Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence is working with Bangladesh's intelligence agencies to facilitate cooperation between north-east militant groups like United Liberation Front of Asom and other jihadi outfits in South Asian regions, besides Tamil rebels in Lanka, US intelligence service Startfor has said.
In its latest forecast titled 'India: The Islamisation of the Northeast', it observes that there is a growing Islamisation in the region -- spurred by ISI, and instability in neighbouring Bangladesh which is giving foreign powers (China and Pakistan) a gamut of exploitable secessionist movements to use to prevent India from emerging as a major global player.
Stratfor says there exists a strong nexus between ISI and Bangladesh's intelligence agencies.
There are growing indications, says the report, that these two agencies are working clandestinely in Bangladesh to bring all the north-east-based insurgent outfits and jihadi elements under one umbrella.
"The ISI has facilitated cooperation between ULFA and other north-eastern militant outfits; with the LTTE in Sri Lanka, Islamist militant groups in Jammu and Kashmir, Islamist groups in Bangladesh and a growing number of Al Qaeda-linked jihadi groups operating in the region," it adds.
"ULFA's growing links with Bangladeshi Islamists and jihadi elements in the area are increasingly coming to light," the report claims.
The April 9 attack timed with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Assam marked the group's first-ever suicide bombing, a tactic that was pioneered by the Tigers and has been frequently employed by Islamist militants.
ULFA's adoption of suicide bombing, Stratfor says, looks to be the result of the group's increased Islamisation caused by collusion with Islamist outfits in the region.
The bomber in the April 9 suicide attack was Ainul Ali, a Muslim. Citing Indian security sources, the report says ULFA did not have many Muslim cadres in its fold in the past, but the increasing flow of Bangladeshi refugees across the border has given the group more -- and more capable -- members willing to sacrifice their lives for the group's cause with nudging from the ISI, Pakistan's premier intelligence agency.
Political conditions in Bangladesh, observes the report, appear to be indirectly contributing to the empowerment of Islamists there.
Using the Pakistani military regime as an example, Bangladeshi Army chief Lt Gen Moeen U Ahmed is reasserting the army's role in Bangladeshi politics -- which have long suffered from a bitter political feud between Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina, and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by Begum Khaleda Zia, it said.
With both party leaders driven into exile, a political vacuum has started to take root in the country, and Bangladesh's Islamist parties are anxiously waiting to fill it, the report adds.
As a result, it forecasts, New Delhi is facing a "bleak situation" in which the ISI's manoeuvres and Bangladesh's political troubles are sure to further constrain India's ability to dig itself out of the militant trap Pakistan has set for India with the help of Bangladesh.
It quoted one informed Bangladesh observer as saying there does exist meaningful cooperation between ISI and Bangladesh's intelligence agencies in their combined fight against terrorism, at the nudging of the West, but their joint efforts to trap India may just be a collateral strategic gain.
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