GUWAHATI, March 9— The recent spurt in violent activities by the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) is an attempt by the outfit to prove its existence, highly placed security sources said. Sources revealed that according to information available with the security forces, at least 200 youths from different parts of the State last year joined the ULFA and most of the youths had passed at least school leaving certificate examinations. The local level leaders conducted some kind of interview of the youths before they were recruited, which proved that the outfit has become selective in recruitments.
Sources pointed out that the new recruits were trained up in Bhutan and Myanmar and the flow of weapons to the hands of the militants is still on, which helped the ULFA to maintain its strength despite the set-backs received in counter-insurgency operations in the last two decades. Another factor affecting the counter-insurgency operations is that the number of militants surrendering before the security forces has come down drastically in the last couple of years, as a result of which, the flow of information to the security forces has also come down. Sources said that earlier, the security forces used to obtain vital information about the activities and plans of the outfit from the surrendered militants and it was easy to thwart such attempts but of late, with the number of surrenders coming down, the security forces do not possess much information about the action plan of the militants to thwart the actions of the ULFA and other militant outfits.
Majority of the youths who have joined the ULFA in recent years did so primarily because of economic reasons like lack of jobs, and other employment avenues, lack of development activities, etc, and with a steady flow of new recruits, the militant outfit was never seriously affected by the loss incurred during the counter-insurgency operations, sources pointed out. Highly placed security sources also said that over the years, the ULFA has always managed to come back very strongly after a brief lull in their activities and it was no different this time with the outfit stepping up the violence after a lull period, during which the outfit apparently consolidated its position. Sources pointed out that the failure of the State Government to give a clear cut directive also did not help the security forces engaged in the counter-insurgency operations.