‘ULFA waging a jihadi war at the behest of the ISI’

ULFA following ISI diktats: army officer
Source URL: http://www.indiaenews.com/india/20070420/48264.htm

The outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) is in the grip of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and that the outfit was spreading terror in Assam under diktats from the Pakistani agency, a top army commander said Friday.

‘The ULFA leaders are operating out of a foreign country and are being controlled by the ISI. They (ULFA) are waging a jihadi war at the behest of the ISI,’ Lt Gen R.K. Chhabra, general officer commanding (GOC) of the Four Corps, told journalists here.

The anti-insurgency operations in Assam are being conducted under the command of the Four Corps based in the garrison town of Tezpur in northern Assam. The GOC said the ULFA was procuring explosives and other weapons from the ‘jihadi elements’.

‘The jihadi forces are involved in activities like gunrunning, drug trafficking, and operating counterfeit currency rackets in the region,’ the commander said.

The GOC said the continuing military offensive against the ULFA had yielded positive results, as troops were able to break the outfit’s ‘backbone’, besides inflicting heavy casualties on them.

‘In recent months we managed to eliminate a number of ULFA cadres and also bust their camps in many parts of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh,’ Lt Gen Chhabra said. ‘The ULFA’s 28th Battalion (the outfit’s main military wing involved in the recent killings) has suffered heavy losses,’ the GOC said.

‘The ULFA is under pressure even though they have recruited new cadres,’ the general said.

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