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Terror Networks
ULFA uses bases in Bhutan, Bangla
2002-04-10
  • Indian forces have failed to crush a decades-old revolt in Assam because militants find refuge in neighbouring Bhutan and Bangladesh, the state's top police official said on Wednesday. Militants have been fighting authorities in Assam for more than two decades. Some 10,000 people have been killed in the insurgency.

    The militants, who accuse New Delhi of plundering Assam's tea and oil and giving nothing back, set up bases across the border in Bhutan after Indian forces launched a campaign against them 11 years ago. "It has complicated our job. We have often given militants a mauling. But like a phoenix rising from the ashes, they start operations again," HK Deka, Assam's director general of police, told said in Guwahati. "This is because they go back to their habitat outside the country, continue training and still have their weapon routes intact."

    Bangladesh denies that groups fighting Indian rule operate from its territory, but Bhutan has acknowledged militant camps on its side of the border. Assam shares a 285 km frontier with Bhutan and an 800 km border with Bangladesh. The outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), had agreed with Bhutan to close down its camps there by the end of last year but Indian officials say the militants have not done so.
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

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