Understanding Indian Insurgencies

[blueblood]

Manipur ambush: Why Army saw the worst attack in 20 years

India's Northeastern states, which have still not been fully integrated with the national mainstream but have been relatively peaceful for a few years, have suddenly witnessed renewed violence.

In the worst attack on the Army in more than two decades, 18 soldiers were killed and 11 injured in an ambush in Manipur on June 4, 2015. Militants belonging to SS Khaplang's Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland, or NSCN (K) and the Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL), a Meitei outfit formed in 1994, have claimed responsibility for the ambush. Apparently, they came from a camp in Myanmar.

Three days later, Naga militants attacked an Assam Rifles camp in Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh, but were repulsed. Furthermore, 11 Army and Assam Rifles soldiers were killed in Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland on April 2 and May 3, respectively. On March 21, a Gorkha Rifles convoy was ambushed in Tamenglong district of Manipur.

Just over a month ago, Paresh Baruah's United Liberation Front of Assam-Independent and NSCN (K) had joined hands with seven other militant organisations to form the United National Liberation Front of Western South-east Asia. The meeting, held in the Sagaing region of Myanmar, was reportedly facilitated by Chinese intelligence personnel.

[davidbfpo]

There is also a large body of writing on Indian counterinsurgency, including Vivek Chadha’s Low Intensity Conflicts in India (2005), Rajesh Rajagopalan’s Fighting Like a Guerrilla (2008), the edited volumes Treading on Hallowed Ground (2008) and India and Counterinsurgency (2009), Sanjib Baruah’s Beyond Counterinsurgency, and Scott Gates and Kaushik Roy’s Unconventional Warfare in South Asia (both 2014). This is particularly important in light of the bloody ambush of 18 Indian soldiers in the northeast earlier this month, and the special forces raid into Myanmar that followed.

Taken from a WoTR column by Shashank Joshi.

[davidbfpo]

Earlier I noted an Indian report that a ceasefire had finally been agreed with the Nagaland insurgents, talks started in 1997 and the insurgency started sixty years ago. Indian tweets say:

..most significantly positive development for India's security in decades...

From the BBC a very short report:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-33762445 and a Reuters report:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...rs-of-war.html

Then I lost it, so meantime this came via Twitter.

[davidbfpo]

By coincidence I caught up with my reading pile today, amongst the pile is a small journal 'Durbar' by the Indian Military History Society and an article 'Fighting The Nagas, 1832-1880'. In summary the hill tribes resisted Imperial encroachment into their land, fighting ended in 1880 and during WW2 the Naga tribe was stauchly loyal (Kohima is nearby). Their website:http://imhs.org.uk/

One hill town, Khonoma, has a famous fort and it has a plaque showing its history and rebuilding last in 1990 (not clear why) and in 1956 when Indian rule was resisted (as below).



The image is from one of the first tourist films of the area (at 1.47):http://sadanandsafar.blogspot.co.uk/...d-village.html

[AdamG]

COIN - you're doing it wrong.

The uneventful drive back from a religious shrine on Friday evening didn’t take much time to turn into a nightmare for Madan Gopal, one of the three abducted by the terrorists who stormed the Pathankot air base on Saturday morning.

Mr. Gopal, the cook of former Gurdaspur Superintendent of Police Salvinder Singh, spoke to The Hindu at his residence on Sunday morning as fighting continued a few kilometres away between the security forces and terrorists, almost 35 hours after the terrorists stormed the forward base of the Indian Air Force.

Mr. Gopal, Mr. Singh and the latter's jeweller friend, Rajesh Verma, were abducted on Thursday late night. And on Friday early morning, at around 2 a.m., Mr. Gopal and Mr. Singh were freed.

Mr. Gopal alleged that not only was the vital information he shared with the police immediately after he was freed ignored but also he was brutally tortured by the Punjab Police.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/nationa...?homepage=true


See also

Troops battled Monday to end a 24-hour gun and bomb siege near the Indian consulate in Afghanistan's Mazar-i-Sharif city, after a bloody weekend assault on an air base in India near the Pakistan border.

http://news.yahoo.com/indian-consula...172448742.html

[davidbfpo]

A true Indian SME has a commentary, it opens with:

It is true that Pathankot could have been handled better if we had learnt lessons from the July 27, 2015, Gurdaspur attack. We can only heave a sigh of relief by comparing Pathankot with similar incidents in our neighbourhood.

Link:http://www.thequint.com/opinion/2016...ed-of-the-hour

[blueblood]

A true Indian SME has a commentary, it opens with:
Link:http://www.thequint.com/opinion/2016...ed-of-the-hour

Very good article but the author missed a couple of points and is wrong about one.

1) Hysteria created by the media. Lack of multi partisan or "free" media ends up playing inappropriate role in times of such incidents. Same goes for the lack of government's media policy i.e. complete blackout despite the blunder of 26/11.

2) The hysteria propagated by the media with collaboration with "authoritative" figures like some ex Indian Army generals and other senior officers with some ludicrous theories.

3) Punjab police SWAT did an excellent job in the last such incident in 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Gurdaspur_attack
So it was not the lack of a well trained SWAT but lack of jurisdiction in an air force station (centrally administered under MOD) that prevented the Punjab police from handling such situations.

4) Five of the seven causalities (fatalities) occurred when terrorists entered the mess hall and were confronted by the unarmed Defence Security Corps members i.e. retired army personnel over 45 years of age.

5) As for the MARCOS role in 26/11. A small team of MARCOS did enter the Taj but could not find the gunmen.


As pointed out by the author, similar incidents in and around the neighbourhood has resulted in a much larger damage to either men or material or both. Be it the Camp Bastion raid or the attack on PNS Mehran or Kamra air base. So all in all it was not a bad operation but it ended up looking like one.