Afghan Taliban, Haqqani Network continue to find safe haven in Pakistan, claims US report

WASHINGTON: Groups such as the Haqqani Network and the Afghan Taliban continued to find ‘safe haven’ in Pakistani territory in 2013, the State Department claimed in its annual global report on terrorism that it submitted to the Congress on Wednesday. It accused Pakistani authorities of not taking “significant military or law enforcement action against these groups.” The report further claimed that a number of aggressive and coordinated attacks in Afghanistan were planned and launched from safe havens in Pakistan. The country reports are submitted in compliance with Title 22 of the United States Code which requires the Department of State to provide to Congress a full and complete annual report on terrorism for those countries and groups meeting the criteria of the Act. The report claimed that that al Qaeda’s core group in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been “seriously degraded”, but the group’s global leadership continues to operate from safe haven in the region. Despite its struggles to communicate effectively with affiliate groups outside of South Asia, al Qaeda continued to maintain ties with other organisations in the region, such as Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Haqqani Network (HQN). These alliances continued to provide the group with additional resources and capabilities. This allowed terrorists in South Asia to carry out operations in heavily populated areas and to target regional governmental representatives and US persons. On numerous occasions, civilians throughout South Asia were wounded or killed in terrorist events. The report further said that in 2013, Pakistan continued to confront armed groups, including al Qaeda, TTP, the Punjabi Taliban, and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), all of whom mounted significant attacks, including sectarian attacks against police, military and security forces, or engaged in sectarian violence and criminal activities against all sectors of society using remote-controlled improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in bicycles, motorcycles, parked cars, rickshaws, donkey carts, and alongside roads, used vehicle-borne IEDs, suicide bombers (including females), targeted assassinations, rocket-propelled grenades, and other armed combat tactics in attacks on mosques, churches, markets, journalists, aid workers, government institutions and officials. It recognised the military’s operations against groups that conducted attacks within Pakistan such as TTP. The TTP, the report said, posed a threat to both US and Pakistani interests, having carried out numerous attacks against Pakistani armed forces, civilians, and government institutions. However, the report claimed that action was not taken against other groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which continued to operate, train, rally, and fundraise in Pakistan during the past year. Afghanistan Afghanistan, the report said, continued to experience aggressive and coordinated attacks by the Afghan Taliban, HQN, and other insurgent and terrorist groups. A number of these attacks were planned and launched from safe havens in Pakistan, it claimed. On the other hand, the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) is now providing security across all of Afghanistan as the transition to full Afghan leadership on security continues in anticipation of the 2014 drawdown of US and Coalition Forces (CF). The ANSF and CF, in partnership, took aggressive action against terrorist elements in Afghanistan, especially in Kabul, and many of the eastern and northern provinces. India Levels of terrorist violence were similar to previous years. India remained severely affected by and vulnerable to terrorism, including from Pakistan-based groups and their affiliates as well as left-wing violent extremists. In response, the government of India continued to undertake efforts to coordinate its counterterrorism capabilities more effectively and expanded its cooperation and coordination with the international community and regional partners. Bangladesh Bangladesh, an influential counterterrorism partner in the region, continued to make strides against international terrorism. The government’s ongoing counterterrorism efforts have made it more difficult for transnational terrorists to operate in or use Bangladeshi territory, and there were no major terrorist incidents in Bangladesh in 2013. The United States and Bangladesh signed a Counterterrorism Cooperation Initiative on October 22, 2013, to enhance bilateral cooperation. Regional challenge The potential challenges to stability that could accompany the changes of the international force presence in Afghanistan in 2014 remained a significant concern for the Central Asian leaders. Additionally, terrorist groups with ties to Central Asia – notably the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Islamic Jihad Union – continued to be an issue even as they operated outside of the Central Asian states. The effectiveness of some Central Asian countries’ efforts to reduce their vulnerability to perceived terrorist threats was difficult to discern in some cases, however, due to failure to distinguish clearly between terrorism and violent extremism on one hand and political opposition, or non-traditional religious practices, on the other. Middle East The State Department said in its annual global report on terrorism that the central organization of al Qaeda, under the leadership of Ayman al Zawahiri, had been “much diminished” by international efforts and had lost many of its senior leaders. But the report said instability and weak governments in the Middle East and North Africa had enabled al Qaeda affiliates and like-minded groups to “broaden and deepen their operations” in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, North Africa and Somalia. Thousands of militants, some of them English-speaking, have traveled to Syria to train and fight with groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad, according to the report. Some have joined “violent extremist groups,” and US and other Western countries fear they may plot attacks when they return home, it said. The report said various national authorities had estimated that in 2013, 90 militants went to Syria from Denmark, 184 from France, 240 from Germany, 30-40 from Norway, 100-200 from Belgium, and 75 from Sweden. British government sources have estimated that at least 400 Britons have cycled in and out of the conflict, with up to 250 participating at any one time. The report said that since 2012 the US has seen a resurgence of activity around the world, including in Yemen, Bulgaria and Thailand, of Iranian or Iranian-related organizations, including Hezbollah, the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security.