Guwahati, September 4, 2014: Assam may soon face two- pronged threat from two dreaded terrorist outfits – Al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Al Qaeda has already issued a threat to establish bases in Assam, while the LeT has strengthened bases in Bangladesh, which may lead to serious problems for Assam in the days to come.
Highly placed sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) told The Assam Tribune that senior Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri recently issued a video saying that the outfit would be working towards establishing bases in South Asia and would target places like Burma (Myanmar), Assam, Bangladesh, Gujarat and Kashmir.
Sources said that the security agencies have already verified the video and found it to be authentic and efforts would now be made by the government to improve intelligence network to thwart such attempts by the outfit. Sources pointed out that the Al Qaeda does not have strong roots in India and it is unlikely that the outfit would be able to launch an attack soon. Such outfits first try to establish their roots and create networks before trying to launch attacks and the efforts of the police and security forces should be targeted at preventing the outfit from establishing bases in India, sources pointed out.
MHA sources also said that according to inputs available with the security agencies, after the new outfit, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has managed to establish strong bases in the Arab countries, the Al Qaeda has been trying to spread bases to India, Bangladesh and Myanmar to maintain the strength of the outfit. The senior leaders of the Al Qaeda and ISIS have developed differences of opinion and under the circumstances, the Al Qaeda needs to spread bases to South Asia after the ISIS got strong footholds in Iraq and neighbouring countries, sources said.
Meanwhile, the LeT, a Pakistan-based terrorist outfit, may also pose a threat to Assam in the days to come as the outfit has already established strong bases in Bangladesh. Sources said that according to inputs available with the Indian security agencies, the LeT has established at least three training camps in the Coxes Bazaar area of Bangladesh where youths are being trained for jihad. A number of youths belonging to the Rohingya Muslim community of Myanmar are receiving training in the camps and it is still not known whether any youths from Assam are also getting training in those camps. However, sources said that the Al Qaeda and the LeT have not worked together so far and it is unlikely that they would do so in near future.
The Rohingya Muslims are facing a series of attacks in Myanmar and there is every possibility of some of them sneaking into Assam in the face of such attacks. Only recently, a family of Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar was detained in Tezpur and later they were pushed back. But the possibility of more such infiltrations cannot be ruled out.
Meanwhile, sources further pointed out that several low-intensity blasts took place in the BTAD area after the ethnic clashes in 2012 and though the police and security forces had first thought that those were the handiwork of Bodo militants, it was recently found that some elements of the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) were involved in the blasts. Sources also pointed out that not much publicity was given to the blasts as those did not cause much damage and the idea was only to make their presence felt.
Source: Assam Tribune
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