of terrorists communicating with one another revealed the presence of training camps across the border in Pakistan. (Comment: No further information. End Comment.) As anecdotal evidence, he noted that in a recent interrogation a surrendered militant said that he had worked training terrorists in a camp in Pakistani Kashmir. At an unspecified date this year, the surrendered militant was asked to go to Pakistan's Gujarat area to train terrorists. He said he did not want to go to NEW DELHI 00006523 003.2 OF 003 Gujarat, so he was allowed to return to the border. There he subsequently surrendered to Indian forces. Distrusting Pakistan -------------- ¶6. (S) Comment: Neither Sharma nor Khoda made any distinction about whether infiltration of Pakistani terrorists is sanctioned by the Pakistani government or not. The assumption of Indian officials, in general, is that if infiltration is occurring at all, it must be sanctioned by Pakistan. Although it is unclear what other Indian intelligence services are telling Indian officials, these infiltration numbers combined with reports of Pakistani terrorists coming into the country from Bangladesh contribute heavily to the overall feeling in India that Pakistan is not doing enough to curb terrorism. MULFORD