The video shows Courney touring around Manipur in what appears to be a Mahindra Scorpio vehicle, meeting insurgent "commanders" in the northeastern state which has witnessed ethnic tensions between the Meitei and Kuki communities since last May.
The undated video has been shared with Sputnik India by the Foreign Evangelists' Cyber Monitoring Desk of Legal Rights Observatory (LRO), an Indian NGO tracking the activities of western missionaries in the northeastern states.
An LRO representative told Sputnik India that the previously unreported video was from last August, the last time Courney was deported from India for violating his visa norms. "We believe that intelligence sources are closely monitoring his movements in the region," the LRO worker added.
It remains unclear if Courney has visited India since last year, although his social media profile revealed that the missionary had visited Nepal on at least one occasion since then.
According to the video, Courney provided "gifts" such as two bulletproof vests, surveillance drones with a range of at least five kilometres, helmets, sleeping bags, boots, socks and clothes to the militants to take on the Indian forces.
The US veteran could be heard saying that the US Special Forces use such drones. "If you have to see the enemy, we also have a drone...," Courney says, in apparent reference to Indian security forces as well as rival Meitei groups.
"Defend your homes from the Meiteis, but don't have murder in your heart. There's a difference between murder and killing in defence. We should kill to defend our home... We shouldn't kill because we hate someone," he sermonises to the militants.
Commenting on the video, a former R&AW officer Colonel (Rtd) RSN Singh told Sputnik India that he wasn't at all surprised at the fact that American missionaries were found distributing military gear to insurgents in Manipur.
"There is clearly a proxy war going on in Manipur. In this proxy war, religion is a big factor. In this region, we have an intersection of Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity. The Christian militants are all aligned with the US Baptist Church," Singh commented.
Singh explained that the conflict in Myanmar, which has been ongoing since 2021, has had a major bearing in escalating tensions in Manipur.
The analyst noted that while "inner Myanmar" was inhabited by mostly Buddhists, the China state had a large population of Chins, Nagas and Karens, who are predominantly Christians and are known to share familial and cultural bonds with tribes in northeastern India.
"In this proxy war, the National Unity Government (NUG) and Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs) are being backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which is more or less of an open secret now. So, the US Baptist Church has a major role to play in the conflict in Myanmar as well as the surrounding areas, which include parts of northeast India as well as the Chittagong Hill Tracts," stated the former Indian intelligence officer.
He noted that concerns were raised in India after Mizoram Chief Minister Pu Lalduhoma delivered a series of speeches in Maryland (2 September) and Indianapolis (4 September) during a visit to the US.
"The main objective of the ZORO Movement in 1988 was Zo-Reunification within India. Can the ‘Zo’ people in India, Burma and Bangladesh today, aspire to be re-united under India? Looking at the geo-political realities of our time, it may not be so farfetched to think this could be a possibility one day," the Mizoram Chief Minister told the audience in Maryland, according to an official transcript of his remarks available online.
Singh pointed out that the Mizoram CM's remarks showed that "ethnic brotherhood" among the predominantly Kuki-Zo-Chin Christian tribes transcends the national borders of India, Myanmar and Bangladesh.
"The Mizoram state government has also refused to send the Chin refugees back to Myanmar as well as comply with Centre's directive to collect their biometric data," the former R&AW officer stated, referring to media reports.
Further, he stated that the developments closely resonated with the warning of former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who claimed that plans were afoot to carve out a "separate Christian state" from parts of Myanmar, Bangladesh and northeastern India.
"Another major development to watch out for are reports that the Church has been facing a financing crunch due to the tightening of FCRA rules and the crackdown on narcotics trade by Indian forces. What we have seen is that narcotics trade usually accompanies arms trade, which I believe is exactly what's happening in the region," the ex-intelligence officer said.
On the other hand, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Savio Rodrigues described Courney as an individual who's part of CIA's larger strategy to create a seperate Christian state in order to check China's influence in the region.
"The US has one clear cut agenda, which is to checkmate China's advances. In order to do that, the US is seeking India's unconditional support, which would mean that India acts as a vassal state of the US. So, in order to make India fall in line, we are seeing growing persecution of Hindus at the hands of radical Islamists in Bangladesh as well as the fuelling of tensions in Manipur. These are part of the larger geopolitical games being played by the Deep State against India," Rodrigues said.
Rodrigues accused the US of covertly fuelling the ethnic tensions in Manipur under the garb of religion.
"So, Daniel Courney is part of this larger US agenda. I believe the reason that they are using religion as a card is to gain international attention and turn the Manipur tensions into a religious conflict. This is the only way that the CIA could exploit inter-community divisions in Manipur and keep the conflict simmering," the Indian politician suggested.
Like Singh, Rodrigues also raised concerns over the comments made by Mizoram Chief Minister during his recent visit to the US.
Further, he stated there are still concerns in India that the US was moving towards establishing a base on Bangladesh's St Martin's Island, in spite of the fact that the outgoing Biden administration has denied such reports.
Importantly, Rodrigues also raised concerns over the confiscation of "US-made" wires and equipment by Indian security forces in Manipur in recent months.
"Recently, there were reports of several insurgents being arrested and Indian agencies confiscating cables from them. These special cables are manufactured by a US company, which begs the question how they found their way to Manipur. Obviously, these developments clearly show that the Deep State is in some way, fuelling the Manipur conflict," he said.
The BJP politician also pointed to reports of Indian Army and Manipur Police seizing grenades, weapons, ammunition as well as a Starlink device, inscribed with RPF/PLA, this week. It is believed that the RFA/PLA refers to the Revolutionary People’s Front/People’s Liberation Army (RPF/PLA), a militant group active in the region.
On Tuesday, SpaceX founder Elon Musk countered the reports. "This is false. Starlink satellite beams are turned off over India," Musk stated on X.