Come August, Assam and Nagaland breathed a sigh of relief with the heavens opening up to an extent, bringing with it much respite to the local people from recurring floods and landslide plagued roadways. But with the retreat of the heavy rains, a different if not less difficult situation has emerged. The political atmosphere in both states was charged up with tension in early August following a "war like situation" in the Assam-Nagaland border near Jorhat district in Assam and Mokokchung district in Nagaland, respectively.

The emergence of several Islamic militant groups in North-East India and their ability to forge close ties with the region's most violent militant groups like the United Liberation Front of Asom [ULFA] and other foreign-based Islamic groups pose a major security threat for the region. Islamic militancy started in North-East India in the wake of the Babri Masjid demolition and the subsequent communal disturbances as well as because of Manipur's infamous Meitei-Muslim riot in 1993.

The disturbing reports about the presence of jihadi forces in India's northeast have added a new twist to the region's multiple insurgencies. Combined with the recent arrest in Delhi of three alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operatives hailing from Manipur once again indicates how vulnerable the northeast region is to the jihadi menace.

India's "troubled Northeast' has become a catch-all phrase for the region, and leads to the perception that the entire region is in a state of near-anarchy. The reality is otherwise; analysis shows that patterns of violence have been showing continuous decline in the region as a whole over the past few years and, more significantly, that the current violence is now substantially concentrated in the states of Manipur and Assam.

The arrest of three United National Liberation Front (UNLF) leaders at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi on October 2, 2006 necessitates an evaluation of the external linkages of Meitei militant outfits. Apart from having close connections with their sister outfits in the north-eastern states, major Meitei outfits like the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the UNLF have been attempting to revamp themselves by tying up with foreign outfits and agencies directly or indirectly.

On September 25 and 26, 2006, the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi, conducted a seminar on Peace and Development in the North East in Shillong, Meghalaya. This was done in collaboration with the North Eastern Council (NEC) and the North Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Shillong. The two-day seminar provided a forum for scholars, media personalities, military personnel, bureaucrats and politicians from the region to express their views and thinking on the subject at hand.

The management of India's international border along its North Eastern States has remained a crucial and complex issue. In an age of increasing interdependence, threats from unconventional sources pose a greater challenge to the country's security. An unmanaged border accentuates such threats by providing easy points of ingress and egress. Travel along India's borders with Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan highlights the porous nature of these borders, which pass through difficult terrain of forest, rivers and mountains and make the task of guarding all the more challenging.