LONDON, Jan 27: A poorly-controlled border and frosty relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have allowed Al Qaeda and insurgent groups to increase their activity in the region, a top think tank said on Tuesday.

A lack of a cohesive strategy by Nato forces and insufficient troop numbers in Afghanistan have also let insurgent groups move into previously quiet areas of the country, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said.

Elsewhere the think tank noted a “surge” in terrorist attacks in India, including the November bloodbath in Mumbai, and a growing radicalisation of a minority of Indian Muslims.

According to the IISS “Military Balance 2009” annual overview of world security, the weak Afghan-Pakistan border regime was part of a broader theme, whereby links between criminal, insurgent and terrorist groups were widened.

“Weak border regimes and an increasing volume of trade moving in unchecked containers aid the activities of these groups, as do poor inter-state relationships,” it said.

In particular, it noted that Al Qaeda elements along the disputed Afghanistan-Pakistan border “increased their activity in Pakistan whilst continuing to support the insurgency in Afghanistan.”

The think tank said that in Pakistan’s NWFP, “security forces in general remain unable or unwilling to effectively counter the resurgent Afghan and TTP (Tehrik-i-Pakistan Taliban) militants”.

“With TTP beginning to control large swathes of the tribal areas and their influence spreading in the adjoining areas of the NWFP, an increase in cross-border attacks against coalition forces and civilians in Afghanistan has taken place.”

Meanwhile in Afghanistan, “tensions within Nato over mission objectives have undermined the mission’s effectiveness” while new counter-insurgency efforts to adapt to revised Taliban tactics “seemed to make little overall headway”.

On India, IISS senior fellow for South Asia Rahul Roy Chaudhury noted that “for some time, we have been noticing an increase in radicalisation in small sections of the Indian Muslim community.”

His colleague Nigel Inkster, the think tank’s director of trans-national threats and political risk, added that India was “clearly now very vulnerable to attacks” from Al Qaeda or its affiliated groups.

India has said that militants who killed 165 people in Mumbai in November must have support from “official agencies” in Pakistan, a charge Islamabad has denied, with tensions between the two nuclear-armed powers steadily rising.

IISS chief executive John Chipman voiced worries that Pakistan’s army could use concerns over potential conflict with New Delhi to move troops away from counter-terrorism efforts to its border with India.

“In general, these trends are discouraging because of the growing appreciation that the conflict in Afghanistan is intimately linked to the situation in Pakistan,” Chipman said.—AFP