1. Under the Shrinking U.S. Security Umbrella: India's End Game in Afghanistan?
- Author:
- C. Christine Fair
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Washington Quarterly
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
- Abstract:
- On December 24, 1998, five Pakistani terrorists associated with Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) a Pakistani jihadist organization hijacked an Indian Airlines flight in Kathmandu with the goal of exchanging three Pakistani terrorists held in Indian jails for the surviving passengers. Pakistan's external intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), facilitated the hijacking in Nepal. After a harrowing journey through Amritsar (India), Lahore (Pakistan), and Dubai (United Arab Emirates), the plane landed at Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan, then under Taliban control. Under public pressure, the Indian government ultimately agreed to the terrorists' demands to deliver the three prisoners jailed in India. Both the hijackers and the terrorists who were released from prison transited to Pakistan with the assistance of the ISI. Masood Azhar, one of the freed militants, appeared in Karachi within weeks of the exchange to announce the formation of a new militant group which he would lead, the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JM).
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, India, Nepal, Dubai, Lahore, and Amritsar