INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.488
B.RAMAN
The wave of suicide terrorism, which started in Pakistan after the commando action of the Pakistan Army in the Lal Masjid of Islamabadfrom July 10 to 13,2007, continued unabated during 2008.
2.There were 57 attacks of suicide terrorism during 2008 killing 925 persons---- civilians and members of the Security Forces. In 2007,there were 56 acts of suicide terrorism with 636 fatalities. There were only 22 acts of suicide terrorism between 9/11 and January 1,2007.The number of suicide attacks in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) decreased from 23 in 2007 to 16 in 2008, but in theNorth-West Frontier Province (NWFP) they increased from 21 in 2007 to 30 in 2008. The Swat district of the NWFP, where the Pakistan Armyand the Frontier Corps (FC) have been struggling in vain for over a year since November,2007, to bring the situation under control, recordedthe largest number of suicide attacks for a single district----12 in 2008 with 101 fatalities as against only four attacks in 2007. There werefour suicide attacks in Peshawar, the capital of the NWFP, during 2008 with 99 fatalities. There were 10 attacks in Punjab as against 9 in2007--- with five of them reported from Lahore and three in the Islamabad-Rawalpindi area as against five in the same area in 2007---one inBalochistan as against two in 2007 and nil in Sindh as against one in 2007.
3.While the wave of anger against the Pakistan Army for the commando action showed signs of subsiding, there has been a fresh wave ofanger against the Army for following a policy of using Pashtuns against Pashtuns by training and arming local militias called Lashkars tocounter the Sunni members of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
4.Many of the members of these Lashkars are Shia Pashtuns recruited in the tribal belt.In retaliation for these attacks by the Lashkars, theTTP attacked not only the Shia members of the Lashkars, but also the villages to which they belonged. The attacks on the Shias wereparticularly heavy in the North-West Frontier Province where over a hundred Shias were killed by suicide bombers during the year.
5. The wave of anger over the Lal Masjid action started subsiding after Gen.Pervez Mushaaraf, former President, left office on August18,2008. The jihadis of the TTP and others held him personally responsible for the commando action, which killed a large number of tribalstudents studying in the girls' madrasa attached to the Masjid. But the anger has not totally disappeared. It continues in a reduced form dueto what the jihadis view as the failure of the present elected Government headed by President Asif Ali Zardari to implement some of thepromises made by it after coming to office. Among these promises were the restoration of the responsibility for the management of themasjid to those responsible before the commando action, re-opening of the two madrasas run by the masjid for poor children----one for boysand the other for girls---- and the release of all those arrested from the masjid and its madrasas before and during the commando action.
6. It was the intense anger over the commando raid which initially led to the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), headed byMaulana Fazlullah, to take to arms against the Government in the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and to theformation of the TTP under the leadership of Baitullah Mehsud of South Waziristan. Anger over the alleged support of Benazir Bhutto to thecommando action is believed by the investigators of the case of her assassination to have been one of the principal causes of her killing.The other cause was her publicly proclaimed readiness to allow US forces to operate in Pakistani territory if they had precise intelligence ofthe presence of top Al Qaeda leaders there.
7. This residual anger over the commando action and the new anger over what the TTP perceives as the policy of making Pashtuns killPashtuns through the Lashkars have been aggravated by a new wave of anger in the tribal belt over the steep increase in US missile andPredator (unmanned planes) strikes on suspected hide-outs of Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistani territory. Initially, these strikeswere focussed on suspected Al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban ( followers of Serajuddin Haqqani) hide-outs in the Bajaur Agency and in NorthWaziristan, both in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Subsequently, these attacks were also extended to South Waziristan tohit the suspected hide-outs of the TTP leaders, if the US had suspicion that the TTP was harbouring operatives of Al Qaeda or the AfghanTaliban. Towards the end of the year, the US started Predator strikes even on hide-outs in the NWFP.
8. The intensified US missile and Predator strikes during 2008 were caused by the US frustration over the unwillingness or inability of thePakistan Army and the Frontier Corps, a para-military force of local Pashtun recruits officered by Punjabis from the Army, to go after thesanctuaries, which were providing men and arms and ammunition to the Taliban units fighting against the US-led forces in Afghan territory.This inaction on the part of the Pakistani security forces has resulted in a bleeding stalemate in Afghanistan with neither the Taliban northe US-led forces being able to make much headway against each other, with the Taliban continuing to retain the ability for surprise attacksfrom sanctuaries in Pakistani territory. Such surprise attacks kill and spread destruction, but do not result in territorial dominance for theTaliban. Reliable assessments indicate that the Afghan Taliban now has a presence in over two-thirds of Afghanistan, but presence does notmean territorial dominance or control.
9. The US strategy till now has been to deny territorial dominance or control to the Taliban. The robust policy which President-elect BarackObama has promised and the new strategy being formulated by Gen.David Petraeus, the new Commanderof the US Central Command, wouldseek to expand the objective to one of establishing the territorial dominance of the US-led forces and the Afghan National Army (ANA) in thewhole of Afghanistan right up to the border with Pakistan by going after the Taliban cells or units operating in Southern and EasternAfghanistan and in the Kabul area with the help of local militias similar to the Awakening Councils in Iraq . The surge of 30,000 additionaltroops, which the US is planning to induct into Afghanistan in the coming months, is meant to make this expanded objective a reality.
10. The success of the new policy will depend upon the neutralisation of the sanctuaries in Pakistani territory which keep the Taliban andAl Qaeda fighting against the US. The neutralisation of the sanctuaries of the Taliban is necessary for the success of the US-led forces andthe ANA in Afghanistan. Without the neutralisation of the Al Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistani territory, the US cannot be free of fears ofanother 9/11 in the US homeland. Military and intelligence officers of the US realise that the US objectives vis-a-vis Al Qaeda and the Talibancannot be met unless these sanctuaries are wiped out and the surviving leadership of Al Qaeda is neutralised. They also realise that missileand Predator strikes alone ( over 30 during 2008 as compared to 10 during the previous two years) cannot achieve their objective unlesscombined with clandestine strikes by land-based stealth forces. They did attempt one such strike in September in South Waziristan. It wasnot successful and the furore in Pakistan over it led to their abandoning any more land-based strikes in Pakistani territory.
11. The US finds itself in the same position as the USSR found itself in Afghanistan before it decided to quit in 1988. The Soviet troopsavoided land-based action against the sanctuaries of the Afghan Mujahideen in Pakistani territory. They confined their retaliatory strikes toScud missiles fired at the suspected hide-outs of the Mujahideen in Pakistani territory. The civilian deaths caused by the Scuds added to theanger among the Afghan refugees and strengthened their determination to step up their attacks on the Soviet troops in Afghan territory andon Soviet convoys taking logistics supplies to the far-flung Soviet posts. The Mujahideen's success in disrupting the logistics supplies wasone of the factors, which contributed to the Soviet decision to quit.
12. The Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, advised by retired officers of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) such as Lt.Gen.Hamid Gul, arefollowing against the US-led forces the same strategy which the Mujahideen had followed against the Soviet troops-----keeping thembleeding and trying to starve them of essential supplies. In addition to keeping up a high level of suicide and other terrorism in Afghanterritory to disrupt road movements of troops and supplies and weaken the control of the ANA in towns, they have stepped up their attackson road movement of supplies for the NATO forces from Karachi. The US is trying to work out alternate routes through Russia,Georgia andthe Central Asian Republics (CARs). It remains to be seen how satisfactory the proposed new supply routes will be.
13. Obama's advisers, apparently influenced by the analysis of Ahmed Rashid, the Pakistani analyst, have been talking of a new politicalstrategy to be combined with a new operational strategy. Rashid has been selling the idea that the root cause of the Pakistan Army'sunwillingness or inability to deal with the sanctuaries can be traced to its unhappiness over the lack of any forward movement in its talkswith India over Kashmir and its concerns over what it sees as the increasing Indian presence in Afghanistan. He has been saying that if Pakistan's unhappiness and concerns on these two issues can be mitigated, its Army will put more heart into the fight against thesanctuaries.
14. When Obama's advisers talk of a regional strategy, they mean being responsive to Pakistan's perceived unhappiness and concerns. Ifthey do it, they can exercise more pressure on the Pakistan Army to deal with the sanctuaries and if and when Pakistan does it, it willbefefit not only the US, but also India. So their argument goes.This is pure wishful thinking and betrays a failure to comprehend thePakistani mind-set. Pakistan looks upon the various terrorist groups operating from its territory ----whether against India or Afghanistan orthe US---- as strategic assets to limit the power of India and its influence in Afghanistan and the CARs. It is not going to voluntarily give upthese perceived assets, unless forced to do so.
15. The inaction or inability or both of successive Pakistan Governments has enabled Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban,the Pakistani Taliban,the anti-India terrorist organisations, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Islamic Jihad Group ( (IJG) and radicalised members ofthe Pakistani diaspora in Europe and North America acquire a strategic depth in the tribal belt of Pakistan from where they can operatewherever they want all over the world----whether against India or Afghanistan or the West or Russia or even against Pakistan if itco-operates too closely with the US.
16. What the Obama administration would need is a regional strategy to eliminate the terrorirst sanctuaries in Pakistani territory and todeprive the jihadi terrorists of the world of the strategic depth which they presently enjoy in Pakistani territory. This is a strategy on whichthe US and India can closely collaborate as and when Obama and his advisers come out of their present mode of wishful thinking.( 1-1-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retired), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For TopicalStudies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
JIHADI TERRORISM---2008 & 2009: PART I : INDIA
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.487
B.RAMAN
Next to Israel, India has been waging the longest fight against jihadi terrorism of the home-grown as well as trans-national variety. Israel'sfight against jihadi terrorism started in 1967 and is 41 years old. The end is not yet in sight. India's fight against jihadi terrorism started in1989 and is 19 years old. The jihadi terrorism faced by Israel is sponsored by a medley of states---- particularly Syria and Iran now and Libya,Iraq, and many other States of the Ummah in the past. The jihadi terrorism faced by India is sponsored by Pakistan and facilitated byBangladesh.
2. In terms of numbers, jihadi terrorists have killed more innocent civilians in India than in Israel. But if one keep's in mind Israel's small sizeand population, proportionately Israel has suffered immeasurably more than India. More innocent blood has flown in Israel than in India.
3. The jihadi terrorism faced by India falls into two categories----that in J&K and that in the Indian territory outside J&K, which forconvenience sake will be referred to as hinterland India, an expression which Shri Ajit Doval, former Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB),often uses.
4. As 2008 ends and we move into 2009, one has been seeing extremely gloomy accounts of 2008 triggered by the attack by the terrorists ofthe Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008, and the serial explosions that preceded it in Jaipur(May), Bangalore ( July), Ahmedabad (July) and Delhi (September). Some analysts have even called 2008 as the worst year in India's fightagainst terrorism.
5. We had faced worse years in 1985 when the Khalistani terrorists blew up the Kanishka aircraft of the Air India off the Irish coast killing329 innocent civilians of different nationalities and in 1993 when a group of Indian Muslims from Mumbai recruited by Dawood Ibrahim, themafia leader, and trained and equipped by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), targeted a number of establishments of economicsignificance in Mumbai and killed 257 civilians. It was the first co-ordinated attack on the economic infrastructure of India's financialcapital--- similar to what we saw in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008. It was also the first co-ordinated attack on the economicinfrastructure by terrorists anywhere in the world.
6.The March,1993, terrorist attack, even though more lethal, did not have the same traumatic impact on the Indian nation and theinternational community as the November,2008, attack because it was over in a couple of hours and did not last about 60 hours as ithappened in Mumbai in November,2008. Moreover, private TV channels had not yet mushroomed in India.The Mumbai,1993, attack was inthe form of explosions.TV viewers saw the carnage only after it had happened.The November,2008, attack, was in the form of a prolongedurban battle between some terrorists entrenched inside famous hotels( the Taj Palace and the Oberoi/Trident) and inside the offices of aJewish cultural and religious centre located in the Nariman House and the security forces, including the National Security Guards (NSGs),the special intervention force. This entrenched battle was preceded by nearly an hour of cold-blooded killings of civilians in public placessuch as a railway station, a hospital, a restaurant etc with hand-held weapons. TV viewers saw a live coverage of the entire terrorist attack.
7. We had faced a very bad year in 2006 when a group of jihadi terrorists--- Indians and Pakistanis--- carried out a series of explosions insuburban trains in Mumbai killing 181 innocent civilians. It was copy-cat terrorism based on an emulation of what had happened in Madridin March,2004 and in London in July,2005.
8. The four terrorist strikes in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi were instances of heat of the moment acts of reprisal by sections ofour own Muslim youth angered ---hopefully momentarily --- by local events such as what the Muslim youth saw as the severe sentencesawarded to the jihadi convicts for their role in the explosions of March,1993, the campaign for the early hanging of Afzal Guru for his allegedinvolvement in the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13,2001, by the LET and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) ascompared ( by the jihadi terrorists) to the absence of a similar campaign for the hanging of those found guilty in the assassination of RajivGandhi, a resolution allegedly passed by the Bar Association of Lucknow that no lawyer should defend jihadi terrorists etc.
9. The terrorist attack in Mumbai in November---like the attack on the Indian Parliament in December,2001---- was not a heat of the momentact of reprisal terrorism by small numbers of Indian Muslim youth. It was an act of terrorism planned and orchestrated from Pakistaniterritory for a mix of strategic purposes---- creating nervousness in the minds of foreign businessmen about the security of their lives andproperty in India, creating doubts in the minds of the Indian public and the international community about the capability of the Indiancounter-terrorism community to protect lives and property, disrupting the developing close relations of India with the West in general andthe US in particular and with Israel. Combined with these larger strategic dimensions was also an element of anger against the NATO forcesfor their operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and against Israel for its policy towards the Hamas. This would beevident from the barbarity to which the Israeli and other Jewish victims (9 out of 25) were subjected by the Pakistani terrorists and from thefact that the Westerners killed by the terrorists ( 12 out of 25) came from countries which are fighting against the Taliban and Al Qaeda inAfghanistan ---- the US, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Canada and Australia. It was definitely not Kashmir-related terrorism. Nor was itrelated to the grievances of the Indian Muslim community against the Government of India.
10. The Mumbai attack of November, 2008, also marked the emergence of the LET as an international jihadi terrorist organisation on parwith Al Qaeda and also indicated the first possible role of Al Qaeda in mentoring, if not actually orchestrating, an act of strategic jihaditerrorism in Indian territory directed against Indian, Western and Jewish targets to compensate for its inability to repeat 9/11, Madrid andLondon till now. Al Qaeda's suspected orchestration was meant to demonstrate to the world that Al Qaeda is alive and kicking and willstrike where it wants to and where it is able to and not where the world expects it to. The attack also demonstrated that Osama binLaden's April,2006, warning----in the wake of President George Bush's visit to India---- of a global jihad against the Christians, the Jewishpeople and the Hindus was not an empty threat. November,2008, marked the opening of a new front in the global jihad. The terrorists cameto kill Indians, Israelis and other Jewish persons and Westerners. They did not come to damage or destroy property. If they had wanted,they had explosives with which they could have caused serious damage to the hotels similar to the damage which the jihadi terrorists ofPakistan caused to the Marriott Hotel of Islamabad on September 20,2008. They did not.
11. After the serial explosions in UP in November,2007 and in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi in 2008, there have been manysuperficial analytical articles written by analysts in India and abroad as if home-grown jihadi terrorism arrived for the first time in India in2008. It was not so. India had been facing home-grown, but Pakistan-trained terrorism in J&K between 1989 and 1993 before the Pakistaniorganisations took over the leadership in 1993.Tamil Nadu had been facing jihadi terrorism unconnected to the ISI and the Pakistaniorganisations between 1993 and 1999 in the form of the Al Ummah movement. The March,1993, explosions were carried out by some IndianMuslims recruited by Dawood and trained and equipped by the ISI. The Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was initially a home-grownmovement though it subsequently came under the influence and control of the LET and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), both ofPakistan.
12. What has been new since 9/11 is the emergence of a new group (not yet quantifiable) of Indian Muslims in hinterland India callingthemselves the Indian Mujahideen (IM) and denying any links with the ISI and the Pakistani jihadi organisations and individual Muslims inthe Indian Muslim diaspora in the UK without any proved organisational affiliation, who sought to help or emulate Al Qaeda. The IM took toterrorism due to anger arising from Indian events and policies. The pro-Al Qaeda individuals like Bilal-al Hindi now in jail in the UK forassisting Al Qaeda and Kafeel Ahmed who died in hospital after an attempted attack of suicidal terrorism in Glasgow in June,2006, took toterrorism for reasons unconnected with India. They were the first global jihadi terrorists from the Indian Muslim community, who weremotivated by what is projected by Al Qaeda as global and historical injustice against the Muslims of the world.
13. Are there Indian Muslims in hinterland India, who are similarly motivated by a global and historical sense of injustice and not merely byanger due to purely Indian reasons? No such Muslim has so far been arrested, but one has been seeing openly expressed admiration for binLaden among some Indian Muslim youth. One saw it during the anti-Bush demonstrations in some cities during Bush's visit to India inMarch,2006, and in the interrogation reports of some arrested SIMI leaders. From admiration to action is just one step away.
14. Could any of these Indian Muslims ---not yet unarthed--- with admiration for bin Laden have played a role in assisting the LET in its attackin Mumbai? It will be unwise to rule this out just because no evidence in this regard has emerged so far. Lack of evidence does not prove afact. It does not mean that a threat does not exist. A terrorist attack of this magnitude and precision could not have been so successfullyplanned and carried out without some local complicity. Only a local or a Pakistani member of the LET, who knew Mumbai well, would haveknown about the presence of many Jewish persons in the Nariman House during day as well as at night and about the very weak securityat the rear entrance to the Taj Mahal Hotel.
15. The terrorist attacks of 2008 exposed the weaknesses in our counter-terrorism management as no other series of strikes in the pasthad---- lack of a culture of physical security and lack of co-ordination and of a cultute of joint follow-up action on the intelligence available.Intelligence was available since September about the impending attack by LET terrorists coming by sea. The available intelligence mightnot have been 100 per cent complete in all respects, but it was substantial enough to sound the alarm bell in Delhi and Mumbai and totrigger a joint response to foil the attack. There was a shocking failure of follow-up action on the intelligence alerts. The Police, the Navyand the Coast Guard have to accept a major share of the responsibility for failing to act energetically to prevent the attack. The intelligenceagencies cannot totally wash their hands off the tragedy by saying that their job ended with the collection and dissemination of intelligence.It was equally their responsibility to ensure that the implications of the disseminated intelligence were understood by the agenciesresponsible for follow-up and that required follow-up action was taken. If this was not done, it was their responsibility to alert the PrimeMinister. It is for that reason that intelligence chiefs have privileged access to the Prime Minister. That access was not utilised.
16. In 1998-99 after the nuclear tests of May,1998, the Government of India revamped its national security management system with thecreation of a National Security Council (NSC), a Secretariat to service the NSC (NSCS), a Strategic Policy Group (SPG), and a NationalSecurity Advisory Board (NSAB)----with the entire architecture supervised and co-ordinated by a National Security Adviser, who worksdirectly under the Prime Minister and has his ears all the time. This system was further revamped in 2000 on the basis of our lessons learntduring the Kargil conflict of 1999. The revamped system consisted of an intelligence co-ordination committee and a technical resourcesco-ordination committee, both under the NSA, and a multi-agency centre in the IB to deal with terrorism to promote the culture of jointaction.
17. The entire system set in place since 1998 to modernise our national security management on the pattern of good practices followed inthe West and Israel failed. There was total dysfunction by the system as well as by those manning it. Our failure to prevent theNovember,2008, attack was due to systemic as well as human failures. The human failure was at all levels----from the top to the bottom. Acasual approach to security threats----from State or non-State actors---- has been part of our culture. The Chinese took advantage of it in1962. The Pakistanis tried to take advantage of it in 1999, but failed. The jihadi terrorists from Pakistan took advantage of it inNovember,2008, and succeeded.
18. Cover-up is another part of our national culture. The report of the committee, which enquired into the debacle of 1962, was neverreleased and debated in Parliament and public. The report of the Kargil Review Committee was released and acted upon, but neverdiscussed in Parliament. There now seems to be an attempt to avoid a comprehensive enquiry into the terrorist attack of November,2008,similar to the enquiry by a bipartisan National Commission in the US after the 9/11 terrorist strikes and the enquiry by the Intelligence andSecurity Comittee of the British Parliament into the London explosions of July,2005. With all eyes on the forthcoming elections, nobodywants a post-mortem.The public should not accept this and should mount pressure on the Government and the political class for a thoroughenquiry. The argument that a public enquiry could demoralise the agencies and its officers should not be accepted. Thorough enquirieswere held into the assassinations of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi and the reports released to the public without worrying about anydemoralisation. Why should we be worried now?
19. The Police in the affected States have arrested many of the perpetrators of the jihadi terrorist strikes of 2008---- operatives of the IM aswell as Ajmal Amir Kasab, the Pakistani, who was captured alive during the attack in Mumbai. Their interrogation has given a wealth of nutsand bolts details of tactical significance---- what is their background, how did they gravitate to terrorism, where and how were they trained,who trained them , what kind of explosives they used, where they procured them etc But they have not brought out much information ofstrategic value which could enable us to make a quantitative analysis of the threat facing us in 2009 and prepare ourselves to counter it. Who are the real brains behind the IM? What is its command and control like? Does it have any strategic objective or is it purely heat of themoment reprisal terrorism? What are its external sources of funding? What are its external linkages----with the ISI, the Pakistani jihaditerrorist organisations and with the world of organised crime? The involvement of the world of organised crime in acts of terrorism, whichbecame evident in March,1993, continues to be one of the defining characteristics of jihadi terrorism in the Indian hinterland as could beseen from the suspected association of Riaz Bhatkal, an underworld character, with the IM.
20. The home-grown jihadi terrorism, which has struck us repeatedly since November,2007, in the name of the IM, is an iceberg. Till we areable to identify, measure and blow up this iceberg, more such terrorist strikes involving serial explosions in important cities are likely. Wasthe disaster, which struck us in Mumbai in November,2008, the LET tip of an Al Qaeda iceberg?. It will be very unwise to presume that itcannot be so. There is an Al Qaeda iceberg which is on the move from the Pashtun tribal belt of Pakistan to areas outside as seen from theexplosions outside the Danish Embassy in Islamabad in June,2008, and outside the Marriott Hotel in September 2008. It is time we come outof our denial mode that what is happening in Pakistan cannot happen to us.It can.
21. We still do not have a coherent policy to deal with Pakistan, which has been a State-sponsor of terrorism in Indian territory and withBangladesh as a facilitator. Our approach to Pakistan's sponsorship continues to be marked by the "kabi garam, kabi naram" (Sometimeshard, sometimes soft) syndrome.
22.India has been a victim of indigenous terrorism without external sponsorship as well as terrorism externally sponsored----from Pakistanand Bangladesh. Before 1979, we were also victims of tribal insurgencies in the North-East supported by China, which is no longersupporting them after 1979. One of the reasons why Indira Gandhi decided to support the independence movement in the then EastPakistan was because the ISI was giving sanctuaries to the terrorists and insurgents in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) from where threywere operating in North-East India. The creation of Bangladesh ended this sponsorship in 1971, but it was revived by the intelligenceagencies of Pakistan and Bangladesh after the assasasination of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman in 1975. We are still struggling to cope with it.
23.One of the lessons of the post-World War history of State-Sponsored terrorism is that it never ends unless the guilty state is made to paya prohibitive price. STASI, the East German intelligence service, was behind much of the ideological terrorism in West Europe. The collapseof communism in East Germany and the end of STASI brought an end to this terrorism. The intelligence services of Libya and Syria werebehind much of the West Asian terrorism and the Carlos group, then living in Damascus, played a role in helping ideological groups in WestEurope. The US bombing of Libya in 1986, the strong US action against Syria, which was declared a State-sponsor of terrorism and againstthe Sudan, where Carlos shifted from Damascus, and the prosecution and jailing, under US pressure, of two Libyan intelligence officers fortheir complicity in the bombing of a Pan Am plane off Lockerbie on the Irish coast in 1988 brought an end to state-sponsorship of terrorismby Libya and Sudan. Syria has stopped sponsoring terrorism against the US, but continues to do so against Israel.
24.There are any number of UN resolutions and international declarations declaring state-sponsored terrorism as amounting to indirectaggression against the victim state. Unfortunately, there has been no political will in India to make Pakistan and Bangladesh pay a heavyprice for their sponsorship of terrorism against India. Once a firm decision based on a national consensus is taken that the time has cometo make Pakistan and Bangladesh pay a price, the question as to which organisation should do it and how will be sorted out. The problem isnot that we don't have an appropriate organisation, but we don't have the will to act against Pakistan and Bangladesh. Our policy of "kabigaram, kabi naram" towards these two countries is encouraging them not to change their ways.
25.We must take action instead of depending on the US or other members of the international community to do so. Every country isinterested in protecting the lives and property of only its own citizens. This is natural. It is the responsibility of the Government of India andthe States to protect the lives and property of our nationals. There are many good things we can learn from the Israelis such as theirpassion for up-to-date data bases, all their agencies countering terrorism acting as a single team without ego clashes, turf battles and thetendency to pass the buck, public support for their counter-terrorism agencies, high investments in research & development of newtechnologies for counter-terrorism etc. India has remained a nation of dogs that bark, but do not bite. We have seen it after Mumbai too. It istime we emulate Israel and become a nation of dogs that don't bark, but bite ferociously. At the same time, some methods employed byIsrael such as over-militarisation of counter-terrorism will prove counter-productive in a pluralistic, multi-religious state such as India. Wehave produced many good intelligence bureaucrats, but we have produced very few good intelligence professionals. Our counter-terrorismexperts tend to be over-simplistic and superficial in their expertise, are not innovative and try to deal with technology savvy modernterrorism with methods and thinking which are not equally modern. The terrorists operating in India tend to be more nodern and innovativein their thinking than the counter-terrorism agencies. Increasing their numbers and budgets alone will not produce results unless,simultaneously, there is also a change in their thinking and methods.
26. 2008 was not a totally gloomy year for India. There was gloom in the Indian hinterland. But,there was also sunshine in J &K for the firsttime in 19 years as seen from the spectacularly successful election held in the State in which over 50 per cent of the voters paricipateddefying threats and intimidation from the terrorists and calls for boycott from their political mentors. Let me quote some statistics given byKuldeep Khoda, the DG of Police of J&K, at a media conference on December 25,2008 ("The Hindu" of December 26,2008):
Terrorist violence showed a remarkable decline of 40 per cent in 2008 as compared to 2007.
Civilian deaths at the hands of the terrorists, which reached a peak of 1413 in 1996, came down to 164 in 2007 and only 89 in 2008.
48 political activists, including a Minister, were killed by terrorists during the 2002 election campaign . They could not kill a single political activist during this year's election campaign.
For the first time, 2008 witnessed the best ever performance of the police and the security forces on the human rights front. There was only one complaint of death in police custody, which is under investigation, and no complaint of disappearance from police custody.
27. At the same time, he warned against complacency and pointed out that there were still 800 trained terrorists----300 of them foreigners,mainly Pakistanis---- in the State waiting for an opportunity to step up terrorism.
28.There is terrorism fatigue in J&K as there was in Punjab when Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister. Rao was bold enough to lift thePresident's rule and hold the elections disregarding advice from senior bureaucrats not to do so. The elections in Punjab marked thebeginning of the people's alienation from the Khalistani terrorists. People in J&K are tired of violence and of the difficulties which they hadto face as a result of security measures for nearly 19 years. They want normalcy, but this need not mean the beginning of the end of theirfeelings of alienation.
29.The feelings of alienation will not end just because of the spectacularly successful elections. They will end only through meaningfulmeasures by the Govt. of India and the new Govt. headed by Omar Abdullah to address the legitimate grievances of the people and to fulfillsome of the past promises to give greater powers to the State--- almost near autonomy, if not total autonomy. The elections also show thatthe mainstream parties have retained their political base despite 19 years of terrorism---- much of it directed against them--- and that thepolitical base of the political mentors of the militancy such as the Hurriyat is as small as it always has been. Farooq Abdullah used todescribe them as mohalla leaders and not State leaders who are afraid of elections because they know that elections could expose theirlimited following. He is probably right.
30. While keeping our fingers crossed in J&K, we have reasons to be proud of what our intelligence agencies and the security forces haveachieved in J&K after 19 years of sustained and well-calibrated counter-terrorism. They are capable of achieving similar results in the Indianhinterland in 2009 if the systemic and individual deficiencies are identified and removed instead of being covered up,if they work in aco-ordinated and united manner as they did in J&K, if they receive the right political leadership, if Pakistan is made to pay a price for itssponsorship of jihadi terrorism and if we pay due to attention to the legitimate grievances of our Muslim co-citizens in hinterland Indiainstead of dismissing them off-hand as imaginary. Some of them are not. Some of our Muslim youth have real causes for anger against theIndian State and society. We must take note of them and address them. Otherwise, we will drive them into the hands of the ISI and the likesof the LET, the JEM and Al Qaeda. (31-12-08) Part II: Pakistan to follow
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For TopicalStudies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
Next to Israel, India has been waging the longest fight against jihadi terrorism of the home-grown as well as trans-national variety. Israel'sfight against jihadi terrorism started in 1967 and is 41 years old. The end is not yet in sight. India's fight against jihadi terrorism started in1989 and is 19 years old. The jihadi terrorism faced by Israel is sponsored by a medley of states---- particularly Syria and Iran now and Libya,Iraq, and many other States of the Ummah in the past. The jihadi terrorism faced by India is sponsored by Pakistan and facilitated byBangladesh.
2. In terms of numbers, jihadi terrorists have killed more innocent civilians in India than in Israel. But if one keep's in mind Israel's small sizeand population, proportionately Israel has suffered immeasurably more than India. More innocent blood has flown in Israel than in India.
3. The jihadi terrorism faced by India falls into two categories----that in J&K and that in the Indian territory outside J&K, which forconvenience sake will be referred to as hinterland India, an expression which Shri Ajit Doval, former Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB),often uses.
4. As 2008 ends and we move into 2009, one has been seeing extremely gloomy accounts of 2008 triggered by the attack by the terrorists ofthe Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008, and the serial explosions that preceded it in Jaipur(May), Bangalore ( July), Ahmedabad (July) and Delhi (September). Some analysts have even called 2008 as the worst year in India's fightagainst terrorism.
5. We had faced worse years in 1985 when the Khalistani terrorists blew up the Kanishka aircraft of the Air India off the Irish coast killing329 innocent civilians of different nationalities and in 1993 when a group of Indian Muslims from Mumbai recruited by Dawood Ibrahim, themafia leader, and trained and equipped by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), targeted a number of establishments of economicsignificance in Mumbai and killed 257 civilians. It was the first co-ordinated attack on the economic infrastructure of India's financialcapital--- similar to what we saw in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008. It was also the first co-ordinated attack on the economicinfrastructure by terrorists anywhere in the world.
6.The March,1993, terrorist attack, even though more lethal, did not have the same traumatic impact on the Indian nation and theinternational community as the November,2008, attack because it was over in a couple of hours and did not last about 60 hours as ithappened in Mumbai in November,2008. Moreover, private TV channels had not yet mushroomed in India.The Mumbai,1993, attack was inthe form of explosions.TV viewers saw the carnage only after it had happened.The November,2008, attack, was in the form of a prolongedurban battle between some terrorists entrenched inside famous hotels( the Taj Palace and the Oberoi/Trident) and inside the offices of aJewish cultural and religious centre located in the Nariman House and the security forces, including the National Security Guards (NSGs),the special intervention force. This entrenched battle was preceded by nearly an hour of cold-blooded killings of civilians in public placessuch as a railway station, a hospital, a restaurant etc with hand-held weapons. TV viewers saw a live coverage of the entire terrorist attack.
7. We had faced a very bad year in 2006 when a group of jihadi terrorists--- Indians and Pakistanis--- carried out a series of explosions insuburban trains in Mumbai killing 181 innocent civilians. It was copy-cat terrorism based on an emulation of what had happened in Madridin March,2004 and in London in July,2005.
8. The four terrorist strikes in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi were instances of heat of the moment acts of reprisal by sections ofour own Muslim youth angered ---hopefully momentarily --- by local events such as what the Muslim youth saw as the severe sentencesawarded to the jihadi convicts for their role in the explosions of March,1993, the campaign for the early hanging of Afzal Guru for his allegedinvolvement in the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13,2001, by the LET and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) ascompared ( by the jihadi terrorists) to the absence of a similar campaign for the hanging of those found guilty in the assassination of RajivGandhi, a resolution allegedly passed by the Bar Association of Lucknow that no lawyer should defend jihadi terrorists etc.
9. The terrorist attack in Mumbai in November---like the attack on the Indian Parliament in December,2001---- was not a heat of the momentact of reprisal terrorism by small numbers of Indian Muslim youth. It was an act of terrorism planned and orchestrated from Pakistaniterritory for a mix of strategic purposes---- creating nervousness in the minds of foreign businessmen about the security of their lives andproperty in India, creating doubts in the minds of the Indian public and the international community about the capability of the Indiancounter-terrorism community to protect lives and property, disrupting the developing close relations of India with the West in general andthe US in particular and with Israel. Combined with these larger strategic dimensions was also an element of anger against the NATO forcesfor their operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and against Israel for its policy towards the Hamas. This would beevident from the barbarity to which the Israeli and other Jewish victims (9 out of 25) were subjected by the Pakistani terrorists and from thefact that the Westerners killed by the terrorists ( 12 out of 25) came from countries which are fighting against the Taliban and Al Qaeda inAfghanistan ---- the US, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Canada and Australia. It was definitely not Kashmir-related terrorism. Nor was itrelated to the grievances of the Indian Muslim community against the Government of India.
10. The Mumbai attack of November, 2008, also marked the emergence of the LET as an international jihadi terrorist organisation on parwith Al Qaeda and also indicated the first possible role of Al Qaeda in mentoring, if not actually orchestrating, an act of strategic jihaditerrorism in Indian territory directed against Indian, Western and Jewish targets to compensate for its inability to repeat 9/11, Madrid andLondon till now. Al Qaeda's suspected orchestration was meant to demonstrate to the world that Al Qaeda is alive and kicking and willstrike where it wants to and where it is able to and not where the world expects it to. The attack also demonstrated that Osama binLaden's April,2006, warning----in the wake of President George Bush's visit to India---- of a global jihad against the Christians, the Jewishpeople and the Hindus was not an empty threat. November,2008, marked the opening of a new front in the global jihad. The terrorists cameto kill Indians, Israelis and other Jewish persons and Westerners. They did not come to damage or destroy property. If they had wanted,they had explosives with which they could have caused serious damage to the hotels similar to the damage which the jihadi terrorists ofPakistan caused to the Marriott Hotel of Islamabad on September 20,2008. They did not.
11. After the serial explosions in UP in November,2007 and in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi in 2008, there have been manysuperficial analytical articles written by analysts in India and abroad as if home-grown jihadi terrorism arrived for the first time in India in2008. It was not so. India had been facing home-grown, but Pakistan-trained terrorism in J&K between 1989 and 1993 before the Pakistaniorganisations took over the leadership in 1993.Tamil Nadu had been facing jihadi terrorism unconnected to the ISI and the Pakistaniorganisations between 1993 and 1999 in the form of the Al Ummah movement. The March,1993, explosions were carried out by some IndianMuslims recruited by Dawood and trained and equipped by the ISI. The Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was initially a home-grownmovement though it subsequently came under the influence and control of the LET and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), both ofPakistan.
12. What has been new since 9/11 is the emergence of a new group (not yet quantifiable) of Indian Muslims in hinterland India callingthemselves the Indian Mujahideen (IM) and denying any links with the ISI and the Pakistani jihadi organisations and individual Muslims inthe Indian Muslim diaspora in the UK without any proved organisational affiliation, who sought to help or emulate Al Qaeda. The IM took toterrorism due to anger arising from Indian events and policies. The pro-Al Qaeda individuals like Bilal-al Hindi now in jail in the UK forassisting Al Qaeda and Kafeel Ahmed who died in hospital after an attempted attack of suicidal terrorism in Glasgow in June,2006, took toterrorism for reasons unconnected with India. They were the first global jihadi terrorists from the Indian Muslim community, who weremotivated by what is projected by Al Qaeda as global and historical injustice against the Muslims of the world.
13. Are there Indian Muslims in hinterland India, who are similarly motivated by a global and historical sense of injustice and not merely byanger due to purely Indian reasons? No such Muslim has so far been arrested, but one has been seeing openly expressed admiration for binLaden among some Indian Muslim youth. One saw it during the anti-Bush demonstrations in some cities during Bush's visit to India inMarch,2006, and in the interrogation reports of some arrested SIMI leaders. From admiration to action is just one step away.
14. Could any of these Indian Muslims ---not yet unarthed--- with admiration for bin Laden have played a role in assisting the LET in its attackin Mumbai? It will be unwise to rule this out just because no evidence in this regard has emerged so far. Lack of evidence does not prove afact. It does not mean that a threat does not exist. A terrorist attack of this magnitude and precision could not have been so successfullyplanned and carried out without some local complicity. Only a local or a Pakistani member of the LET, who knew Mumbai well, would haveknown about the presence of many Jewish persons in the Nariman House during day as well as at night and about the very weak securityat the rear entrance to the Taj Mahal Hotel.
15. The terrorist attacks of 2008 exposed the weaknesses in our counter-terrorism management as no other series of strikes in the pasthad---- lack of a culture of physical security and lack of co-ordination and of a cultute of joint follow-up action on the intelligence available.Intelligence was available since September about the impending attack by LET terrorists coming by sea. The available intelligence mightnot have been 100 per cent complete in all respects, but it was substantial enough to sound the alarm bell in Delhi and Mumbai and totrigger a joint response to foil the attack. There was a shocking failure of follow-up action on the intelligence alerts. The Police, the Navyand the Coast Guard have to accept a major share of the responsibility for failing to act energetically to prevent the attack. The intelligenceagencies cannot totally wash their hands off the tragedy by saying that their job ended with the collection and dissemination of intelligence.It was equally their responsibility to ensure that the implications of the disseminated intelligence were understood by the agenciesresponsible for follow-up and that required follow-up action was taken. If this was not done, it was their responsibility to alert the PrimeMinister. It is for that reason that intelligence chiefs have privileged access to the Prime Minister. That access was not utilised.
16. In 1998-99 after the nuclear tests of May,1998, the Government of India revamped its national security management system with thecreation of a National Security Council (NSC), a Secretariat to service the NSC (NSCS), a Strategic Policy Group (SPG), and a NationalSecurity Advisory Board (NSAB)----with the entire architecture supervised and co-ordinated by a National Security Adviser, who worksdirectly under the Prime Minister and has his ears all the time. This system was further revamped in 2000 on the basis of our lessons learntduring the Kargil conflict of 1999. The revamped system consisted of an intelligence co-ordination committee and a technical resourcesco-ordination committee, both under the NSA, and a multi-agency centre in the IB to deal with terrorism to promote the culture of jointaction.
17. The entire system set in place since 1998 to modernise our national security management on the pattern of good practices followed inthe West and Israel failed. There was total dysfunction by the system as well as by those manning it. Our failure to prevent theNovember,2008, attack was due to systemic as well as human failures. The human failure was at all levels----from the top to the bottom. Acasual approach to security threats----from State or non-State actors---- has been part of our culture. The Chinese took advantage of it in1962. The Pakistanis tried to take advantage of it in 1999, but failed. The jihadi terrorists from Pakistan took advantage of it inNovember,2008, and succeeded.
18. Cover-up is another part of our national culture. The report of the committee, which enquired into the debacle of 1962, was neverreleased and debated in Parliament and public. The report of the Kargil Review Committee was released and acted upon, but neverdiscussed in Parliament. There now seems to be an attempt to avoid a comprehensive enquiry into the terrorist attack of November,2008,similar to the enquiry by a bipartisan National Commission in the US after the 9/11 terrorist strikes and the enquiry by the Intelligence andSecurity Comittee of the British Parliament into the London explosions of July,2005. With all eyes on the forthcoming elections, nobodywants a post-mortem.The public should not accept this and should mount pressure on the Government and the political class for a thoroughenquiry. The argument that a public enquiry could demoralise the agencies and its officers should not be accepted. Thorough enquirieswere held into the assassinations of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi and the reports released to the public without worrying about anydemoralisation. Why should we be worried now?
19. The Police in the affected States have arrested many of the perpetrators of the jihadi terrorist strikes of 2008---- operatives of the IM aswell as Ajmal Amir Kasab, the Pakistani, who was captured alive during the attack in Mumbai. Their interrogation has given a wealth of nutsand bolts details of tactical significance---- what is their background, how did they gravitate to terrorism, where and how were they trained,who trained them , what kind of explosives they used, where they procured them etc But they have not brought out much information ofstrategic value which could enable us to make a quantitative analysis of the threat facing us in 2009 and prepare ourselves to counter it. Who are the real brains behind the IM? What is its command and control like? Does it have any strategic objective or is it purely heat of themoment reprisal terrorism? What are its external sources of funding? What are its external linkages----with the ISI, the Pakistani jihaditerrorist organisations and with the world of organised crime? The involvement of the world of organised crime in acts of terrorism, whichbecame evident in March,1993, continues to be one of the defining characteristics of jihadi terrorism in the Indian hinterland as could beseen from the suspected association of Riaz Bhatkal, an underworld character, with the IM.
20. The home-grown jihadi terrorism, which has struck us repeatedly since November,2007, in the name of the IM, is an iceberg. Till we areable to identify, measure and blow up this iceberg, more such terrorist strikes involving serial explosions in important cities are likely. Wasthe disaster, which struck us in Mumbai in November,2008, the LET tip of an Al Qaeda iceberg?. It will be very unwise to presume that itcannot be so. There is an Al Qaeda iceberg which is on the move from the Pashtun tribal belt of Pakistan to areas outside as seen from theexplosions outside the Danish Embassy in Islamabad in June,2008, and outside the Marriott Hotel in September 2008. It is time we come outof our denial mode that what is happening in Pakistan cannot happen to us.It can.
21. We still do not have a coherent policy to deal with Pakistan, which has been a State-sponsor of terrorism in Indian territory and withBangladesh as a facilitator. Our approach to Pakistan's sponsorship continues to be marked by the "kabi garam, kabi naram" (Sometimeshard, sometimes soft) syndrome.
22.India has been a victim of indigenous terrorism without external sponsorship as well as terrorism externally sponsored----from Pakistanand Bangladesh. Before 1979, we were also victims of tribal insurgencies in the North-East supported by China, which is no longersupporting them after 1979. One of the reasons why Indira Gandhi decided to support the independence movement in the then EastPakistan was because the ISI was giving sanctuaries to the terrorists and insurgents in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) from where threywere operating in North-East India. The creation of Bangladesh ended this sponsorship in 1971, but it was revived by the intelligenceagencies of Pakistan and Bangladesh after the assasasination of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman in 1975. We are still struggling to cope with it.
23.One of the lessons of the post-World War history of State-Sponsored terrorism is that it never ends unless the guilty state is made to paya prohibitive price. STASI, the East German intelligence service, was behind much of the ideological terrorism in West Europe. The collapseof communism in East Germany and the end of STASI brought an end to this terrorism. The intelligence services of Libya and Syria werebehind much of the West Asian terrorism and the Carlos group, then living in Damascus, played a role in helping ideological groups in WestEurope. The US bombing of Libya in 1986, the strong US action against Syria, which was declared a State-sponsor of terrorism and againstthe Sudan, where Carlos shifted from Damascus, and the prosecution and jailing, under US pressure, of two Libyan intelligence officers fortheir complicity in the bombing of a Pan Am plane off Lockerbie on the Irish coast in 1988 brought an end to state-sponsorship of terrorismby Libya and Sudan. Syria has stopped sponsoring terrorism against the US, but continues to do so against Israel.
24.There are any number of UN resolutions and international declarations declaring state-sponsored terrorism as amounting to indirectaggression against the victim state. Unfortunately, there has been no political will in India to make Pakistan and Bangladesh pay a heavyprice for their sponsorship of terrorism against India. Once a firm decision based on a national consensus is taken that the time has cometo make Pakistan and Bangladesh pay a price, the question as to which organisation should do it and how will be sorted out. The problem isnot that we don't have an appropriate organisation, but we don't have the will to act against Pakistan and Bangladesh. Our policy of "kabigaram, kabi naram" towards these two countries is encouraging them not to change their ways.
25.We must take action instead of depending on the US or other members of the international community to do so. Every country isinterested in protecting the lives and property of only its own citizens. This is natural. It is the responsibility of the Government of India andthe States to protect the lives and property of our nationals. There are many good things we can learn from the Israelis such as theirpassion for up-to-date data bases, all their agencies countering terrorism acting as a single team without ego clashes, turf battles and thetendency to pass the buck, public support for their counter-terrorism agencies, high investments in research & development of newtechnologies for counter-terrorism etc. India has remained a nation of dogs that bark, but do not bite. We have seen it after Mumbai too. It istime we emulate Israel and become a nation of dogs that don't bark, but bite ferociously. At the same time, some methods employed byIsrael such as over-militarisation of counter-terrorism will prove counter-productive in a pluralistic, multi-religious state such as India. Wehave produced many good intelligence bureaucrats, but we have produced very few good intelligence professionals. Our counter-terrorismexperts tend to be over-simplistic and superficial in their expertise, are not innovative and try to deal with technology savvy modernterrorism with methods and thinking which are not equally modern. The terrorists operating in India tend to be more nodern and innovativein their thinking than the counter-terrorism agencies. Increasing their numbers and budgets alone will not produce results unless,simultaneously, there is also a change in their thinking and methods.
26. 2008 was not a totally gloomy year for India. There was gloom in the Indian hinterland. But,there was also sunshine in J &K for the firsttime in 19 years as seen from the spectacularly successful election held in the State in which over 50 per cent of the voters paricipateddefying threats and intimidation from the terrorists and calls for boycott from their political mentors. Let me quote some statistics given byKuldeep Khoda, the DG of Police of J&K, at a media conference on December 25,2008 ("The Hindu" of December 26,2008):
Terrorist violence showed a remarkable decline of 40 per cent in 2008 as compared to 2007.
Civilian deaths at the hands of the terrorists, which reached a peak of 1413 in 1996, came down to 164 in 2007 and only 89 in 2008.
48 political activists, including a Minister, were killed by terrorists during the 2002 election campaign . They could not kill a single political activist during this year's election campaign.
For the first time, 2008 witnessed the best ever performance of the police and the security forces on the human rights front. There was only one complaint of death in police custody, which is under investigation, and no complaint of disappearance from police custody.
27. At the same time, he warned against complacency and pointed out that there were still 800 trained terrorists----300 of them foreigners,mainly Pakistanis---- in the State waiting for an opportunity to step up terrorism.
28.There is terrorism fatigue in J&K as there was in Punjab when Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister. Rao was bold enough to lift thePresident's rule and hold the elections disregarding advice from senior bureaucrats not to do so. The elections in Punjab marked thebeginning of the people's alienation from the Khalistani terrorists. People in J&K are tired of violence and of the difficulties which they hadto face as a result of security measures for nearly 19 years. They want normalcy, but this need not mean the beginning of the end of theirfeelings of alienation.
29.The feelings of alienation will not end just because of the spectacularly successful elections. They will end only through meaningfulmeasures by the Govt. of India and the new Govt. headed by Omar Abdullah to address the legitimate grievances of the people and to fulfillsome of the past promises to give greater powers to the State--- almost near autonomy, if not total autonomy. The elections also show thatthe mainstream parties have retained their political base despite 19 years of terrorism---- much of it directed against them--- and that thepolitical base of the political mentors of the militancy such as the Hurriyat is as small as it always has been. Farooq Abdullah used todescribe them as mohalla leaders and not State leaders who are afraid of elections because they know that elections could expose theirlimited following. He is probably right.
30. While keeping our fingers crossed in J&K, we have reasons to be proud of what our intelligence agencies and the security forces haveachieved in J&K after 19 years of sustained and well-calibrated counter-terrorism. They are capable of achieving similar results in the Indianhinterland in 2009 if the systemic and individual deficiencies are identified and removed instead of being covered up,if they work in aco-ordinated and united manner as they did in J&K, if they receive the right political leadership, if Pakistan is made to pay a price for itssponsorship of jihadi terrorism and if we pay due to attention to the legitimate grievances of our Muslim co-citizens in hinterland Indiainstead of dismissing them off-hand as imaginary. Some of them are not. Some of our Muslim youth have real causes for anger against theIndian State and society. We must take note of them and address them. Otherwise, we will drive them into the hands of the ISI and the likesof the LET, the JEM and Al Qaeda. (31-12-08) Part II: Pakistan to follow
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For TopicalStudies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Monday, December 29, 2008
PASHTUNS AREN'T IRAQIS: TALIBAN'S MESSAGE TO GEN.PETRAEUS
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.486
B.RAMAN
Gen.David Petraeus, the Commander of the US Central Command, who previously headed the US forces in Iraq, was credited with bringing down the level of violence in Iraq and weakening the capability of Al Qaeda in Iraq by creating a divide between the secular Baathist Arabs of Saddam Hussein's army and local administration and the Wahabi Arabs of Al Qaeda by strengthening various local militias with names such as the Awakening Councils, which had come into existence even before he took over in Iraq.
2. When he was appointed by President George Bush to be the head of the Central Command, which, inter alia, is responsible for the US operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and in the bordering Pashtun areas of Pakistan, he was reported to have set up a brains trust to advise him on a new strategy to be followed against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. While the new strategy is still being worked out, some elements of it are already in the process of being implemented.
3. These include a planned surge in the US forces in Afghanistan in the coming months by inducting another 30,000 troops and the setting up of local militias, which would work on the pattern of the Awakening Councils in Iraq. Many Afghan observers have been expressing doubts whether Petraeus' ideas would work in Afghanistan. The Pashtun society---particularly in Afghanistan--- is different from the Iraqi society. Hatred of non-Muslim foreigners is very strong among the Pashtuns and the hatred of Pashtuns who are perceived as collaborating with non-Muslim foreigners is even stronger. Moreover, the Pashtuns look upon the Arabs of Al Qaeda, now operating from sanctuaries in the North Waziristan area of Pakistan's Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), as their honoured guests and as their co-religionists, who had helped them in driving out the Soviet troops in the 1980s and who are now helping them in their fight to drive out the Americans and other NATO forces.
4. These observers have been saying that the intensifying violence in Afghanistan and the inability of the US-led forces to control it are due to the sanctuaries available to Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban in Pakistani territory and the inability or relcutance of the Pakistan Army to destroy these sanctuaries. While the sanctuaries of Al Qaeda in North Waziristan and of the Taliban in South Waziristan are being repeatedly attacked by the unmanned Predator aircraft of the US intelligence community, those of the Taliban in the Quetta area of Balochistan have largely been left untouched with neither the Pakistan Army nor the American Predator aircraft targeting them. These observers are of the view that unless these sanctuaries are destroyed no amount of surge and local militias will help.
5. The current operations of the Pakistan Army in the Bajaur Agency of the FATA and the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) are mainly targeting the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which poses a threat to Pakistan and not the Afghan Taliban, headed by the Quetta-based Mulla Mohammad Omar, which the Pakistan Army continues to perceive as its strategic ally. While the Pakistan Army has reduced the scale of its operations in the Bajaur Agency and its presence in South Waziristan, where Baitullah Mehsud, the Amir of the TTP is based, in order to re-deploy the troops thus relieved on the Indian border particularly in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), its operations against the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), headed by Maulana Fazlullah, in the Swat Valley have not so far been reduced.
6. While the Mehsuds and the Ahmedzai Wazirs of South Waziristan, who were in the forefront of the Pakistani invasion of Kashmir in 1947-48 and in 1965, have informally agreed not to take advantage of the thinning out of the Pakistani forces in these areas, the Pakistan Army has not yet been able to reach a similar informal agreement with the TNSM, despite the fact that it is a component of the TTP. Moreover, the Pakistan Army is prepared to face the risk of a temporary dilution of the Pakistani writ in the Bajaur Agency and South Waziristan if the Mehsuds and the Ahmedzai Wazirs do not keep up their informal agreement not to create problems for the Army and the Frontier Corps.
7. It is not prepared to face a similar risk in the Swat Valley, which it sees as important for maintaining its writ in the NWFP. It is concerned over the recent increase in the activities of the Pakistani Taliban in Peshawar and is determined not to allow the TNSM undermine the Government position in the NWFP. The operations against the TNSM in the Swat Valley, which started in November,2007, have been continuing for over a year now without the Army and the Frontier Corps being able to make any headway in neutralising the TNSM. Even long before the Pakistan Army thinned out its presence in the FATA in the wake of the tensions with India after the terrorist attack by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET)----acting alone or in association with Al Qaeda--- in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008, it was facing difficulty in reinforcing its presence in the Swat Valley.
8. Gen.Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Pakistan's Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), borrowed some of the Iraqi ideas of Gen.Petraeus even before the latter assumed command of the US Central Command. He set up in some villages of the Swat Valley as well as the FATA people's militias called Lashkars, which were trained and armed to counter the Sunni forces of the TNSM and the Pakistani Taliban. A large number of Shia Pashtuns were recruited by Kayani into these Lashkars and they were given the task of countering the TNSM and the TTP. The Sunnis of the Pakistani Taliban retaliated with vigour against these Lashkars and killed a large number of them.
9.In October, 82 persons were killed and 241 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a grand Jirga held at Khadizai area of the predominantly Shia Alikhel sub-tribe of the Pashtuns. The Jirga was specially convened to form a tribal Lashkar against the Taliban.
10.Thirty-two people were killed and over 120 others injured in a blast just outside a Shia Imambargah called Alamdar in Koocha-e-Risaldar, located behind the historic Qissa Khwani Bazaar, in the Peshawar area on December 5,2008. A vehicle driven by a suicide bomber destroyed a multi-storey hotel, a girls’ school, and dozens of shops selling crockery and plastic-wares.
11.On December 7,2008, the Afghan Islamic Press disseminated a message purported to have been issued by Mulla Omar, which warned the US as follows in response to the reported new strategy of Petraeus without, however, naming him: “Today the world’s economy is facing growing risk from meltdown owing to the belligerent and expansionist policies of US. This has left its negative impact on the globe and it is the collective duty of all to work for a lasting peace in the world. You should understand that no puppet regime will ever stand up to the current resistance movement. Nor you will justify the occupation of the Islamic countries under the so-called slogan of rehabilitation anymore. Deployment of more troops (by the US) would lead to battles everywhere. The current armed clashes will spiral and your current casualties of hundreds will jack up to thousands.The US has imposed the war on the Afghan nation and the followers of the path of Islamic resistance will never abandon their legitimate struggle. The invading forces wrongly contemplate that they will be able to pit the Afghans against the mujahideen under the so-called label of tribal militias. No Afghan will play into the hands of the aliens and fight against his own brothers for worldly pleasure.”
12.On December 13,2008,Pir Samiullah, who had formed one of the Lashkars at the request of the Army, and eight of his followers were killed by the TNSM in Swat . The TNSM members captured over 50 AK-47 rifles with ammunition and two rocket launchers issued to the Lashkar by the Pakistan Army
13.Over 40 persons, many of them Shias, including two policemen and four children, were killed and 20 others injured when a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into a polling station set up in a school in Shalbandai village, located about six kilometres south of the Buner district headquarters, Daggar, on December 28,2008.The Swat chapter of the TTP has claimed responsibility for the attack.Speaking on the group’s illegal FM radio channel, TTP Swat chapter Deputy Head Maulana Shah Dauran said the bombing was in retaliation for the death of six TTP members gunned down in Shalbandai by a local Lashkar set up by the Army.He warned that the revenge wasn’t yet over and that every person in Shalbandai would be eliminated for killing the Taliban members.
14. In addition to stepping up the attacks on the Lashkars, the TTP has also embarked on a programme of disrupting the movement of supplies to the US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan from the Karachi port.About 150 containers go to Afghanistan from Karachi every day. A majority of these containers crosses the Torkham border in the NWFP into Afghanistan while others take the Chaman route in Balochistan. In addition to this, about 150 to 200 oil tankers transport fuel from Karachi to Afghanistan via Torkham every day.About 100 tankers carry fuel through the Chaman border post.Around 300 vehicles and containers have been burnt in six attacks since December 1. The TTP has projected these attacks as in retaliation for the Predator strikes on the TTP hide-outs in South Waziristan.
15. Concerned over the attacks, US and other NATO officials have reportedly been negotiating with the authorities of Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for alternate routes to reduce their dependence on the Pakistan route. Not only the TTP, even the religious political parties of Pakistan and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League are opposed to the movement of supplies to the NATO forces in Afghanistan through Pakistani territory.
16. The TTP, which has till now been attacking the trucks and tankers only after they reach Peshawar, has warned that if the Predator strikes do not stop it will start attacking the supplies everywhere in Pakistan. This would include at the Karachi port itself as the supplies are brought by ships. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Group (IMG), a splinter group of the IMU, are also likely to attack the supply convoys in Central Asia when the US starts using the alternate routes. (29-12-08)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
Gen.David Petraeus, the Commander of the US Central Command, who previously headed the US forces in Iraq, was credited with bringing down the level of violence in Iraq and weakening the capability of Al Qaeda in Iraq by creating a divide between the secular Baathist Arabs of Saddam Hussein's army and local administration and the Wahabi Arabs of Al Qaeda by strengthening various local militias with names such as the Awakening Councils, which had come into existence even before he took over in Iraq.
2. When he was appointed by President George Bush to be the head of the Central Command, which, inter alia, is responsible for the US operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and in the bordering Pashtun areas of Pakistan, he was reported to have set up a brains trust to advise him on a new strategy to be followed against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. While the new strategy is still being worked out, some elements of it are already in the process of being implemented.
3. These include a planned surge in the US forces in Afghanistan in the coming months by inducting another 30,000 troops and the setting up of local militias, which would work on the pattern of the Awakening Councils in Iraq. Many Afghan observers have been expressing doubts whether Petraeus' ideas would work in Afghanistan. The Pashtun society---particularly in Afghanistan--- is different from the Iraqi society. Hatred of non-Muslim foreigners is very strong among the Pashtuns and the hatred of Pashtuns who are perceived as collaborating with non-Muslim foreigners is even stronger. Moreover, the Pashtuns look upon the Arabs of Al Qaeda, now operating from sanctuaries in the North Waziristan area of Pakistan's Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), as their honoured guests and as their co-religionists, who had helped them in driving out the Soviet troops in the 1980s and who are now helping them in their fight to drive out the Americans and other NATO forces.
4. These observers have been saying that the intensifying violence in Afghanistan and the inability of the US-led forces to control it are due to the sanctuaries available to Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban in Pakistani territory and the inability or relcutance of the Pakistan Army to destroy these sanctuaries. While the sanctuaries of Al Qaeda in North Waziristan and of the Taliban in South Waziristan are being repeatedly attacked by the unmanned Predator aircraft of the US intelligence community, those of the Taliban in the Quetta area of Balochistan have largely been left untouched with neither the Pakistan Army nor the American Predator aircraft targeting them. These observers are of the view that unless these sanctuaries are destroyed no amount of surge and local militias will help.
5. The current operations of the Pakistan Army in the Bajaur Agency of the FATA and the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) are mainly targeting the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which poses a threat to Pakistan and not the Afghan Taliban, headed by the Quetta-based Mulla Mohammad Omar, which the Pakistan Army continues to perceive as its strategic ally. While the Pakistan Army has reduced the scale of its operations in the Bajaur Agency and its presence in South Waziristan, where Baitullah Mehsud, the Amir of the TTP is based, in order to re-deploy the troops thus relieved on the Indian border particularly in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), its operations against the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), headed by Maulana Fazlullah, in the Swat Valley have not so far been reduced.
6. While the Mehsuds and the Ahmedzai Wazirs of South Waziristan, who were in the forefront of the Pakistani invasion of Kashmir in 1947-48 and in 1965, have informally agreed not to take advantage of the thinning out of the Pakistani forces in these areas, the Pakistan Army has not yet been able to reach a similar informal agreement with the TNSM, despite the fact that it is a component of the TTP. Moreover, the Pakistan Army is prepared to face the risk of a temporary dilution of the Pakistani writ in the Bajaur Agency and South Waziristan if the Mehsuds and the Ahmedzai Wazirs do not keep up their informal agreement not to create problems for the Army and the Frontier Corps.
7. It is not prepared to face a similar risk in the Swat Valley, which it sees as important for maintaining its writ in the NWFP. It is concerned over the recent increase in the activities of the Pakistani Taliban in Peshawar and is determined not to allow the TNSM undermine the Government position in the NWFP. The operations against the TNSM in the Swat Valley, which started in November,2007, have been continuing for over a year now without the Army and the Frontier Corps being able to make any headway in neutralising the TNSM. Even long before the Pakistan Army thinned out its presence in the FATA in the wake of the tensions with India after the terrorist attack by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET)----acting alone or in association with Al Qaeda--- in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008, it was facing difficulty in reinforcing its presence in the Swat Valley.
8. Gen.Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Pakistan's Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), borrowed some of the Iraqi ideas of Gen.Petraeus even before the latter assumed command of the US Central Command. He set up in some villages of the Swat Valley as well as the FATA people's militias called Lashkars, which were trained and armed to counter the Sunni forces of the TNSM and the Pakistani Taliban. A large number of Shia Pashtuns were recruited by Kayani into these Lashkars and they were given the task of countering the TNSM and the TTP. The Sunnis of the Pakistani Taliban retaliated with vigour against these Lashkars and killed a large number of them.
9.In October, 82 persons were killed and 241 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a grand Jirga held at Khadizai area of the predominantly Shia Alikhel sub-tribe of the Pashtuns. The Jirga was specially convened to form a tribal Lashkar against the Taliban.
10.Thirty-two people were killed and over 120 others injured in a blast just outside a Shia Imambargah called Alamdar in Koocha-e-Risaldar, located behind the historic Qissa Khwani Bazaar, in the Peshawar area on December 5,2008. A vehicle driven by a suicide bomber destroyed a multi-storey hotel, a girls’ school, and dozens of shops selling crockery and plastic-wares.
11.On December 7,2008, the Afghan Islamic Press disseminated a message purported to have been issued by Mulla Omar, which warned the US as follows in response to the reported new strategy of Petraeus without, however, naming him: “Today the world’s economy is facing growing risk from meltdown owing to the belligerent and expansionist policies of US. This has left its negative impact on the globe and it is the collective duty of all to work for a lasting peace in the world. You should understand that no puppet regime will ever stand up to the current resistance movement. Nor you will justify the occupation of the Islamic countries under the so-called slogan of rehabilitation anymore. Deployment of more troops (by the US) would lead to battles everywhere. The current armed clashes will spiral and your current casualties of hundreds will jack up to thousands.The US has imposed the war on the Afghan nation and the followers of the path of Islamic resistance will never abandon their legitimate struggle. The invading forces wrongly contemplate that they will be able to pit the Afghans against the mujahideen under the so-called label of tribal militias. No Afghan will play into the hands of the aliens and fight against his own brothers for worldly pleasure.”
12.On December 13,2008,Pir Samiullah, who had formed one of the Lashkars at the request of the Army, and eight of his followers were killed by the TNSM in Swat . The TNSM members captured over 50 AK-47 rifles with ammunition and two rocket launchers issued to the Lashkar by the Pakistan Army
13.Over 40 persons, many of them Shias, including two policemen and four children, were killed and 20 others injured when a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into a polling station set up in a school in Shalbandai village, located about six kilometres south of the Buner district headquarters, Daggar, on December 28,2008.The Swat chapter of the TTP has claimed responsibility for the attack.Speaking on the group’s illegal FM radio channel, TTP Swat chapter Deputy Head Maulana Shah Dauran said the bombing was in retaliation for the death of six TTP members gunned down in Shalbandai by a local Lashkar set up by the Army.He warned that the revenge wasn’t yet over and that every person in Shalbandai would be eliminated for killing the Taliban members.
14. In addition to stepping up the attacks on the Lashkars, the TTP has also embarked on a programme of disrupting the movement of supplies to the US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan from the Karachi port.About 150 containers go to Afghanistan from Karachi every day. A majority of these containers crosses the Torkham border in the NWFP into Afghanistan while others take the Chaman route in Balochistan. In addition to this, about 150 to 200 oil tankers transport fuel from Karachi to Afghanistan via Torkham every day.About 100 tankers carry fuel through the Chaman border post.Around 300 vehicles and containers have been burnt in six attacks since December 1. The TTP has projected these attacks as in retaliation for the Predator strikes on the TTP hide-outs in South Waziristan.
15. Concerned over the attacks, US and other NATO officials have reportedly been negotiating with the authorities of Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for alternate routes to reduce their dependence on the Pakistan route. Not only the TTP, even the religious political parties of Pakistan and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League are opposed to the movement of supplies to the NATO forces in Afghanistan through Pakistani territory.
16. The TTP, which has till now been attacking the trucks and tankers only after they reach Peshawar, has warned that if the Predator strikes do not stop it will start attacking the supplies everywhere in Pakistan. This would include at the Karachi port itself as the supplies are brought by ships. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Group (IMG), a splinter group of the IMU, are also likely to attack the supply convoys in Central Asia when the US starts using the alternate routes. (29-12-08)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Saturday, December 27, 2008
HOW UNPROFESSIONAL WE CAN BE!
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO. 485
B.RAMAN
On May 1, 1960, the Soviet security forces shot down a U-2 spy plane of the US intelligence, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, as it was flying stealthily across the Soviet Union from Peshawar to Helsinki. The pilot parachuted into Soviet territory, was captured alive by the Soviet intelligence and interrogated. The KGB, the Soviet intelligence agency, did not announce for seven days that he had been captured alive. They gave the impression that he was dead.
2.Presuming that he must have died, the administration of Dwight Eisenhower, the then US President, made a number of contradictory statements about its responsibility for violating the Soviet air space. Powers, during his interrogation, made a total confession of his role and of the previous US spy flights over Soviet territory. After the interrogation had been completed, the Soviet authorities announced that he had been captured alive and released details of his confession. The US Government was put in an embarrassing position and admitted that it had been sending spy flights over the Soviet Union.
3. On May 7, 1960, Nikita Khrushchev, the then Soviet Prime Minister, told the world: “I must tell you a secret. When I made my first report I deliberately did not say that the pilot was alive and well… and now just look how many silly things [the Americans] have said.” Not only was Powers still alive, but his plane was also more or less intact, including much of its spy equipment.
4. After the Mumbai blasts of March,1993, Narasimha Rao, the then Prime Minister, issued strict instructions that no one should disclose details of the investigation to the media. Two groups were set up at New Delhi and Mumbai. They met every day to review the progress of the investigation and decide how much should be disclosed to the media and what should not be disclosed. Instructions were issued that except the Commissioner of Police of Mumbai, no other officer should talk to the media. Even he held a daily collective briefing of the media as a whole and avoided one-to-one briefings to any individual journalist. In August 1994---- 17 months after the blasts---- after the arrest of one of the key perpetrators, Shri K.Padmanabiah, the then Home Secretary, held a press conference at New Delhi to collectively brief the media on the role of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the explosions.
5. Since the US started its Operation Enduring Freedom against Al Qaeda and the Taliban on October 7,2001, it has captured a number of senior operatives of Al Qaeda in Pakistani territory---Abu Zubaidah in Faislabad in Pakistani Punjab, Ramzi Binalshib in Karachi, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) in Rawalpindi, Abu-Faraj al-Libi in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), to cite some of them. It also captured Hambali of the Jemmah Islamiyah, with the help of the Thai authorities at Ayuthya in Thailand. All of them were taken to either Diego Garcia or Bagram in Afghanistan or the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba for interrogation.
6. Till now, the details of their interrogation have not been released to the media by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Only sanitized summaries were released to the media after they were indicted before a military tribunal. Mariam, the widow of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, was reportedly briefed in confidence by the FBI about what KSM had stated about his role in the kidnapping and murder of her husband.
7. This is professionalism. When I joined the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in 1967, I was taught in the training institute about the importance of keeping secret the details of the statements made by suspects during their interrogation till the case reached the stage of prosecution. If the details came out in the media, that would benefit the terrorist organization to which the suspect belonged. If the terrorist act was sponsored by a State, it would be able to cover up its tracks.
8. In recent years, we have been seeing the disturbing and highly unprofessional practice of intelligence and police officers giving to the media even before the investigation is complete, the details of the statements being made by suspects during the interrogation. In fact, they even give to their journalistic contacts a virtual running commentary of the interrogation. They do not seem to realize the damage which they are causing to the fight against terrorism by doing so.
9. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and other foreign intelligence agencies do not even have to develop sources in our intelligence agencies and the police for getting details of interrogation reports and the line of investigation being followed by the police and the intelligence agencies. They just have to identify such privileged journalists, closely follow their reports and, if need be, cultivate them.
10. This often creates ridiculous situations such as in the case of Mohammad Ajmal Amir Imam, the Pakistani member of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), who is presently under interrogation by the Mumbai Police on his role in the terrorist attack by the LET in Mumbai on November 26-29,2008. We have been rightly refusing to share the details of his interrogation with the Pakistani authorities on the ground that it will be premature to do so and that sharing the details at this stage with the Pakistani authorities might enable the LET and the ISI to cover up their tracks.
11. And here are the officers of the Mumbai Police and the intelligence community sharing all the details with some privileged journalists without realizing the damage to the investigation and our fight against terrorism that could be caused by almost daily disclosures. This could also damage our credibility and cast doubts about our professionalism.
12.What was the need for the investigating officers to tell the journalists about the place where the surviving LET terrorist was being detained and where he is going to be transferred next? Don’t they realise that such information would be useful to the LET and the ISI if they want to mount an operation to rescue or eliminate him? What was the need for the journalists to find out such sensitive details and disseminate them in the media? After the serial explosions in Ahmedabad in July, we saw some private TV channels giving details of the hospitals where the injured victims were being admitted. There was a vehicular bomb explosion in one of these hospitals.
13. As I have repeated many times before, it is important for the investigating officers to keep an open mind in the initial stages of the investigation and avoid coming out with categorical conclusions, which may be proved wrong by evidence collected subsequently. This is a rule of prudence to safeguard the credibility of the investigation process. Here we find everybody in Mumbai and Delhi coming out with categorical statements without the least doubts in their minds about the validity of their statements
14. The sequel to the Mumbai attack has been handled in an unprofessional manner not only by the Mumbai Police and the intelligence agencies, but also by the policy makers---political and professional--- of the Government of India. In our understandable anxiety to nail the State of Pakistan, we have been following a strategy, which lacks lucidity and coherence.
15. Our immediate objective should have been to prepare a well-written and well-collated dossier with evidence already collected, which do not require further independent corroboration and share it with other countries, particularly those whose nationals were killed by the terrorists. Among such pieces of evidence one could mention the intercepts of the IB and the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) and the reports of the US intelligence in September about the plans of the LET to mount a sea-borne act of terrorism in Mumbai targeting some hotels, including the Taj Mahal hotel, the visuals from the closed circuit TV cameras installed in the railway station and the hotels, the reports carried by the “Observer” of the UK, the GeoTV and the “Dawn” of Pakistan identifying the surviving terrorist as a Pakistani national and usable extracts from the interrogation of the surviving terrorist which could be used in our diplomatic campaign without compromising the chances of a successful prosecution.
16. We should have also disseminated such a dossier to the Pakistani public and political leaders, who are well-disposed towards India. At the height of the Kargil conflict, the R&AW intercepted the telephone conversations of Gen.Pervez Musharraf, then on a visit to Beijing, with Lt.Gen.Mohammad Aziz, his Chief of the General Staff. The intercepted conversations showed that it was the Pakistan Army which had intruded into Indian territory and not the jihadis as claimed by the Army and that Musharraf had not kept Nawaz Sharif, his Prime Minister, and many other senior officers in the Army, the Air Force and the Navy in the picture about his operation to capture the Kargil heights. The Government of India not only released the transcripts of the conversations to the public and the international community in order to show the perfidy of Musharraf, but also shared them with selected Pakistani political leaders, including Nawaz Sharif himself, in order to make them realise what kind of an officer they had as the Chief of the Army Staff.
17. The Western countries and Israel have taken a serious note of the Mumbai attack and are doing their own independent investigation not because Indians were killed, but because their own nationals were killed----with the Jewish victims being subjected to inhuman brutality by the terrorists. They suspect that the targeting of nationals from countries----the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada--- which are participating in the war against terrorism in Afghanistan indicates that it was possibly an Al Qaeda inspired operation, if not a joint operation by the LET and Al Qaeda. If these suspicions prove to be correct, this will show that the ISI has been using the LET as well as Al Qaeda against India. It would also show that while pretending to co-operate with the US against Al Qaeda in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the ISI has been using Al Qaeda elements against India. This is an aspect which has to be kept in view during the investigation instead of viewing the attack as a totally LET-mounted operation with the help of the ISI.
18. By now, we should have put on a specially created web site the personal particulars of suspects involved in the Mumbai attack and announced a cash reward of Rs. 50 million each, if not more, to anyone giving information which could lead to their arrest or elimination. A safe line of communication should have been indicated in the web site which could be used by the potential informers to get in touch with the right person in the investigation agencies.
19. The investigation into the Ahmedabad blasts of July and the Mumbai terrorist attack have brought out that the interrogation reports of some suspects arrested in February, 2008, contained possible clues to future terrorist strikes. These interrogation reports were not systematically followed up. It is likely that dozens of other interrogation reports lie unread, unanalyzed and unacted upon in the archives of the Police in different States. The Government should ask a group of serving officers to go through all interrogation reports of the last three years in order to see whether they too contained similar clues about the future. (28-12-08)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Tropical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
On May 1, 1960, the Soviet security forces shot down a U-2 spy plane of the US intelligence, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, as it was flying stealthily across the Soviet Union from Peshawar to Helsinki. The pilot parachuted into Soviet territory, was captured alive by the Soviet intelligence and interrogated. The KGB, the Soviet intelligence agency, did not announce for seven days that he had been captured alive. They gave the impression that he was dead.
2.Presuming that he must have died, the administration of Dwight Eisenhower, the then US President, made a number of contradictory statements about its responsibility for violating the Soviet air space. Powers, during his interrogation, made a total confession of his role and of the previous US spy flights over Soviet territory. After the interrogation had been completed, the Soviet authorities announced that he had been captured alive and released details of his confession. The US Government was put in an embarrassing position and admitted that it had been sending spy flights over the Soviet Union.
3. On May 7, 1960, Nikita Khrushchev, the then Soviet Prime Minister, told the world: “I must tell you a secret. When I made my first report I deliberately did not say that the pilot was alive and well… and now just look how many silly things [the Americans] have said.” Not only was Powers still alive, but his plane was also more or less intact, including much of its spy equipment.
4. After the Mumbai blasts of March,1993, Narasimha Rao, the then Prime Minister, issued strict instructions that no one should disclose details of the investigation to the media. Two groups were set up at New Delhi and Mumbai. They met every day to review the progress of the investigation and decide how much should be disclosed to the media and what should not be disclosed. Instructions were issued that except the Commissioner of Police of Mumbai, no other officer should talk to the media. Even he held a daily collective briefing of the media as a whole and avoided one-to-one briefings to any individual journalist. In August 1994---- 17 months after the blasts---- after the arrest of one of the key perpetrators, Shri K.Padmanabiah, the then Home Secretary, held a press conference at New Delhi to collectively brief the media on the role of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the explosions.
5. Since the US started its Operation Enduring Freedom against Al Qaeda and the Taliban on October 7,2001, it has captured a number of senior operatives of Al Qaeda in Pakistani territory---Abu Zubaidah in Faislabad in Pakistani Punjab, Ramzi Binalshib in Karachi, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) in Rawalpindi, Abu-Faraj al-Libi in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), to cite some of them. It also captured Hambali of the Jemmah Islamiyah, with the help of the Thai authorities at Ayuthya in Thailand. All of them were taken to either Diego Garcia or Bagram in Afghanistan or the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba for interrogation.
6. Till now, the details of their interrogation have not been released to the media by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Only sanitized summaries were released to the media after they were indicted before a military tribunal. Mariam, the widow of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, was reportedly briefed in confidence by the FBI about what KSM had stated about his role in the kidnapping and murder of her husband.
7. This is professionalism. When I joined the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in 1967, I was taught in the training institute about the importance of keeping secret the details of the statements made by suspects during their interrogation till the case reached the stage of prosecution. If the details came out in the media, that would benefit the terrorist organization to which the suspect belonged. If the terrorist act was sponsored by a State, it would be able to cover up its tracks.
8. In recent years, we have been seeing the disturbing and highly unprofessional practice of intelligence and police officers giving to the media even before the investigation is complete, the details of the statements being made by suspects during the interrogation. In fact, they even give to their journalistic contacts a virtual running commentary of the interrogation. They do not seem to realize the damage which they are causing to the fight against terrorism by doing so.
9. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and other foreign intelligence agencies do not even have to develop sources in our intelligence agencies and the police for getting details of interrogation reports and the line of investigation being followed by the police and the intelligence agencies. They just have to identify such privileged journalists, closely follow their reports and, if need be, cultivate them.
10. This often creates ridiculous situations such as in the case of Mohammad Ajmal Amir Imam, the Pakistani member of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), who is presently under interrogation by the Mumbai Police on his role in the terrorist attack by the LET in Mumbai on November 26-29,2008. We have been rightly refusing to share the details of his interrogation with the Pakistani authorities on the ground that it will be premature to do so and that sharing the details at this stage with the Pakistani authorities might enable the LET and the ISI to cover up their tracks.
11. And here are the officers of the Mumbai Police and the intelligence community sharing all the details with some privileged journalists without realizing the damage to the investigation and our fight against terrorism that could be caused by almost daily disclosures. This could also damage our credibility and cast doubts about our professionalism.
12.What was the need for the investigating officers to tell the journalists about the place where the surviving LET terrorist was being detained and where he is going to be transferred next? Don’t they realise that such information would be useful to the LET and the ISI if they want to mount an operation to rescue or eliminate him? What was the need for the journalists to find out such sensitive details and disseminate them in the media? After the serial explosions in Ahmedabad in July, we saw some private TV channels giving details of the hospitals where the injured victims were being admitted. There was a vehicular bomb explosion in one of these hospitals.
13. As I have repeated many times before, it is important for the investigating officers to keep an open mind in the initial stages of the investigation and avoid coming out with categorical conclusions, which may be proved wrong by evidence collected subsequently. This is a rule of prudence to safeguard the credibility of the investigation process. Here we find everybody in Mumbai and Delhi coming out with categorical statements without the least doubts in their minds about the validity of their statements
14. The sequel to the Mumbai attack has been handled in an unprofessional manner not only by the Mumbai Police and the intelligence agencies, but also by the policy makers---political and professional--- of the Government of India. In our understandable anxiety to nail the State of Pakistan, we have been following a strategy, which lacks lucidity and coherence.
15. Our immediate objective should have been to prepare a well-written and well-collated dossier with evidence already collected, which do not require further independent corroboration and share it with other countries, particularly those whose nationals were killed by the terrorists. Among such pieces of evidence one could mention the intercepts of the IB and the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) and the reports of the US intelligence in September about the plans of the LET to mount a sea-borne act of terrorism in Mumbai targeting some hotels, including the Taj Mahal hotel, the visuals from the closed circuit TV cameras installed in the railway station and the hotels, the reports carried by the “Observer” of the UK, the GeoTV and the “Dawn” of Pakistan identifying the surviving terrorist as a Pakistani national and usable extracts from the interrogation of the surviving terrorist which could be used in our diplomatic campaign without compromising the chances of a successful prosecution.
16. We should have also disseminated such a dossier to the Pakistani public and political leaders, who are well-disposed towards India. At the height of the Kargil conflict, the R&AW intercepted the telephone conversations of Gen.Pervez Musharraf, then on a visit to Beijing, with Lt.Gen.Mohammad Aziz, his Chief of the General Staff. The intercepted conversations showed that it was the Pakistan Army which had intruded into Indian territory and not the jihadis as claimed by the Army and that Musharraf had not kept Nawaz Sharif, his Prime Minister, and many other senior officers in the Army, the Air Force and the Navy in the picture about his operation to capture the Kargil heights. The Government of India not only released the transcripts of the conversations to the public and the international community in order to show the perfidy of Musharraf, but also shared them with selected Pakistani political leaders, including Nawaz Sharif himself, in order to make them realise what kind of an officer they had as the Chief of the Army Staff.
17. The Western countries and Israel have taken a serious note of the Mumbai attack and are doing their own independent investigation not because Indians were killed, but because their own nationals were killed----with the Jewish victims being subjected to inhuman brutality by the terrorists. They suspect that the targeting of nationals from countries----the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada--- which are participating in the war against terrorism in Afghanistan indicates that it was possibly an Al Qaeda inspired operation, if not a joint operation by the LET and Al Qaeda. If these suspicions prove to be correct, this will show that the ISI has been using the LET as well as Al Qaeda against India. It would also show that while pretending to co-operate with the US against Al Qaeda in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the ISI has been using Al Qaeda elements against India. This is an aspect which has to be kept in view during the investigation instead of viewing the attack as a totally LET-mounted operation with the help of the ISI.
18. By now, we should have put on a specially created web site the personal particulars of suspects involved in the Mumbai attack and announced a cash reward of Rs. 50 million each, if not more, to anyone giving information which could lead to their arrest or elimination. A safe line of communication should have been indicated in the web site which could be used by the potential informers to get in touch with the right person in the investigation agencies.
19. The investigation into the Ahmedabad blasts of July and the Mumbai terrorist attack have brought out that the interrogation reports of some suspects arrested in February, 2008, contained possible clues to future terrorist strikes. These interrogation reports were not systematically followed up. It is likely that dozens of other interrogation reports lie unread, unanalyzed and unacted upon in the archives of the Police in different States. The Government should ask a group of serving officers to go through all interrogation reports of the last three years in order to see whether they too contained similar clues about the future. (28-12-08)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Tropical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Friday, December 26, 2008
INDIA & TERRORISM: Q & A
B.RAMAN
(' India Today", the weekly published from New Delhi had forwarded some questions from its readers for my comments. Their questions and my answers are reproduced below)
QUESION NO.1
Terrorism is not a new threat. One man's terrorist is another man's soldier. It is a sorry excuse, but that is what is happening. Why don't we have a special agency to counter such threats and attacks and do we need another Mumbai to happen before we really wake up?
ANSWER:
Terrorism is a highly politicised crime. That is why there is no international consensus on what is terrorism. This enables states like Pakistan, which use terrorism, to escape the consequences of their sponsoring and using terrorism to achieve their strategic objective. I have been arguing in many national and international conferences since 2004 that instead of trying to define terrorism, we must define what is an act of terrorism and then designate organisations, which indulge in such acts, as terrorist organisations and States, which support them, as State-sponsors of terrorism. Unfortunately, there has not been much support for my view----not even in India..
India has been a victim of indigenous terrorism without external sponsorship as well as terrorism externally sponsored----from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Before 1979, we were also victims of tribal insurgencies in the North-East supported by China, which is no longer supporting them after 1979. One of the reasons why Indira Gandhi decided to support the independence movement in the then East Pakistan was because the ISI was giving sanctuaries to the terrorists and insurgents in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) from where threy were operating in North-East India. The creation of Bangladesh ended this sponsorship in 1971, but it was revived by the intelligence agencies of Pakistan and Bangladesh after the assasasination of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman in 1975. We are still struggling to cope with it.
One of the lessons of the post-World War history of State-Sponsored terrorism is that it never ends unless the guilty state is made to pay a prohibitive price. STASI, the East German intelligence service, was behind much of the ideological terrorism in West Europe. The collapse of communism in East Germany and the end of STASI brought an end to this terrorism. The intelligence services of Libya and Syria were behind much of the West Asian terrorism and the Carlos group, then living in Damascus, played a role in helping ideological groups in West Europe. The US bombing of Libya in 1986, the strong US action against Syria, which was declared a State-sponsor of terrorism, and against the Sudan, where Carlos shifted from Damascus, and the prosecution and jailing, under US pressure, of two Libyan intelligence officers for their complicity in the bombing of a Pan Am plane off Lockerbie on the Irish coast in 1988 brought an end to state-sponsorship of terrorism by Libya and Sudan. Syria has stopped sponsoring terrorism against the US, but continues to do so against Israel.
There are any number of UN resolutions and international declarationas declaring state-sponsored terrorism as amounting to indirect aggression against the victim state. Unfortunately, there has been no political will in India to make Pakistan and Bangladesh pay a heavy price for their sponsorship of terrorism against India. Once a firm decision based on a national consensus is taken that the time has come to make Pakistan and Bangladesh pay a price, the question as to which organisation should do it and how will be sorted out. The problem is not that we don't have an appropriate organisation, but we don't have the will to act against Pakistan and Bangladesh. Our policy of "kabi garam, kabi naram" (Sometimes hot, sometimes soft) towards these two countries is encouraging them not to change their ways.
QUESTION No.2:
Cannot a terrorist be attacked with a capsule, instead of a bullet, having substance like anesthesia inside it, that can burst and release the gas within a specified area (i.e.,surrounding that target) when hit on a target so as to make a person unconscious immediately (within its influence). This will help in nabbing the terrorist alive. 2) Cannot RDX (or any other such substance) sensor be developed and placed in places like car parking, etc. Alarm/siren can be set when someone places such substances in that area.
ANSWER
Some years ago, when the Chechen terrorists raided a Moscow theatre and took all the spectators hostages, the Russian counter-terrorism agencies reportedly had a gas piped into the theatre through the central heating system, in order to disorient the terrorists and weaken their reflexes. They then raided the theatre, killed the terrorists and freed the hostages. Many hostages were also killed ---- some due to their intolerance to the gas and some in the exchange of firing. Vladimir Putin, the then Russian President, strongly defended the counter-terrorism agencies from criticism from human rights organisations, for using such unconventional methods. In India, counter-terrorism agencies are not even thinking of such new ways because they do not have the confidence that the Government and the public will support them if there are civilian fatalities as a result of the methods used by them. They, therefore, continue to use conventional methods.
We must do a thorough post-mortem of how we dealt with the terrorists in the Taj Mahal Hotel, the Oberoi/Trident Hotels and in the Narriman House in order to see how effective were the methods used and whether we could use new methods in future. Unless we do such exercises, we will never improve our methods of dealing with terrorism. Unfortunately, our culture is against enquiries due to a mistaken fear that enquiries could demoralise the counter-terrorism community. This is totally wrong.
Over the years, the terrorists all over the world have been shifting to improvised explosive devices (IEDs). They are using less and less sophisticated explosives such as RDX and more and more ordinarily available and easily procurable substances such as nitrogenous fertilisers, some cosmetics items of women etc for fabricating IEDs. In 1993, fertilisers were used for bombing the New York World Trade Centre by an international jihadi group. Other terrorists started emulating it. Following this, most counter-terrorism agencies in the world have prescribed a permit system for farmers and kitchen-gardeners needing fertilisers. Shops selling fertilisers are required to report suspicious purchases.They have also persuaded fertiliser manufacturers to reduce the nitrogen content so that the fertiliser cannot be used as an explosive.Even though fertilisers are being increasingly used by terrorists in India for the last five years, we have not yet taken any effective action against the misuse of fertilisers. However, we are now following Western restrictions against women carrying certain cosmetic items on board aircraft.
Anti-explosives check----whether against RDX or other explosives--- is very weak in India. We cannot afford to have costly anti-explosives check in every public place, but we must identify vulnerable areas where such checks must be there, whatever be the expenses.
QUESTION No.3:
Why we wait our neighbour to take action against the terrorist, who are their own children and nourished by that government only? Why can't we take lessons from Israel's MOSAD when we know who are the culprits?
ANSWER:
I totally agree with you that we must take action instead of depending on the US or other members of the international community to do so. Every country is interested in protecting the lives and property of only its own citizens. This is natural. It is the responsibility of the Government of India and the States to protect the lives and property of our nationals. There are many good things we can learn from the Isrelis such as their passion for up-to-date data bases, all their agencies countering terrorism acting as a single team without ego clashes, turf battles and the tendency to pass the buck, public support for their counter-terrorism agencies, high investments in research & development of new technologies for counter-terrorism etc. At the same time, some other methods employed by them such as over-militarisation of counter-terrorism will prove counter-productive in a pluralistic, multi-religious state such as India. We have produced many good intelligence bureaucrats, but we have produced very few good intelligence professionals. Our counter-terrorism experts tend to be over-simplistic and superficial in their expertise, are not innovative and try to deal with technology savvy modern terrorism with methods and thinking which are not equally modern. The terrorists in India tend to be more nodern and innovative in their thinking than the counter-terrorism agencies,. Increasing their numbers and budgets alone will not produce results unless, simultaneously, there is also a change in their thinking and methods.
QUESTION No.4:
Pakistan has refused to hand over any of the 20 wanted terrorists. Is RAW capable enough in terms of it's assets inside Pakistan and otherwise, so as to carry out extraction of any such individuals? Besides, is RAW well informed regarding the Pakistani establishments and tribal militant outfits functioning in Pakistan, as informed well enough to take them down? Is it true that RAW assets have deteriorated in Pakistan in the last 2 decades or so?
ANSWER:
For understandable reasons, I will avoid specific answers. Over the years, there has been a general deterioration in the performance of the R&AW due to frictions among senior officers, the resulting ego clashes inside the organisation, decline in professionalism, increase in carrerism etc. It has produced very few counter-terrorism experts. Its investments in building data-bases and research and development of modern counter-terrorism technologies is very little. Over-secrecy comes in the way of active interaction with the world of science and technology and IT experts. The continued adherence to the principle of promotion on the basis of seniority with professionalism and competence playing a very limited role has led to its becoming a mediocre organisation. When it was formed in September 1968, Indira Gandhi had declared the post of the head of the organisation as an ex-cadre post----- meaning the Prime Minister can bring any competent person as the head----irrespective of seniority or whether he is an insider or outsider. This provision has been used twice----once by A.B.Vajpayee and the second time by Dr.Manmohan Singh--- to bring outsiders as the head when they felt that the organisation had no insider competent enough to be its head. There is an urgent need to induct more counter-terrorism experts from the Intelligence Bureau, the State Police and the Army into the R&AW and make one of them the chief. Indira Gandhi had wanted the R&AW---like the MOSSAD of Israel and the CIA of the US--- to be an intelligence collection agency as well as an action-oriented agency. Since 1997, it has become a purely intelligence collection agency. It has very little capability for action. This state of affairs has to be reversed.
QUESTION NO.5:
Why can not we launch covert operations in Pakistan by using the Afghan base? We have heard ARC has the capability to take pictures of anything having 3 ft or more dimension. Why can't we track down Dawood and Masood Azhars and teach them a lesson?
ANSWER:
No comments for understandable reasons.
QUESTION No 6:
Do we have right to file the case against Pakistan in international court ? The court should impose the heavy penalty on Pakistan so that next time, they will take care.
ANSWER:
We have the right, but nothing will come out of it. The US had two Libyan intelligence officers tried by an international court and sentenced to life imprisonment. They were jailed for their role in blowing up the Pan Am plane in 1988. It also forced Libya to pay huge compensation to the relatives of all the passengers of the plane who were killed. India does not have that kind of international clout.
(' India Today", the weekly published from New Delhi had forwarded some questions from its readers for my comments. Their questions and my answers are reproduced below)
QUESION NO.1
Terrorism is not a new threat. One man's terrorist is another man's soldier. It is a sorry excuse, but that is what is happening. Why don't we have a special agency to counter such threats and attacks and do we need another Mumbai to happen before we really wake up?
ANSWER:
Terrorism is a highly politicised crime. That is why there is no international consensus on what is terrorism. This enables states like Pakistan, which use terrorism, to escape the consequences of their sponsoring and using terrorism to achieve their strategic objective. I have been arguing in many national and international conferences since 2004 that instead of trying to define terrorism, we must define what is an act of terrorism and then designate organisations, which indulge in such acts, as terrorist organisations and States, which support them, as State-sponsors of terrorism. Unfortunately, there has not been much support for my view----not even in India..
India has been a victim of indigenous terrorism without external sponsorship as well as terrorism externally sponsored----from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Before 1979, we were also victims of tribal insurgencies in the North-East supported by China, which is no longer supporting them after 1979. One of the reasons why Indira Gandhi decided to support the independence movement in the then East Pakistan was because the ISI was giving sanctuaries to the terrorists and insurgents in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) from where threy were operating in North-East India. The creation of Bangladesh ended this sponsorship in 1971, but it was revived by the intelligence agencies of Pakistan and Bangladesh after the assasasination of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman in 1975. We are still struggling to cope with it.
One of the lessons of the post-World War history of State-Sponsored terrorism is that it never ends unless the guilty state is made to pay a prohibitive price. STASI, the East German intelligence service, was behind much of the ideological terrorism in West Europe. The collapse of communism in East Germany and the end of STASI brought an end to this terrorism. The intelligence services of Libya and Syria were behind much of the West Asian terrorism and the Carlos group, then living in Damascus, played a role in helping ideological groups in West Europe. The US bombing of Libya in 1986, the strong US action against Syria, which was declared a State-sponsor of terrorism, and against the Sudan, where Carlos shifted from Damascus, and the prosecution and jailing, under US pressure, of two Libyan intelligence officers for their complicity in the bombing of a Pan Am plane off Lockerbie on the Irish coast in 1988 brought an end to state-sponsorship of terrorism by Libya and Sudan. Syria has stopped sponsoring terrorism against the US, but continues to do so against Israel.
There are any number of UN resolutions and international declarationas declaring state-sponsored terrorism as amounting to indirect aggression against the victim state. Unfortunately, there has been no political will in India to make Pakistan and Bangladesh pay a heavy price for their sponsorship of terrorism against India. Once a firm decision based on a national consensus is taken that the time has come to make Pakistan and Bangladesh pay a price, the question as to which organisation should do it and how will be sorted out. The problem is not that we don't have an appropriate organisation, but we don't have the will to act against Pakistan and Bangladesh. Our policy of "kabi garam, kabi naram" (Sometimes hot, sometimes soft) towards these two countries is encouraging them not to change their ways.
QUESTION No.2:
Cannot a terrorist be attacked with a capsule, instead of a bullet, having substance like anesthesia inside it, that can burst and release the gas within a specified area (i.e.,surrounding that target) when hit on a target so as to make a person unconscious immediately (within its influence). This will help in nabbing the terrorist alive. 2) Cannot RDX (or any other such substance) sensor be developed and placed in places like car parking, etc. Alarm/siren can be set when someone places such substances in that area.
ANSWER
Some years ago, when the Chechen terrorists raided a Moscow theatre and took all the spectators hostages, the Russian counter-terrorism agencies reportedly had a gas piped into the theatre through the central heating system, in order to disorient the terrorists and weaken their reflexes. They then raided the theatre, killed the terrorists and freed the hostages. Many hostages were also killed ---- some due to their intolerance to the gas and some in the exchange of firing. Vladimir Putin, the then Russian President, strongly defended the counter-terrorism agencies from criticism from human rights organisations, for using such unconventional methods. In India, counter-terrorism agencies are not even thinking of such new ways because they do not have the confidence that the Government and the public will support them if there are civilian fatalities as a result of the methods used by them. They, therefore, continue to use conventional methods.
We must do a thorough post-mortem of how we dealt with the terrorists in the Taj Mahal Hotel, the Oberoi/Trident Hotels and in the Narriman House in order to see how effective were the methods used and whether we could use new methods in future. Unless we do such exercises, we will never improve our methods of dealing with terrorism. Unfortunately, our culture is against enquiries due to a mistaken fear that enquiries could demoralise the counter-terrorism community. This is totally wrong.
Over the years, the terrorists all over the world have been shifting to improvised explosive devices (IEDs). They are using less and less sophisticated explosives such as RDX and more and more ordinarily available and easily procurable substances such as nitrogenous fertilisers, some cosmetics items of women etc for fabricating IEDs. In 1993, fertilisers were used for bombing the New York World Trade Centre by an international jihadi group. Other terrorists started emulating it. Following this, most counter-terrorism agencies in the world have prescribed a permit system for farmers and kitchen-gardeners needing fertilisers. Shops selling fertilisers are required to report suspicious purchases.They have also persuaded fertiliser manufacturers to reduce the nitrogen content so that the fertiliser cannot be used as an explosive.Even though fertilisers are being increasingly used by terrorists in India for the last five years, we have not yet taken any effective action against the misuse of fertilisers. However, we are now following Western restrictions against women carrying certain cosmetic items on board aircraft.
Anti-explosives check----whether against RDX or other explosives--- is very weak in India. We cannot afford to have costly anti-explosives check in every public place, but we must identify vulnerable areas where such checks must be there, whatever be the expenses.
QUESTION No.3:
Why we wait our neighbour to take action against the terrorist, who are their own children and nourished by that government only? Why can't we take lessons from Israel's MOSAD when we know who are the culprits?
ANSWER:
I totally agree with you that we must take action instead of depending on the US or other members of the international community to do so. Every country is interested in protecting the lives and property of only its own citizens. This is natural. It is the responsibility of the Government of India and the States to protect the lives and property of our nationals. There are many good things we can learn from the Isrelis such as their passion for up-to-date data bases, all their agencies countering terrorism acting as a single team without ego clashes, turf battles and the tendency to pass the buck, public support for their counter-terrorism agencies, high investments in research & development of new technologies for counter-terrorism etc. At the same time, some other methods employed by them such as over-militarisation of counter-terrorism will prove counter-productive in a pluralistic, multi-religious state such as India. We have produced many good intelligence bureaucrats, but we have produced very few good intelligence professionals. Our counter-terrorism experts tend to be over-simplistic and superficial in their expertise, are not innovative and try to deal with technology savvy modern terrorism with methods and thinking which are not equally modern. The terrorists in India tend to be more nodern and innovative in their thinking than the counter-terrorism agencies,. Increasing their numbers and budgets alone will not produce results unless, simultaneously, there is also a change in their thinking and methods.
QUESTION No.4:
Pakistan has refused to hand over any of the 20 wanted terrorists. Is RAW capable enough in terms of it's assets inside Pakistan and otherwise, so as to carry out extraction of any such individuals? Besides, is RAW well informed regarding the Pakistani establishments and tribal militant outfits functioning in Pakistan, as informed well enough to take them down? Is it true that RAW assets have deteriorated in Pakistan in the last 2 decades or so?
ANSWER:
For understandable reasons, I will avoid specific answers. Over the years, there has been a general deterioration in the performance of the R&AW due to frictions among senior officers, the resulting ego clashes inside the organisation, decline in professionalism, increase in carrerism etc. It has produced very few counter-terrorism experts. Its investments in building data-bases and research and development of modern counter-terrorism technologies is very little. Over-secrecy comes in the way of active interaction with the world of science and technology and IT experts. The continued adherence to the principle of promotion on the basis of seniority with professionalism and competence playing a very limited role has led to its becoming a mediocre organisation. When it was formed in September 1968, Indira Gandhi had declared the post of the head of the organisation as an ex-cadre post----- meaning the Prime Minister can bring any competent person as the head----irrespective of seniority or whether he is an insider or outsider. This provision has been used twice----once by A.B.Vajpayee and the second time by Dr.Manmohan Singh--- to bring outsiders as the head when they felt that the organisation had no insider competent enough to be its head. There is an urgent need to induct more counter-terrorism experts from the Intelligence Bureau, the State Police and the Army into the R&AW and make one of them the chief. Indira Gandhi had wanted the R&AW---like the MOSSAD of Israel and the CIA of the US--- to be an intelligence collection agency as well as an action-oriented agency. Since 1997, it has become a purely intelligence collection agency. It has very little capability for action. This state of affairs has to be reversed.
QUESTION NO.5:
Why can not we launch covert operations in Pakistan by using the Afghan base? We have heard ARC has the capability to take pictures of anything having 3 ft or more dimension. Why can't we track down Dawood and Masood Azhars and teach them a lesson?
ANSWER:
No comments for understandable reasons.
QUESTION No 6:
Do we have right to file the case against Pakistan in international court ? The court should impose the heavy penalty on Pakistan so that next time, they will take care.
ANSWER:
We have the right, but nothing will come out of it. The US had two Libyan intelligence officers tried by an international court and sentenced to life imprisonment. They were jailed for their role in blowing up the Pan Am plane in 1988. It also forced Libya to pay huge compensation to the relatives of all the passengers of the plane who were killed. India does not have that kind of international clout.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
THE HIJACKING TO KANDAHAR NINE YEARS AGO
B.RAMAN
( December 24,2008, marked the ninth anniversary of the hijacking of an Indian Airlines (IAC) plane from Kathmandu to Kandahar by a group of hijackers of Pakistan's Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM). In this connection, annexed are extracts regarding hijackings in India from the chapter on Aviation Terrorism in my recently-released book titled "Terrorism: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow" published by the Lancer Publishers of Delhi (www.lancerpublishers.com ) (25-12-08)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE
HIJACKINGS IN INDIA
Since hijacking of Indian planes started in January, 1971, when two members of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) hijacked a plane to Lahore and blew it up with explosives given by the ISI at Lahore after releasing the passengers and crew, there have been 13 hijackings--all of Indian Airlines aircraft. During the training of terrorists, the ISI instructs them to avoid Air India planes lest international concern be aroused due to the presence of a large number of foreign passengers.
Three of these hijackings took place in the 1970s, of which one by Kashmiri extremists was sponsored by the ISI, while the other two were personally-motivated.
There were five hijackings in the 1980s--three of them in 1982--all by Sikh extremists backed by the ISI.
There were five in the 1990s---four of them in 1993, all personally-motivated, and the fifth, of IC- 814, in 1999 was by an international Islamic jihadi organisation backed by the ISI.
Thus, of the 13 hijackings, seven were by ISI-trained organisations---- five by Sikh extremists, all India-based, one by Kashmiri extremists, again India-based, and the seventh by a Pakistan-based international Islamic jihadi organisation.
All these hijackings took place when the military was in power--five under Zia-ul-Haq and one each under Yahya Khan and Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
After a series of five hijackings in quick succession by Sikh terrorists between 1981 and 1984, India managed to get clinching evidence of ISI involvement in 1984 in the form of a West German report that the pistol given to the hijackers of August 24,1984, at Lahore by the ISI was part of a consignment supplied to the Pakistan Government by the West German manufacturers.
This resulted in a severe warning to Pakistan by Washington and a total discontinuance by the ISI of the use of hijacking as a weapon against India for 15 years till the post-Kargil hijacking on December 24,1999, after Gen. Musharraf seized power on October 12.
SPECIAL FEATURES OF THE DECEMBER 24,1999, HIJACKING
• This was the first hijacking of an Indian plane by a Pakistan-based international Islamic jihadi organisation, namely the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), previously known as the Harkat-ul-Ansar, which was declared by the US under its laws as an international terrorist organisation in October, 1997, and which, according to the annual reports of the Counter-Terrorism Division of the US State Department, is a member of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front For Jihad Against the US and Israel and a signatory of his fatwa against US and Israeli nationals.
• This was the second hijacking in the world by an Islamic fundamentalist organisation of Afghan-war vintage. The first was the hijacking of an Air France flight from Algiers by four terrorists of the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria on December 24,1994.The French terminated the hijacking at Marseille by killing all the hijackers.
• This was the first hijacking in India in which the hijackers intentionally and brutally killed one of the passengers in order to intimidate the pilot. In the past hijackings, the terrorists had avoided ill-treating the passengers. In the Air France hijacking too, the Algerian terrorists of Afghan war-vintage had intentionally killed three passengers.
• This was the second largest terrorist team (five hijackers) to have hijacked an aircraft anywhere in the world. The terrorist team, which hijacked the Air France flight to Entebbe in 1976, had ultimately seven hijackers, but only four of them had flown by the aircraft and the remaining had joined the team after the aircraft landed at Entebbe. Six terrorists of the Popular Front For the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) had hijacked an Olympic Airlines flight from Athens to Beirut, on July 22,1970. The Greek authorities accepted the demand of the hijackers for the release of seven terrorists. A mixed group of five Palestinian and Japanese terrorists hijacked a Japanese Airways flight from Amsterdam to Tokyo on July 20, 1973. The terrorists blew up the plane at Tripoli in Libya after releasing the passengers. All other hijackings of the world involved between one and four hijackers, most of them only one. When there is only one hijacker, he would generally be in the cockpit. Danger to the passengers from a commando intervention is the least, unless the lone hijacker has explosives. When there are two hijackers, the danger is more, but still manageable since the second hijacker would generally be near the front door, which reduces the danger of deaths of passengers in cross fire. If there are three hijackers, one each would be at the front and rear doors, increasing the risk of cross-fire deaths. The maximum vulnerability of the passengers arises when there are more than three hijackers, with one or more of them stationed in the middle.
• This was the sixth longest hijacking since 1948 after those of the El Al by the PFLP on July 23, 1968 (40 days), the Air France (Entebbe) by Palestinian and German terrorists on June 27,1976 (8 days), the Pakistan International Airways by the Al Zulfiquar on March 2,1981 (13 days), the TWA by a Shia group on June 14,1985 (18 days), and the Kuwait Airways by a Shia group on April 5,1988 (18 days).
• This was the sixth major hijacking since 1948 in which the targeted Government conceded the demands of the hijackers, wholly or in part. The others were: the release of seven convicted Palestinian terrorists by the Greek authorities after the hijacking of an Olympic Airways flight on July 22,1970;the release of seven Arab terrorists mprisoned in the UK, West Germany and Switzerland after the hijacking of three flights of the Pan-Am, TWA and Swissair by the PFLP on September 6,1970; the release by West Germany of the Arab terrorists arrested for the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics after the hijacking of a Lufthansa aircraft on October 29, 1972, by Al Fatah; the release of four Arab terrorists arrested for acts of terrorism in Cyprus after the hijacking of a KLM plane on November 25,1973; and the release of nearly 30 political prisoners by the Zia-ul-Haq regime after the hijacking of a PIA aircraft by the Al Zulfiquar on March 2,1981. These were the publicly-admitted instances of conceding the hijackers' demands. There have been other unadmitted instances.
HANDLING HIJACKINGS: PREVENTIVE
The handling of hijackings has the preventive and crisis management aspects. Of all terrorism-related offences, plane hijacking is the easiest to prevent through thorough physical security at the airport. The prevention drill involves evaluation of the psychological profile of the passenger at the time of his checking-in through carefully-framed questions; x-ray of the checked- in baggage and, if necessary, their identification by the passenger before they are loaded; X-Ray of hand baggage; door-frame metal detector tests of passengers; their personal search; and ladder point checking by the airline staff to neutralise dangers due to negligence of the airport security staff or their complicity with the hijackers.
If this security drill is strictly followed, chances of a hijacking could be reduced by 90 per cent. There could still be a 10 per cent threat due to the hijackers somehow managing to take arms inside due to the negligence or complicity of the airport as well as the airline security staff or their intimidating the pilot by pretending to be armed, even though they may not have arms.
To eliminate even this 10 per cent possibility of a hijacking, many airlines have well-trained security staff travelling on each flight under the cover of either passengers or cabin crew members. The effectiveness of these in-flight security officers depends on the deniability of their presence. For in-flight security duties, the El Al of Israel takes serving and retired officers of the Shin Bet, the Israeli equivalent of our Intelligence Bureau, and Ya'ma'm, the Israeli equivalent of our National Security Guards. Shin Bet officers under the cover of airline staff are also attached to the traffic counter at the airport to scrutinise the travel documents of the passengers and study their psychological profile. Those responsible for in-flight security duties are issued with weapons with specially-designed low-intensity, low-impact bullets, which would enter the human body, but not exit. To prevent damage to the aircraft in cross-fire, the fuselage is armour-plated. They are also given well-concealable transmitting sets to discreetly transmit to the ground all the happenings in the cabin if the plane is hijacked. The plane has concealed cameras in the cockpit, cabin and toilets. These security measures have ensured 100 per cent security of El Al flights. While El Al's airport and off-airport facilities have been subject to terrorist attacks, an El Al flight was successfully hijacked only once in 1968.
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
The crisis management drill comes into force if an aircraft is hijacked due to a failure of preventive measures. The drill deals with the management of the relatives, the media, the aircraft and the hijackers, preparation of the groundwork for commando intervention, if it becomes necessary and, has operational, psychological and political aspects.
The operational aspect focusses on ensuring that the aircraft remains in an airport of our territory, if possible, or otherwise, in an airport of a friendly country and does not go to an airport in a hostile country and collection of intelligence and other inputs needed for commando intervention.
The psychological aspect focusses on keeping up the morale of the relatives of the passengers, encouraging self-restraint in media coverage till the hijacking is terminated and keeping the hijackers engaged in negotiations in order to persuade them to give up the hijacking, if possible, and give time to the commandos to prepare themselves for intervention, if necessary.
The political aspect relates to winning the co-operation of other countries and our own political parties in terminating the hijacking.
The hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar in December,1999, brought to light the following serious deficiencies in our national security management (NSM):
• The failure of the intelligence and counter-intelligence machinery to detect the presence and activities of the HUM (Harkat-ul-Mujahideen)hijackers in Mumbai since November 5,1999.
• The failure of the Govt. of India and the Indian Airlines security set-ups to ensure an effective second line of security at the Kathmandu airport, knowing fully well the security vaccum there.
• The failure of the crisis management group to have the plane grounded at Amritsar, when it first landed there.
• The failure of the Govt. of India to persuade the United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities to have the plane detained at Dubai, as they did with the 1984 hijacking of an IA plane by the Sikh extremists.
• The delay in starting the negotiations at Kandahar, knowing fully well that once we let the plane reach hostile territory in Kandahar, we had no other option, but to negotiate.
• The total lack of coherence and professionalism in the handling of the crisis by the crisis management groups at the political and professional levels.
( December 24,2008, marked the ninth anniversary of the hijacking of an Indian Airlines (IAC) plane from Kathmandu to Kandahar by a group of hijackers of Pakistan's Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM). In this connection, annexed are extracts regarding hijackings in India from the chapter on Aviation Terrorism in my recently-released book titled "Terrorism: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow" published by the Lancer Publishers of Delhi (www.lancerpublishers.com ) (25-12-08)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE
HIJACKINGS IN INDIA
Since hijacking of Indian planes started in January, 1971, when two members of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) hijacked a plane to Lahore and blew it up with explosives given by the ISI at Lahore after releasing the passengers and crew, there have been 13 hijackings--all of Indian Airlines aircraft. During the training of terrorists, the ISI instructs them to avoid Air India planes lest international concern be aroused due to the presence of a large number of foreign passengers.
Three of these hijackings took place in the 1970s, of which one by Kashmiri extremists was sponsored by the ISI, while the other two were personally-motivated.
There were five hijackings in the 1980s--three of them in 1982--all by Sikh extremists backed by the ISI.
There were five in the 1990s---four of them in 1993, all personally-motivated, and the fifth, of IC- 814, in 1999 was by an international Islamic jihadi organisation backed by the ISI.
Thus, of the 13 hijackings, seven were by ISI-trained organisations---- five by Sikh extremists, all India-based, one by Kashmiri extremists, again India-based, and the seventh by a Pakistan-based international Islamic jihadi organisation.
All these hijackings took place when the military was in power--five under Zia-ul-Haq and one each under Yahya Khan and Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
After a series of five hijackings in quick succession by Sikh terrorists between 1981 and 1984, India managed to get clinching evidence of ISI involvement in 1984 in the form of a West German report that the pistol given to the hijackers of August 24,1984, at Lahore by the ISI was part of a consignment supplied to the Pakistan Government by the West German manufacturers.
This resulted in a severe warning to Pakistan by Washington and a total discontinuance by the ISI of the use of hijacking as a weapon against India for 15 years till the post-Kargil hijacking on December 24,1999, after Gen. Musharraf seized power on October 12.
SPECIAL FEATURES OF THE DECEMBER 24,1999, HIJACKING
• This was the first hijacking of an Indian plane by a Pakistan-based international Islamic jihadi organisation, namely the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), previously known as the Harkat-ul-Ansar, which was declared by the US under its laws as an international terrorist organisation in October, 1997, and which, according to the annual reports of the Counter-Terrorism Division of the US State Department, is a member of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front For Jihad Against the US and Israel and a signatory of his fatwa against US and Israeli nationals.
• This was the second hijacking in the world by an Islamic fundamentalist organisation of Afghan-war vintage. The first was the hijacking of an Air France flight from Algiers by four terrorists of the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria on December 24,1994.The French terminated the hijacking at Marseille by killing all the hijackers.
• This was the first hijacking in India in which the hijackers intentionally and brutally killed one of the passengers in order to intimidate the pilot. In the past hijackings, the terrorists had avoided ill-treating the passengers. In the Air France hijacking too, the Algerian terrorists of Afghan war-vintage had intentionally killed three passengers.
• This was the second largest terrorist team (five hijackers) to have hijacked an aircraft anywhere in the world. The terrorist team, which hijacked the Air France flight to Entebbe in 1976, had ultimately seven hijackers, but only four of them had flown by the aircraft and the remaining had joined the team after the aircraft landed at Entebbe. Six terrorists of the Popular Front For the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) had hijacked an Olympic Airlines flight from Athens to Beirut, on July 22,1970. The Greek authorities accepted the demand of the hijackers for the release of seven terrorists. A mixed group of five Palestinian and Japanese terrorists hijacked a Japanese Airways flight from Amsterdam to Tokyo on July 20, 1973. The terrorists blew up the plane at Tripoli in Libya after releasing the passengers. All other hijackings of the world involved between one and four hijackers, most of them only one. When there is only one hijacker, he would generally be in the cockpit. Danger to the passengers from a commando intervention is the least, unless the lone hijacker has explosives. When there are two hijackers, the danger is more, but still manageable since the second hijacker would generally be near the front door, which reduces the danger of deaths of passengers in cross fire. If there are three hijackers, one each would be at the front and rear doors, increasing the risk of cross-fire deaths. The maximum vulnerability of the passengers arises when there are more than three hijackers, with one or more of them stationed in the middle.
• This was the sixth longest hijacking since 1948 after those of the El Al by the PFLP on July 23, 1968 (40 days), the Air France (Entebbe) by Palestinian and German terrorists on June 27,1976 (8 days), the Pakistan International Airways by the Al Zulfiquar on March 2,1981 (13 days), the TWA by a Shia group on June 14,1985 (18 days), and the Kuwait Airways by a Shia group on April 5,1988 (18 days).
• This was the sixth major hijacking since 1948 in which the targeted Government conceded the demands of the hijackers, wholly or in part. The others were: the release of seven convicted Palestinian terrorists by the Greek authorities after the hijacking of an Olympic Airways flight on July 22,1970;the release of seven Arab terrorists mprisoned in the UK, West Germany and Switzerland after the hijacking of three flights of the Pan-Am, TWA and Swissair by the PFLP on September 6,1970; the release by West Germany of the Arab terrorists arrested for the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics after the hijacking of a Lufthansa aircraft on October 29, 1972, by Al Fatah; the release of four Arab terrorists arrested for acts of terrorism in Cyprus after the hijacking of a KLM plane on November 25,1973; and the release of nearly 30 political prisoners by the Zia-ul-Haq regime after the hijacking of a PIA aircraft by the Al Zulfiquar on March 2,1981. These were the publicly-admitted instances of conceding the hijackers' demands. There have been other unadmitted instances.
HANDLING HIJACKINGS: PREVENTIVE
The handling of hijackings has the preventive and crisis management aspects. Of all terrorism-related offences, plane hijacking is the easiest to prevent through thorough physical security at the airport. The prevention drill involves evaluation of the psychological profile of the passenger at the time of his checking-in through carefully-framed questions; x-ray of the checked- in baggage and, if necessary, their identification by the passenger before they are loaded; X-Ray of hand baggage; door-frame metal detector tests of passengers; their personal search; and ladder point checking by the airline staff to neutralise dangers due to negligence of the airport security staff or their complicity with the hijackers.
If this security drill is strictly followed, chances of a hijacking could be reduced by 90 per cent. There could still be a 10 per cent threat due to the hijackers somehow managing to take arms inside due to the negligence or complicity of the airport as well as the airline security staff or their intimidating the pilot by pretending to be armed, even though they may not have arms.
To eliminate even this 10 per cent possibility of a hijacking, many airlines have well-trained security staff travelling on each flight under the cover of either passengers or cabin crew members. The effectiveness of these in-flight security officers depends on the deniability of their presence. For in-flight security duties, the El Al of Israel takes serving and retired officers of the Shin Bet, the Israeli equivalent of our Intelligence Bureau, and Ya'ma'm, the Israeli equivalent of our National Security Guards. Shin Bet officers under the cover of airline staff are also attached to the traffic counter at the airport to scrutinise the travel documents of the passengers and study their psychological profile. Those responsible for in-flight security duties are issued with weapons with specially-designed low-intensity, low-impact bullets, which would enter the human body, but not exit. To prevent damage to the aircraft in cross-fire, the fuselage is armour-plated. They are also given well-concealable transmitting sets to discreetly transmit to the ground all the happenings in the cabin if the plane is hijacked. The plane has concealed cameras in the cockpit, cabin and toilets. These security measures have ensured 100 per cent security of El Al flights. While El Al's airport and off-airport facilities have been subject to terrorist attacks, an El Al flight was successfully hijacked only once in 1968.
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
The crisis management drill comes into force if an aircraft is hijacked due to a failure of preventive measures. The drill deals with the management of the relatives, the media, the aircraft and the hijackers, preparation of the groundwork for commando intervention, if it becomes necessary and, has operational, psychological and political aspects.
The operational aspect focusses on ensuring that the aircraft remains in an airport of our territory, if possible, or otherwise, in an airport of a friendly country and does not go to an airport in a hostile country and collection of intelligence and other inputs needed for commando intervention.
The psychological aspect focusses on keeping up the morale of the relatives of the passengers, encouraging self-restraint in media coverage till the hijacking is terminated and keeping the hijackers engaged in negotiations in order to persuade them to give up the hijacking, if possible, and give time to the commandos to prepare themselves for intervention, if necessary.
The political aspect relates to winning the co-operation of other countries and our own political parties in terminating the hijacking.
The hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar in December,1999, brought to light the following serious deficiencies in our national security management (NSM):
• The failure of the intelligence and counter-intelligence machinery to detect the presence and activities of the HUM (Harkat-ul-Mujahideen)hijackers in Mumbai since November 5,1999.
• The failure of the Govt. of India and the Indian Airlines security set-ups to ensure an effective second line of security at the Kathmandu airport, knowing fully well the security vaccum there.
• The failure of the crisis management group to have the plane grounded at Amritsar, when it first landed there.
• The failure of the Govt. of India to persuade the United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities to have the plane detained at Dubai, as they did with the 1984 hijacking of an IA plane by the Sikh extremists.
• The delay in starting the negotiations at Kandahar, knowing fully well that once we let the plane reach hostile territory in Kandahar, we had no other option, but to negotiate.
• The total lack of coherence and professionalism in the handling of the crisis by the crisis management groups at the political and professional levels.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
TERRORISM & SECURITY IN SOUTH ASIA: LIKELY SCENARIOS DURING 2009
B.RAMAN
( A paper prepared for presentation at the Regional Outlook Forum being organized next month by the Institute For South-East Asian Studies of Singapore. Not to be extracted or reproduced without my permission)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Al Qaeda is organizationally intact, but operationally weakened because of the losses suffered by it in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and because of the strong anti-Al Qaeda measures taken by many countries. It has not been able to organize any major terrorist strike outside Pakistani territory.
Two of the 2008 terrorist strikes in Pakistan----the attacks on the Danish Embassy (June 3,2008) and the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad (September 20,2008)--- had definite Al Qaeda signatures. However, while claims of responsibility in respect of the attack on the Danish Embassy were made on behalf of Al Qaeda, no such claims have been made in respect of the Marriott Hotel attack.
The attack in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008, was by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), which has emerged as an international terrorist organization on par with Al Qaeda.Its planning to the minutest details, faultless execution and the barbaric methods used against the Israelis and other Jewish persons speak of a possible Al Qaeda hand in the planning and orchestration. The targets chosen by the LET were also the favoured targets of Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.
Al Qaeda operates where it thinks there are physical security deficiencies and where it thinks it can successfully attack American and Israeli nationals and interests. The physical security deficiencies exposed in Mumbai could tempt Al Qaeda----directly or through intermediaries--- to mount another terrorist strike against American and Israeli nationals and interests in Indian territory.
Indian and Western pressure on Pakistan to act against the JUD/LET combine might affect the chances of its being able to repeat Mumbai—November 26. But there are four other Pakistani organizations, who would be happy to do the bidding of Al Qaeda----namely, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), a rabid anti-Shia organization. All of them except the LEJ have been operating in India off and on. The HUM is a founding member of bin Laden’s International Islamic Front (IIF) for Jihad Against the Crusaders and the Jewish People formed by him in 1998. The LET and the other organizations joined it subsequently.
Of these, the most successful in the Indian territory, after the LET, has been the Bangladesh branch of the HUJI known as HUJI (B). It profits from the presence of a large number of illegal migrants from Bangladesh not only in Assam and West Bengal, but also in other urban centres of India. Successive Governments in Bangladesh have avoided taking action against the HUJI (B) just as successive Governments in Pakistan have avoided acting against the LET.
There cannot be effective counter-terrorism in Indian territory without effective action against both the Pakistan and Bangladesh branches of the HUJI and without equally effective action to stop illegal immigration from Bangladesh and to identify and expel those who have already settled down in India. One of the lessons of 9/11 was the importance of effective immigration control in counter-terrorism. India has the weakest anti-immigration infrastructure among the democracies of the world. There is a lack of political will to act against illegal immigration due to partisan considerations and unwise electoral calculations. The proposed National Investigation Agency and additional powers for the police alone will not be able to prevent another November 26 unless accompanied by strong measures against illegal immigration from Bangladesh.
Whatever be the extent of Western pressure on it to act against the LET, Pakistan is unlikely to give up the use of the LET, the HUJI, the JEM and the HUM against India. In its strategic calculation, that is the only way of changing the status quo in J&K and countering the increasing Indian presence in Afghanistan.
The West is unlikely to increase the pressure on Pakistan to an extent that might hurt it. It needs Pakistan’s co-operation to prevent another 9/11, another Madrid---March,2004 or another London, July,2005. It has sympathies for Pakistan because its co-operation with the US and the rest of the West have made it a victim of jihadi terrorism. During 2008, there were about 90 acts of terrorism in Pakistani territory----- 60 acts of suicide terrorism and 30 of other kinds. The West’s continued dependence on Pakistan and its sympathy for it would put a limit to its support for India.
The ground situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan is likely to get worse during 2009 despite the US proposal to induct an additional 30,000 troops and the more robust policy towards Al Qaeda sanctuaries in the FATA promised by President-elect Barack Obama. His options are going to be limited. He could step up the Predator strikes, but these are unlikely to be effective unless driven by precise intelligence. Without a significant inflow of human intelligence, Predator strikes alone will cause more collateral damage and add to anti-US feelings.
There is no convergence of views between the political and military leaderships in Pakistan as to how to deal with terrorism. There is no convergence either among different political formations. Strong sections of its political class such as the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif and the religious parties believe that Pakistan’s co-operation with the US against Al Qaeda is the root cause of its problems. They would want Pakistan to opt out of the war against international terrorism. Sections of the Pakistan Army too ask themselves why the Pakistan Army should fight against groups which pose a threat to the US and not to Pakistan.
The Soviet Union failed in Afghanistan in the 1980s because of the failure of the Soviet leadership to attack on the ground the sanctuaries of the Afghan Mujahideen in Pakistani territory. The US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan are failing because of their reluctance to attack on the ground the sanctuaries of the Afghan Taliban in Pakistan. Indian counter-terrorism is facing serious difficulties---- which are likely to increase in future--- because of the reluctance of the policy-makers to authorize clandestine actions against the sanctuaries of anti-India jihadi organisations in Pakistani territory.
If the Western pressure on Pakistan to dismantle the LET’s terrorism infrastructure in its territory fails to produce results, India should have an alternate plan ready for appropriate operational options short of a direct military strike.
It is in India’s interest that the US succeeds in its operations against the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda. This would not put an end to Pakistani state-sponsored terrorism in Indian territory, but could make it more manageable. It is not in India’s interest to unwittingly create difficulties for the US war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by engaging in a military confrontation with Pakistan. Obama should be given time to try out his more robust strategy.
In its preoccupation with the external dimensions of the problem arising from Pakistan’s continued use of terrorism, India should not neglect the internal dimensions arising from the grievances in sections of its Muslim youth and the weaknesses in its counter-terrorism community.
There is a need for a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy with strategic and tactical dimensions. The decision to set up a National Investigation Agency and give additional powers to the Police are the building blocks of the strategic dimension. A revamping of the intelligence agencies to improve the flow of terrorism-related intelligence and of the physical security agencies to prevent physical security failures of the kind witnessed in Mumbai by promoting the culture of joint action should also be part of the strategic dimension.
The tactical dimension would involve the identification of vulnerable cities and targets and immediate action to protect them.
Preventing another 26/11 should be the immediate priority. Making jihadi terrorism---home-grown or externally sponsored---- wither away through a mix of political, diplomatic and operational measures should be the strategic priority.
THE TEXT OF THE PAPER
India faced six major acts of terrorism in 2008. Of these, four in Jaipur (May), Bangalore (July), Ahmedabad (July) and Delhi (September) were committed by some members of the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which has had contacts with the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) of Pakistan. In messages sent before and after the attacks, they described themselves as the Indian Mujahideen (IM). The IM came to notice for the first time in November 2007 when it organized three explosions in three towns of Uttar Pradesh. In a message sent to sections of the media that day, it accused the Indian criminal justice system of being unfair to Muslims. All these four were acts of reprisal terrorism with no strategic objective.
2. During these strikes, the IM did not attack foreigners either in Jaipur, which has the second largest foreign tourist traffic after Goa or in Bangalore which is one of the favourite destinations for foreign business companies.
3. India has been facing terrorist attacks by home-grown jihadi groups since 1993. The defining characteristics of these attacks have been:
·
No suicide or suicidal (fedayeen) terrorism. No Indian Muslim has so far indulged in suicide terrorism in Indian territory. The only instance of suicidal terrorism by an Indian Muslim was in Glasgow in the UK in June,2006.
·
No barbaric methods such as slitting the throats of the victims. Such barbaric methods are the signature modus operandi of jihadis from Pakistan. Well-known examples---slitting the throat of an Indian passenger on board a hijacked plane of the Indian Airlines in December 1999 by the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) of Pakistan and of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, in Karachi by the HUM and Al Qaeda in January-February,2002. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), a Pakistani member of Al Qaeda, who allegedly co-ordinated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, has reportedly confessed before a US military tribunal in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre that he slit the throat of Pearl.
·
Reliance more on improvised explosive devices (IEDs) than on hand-held weapons.
·
No attacks on foreign nationals except once in 1991 when the J&K Liberation Front (JKLF) killed one Israeli tourist in Srinagar.
4. Of the remaining two terrorist strikes in 2008, one in Assam in October was committed by a local ethnic group with the help of elements from Bangladesh and the other in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008, by 10 Pakistani members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). The LET is the militant wing of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), a Pakistani jihadi organization based in Muridke, near Lahore. The US designated the LET as a foreign terrorist organization in December 2001 and the JUD in April 2006. Pakistan, under US pressure, banned the LET on January 15, 2002, but it started functioning under the name JUD. Pakistan denied that the JUD is the same as the LET and refused to ban it. After the Mumbai terrorist strike, the Anti-Terrorism Committee of the UN Security Council designated the JUD as a terrorist organization. Thereafter, Pakistan has placed some of its leaders, including Prof-Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed, its Amir, under house arrest, but has not yet formally banned it on the ground that there has been no evidence, which would justify a formal ban.
5. The defining characteristics of the Mumbai attack were:
·
This was the first attack of suicidal (fedayeen) terrorism in the Indian territory outside J&K. All previous fedayeen attacks were in J&K.
·
This was the second attack in the Indian territory outside J&K in which all the principal perpetrators were Pakistani nationals. The first one was the attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13,2001. Some Indian Muslims played peripheral roles in the attack on the Indian Parliament. One cannot rule out the possibility of similar peripheral roles by Indian Muslims in Mumbai too, but there has been no evidence in support of this so far. All other attacks of jihadi terrorism in Indian territory outside J&K since 1993 were committed by either Indian Muslims or mixed groups of Indian Muslims belonging to the SIMI, Pakistani Muslims belonging to the LET and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and/or the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) of Bangladesh.
·
This was the second attack of jihadi terrorists on India’s economic infrastructure. The first was in March,1993, when a group of Indian Muslims, raised by Dawood Ibrahim, the Indian mafia leader now living in Karachi, and trained and equipped by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), attacked economic targets in Mumbai killing 257 civilians.
·
The LET terrorists attacked a mix of targets------ human beings as well as economic capabilities, the man in the street as well as the elite and Indians as well as foreigners.
·
This was the first attack by jihadi terrorists on foreigners in Indian territory outside J&K. Since 9/11, there have been 13 targeted attacks on foreigners in the Indian sub-continent---- 12 in Pakistani territory and the Mumbai one in Indian territory. Of the 12 attacks in Pakistani territory, five were on Chinese nationals, four on American nationals and one each on French, German and Danish nationals or interests.
·
The LET terrorists in Mumbai killed 160 Indian nationals ---- civilians as well as security forces personnel--- and 30 foreigners. Four of the foreigners were from South-East Asian countries. The remaining 26 were either from Israel or were Jewish persons of other nationalities or nationals of countries which are participating in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
·
The Israelis and other Jewish persons were subjected to barbaric torture and then killed. There was no evidence of such barbaric acts against other foreigners.
·
This was the first terrorist attack on Israelis and the Jewish people in the Indian territory outside J&K. It came in the wake of intelligence warnings that the LET and the SIMI were planning to attack Israeli tourists in Goa. KSM had reportedly told his American interrogators that Al Qaeda had wanted to attack the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi. Mumbai has two establishments associated with Israel and the Jewish people---the Israeli Consulate and a Jewish religious-cum-cultural centre located in a building called the Narriman House. The terrorists came by sea and attacked at night. They chose the Narriman House and not the Consulate because it is near the sea and had Jewish people living there whereas the Consulate has no Jewish people at night.
·
There was a mix of modus operandi (MO)--- urban warfare of the kind waged by the Hezbollah in Beirut in the 1970s and the 1980s and orchestrated acts of mass casualty terrorism of the kind waged by Al Qaeda; and old terrorism involving the use of hand-held weapons, hand-grenades and explosives and new terrorism involving the use of the latest communications and navigation gadgetry. The TV visuals from Mumbai during the 60 hours that the attack lasted brought back to the minds of professionals visuals, which used to come out of Beirut.
·
There was a mix of strategies---- a strategy for disrupting the till recently on-going Indo-Pakistan peace process was combined with a strategy for acts of reprisal against India’s close relations with Israel and the West. A strategy for discrediting the Indian counter-terrorism community and policy-makers in the eyes of the Indian public was combined with a strategy for discrediting them in the eyes of the international community and business class.
·
There was a mix of attacks on the man in the street in public places such as a railway station, a public square, a hospital etc and on the business and social elite in the Taj Mahal and the Oberoi/Trident Hotels. These are not ordinary hotels patronized by tourists who travel on a shoe-string budget. These are very expensive hotels patronized by the cream of the international business class, who visit Mumbai not for pleasure, but for business. Apparently in respect to the sensitivities of the elite, the Governments of Maharashtra and India have wisely chosen not to identify the cream of the business world who were staying in these hotels at the time of the attack.
·
The terrorists did not indulge in classical hostage-taking tactics, where one takes hostages in order to put forward a demand. They took hostages and locked themselves in buildings in order to force an armed confrontation with the security forces.
·
The grievances of the Indian Muslims was not the cause of the terrorist attack. Pakistan’s strategic objectives against India such as forcing a change in the status quo in J&K and disrupting India’s economic progress and strategic relations with the West and Israel were the motive. Reprisal against the US-led coalition in Afghanistan for its war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda was another motive.
6. There has been considerable criticism of the Indian counter-terrorism community---some justified and some unfair. In September, there were reports from the Indian and US intelligence that LET terrorists in Pakistan were planning to carry out a sea-borne terrorist strike against sea-front hotels in Mumbai, including the Taj Mahal hotel. A high-alert was issued. Security was tightened up by the Police, the Navy, the Coast Guard and the security set-ups of the hotels. The terrorists, who had planned to strike on September 26, postponed their attack. There was no fresh information in October. No terrorist strike came. The alert was downgraded in November. The attack came on November 26. It is always a dilemma for the counter-terrorism community as to for how long a high alert should be continued.
7. There has also been criticism of what has been described as the slow response of India’s special intervention forces such as the National Security Guards (NSG). While some Western analysts have criticized their response as too slow taking about 60 hours, some Israeli analysts have criticized it as too hasty, without trying to tire the terrorists out by indulging in talks with them. The NSG did not have the luxury of many options since it was not a classical hostage situation. Their objective was to save as many lives as possible from three different places which were under the control of the terrorists.
8. There are two ways of assessing the performance of the NSG and the Police. The first is from the number of people killed by the terrorists in these three places--- about 100. The second is from the number of people, whom they rescued alive--- nearly 1000. Let us applaud them for saving so many people despite the difficulties faced by them.
9. The most objective assessment of the performance of the NSG and the Police has come from Ami Pedazhur, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and the author of the forthcoming book "The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism," in an article contributed by him to the “New York Times “ ( December 19,2008). I am annexing a copy of this article to this paper.
10. Mr.Pedazhur wrote : “It is clear that the Indian security forces made some mistakes. However, mistakes are inherent in such crises. At the same time, given the complex nature of the attacks, it seems likely the death toll could have been much higher. After the initial confusion, the Indians seem to have done a thorough job of gathering intelligence and carefully planning their counterattacks. The execution itself was careful and thorough.”
11. He added: “The Mumbai attacks showed just how difficult it is for large, multiethnic states to protect themselves from terrorism, something Americans have known well since 9/11. There is certainly much for New Delhi and Washington to learn from the Israeli experience, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution. While Israel has much to be proud of in how it has handled terrorism, it also has much to be humble about.”
12. Counter-terrorism is much more difficult in India than in any other country because of its large size, federal constitution which gives greater powers to the State governments in respect of crime control and law and order, multi-party system and coalition governments at New Delhi and in many States. Moreover, India is located right in the centre of the Islamic world with Islamic countries to the East, West and North-West of it. It has the second largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia. Actions against jihadi terrorists----whether home-grown or externally sponsored--- have to be attentive to the sensitivities of the Muslim community while acting against the terrorist elements from them. This often creates a Hamlet-like situation for the counter-terrorism community. Political consensus on counter-terrorism related issues is more difficult to achieve than in other democracies.
13. India has had a successful record against insurgencies and terrorist groups, whose activities were confined to a single State or region. The difficulties faced by it since November, 2007, are due to the fact that the post-November,2007, terrorism is pan-Indian in nature with a presence in a number of States. To meet this phenomenon, the Government has decided to create a National Investigation Agency to facilitate co-ordinated investigation, which has not been possible till now. It has also added to the powers of the police after the Mumbai strike.
14. Indian counter-terrorism agencies managed to catch alive Mohammad Ajmal Amir Imam, one of the 10 perpetrators trained in Pakistan---initially in a camp in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and subsequently in Karachi--- and sent to Mumbai for launching the attacks. In his interrogation, he has reportedly stated that he and the other nine terrorists, who were killed, were Pakistani nationals, who were recruited by the LET, trained, armed and sent by boat to Mumbai. His Pakistani nationality has been confirmed by independent enquiries made by the Pakistani correspondent of the “Observer” of the UK and sections of the Pakistani media such as the highly-respected “Dawn” of Karachi and the GeoTV. Even his father has admitted in a media interview that the captured perpetrator is his son.
15. In order to disown any responsibility for the terrorist attack, the Pakistan Government has adopted various tactics. Initially, it tried to create an alibi by making a Pakistani lawyer claim that Ajmal Amir Imam was his client, who had been arrested by the Nepalese authorities two years ago and handed over to the Indian intelligence. When the Nepalese authorities denied this, the Pakistani authorities, including President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani, have started denying that he is a Pakistani.
16. Because of the death of many foreign nationals, many foreign intelligence agencies----including those of the US, the UK and Israel--- are making their own independent investigation. The Government of India has given them free access to the captured terrorist and allowed them to interrogate him independently. All the agencies have independently of each other come to the conclusion that the arrested perpetrators were Pakistani nationals belonging to the LET, which had trained them in Pakistani territory and infiltrated them into Mumbai by sea.
17. While there has been a consensus among the various intelligence agencies of India and other countries that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been using the JUD/LET as a clandestine arm for acts of terrorism in Indian territory, there is as yet no consensus as to whether the ISI sponsored the attack in Mumbai. Indian investigators believe so, but the Government of India has refrained from articulating their belief. It has restricted itself to saying that the perpetrators were Pakistani nationals from the LET who were trained for this attack in camps in Pakistani territory.
18.India has made two specific demands to Pakistan. The first is for the arrest and handing over of the Pakistani LET operatives who had orchestrated the Mumbai attack as well as of all Pakistan-based terrorists, who had carried out terrorist attacks in the past. The second is for closing down the terrorist infrastructure of the LET in Pakistani territory. There has been considerable pressure on Pakistan from the US, the UK and other Western countries to meet the Indian demands.
19. The Zardari Government has vehemently refused to do so. It continues to claim that there is no evidence so far to show that the attack was mounted from the Pakistani territory and that Pakistani nationals were involved. It has also stuck to the traditional Pakistani position that no Pakistani national---whatever be his crime--- will be handed over to India for interrogation and prosecution and that the Indian Police will not be allowed to interrogate them in Pakistani territory either. Its so-called actions against the leaders and other operatives of the JUD/LET and other organizations such as the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) have been a farce. It has not yet formally banned the JUD despite the action of the Anti-Terrorism Committee of the UN Security Council in designating the JUD as a terrorist organization and four of its leaders, including its Amir Prof-Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed, as international terrorists.
20. The strategic significance of the Mumbai strike arises from the fact that the Pakistan-based LET has emerged as an international terrorism organization on par with Al Qaeda. In fact, some US experts view the attack as probably jointly mounted by the LET and Al Qaeda. The LET poses a threat not only to India’s national security, but also to international peace and security. That is the point India has been highlighting in its diplomatic campaign.
GROUND SITUATION IN AFGHANISTAN & PAKISTAN
21. The ground situation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region shows no signs of improvement. The Afghan Taliban headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar, which has been fighting against the NATO forces in Afghanistan from sanctuaries in the Balochistan area of Pakistan, has maintained a high level of activity in southern and eastern Afghanistan as well as in the Kabul area. It has shown a capability for conventional fighting in sizable formations of up to 200 as well as a capability for suicide attacks. There have already been over 100 acts of suicide terrorism in Afghan territory till November 30,2008, mounted from sanctuaries in Pakistani territory.
22. The difficulties faced by the NATO forces are partly due to the unwillingness of the Pakistani army to act against the Afghan Taliban, which it looks upon as its strategic ally to regain its influence in Afghanistan. These difficulties have been aggravated by the increase in the activities of the Pakistani Taliban called the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) founded by Baitullah Mehsud of South Waziristan after the raid by the commandoes of the Pakistan Army into the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) of Islamabad in July 2007 in order to free it from the control of pro-Taliban and pro-Al Qaeda elements.
23. The large number of fatalities of young tribal students---many of them girls--- during the raid caused a wave of anger in the tribal belt, which has not subsided. This anger led to 56 acts of suicide terrorism in Pakistani territory during 2007 . There have already been 60 acts of suicide terrorism this year. Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister, who supported the commando raid, was killed by one of the suicide terrorists on December 27,2007. There has been no progress in the investigation and prosecution of the terrorists responsible for her assassination. In recent months, terrorists of the Pakistani Taliban have also succeeded in disrupting the movement of supplies for the NATO forces in Afghanistan from the Karachi port.
24.The activities of the Pakistani Taliban started initially in the South Waziristan and Bajaur areas of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) adjoining Afghanistan. From there, they spread to the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and they are now threatening Peshawar itself, the capital of the NWFP. There have been repeated acts of suicide terrorism in the Peshawar area giving rise to fears that it could eventually become Pakistan’s Beirut.
25. Suicide terrorists operating from the tribal belt fall into two groups---- those of the Pakistani Taliban and the so-called Jundullas (soldiers of Allah), who are self-motivated individuals without any organizational affiliation. These suicide terrorists have been able to operate not only in the tribal areas from where they often originate, but also in cantonments in the non-tribal areas and even in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, Rawalpindi, where the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Army are located, and Lahore. There have also been reports of clandestine cells of the Pakistani Taliban being set up in Karachi, where there is a sizable migrant Pashtun population.
26. The Pakistan Army, which is greatly concerned over the increase in the activities of the Pakistani Taliban, had mounted special operations against them through the Frontier Corps, a para-military force consisting largely of Pashtuns, in the Swat Valley and the Bajaur Agency. It had also trained and armed tribal militias called Lashkars to counter the Taliban. These Lashkars consist largely of Shias specially trained and motivated to counter the Taliban, which is mainly a Sunni force. This has led to the Taliban indulging in large-scale reprisal attacks against the Shias.
27. Thus, one finds three waves of anger in the FATA, the Swat Valley and in the Peshawar area ---- an anti-Army anger because of the commando raid into the Lal Masjid and the perceived co-operation of the Army with the US in its operations against Al Qaeda, an anti-US anger because of its operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban and an anti-Shia anger because of the Shias’ co-operation with the Army as members of the anti-Taliban Lashkars.
28. There have been nearly 30 air strikes by the unmanned Predator planes of the US intelligence agencies against Al Qaeda hide-outs and suspects in the North and South Waziristan areas this year. Some middle and lower level operatives of Al Qaeda were killed in these air strikes. Among others killed by these strikes was Rashid Rauf, a UK citizen of POK (Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir) origin, who was suspected to have played an active role in the conspiracy to blow up a number of US-bound planes, which was unearthed by the British Police in August,2006. Senior leaders of Al Qaeda such as Osama bin Laden and his No.2 Ayman Al Zawahiri have managed to avoid capture or death. They continue to guide the activities of Al Qaeda from its sanctuaries in North Waziristan.
29. Apart from Al Qaeda, two other organizations associated with it have their sanctuaries in the Waziristan area----the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG), another Uzbeck organization. While the IMU has a limited agenda relating to capture of power in Uzbekistan, the IJG, which is sometimes also referred to as the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), has a much larger agenda. It refrains from projecting itself as a purely Uzbeck organization. Instead, it projects itself as a global jihadi organization and has been recruiting members from the Pakistani diaspora in Europe---- particularly in the UK and Germany.
LOOKING TO 2009
30. Al Qaeda is organizationally intact, but operationally weakened because of the losses suffered by it in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and because of the strong anti-Al Qaeda measures taken by many countries.
31.It has not been able to organize any major terrorist strike outside Pakistani territory. Two of the 2008 terrorist strikes in Pakistan----the attacks on the Danish Embassy (June 3,2008) and the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad (September 20,2008)--- had definite Al Qaeda signatures. However, while claims of responsibility in respect of the attack on the Danish Embassy were made on behalf of Al Qaeda, no such claims have been made in respect of the Marriott Hotel attack.
32. The attack in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008, was by the LET, but its planning to the minutest details, faultless execution and the barbaric methods used against the Israelis and other Jewish persons speak of a possible Al Qaeda hand in the planning and orchestration. The targets chosen by the LET were also the favoured targets of Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.
33. Al Qaeda operates where it thinks there are physical security deficiencies and where it thinks it can successfully attack American and Israeli nationals and interests. The physical security deficiencies exposed in Mumbai could tempt Al Qaeda----directly or through intermediaries--- to mount another terrorist strike against American and Israeli nationals and interests in Indian territory.
34. Indian and Western pressure on Pakistan to act against the JUD/LET combine might affect the chances of its being able to repeat Mumbai—November 26. But there are four other Pakistani organizations, who would be happy to do the bidding of Al Qaeda----namely, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), a rabid anti-Shia organization. All of them except the LEJ have been operating in India off and on. The HUM is a founding member of bin Laden’s International Islamic Front (IIF) for Jihad Against the Crusaders and the Jewish People formed by him in 1998. The LET and the other organizations joined it subsequently.
35. Of these, the most successful in the Indian territory, after the LET, has been the Bangladesh branch of the HUJI known as HUJI (B). It profits from the presence of a large number of illegal migrants from Bangladesh not only in Assam and West Bengal, but also in other urban centres of India. Successive Governments in Bangladesh have avoided taking action against the HUJI (B) just as successive Governments in Pakistan have avoided acting against the LET. There cannot be effective counter-terrorism in Indian territory without effective action against both the Pakistan and Bangladesh branches of the HUJI and without equally effective action to stop illegal immigration from Bangladesh and to identify and expel those who have already settled down in India.
36.One of the lessons of 9/11 was the importance of effective immigration control in counter-terrorism. India has the weakest anti-immigration infrastructure among the democracies of the world. There is a lack of political will to act against illegal immigration due to partisan considerations and unwise electoral calculations. The proposed National Investigation Agency and additional powers for the police alone will not be able to prevent another November 26 unless accompanied by strong measures against illegal immigration from Bangladesh.
37. Whatever be the extent of Western pressure on it to act against the LET, Pakistan is unlikely to give up the use of the LET, the HUJI, the JEM and the HUM against India. In its strategic calculation, that is the only way of changing the status quo in J&K and countering the increasing Indian presence in Afghanistan.
38.The West is unlikely to increase the pressure on Pakistan to an extent that might hurt it. It needs Pakistan’s co-operation to prevent another 9/11, another Madrid---March,2004 or another London, July,2005. It has sympathies for Pakistan because its co-operation with the US and the rest of the West have made it a victim of jihadi terrorism. During 2008, there were about 90 acts of terrorism in Pakistani territory----- 60 acts of suicide terrorism and 30 of other kinds. The West’s continued dependence on Pakistan and its sympathy for it would put a limit to its support for India.
39. The ground situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan is likely to get worse during 2009 despite the US proposal to induct an additional 30,000 troops and the more robust policy towards Al Qaeda sanctuaries in the FATA promised by President-elect Barack Obama. His options are going to be limited. He could step up the Predator strikes, but these are unlikely to be effective unless driven by precise intelligence. Without a significant inflow of human intelligence, Predator strikes alone will cause more collateral damage and add to anti-US feelings.
40. There is no convergence of views between the political and military leaderships in Pakistan as to how to deal with terrorism. There is no convergence either among different political formations. Strong sections of its political class such as the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif and the religious parties believe that Pakistan’s co-operation with the US against Al Qaeda is the root cause of its problems. They would want Pakistan to opt out of the war against international terrorism. Sections of the Pakistan Army too ask themselves why the Pakistan Army should fight against groups which pose a threat to the US and not to Pakistan.
41. The Soviet Union failed in Afghanistan in the 1980s because of the failure of the Soviet leadership to attack on the ground the sanctuaries of the Afghan Mujahideen in Pakistani territory. The US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan are failing because of their reluctance to attack on the ground the sanctuaries of the Afghan Taliban in Pakistan. Indian counter-terrorism is facing serious difficulties---- which are likely to increase in future--- because of the reluctance of the policy-makers to authorize clandestine actions against the sanctuaries of anti-India jihadi organisations in Pakistani territory.
42. If the Western pressure on Pakistan to dismantle the LET’s terrorism infrastructure in its territory fails to produce results, India should have an alternate plan ready for appropriate operational options short of a direct military strike.
43. It is in India’s interest that the US succeeds in its operations against the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda. This would not put an end to Pakistani state-sponsored terrorism in Indian territory, but could make it more manageable. It is not in India’s interest to unwittingly create difficulties for the US war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by engaging in a military confrontation with Pakistan. Obama should be given time to try out his more robust strategy.
44. In its preoccupation with the external dimensions of the problem arising from Pakistan’s continued use of terrorism, India should not neglect the internal dimensions arising from the grievances in sections of its Muslim youth and the weaknesses in its counter-terrorism community.
45. There is a need for a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy with strategic and tactical dimensions. The decision to set up a National Investigation Agency and give additional powers to the Police are the building blocks of the strategic dimension. A revamping of the intelligence agencies to improve the flow of terrorism-related intelligence and of the physical security agencies to prevent physical security failures of the kind witnessed in Mumbai by promoting the culture of joint action should also be part of the strategic dimension. The tactical dimension would involve the identification of vulnerable cities and targets and immediate action to protect them.
46. Preventing another 26/11 should be the immediate priority. Making jihadi terrorism---home-grown or externally sponsored---- wither away through a mix of political, diplomatic and operational measures should be the strategic priority.(24-12-08)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE
From Munich to Mumbai
Author: Ami Pedazhur
Publication: The New York TimesDate: December 19, 2008
NOW that India and the world are over the initial shock of the terrorist attacks last month in Mumbai, efforts to understand what happened and prevent future calamities are being hampered in ways familiar to Israelis like myself, who have lived through far too many such events: pointless efforts to place blame, and a failure to put the attacks in the proper historical context.
First, contrary to much punditry in India and the West, these attacks did not indicate the emergence of a new form of terrorism. Actually, after decades in which terrorism had evolved mostly in the direction of suicide bombings, Mumbai was a painful reminder of the past. The multiple hostage-takings and shootings, carefully planned and executed, were a throwback to the wave of hijackings and hostage situations that were the trademark of terrorists in the Middle East from the 1960s until the 1980s.
The most famous of these events, of course, was the attack on the Israeli delegation at the 1972 Olympic Games. In Munich, the Black September terrorists succeeded in capturing the attention of TV viewers around the world for a whole day. They knew most TV networks had sent crews to cover the Games and thus would broadcast the hostage situation as it unfolded.
The terrorists in Mumbai were even more successful, in that they created a drama that lasted much longer. They did so by aiming at high-profile targets like the hotels that are hubs for Western tourists and businessmen. They knew that viewers around the world would be glued for days to the constant stream of images on their TV and computer screens.
In addition, that the majority of the Mumbai terrorists landed from the sea was another ugly flashback. For years, terrorists favored arriving at Israel's beaches on speed boats to take hostages in residential neighborhoods.
One of the most notorious perpetrators was Samir Kuntar, who in 1979 led a group of terrorists to the beach of Nahariya and shot a police officer and a civilian, Danny Haran, before smashing the skull of Haran's 4-year-old daughter, Einat. Mr. Kuntar was released this year from Israel in a prisoner exchange, and in Damascus was awarded the Syrian Order of Merit.
Yet, despite the horrific nature of the attacks in the past, from a counterterrorism perspective the events in Mumbai were even more worrisome. Though they did not detonate explosive belts, the attackers were truly suicide terrorists. They did not take their hostages for the purpose of negotiations and it is quite clear that they did not hope to leave the scene alive. They also created chaos by attacking several locations at once.
When the terrorists have the advantage of surprise, it really does not matter how well trained the counterterrorism forces are. It takes a long time to figure out what is going on, to gather tactical intelligence and to launch a counterattack. No one should be aware of these facts more than the Israelis who in the 1970s endured a series of similar albeit less sophisticated attacks.
Hence, I have been very surprised to hear Israeli security experts criticizing the Indian response. These experts probably forgot the devastating civilian death tolls of the attacks in Maalot in 1974 (22 Israeli high school students killed), at the Coastal Road in 1978 (37 murdered, including 13 children) and at Misgav Am in 1980 (two kibbutz members killed, one an infant).
These incidents all illustrated the extreme difficulty of rescuing hostages even when the attacked state has highly trained forces and a lot of experience. Yes, Israel enjoyed a few successes that have been glorified around the world. The most famous were the raids on hijacked planes in Lod, Israel, in 1972 and in Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976. But these two airport rescues cannot be compared with the events in Mumbai.
The Israeli success was due mainly to the fact that the terrorists involved were interested in negotiating, giving security forces the opportunity to gather intelligence, devise a rescue plan and take the hijackers by surprise. Hostages and rescuers were killed in both cases. Yet no security experts argued at the time that the Israeli forces were inadequately prepared or failed in their execution.
It is clear that the Indian security forces made some mistakes. However, mistakes are inherent in such crises. At the same time, given the complex nature of the attacks, it seems likely the death toll could have been much higher. After the initial confusion, the Indians seem to have done a thorough job of gathering intelligence and carefully planning their counterattacks. The execution itself was careful and thorough.
Israel and India both face a lasting terrorism challenge. Yet, if I was asked to give India policy recommendations, I would be extremely cautious about advocating the Israeli approach. Protecting a huge multiethnic, multireligious country like India is far more challenging than securing a rather homogeneous, tiny state like Israel.
Just to illustrate, Israel's airport security is rightly considered to be a model. However, the Israeli security establishment took years and experienced a number of direct attacks on travel hubs before it slowly introduced its impressive security measures. That Israel has only one major international airport - Ben-Gurion, near Tel Aviv - made the process much easier.
And so far, Israel has not been able to tightly secure more challenging targets like train and bus systems. The Israeli experience teaches that countering terrorism is a long and frustrating process of trial and error. Terrorists are fast to respond to new obstacles. For example, the security barrier erected after the start of the second intifada in 2000 has brought a sharp decline in the number of suicide attacks. But Hamas adapted quickly. Suicide bombers were replaced by rockets. While the number of casualties caused by the rockets is significantly lower, I am not convinced that residents of the towns near Gaza feel any safer.
The Mumbai attacks showed just how difficult it is for large, multiethnic states to protect themselves from terrorism, something Americans have known well since 9/11. There is certainly much for New Delhi and Washington to learn from the Israeli experience, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
While Israel has much to be proud of in how it has handled terrorism, it also has much to be humble about.
- Ami Pedazhur, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Texas at Austin, is the author of the forthcoming book "The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism."
( A paper prepared for presentation at the Regional Outlook Forum being organized next month by the Institute For South-East Asian Studies of Singapore. Not to be extracted or reproduced without my permission)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Al Qaeda is organizationally intact, but operationally weakened because of the losses suffered by it in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and because of the strong anti-Al Qaeda measures taken by many countries. It has not been able to organize any major terrorist strike outside Pakistani territory.
Two of the 2008 terrorist strikes in Pakistan----the attacks on the Danish Embassy (June 3,2008) and the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad (September 20,2008)--- had definite Al Qaeda signatures. However, while claims of responsibility in respect of the attack on the Danish Embassy were made on behalf of Al Qaeda, no such claims have been made in respect of the Marriott Hotel attack.
The attack in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008, was by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), which has emerged as an international terrorist organization on par with Al Qaeda.Its planning to the minutest details, faultless execution and the barbaric methods used against the Israelis and other Jewish persons speak of a possible Al Qaeda hand in the planning and orchestration. The targets chosen by the LET were also the favoured targets of Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.
Al Qaeda operates where it thinks there are physical security deficiencies and where it thinks it can successfully attack American and Israeli nationals and interests. The physical security deficiencies exposed in Mumbai could tempt Al Qaeda----directly or through intermediaries--- to mount another terrorist strike against American and Israeli nationals and interests in Indian territory.
Indian and Western pressure on Pakistan to act against the JUD/LET combine might affect the chances of its being able to repeat Mumbai—November 26. But there are four other Pakistani organizations, who would be happy to do the bidding of Al Qaeda----namely, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), a rabid anti-Shia organization. All of them except the LEJ have been operating in India off and on. The HUM is a founding member of bin Laden’s International Islamic Front (IIF) for Jihad Against the Crusaders and the Jewish People formed by him in 1998. The LET and the other organizations joined it subsequently.
Of these, the most successful in the Indian territory, after the LET, has been the Bangladesh branch of the HUJI known as HUJI (B). It profits from the presence of a large number of illegal migrants from Bangladesh not only in Assam and West Bengal, but also in other urban centres of India. Successive Governments in Bangladesh have avoided taking action against the HUJI (B) just as successive Governments in Pakistan have avoided acting against the LET.
There cannot be effective counter-terrorism in Indian territory without effective action against both the Pakistan and Bangladesh branches of the HUJI and without equally effective action to stop illegal immigration from Bangladesh and to identify and expel those who have already settled down in India. One of the lessons of 9/11 was the importance of effective immigration control in counter-terrorism. India has the weakest anti-immigration infrastructure among the democracies of the world. There is a lack of political will to act against illegal immigration due to partisan considerations and unwise electoral calculations. The proposed National Investigation Agency and additional powers for the police alone will not be able to prevent another November 26 unless accompanied by strong measures against illegal immigration from Bangladesh.
Whatever be the extent of Western pressure on it to act against the LET, Pakistan is unlikely to give up the use of the LET, the HUJI, the JEM and the HUM against India. In its strategic calculation, that is the only way of changing the status quo in J&K and countering the increasing Indian presence in Afghanistan.
The West is unlikely to increase the pressure on Pakistan to an extent that might hurt it. It needs Pakistan’s co-operation to prevent another 9/11, another Madrid---March,2004 or another London, July,2005. It has sympathies for Pakistan because its co-operation with the US and the rest of the West have made it a victim of jihadi terrorism. During 2008, there were about 90 acts of terrorism in Pakistani territory----- 60 acts of suicide terrorism and 30 of other kinds. The West’s continued dependence on Pakistan and its sympathy for it would put a limit to its support for India.
The ground situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan is likely to get worse during 2009 despite the US proposal to induct an additional 30,000 troops and the more robust policy towards Al Qaeda sanctuaries in the FATA promised by President-elect Barack Obama. His options are going to be limited. He could step up the Predator strikes, but these are unlikely to be effective unless driven by precise intelligence. Without a significant inflow of human intelligence, Predator strikes alone will cause more collateral damage and add to anti-US feelings.
There is no convergence of views between the political and military leaderships in Pakistan as to how to deal with terrorism. There is no convergence either among different political formations. Strong sections of its political class such as the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif and the religious parties believe that Pakistan’s co-operation with the US against Al Qaeda is the root cause of its problems. They would want Pakistan to opt out of the war against international terrorism. Sections of the Pakistan Army too ask themselves why the Pakistan Army should fight against groups which pose a threat to the US and not to Pakistan.
The Soviet Union failed in Afghanistan in the 1980s because of the failure of the Soviet leadership to attack on the ground the sanctuaries of the Afghan Mujahideen in Pakistani territory. The US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan are failing because of their reluctance to attack on the ground the sanctuaries of the Afghan Taliban in Pakistan. Indian counter-terrorism is facing serious difficulties---- which are likely to increase in future--- because of the reluctance of the policy-makers to authorize clandestine actions against the sanctuaries of anti-India jihadi organisations in Pakistani territory.
If the Western pressure on Pakistan to dismantle the LET’s terrorism infrastructure in its territory fails to produce results, India should have an alternate plan ready for appropriate operational options short of a direct military strike.
It is in India’s interest that the US succeeds in its operations against the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda. This would not put an end to Pakistani state-sponsored terrorism in Indian territory, but could make it more manageable. It is not in India’s interest to unwittingly create difficulties for the US war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by engaging in a military confrontation with Pakistan. Obama should be given time to try out his more robust strategy.
In its preoccupation with the external dimensions of the problem arising from Pakistan’s continued use of terrorism, India should not neglect the internal dimensions arising from the grievances in sections of its Muslim youth and the weaknesses in its counter-terrorism community.
There is a need for a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy with strategic and tactical dimensions. The decision to set up a National Investigation Agency and give additional powers to the Police are the building blocks of the strategic dimension. A revamping of the intelligence agencies to improve the flow of terrorism-related intelligence and of the physical security agencies to prevent physical security failures of the kind witnessed in Mumbai by promoting the culture of joint action should also be part of the strategic dimension.
The tactical dimension would involve the identification of vulnerable cities and targets and immediate action to protect them.
Preventing another 26/11 should be the immediate priority. Making jihadi terrorism---home-grown or externally sponsored---- wither away through a mix of political, diplomatic and operational measures should be the strategic priority.
THE TEXT OF THE PAPER
India faced six major acts of terrorism in 2008. Of these, four in Jaipur (May), Bangalore (July), Ahmedabad (July) and Delhi (September) were committed by some members of the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which has had contacts with the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) of Pakistan. In messages sent before and after the attacks, they described themselves as the Indian Mujahideen (IM). The IM came to notice for the first time in November 2007 when it organized three explosions in three towns of Uttar Pradesh. In a message sent to sections of the media that day, it accused the Indian criminal justice system of being unfair to Muslims. All these four were acts of reprisal terrorism with no strategic objective.
2. During these strikes, the IM did not attack foreigners either in Jaipur, which has the second largest foreign tourist traffic after Goa or in Bangalore which is one of the favourite destinations for foreign business companies.
3. India has been facing terrorist attacks by home-grown jihadi groups since 1993. The defining characteristics of these attacks have been:
·
No suicide or suicidal (fedayeen) terrorism. No Indian Muslim has so far indulged in suicide terrorism in Indian territory. The only instance of suicidal terrorism by an Indian Muslim was in Glasgow in the UK in June,2006.
·
No barbaric methods such as slitting the throats of the victims. Such barbaric methods are the signature modus operandi of jihadis from Pakistan. Well-known examples---slitting the throat of an Indian passenger on board a hijacked plane of the Indian Airlines in December 1999 by the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) of Pakistan and of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, in Karachi by the HUM and Al Qaeda in January-February,2002. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), a Pakistani member of Al Qaeda, who allegedly co-ordinated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, has reportedly confessed before a US military tribunal in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre that he slit the throat of Pearl.
·
Reliance more on improvised explosive devices (IEDs) than on hand-held weapons.
·
No attacks on foreign nationals except once in 1991 when the J&K Liberation Front (JKLF) killed one Israeli tourist in Srinagar.
4. Of the remaining two terrorist strikes in 2008, one in Assam in October was committed by a local ethnic group with the help of elements from Bangladesh and the other in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008, by 10 Pakistani members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). The LET is the militant wing of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), a Pakistani jihadi organization based in Muridke, near Lahore. The US designated the LET as a foreign terrorist organization in December 2001 and the JUD in April 2006. Pakistan, under US pressure, banned the LET on January 15, 2002, but it started functioning under the name JUD. Pakistan denied that the JUD is the same as the LET and refused to ban it. After the Mumbai terrorist strike, the Anti-Terrorism Committee of the UN Security Council designated the JUD as a terrorist organization. Thereafter, Pakistan has placed some of its leaders, including Prof-Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed, its Amir, under house arrest, but has not yet formally banned it on the ground that there has been no evidence, which would justify a formal ban.
5. The defining characteristics of the Mumbai attack were:
·
This was the first attack of suicidal (fedayeen) terrorism in the Indian territory outside J&K. All previous fedayeen attacks were in J&K.
·
This was the second attack in the Indian territory outside J&K in which all the principal perpetrators were Pakistani nationals. The first one was the attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13,2001. Some Indian Muslims played peripheral roles in the attack on the Indian Parliament. One cannot rule out the possibility of similar peripheral roles by Indian Muslims in Mumbai too, but there has been no evidence in support of this so far. All other attacks of jihadi terrorism in Indian territory outside J&K since 1993 were committed by either Indian Muslims or mixed groups of Indian Muslims belonging to the SIMI, Pakistani Muslims belonging to the LET and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and/or the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) of Bangladesh.
·
This was the second attack of jihadi terrorists on India’s economic infrastructure. The first was in March,1993, when a group of Indian Muslims, raised by Dawood Ibrahim, the Indian mafia leader now living in Karachi, and trained and equipped by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), attacked economic targets in Mumbai killing 257 civilians.
·
The LET terrorists attacked a mix of targets------ human beings as well as economic capabilities, the man in the street as well as the elite and Indians as well as foreigners.
·
This was the first attack by jihadi terrorists on foreigners in Indian territory outside J&K. Since 9/11, there have been 13 targeted attacks on foreigners in the Indian sub-continent---- 12 in Pakistani territory and the Mumbai one in Indian territory. Of the 12 attacks in Pakistani territory, five were on Chinese nationals, four on American nationals and one each on French, German and Danish nationals or interests.
·
The LET terrorists in Mumbai killed 160 Indian nationals ---- civilians as well as security forces personnel--- and 30 foreigners. Four of the foreigners were from South-East Asian countries. The remaining 26 were either from Israel or were Jewish persons of other nationalities or nationals of countries which are participating in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
·
The Israelis and other Jewish persons were subjected to barbaric torture and then killed. There was no evidence of such barbaric acts against other foreigners.
·
This was the first terrorist attack on Israelis and the Jewish people in the Indian territory outside J&K. It came in the wake of intelligence warnings that the LET and the SIMI were planning to attack Israeli tourists in Goa. KSM had reportedly told his American interrogators that Al Qaeda had wanted to attack the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi. Mumbai has two establishments associated with Israel and the Jewish people---the Israeli Consulate and a Jewish religious-cum-cultural centre located in a building called the Narriman House. The terrorists came by sea and attacked at night. They chose the Narriman House and not the Consulate because it is near the sea and had Jewish people living there whereas the Consulate has no Jewish people at night.
·
There was a mix of modus operandi (MO)--- urban warfare of the kind waged by the Hezbollah in Beirut in the 1970s and the 1980s and orchestrated acts of mass casualty terrorism of the kind waged by Al Qaeda; and old terrorism involving the use of hand-held weapons, hand-grenades and explosives and new terrorism involving the use of the latest communications and navigation gadgetry. The TV visuals from Mumbai during the 60 hours that the attack lasted brought back to the minds of professionals visuals, which used to come out of Beirut.
·
There was a mix of strategies---- a strategy for disrupting the till recently on-going Indo-Pakistan peace process was combined with a strategy for acts of reprisal against India’s close relations with Israel and the West. A strategy for discrediting the Indian counter-terrorism community and policy-makers in the eyes of the Indian public was combined with a strategy for discrediting them in the eyes of the international community and business class.
·
There was a mix of attacks on the man in the street in public places such as a railway station, a public square, a hospital etc and on the business and social elite in the Taj Mahal and the Oberoi/Trident Hotels. These are not ordinary hotels patronized by tourists who travel on a shoe-string budget. These are very expensive hotels patronized by the cream of the international business class, who visit Mumbai not for pleasure, but for business. Apparently in respect to the sensitivities of the elite, the Governments of Maharashtra and India have wisely chosen not to identify the cream of the business world who were staying in these hotels at the time of the attack.
·
The terrorists did not indulge in classical hostage-taking tactics, where one takes hostages in order to put forward a demand. They took hostages and locked themselves in buildings in order to force an armed confrontation with the security forces.
·
The grievances of the Indian Muslims was not the cause of the terrorist attack. Pakistan’s strategic objectives against India such as forcing a change in the status quo in J&K and disrupting India’s economic progress and strategic relations with the West and Israel were the motive. Reprisal against the US-led coalition in Afghanistan for its war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda was another motive.
6. There has been considerable criticism of the Indian counter-terrorism community---some justified and some unfair. In September, there were reports from the Indian and US intelligence that LET terrorists in Pakistan were planning to carry out a sea-borne terrorist strike against sea-front hotels in Mumbai, including the Taj Mahal hotel. A high-alert was issued. Security was tightened up by the Police, the Navy, the Coast Guard and the security set-ups of the hotels. The terrorists, who had planned to strike on September 26, postponed their attack. There was no fresh information in October. No terrorist strike came. The alert was downgraded in November. The attack came on November 26. It is always a dilemma for the counter-terrorism community as to for how long a high alert should be continued.
7. There has also been criticism of what has been described as the slow response of India’s special intervention forces such as the National Security Guards (NSG). While some Western analysts have criticized their response as too slow taking about 60 hours, some Israeli analysts have criticized it as too hasty, without trying to tire the terrorists out by indulging in talks with them. The NSG did not have the luxury of many options since it was not a classical hostage situation. Their objective was to save as many lives as possible from three different places which were under the control of the terrorists.
8. There are two ways of assessing the performance of the NSG and the Police. The first is from the number of people killed by the terrorists in these three places--- about 100. The second is from the number of people, whom they rescued alive--- nearly 1000. Let us applaud them for saving so many people despite the difficulties faced by them.
9. The most objective assessment of the performance of the NSG and the Police has come from Ami Pedazhur, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and the author of the forthcoming book "The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism," in an article contributed by him to the “New York Times “ ( December 19,2008). I am annexing a copy of this article to this paper.
10. Mr.Pedazhur wrote : “It is clear that the Indian security forces made some mistakes. However, mistakes are inherent in such crises. At the same time, given the complex nature of the attacks, it seems likely the death toll could have been much higher. After the initial confusion, the Indians seem to have done a thorough job of gathering intelligence and carefully planning their counterattacks. The execution itself was careful and thorough.”
11. He added: “The Mumbai attacks showed just how difficult it is for large, multiethnic states to protect themselves from terrorism, something Americans have known well since 9/11. There is certainly much for New Delhi and Washington to learn from the Israeli experience, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution. While Israel has much to be proud of in how it has handled terrorism, it also has much to be humble about.”
12. Counter-terrorism is much more difficult in India than in any other country because of its large size, federal constitution which gives greater powers to the State governments in respect of crime control and law and order, multi-party system and coalition governments at New Delhi and in many States. Moreover, India is located right in the centre of the Islamic world with Islamic countries to the East, West and North-West of it. It has the second largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia. Actions against jihadi terrorists----whether home-grown or externally sponsored--- have to be attentive to the sensitivities of the Muslim community while acting against the terrorist elements from them. This often creates a Hamlet-like situation for the counter-terrorism community. Political consensus on counter-terrorism related issues is more difficult to achieve than in other democracies.
13. India has had a successful record against insurgencies and terrorist groups, whose activities were confined to a single State or region. The difficulties faced by it since November, 2007, are due to the fact that the post-November,2007, terrorism is pan-Indian in nature with a presence in a number of States. To meet this phenomenon, the Government has decided to create a National Investigation Agency to facilitate co-ordinated investigation, which has not been possible till now. It has also added to the powers of the police after the Mumbai strike.
14. Indian counter-terrorism agencies managed to catch alive Mohammad Ajmal Amir Imam, one of the 10 perpetrators trained in Pakistan---initially in a camp in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and subsequently in Karachi--- and sent to Mumbai for launching the attacks. In his interrogation, he has reportedly stated that he and the other nine terrorists, who were killed, were Pakistani nationals, who were recruited by the LET, trained, armed and sent by boat to Mumbai. His Pakistani nationality has been confirmed by independent enquiries made by the Pakistani correspondent of the “Observer” of the UK and sections of the Pakistani media such as the highly-respected “Dawn” of Karachi and the GeoTV. Even his father has admitted in a media interview that the captured perpetrator is his son.
15. In order to disown any responsibility for the terrorist attack, the Pakistan Government has adopted various tactics. Initially, it tried to create an alibi by making a Pakistani lawyer claim that Ajmal Amir Imam was his client, who had been arrested by the Nepalese authorities two years ago and handed over to the Indian intelligence. When the Nepalese authorities denied this, the Pakistani authorities, including President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani, have started denying that he is a Pakistani.
16. Because of the death of many foreign nationals, many foreign intelligence agencies----including those of the US, the UK and Israel--- are making their own independent investigation. The Government of India has given them free access to the captured terrorist and allowed them to interrogate him independently. All the agencies have independently of each other come to the conclusion that the arrested perpetrators were Pakistani nationals belonging to the LET, which had trained them in Pakistani territory and infiltrated them into Mumbai by sea.
17. While there has been a consensus among the various intelligence agencies of India and other countries that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been using the JUD/LET as a clandestine arm for acts of terrorism in Indian territory, there is as yet no consensus as to whether the ISI sponsored the attack in Mumbai. Indian investigators believe so, but the Government of India has refrained from articulating their belief. It has restricted itself to saying that the perpetrators were Pakistani nationals from the LET who were trained for this attack in camps in Pakistani territory.
18.India has made two specific demands to Pakistan. The first is for the arrest and handing over of the Pakistani LET operatives who had orchestrated the Mumbai attack as well as of all Pakistan-based terrorists, who had carried out terrorist attacks in the past. The second is for closing down the terrorist infrastructure of the LET in Pakistani territory. There has been considerable pressure on Pakistan from the US, the UK and other Western countries to meet the Indian demands.
19. The Zardari Government has vehemently refused to do so. It continues to claim that there is no evidence so far to show that the attack was mounted from the Pakistani territory and that Pakistani nationals were involved. It has also stuck to the traditional Pakistani position that no Pakistani national---whatever be his crime--- will be handed over to India for interrogation and prosecution and that the Indian Police will not be allowed to interrogate them in Pakistani territory either. Its so-called actions against the leaders and other operatives of the JUD/LET and other organizations such as the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) have been a farce. It has not yet formally banned the JUD despite the action of the Anti-Terrorism Committee of the UN Security Council in designating the JUD as a terrorist organization and four of its leaders, including its Amir Prof-Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed, as international terrorists.
20. The strategic significance of the Mumbai strike arises from the fact that the Pakistan-based LET has emerged as an international terrorism organization on par with Al Qaeda. In fact, some US experts view the attack as probably jointly mounted by the LET and Al Qaeda. The LET poses a threat not only to India’s national security, but also to international peace and security. That is the point India has been highlighting in its diplomatic campaign.
GROUND SITUATION IN AFGHANISTAN & PAKISTAN
21. The ground situation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region shows no signs of improvement. The Afghan Taliban headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar, which has been fighting against the NATO forces in Afghanistan from sanctuaries in the Balochistan area of Pakistan, has maintained a high level of activity in southern and eastern Afghanistan as well as in the Kabul area. It has shown a capability for conventional fighting in sizable formations of up to 200 as well as a capability for suicide attacks. There have already been over 100 acts of suicide terrorism in Afghan territory till November 30,2008, mounted from sanctuaries in Pakistani territory.
22. The difficulties faced by the NATO forces are partly due to the unwillingness of the Pakistani army to act against the Afghan Taliban, which it looks upon as its strategic ally to regain its influence in Afghanistan. These difficulties have been aggravated by the increase in the activities of the Pakistani Taliban called the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) founded by Baitullah Mehsud of South Waziristan after the raid by the commandoes of the Pakistan Army into the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) of Islamabad in July 2007 in order to free it from the control of pro-Taliban and pro-Al Qaeda elements.
23. The large number of fatalities of young tribal students---many of them girls--- during the raid caused a wave of anger in the tribal belt, which has not subsided. This anger led to 56 acts of suicide terrorism in Pakistani territory during 2007 . There have already been 60 acts of suicide terrorism this year. Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister, who supported the commando raid, was killed by one of the suicide terrorists on December 27,2007. There has been no progress in the investigation and prosecution of the terrorists responsible for her assassination. In recent months, terrorists of the Pakistani Taliban have also succeeded in disrupting the movement of supplies for the NATO forces in Afghanistan from the Karachi port.
24.The activities of the Pakistani Taliban started initially in the South Waziristan and Bajaur areas of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) adjoining Afghanistan. From there, they spread to the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and they are now threatening Peshawar itself, the capital of the NWFP. There have been repeated acts of suicide terrorism in the Peshawar area giving rise to fears that it could eventually become Pakistan’s Beirut.
25. Suicide terrorists operating from the tribal belt fall into two groups---- those of the Pakistani Taliban and the so-called Jundullas (soldiers of Allah), who are self-motivated individuals without any organizational affiliation. These suicide terrorists have been able to operate not only in the tribal areas from where they often originate, but also in cantonments in the non-tribal areas and even in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, Rawalpindi, where the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Army are located, and Lahore. There have also been reports of clandestine cells of the Pakistani Taliban being set up in Karachi, where there is a sizable migrant Pashtun population.
26. The Pakistan Army, which is greatly concerned over the increase in the activities of the Pakistani Taliban, had mounted special operations against them through the Frontier Corps, a para-military force consisting largely of Pashtuns, in the Swat Valley and the Bajaur Agency. It had also trained and armed tribal militias called Lashkars to counter the Taliban. These Lashkars consist largely of Shias specially trained and motivated to counter the Taliban, which is mainly a Sunni force. This has led to the Taliban indulging in large-scale reprisal attacks against the Shias.
27. Thus, one finds three waves of anger in the FATA, the Swat Valley and in the Peshawar area ---- an anti-Army anger because of the commando raid into the Lal Masjid and the perceived co-operation of the Army with the US in its operations against Al Qaeda, an anti-US anger because of its operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban and an anti-Shia anger because of the Shias’ co-operation with the Army as members of the anti-Taliban Lashkars.
28. There have been nearly 30 air strikes by the unmanned Predator planes of the US intelligence agencies against Al Qaeda hide-outs and suspects in the North and South Waziristan areas this year. Some middle and lower level operatives of Al Qaeda were killed in these air strikes. Among others killed by these strikes was Rashid Rauf, a UK citizen of POK (Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir) origin, who was suspected to have played an active role in the conspiracy to blow up a number of US-bound planes, which was unearthed by the British Police in August,2006. Senior leaders of Al Qaeda such as Osama bin Laden and his No.2 Ayman Al Zawahiri have managed to avoid capture or death. They continue to guide the activities of Al Qaeda from its sanctuaries in North Waziristan.
29. Apart from Al Qaeda, two other organizations associated with it have their sanctuaries in the Waziristan area----the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG), another Uzbeck organization. While the IMU has a limited agenda relating to capture of power in Uzbekistan, the IJG, which is sometimes also referred to as the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), has a much larger agenda. It refrains from projecting itself as a purely Uzbeck organization. Instead, it projects itself as a global jihadi organization and has been recruiting members from the Pakistani diaspora in Europe---- particularly in the UK and Germany.
LOOKING TO 2009
30. Al Qaeda is organizationally intact, but operationally weakened because of the losses suffered by it in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and because of the strong anti-Al Qaeda measures taken by many countries.
31.It has not been able to organize any major terrorist strike outside Pakistani territory. Two of the 2008 terrorist strikes in Pakistan----the attacks on the Danish Embassy (June 3,2008) and the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad (September 20,2008)--- had definite Al Qaeda signatures. However, while claims of responsibility in respect of the attack on the Danish Embassy were made on behalf of Al Qaeda, no such claims have been made in respect of the Marriott Hotel attack.
32. The attack in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008, was by the LET, but its planning to the minutest details, faultless execution and the barbaric methods used against the Israelis and other Jewish persons speak of a possible Al Qaeda hand in the planning and orchestration. The targets chosen by the LET were also the favoured targets of Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.
33. Al Qaeda operates where it thinks there are physical security deficiencies and where it thinks it can successfully attack American and Israeli nationals and interests. The physical security deficiencies exposed in Mumbai could tempt Al Qaeda----directly or through intermediaries--- to mount another terrorist strike against American and Israeli nationals and interests in Indian territory.
34. Indian and Western pressure on Pakistan to act against the JUD/LET combine might affect the chances of its being able to repeat Mumbai—November 26. But there are four other Pakistani organizations, who would be happy to do the bidding of Al Qaeda----namely, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), a rabid anti-Shia organization. All of them except the LEJ have been operating in India off and on. The HUM is a founding member of bin Laden’s International Islamic Front (IIF) for Jihad Against the Crusaders and the Jewish People formed by him in 1998. The LET and the other organizations joined it subsequently.
35. Of these, the most successful in the Indian territory, after the LET, has been the Bangladesh branch of the HUJI known as HUJI (B). It profits from the presence of a large number of illegal migrants from Bangladesh not only in Assam and West Bengal, but also in other urban centres of India. Successive Governments in Bangladesh have avoided taking action against the HUJI (B) just as successive Governments in Pakistan have avoided acting against the LET. There cannot be effective counter-terrorism in Indian territory without effective action against both the Pakistan and Bangladesh branches of the HUJI and without equally effective action to stop illegal immigration from Bangladesh and to identify and expel those who have already settled down in India.
36.One of the lessons of 9/11 was the importance of effective immigration control in counter-terrorism. India has the weakest anti-immigration infrastructure among the democracies of the world. There is a lack of political will to act against illegal immigration due to partisan considerations and unwise electoral calculations. The proposed National Investigation Agency and additional powers for the police alone will not be able to prevent another November 26 unless accompanied by strong measures against illegal immigration from Bangladesh.
37. Whatever be the extent of Western pressure on it to act against the LET, Pakistan is unlikely to give up the use of the LET, the HUJI, the JEM and the HUM against India. In its strategic calculation, that is the only way of changing the status quo in J&K and countering the increasing Indian presence in Afghanistan.
38.The West is unlikely to increase the pressure on Pakistan to an extent that might hurt it. It needs Pakistan’s co-operation to prevent another 9/11, another Madrid---March,2004 or another London, July,2005. It has sympathies for Pakistan because its co-operation with the US and the rest of the West have made it a victim of jihadi terrorism. During 2008, there were about 90 acts of terrorism in Pakistani territory----- 60 acts of suicide terrorism and 30 of other kinds. The West’s continued dependence on Pakistan and its sympathy for it would put a limit to its support for India.
39. The ground situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan is likely to get worse during 2009 despite the US proposal to induct an additional 30,000 troops and the more robust policy towards Al Qaeda sanctuaries in the FATA promised by President-elect Barack Obama. His options are going to be limited. He could step up the Predator strikes, but these are unlikely to be effective unless driven by precise intelligence. Without a significant inflow of human intelligence, Predator strikes alone will cause more collateral damage and add to anti-US feelings.
40. There is no convergence of views between the political and military leaderships in Pakistan as to how to deal with terrorism. There is no convergence either among different political formations. Strong sections of its political class such as the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif and the religious parties believe that Pakistan’s co-operation with the US against Al Qaeda is the root cause of its problems. They would want Pakistan to opt out of the war against international terrorism. Sections of the Pakistan Army too ask themselves why the Pakistan Army should fight against groups which pose a threat to the US and not to Pakistan.
41. The Soviet Union failed in Afghanistan in the 1980s because of the failure of the Soviet leadership to attack on the ground the sanctuaries of the Afghan Mujahideen in Pakistani territory. The US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan are failing because of their reluctance to attack on the ground the sanctuaries of the Afghan Taliban in Pakistan. Indian counter-terrorism is facing serious difficulties---- which are likely to increase in future--- because of the reluctance of the policy-makers to authorize clandestine actions against the sanctuaries of anti-India jihadi organisations in Pakistani territory.
42. If the Western pressure on Pakistan to dismantle the LET’s terrorism infrastructure in its territory fails to produce results, India should have an alternate plan ready for appropriate operational options short of a direct military strike.
43. It is in India’s interest that the US succeeds in its operations against the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda. This would not put an end to Pakistani state-sponsored terrorism in Indian territory, but could make it more manageable. It is not in India’s interest to unwittingly create difficulties for the US war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by engaging in a military confrontation with Pakistan. Obama should be given time to try out his more robust strategy.
44. In its preoccupation with the external dimensions of the problem arising from Pakistan’s continued use of terrorism, India should not neglect the internal dimensions arising from the grievances in sections of its Muslim youth and the weaknesses in its counter-terrorism community.
45. There is a need for a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy with strategic and tactical dimensions. The decision to set up a National Investigation Agency and give additional powers to the Police are the building blocks of the strategic dimension. A revamping of the intelligence agencies to improve the flow of terrorism-related intelligence and of the physical security agencies to prevent physical security failures of the kind witnessed in Mumbai by promoting the culture of joint action should also be part of the strategic dimension. The tactical dimension would involve the identification of vulnerable cities and targets and immediate action to protect them.
46. Preventing another 26/11 should be the immediate priority. Making jihadi terrorism---home-grown or externally sponsored---- wither away through a mix of political, diplomatic and operational measures should be the strategic priority.(24-12-08)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE
From Munich to Mumbai
Author: Ami Pedazhur
Publication: The New York TimesDate: December 19, 2008
NOW that India and the world are over the initial shock of the terrorist attacks last month in Mumbai, efforts to understand what happened and prevent future calamities are being hampered in ways familiar to Israelis like myself, who have lived through far too many such events: pointless efforts to place blame, and a failure to put the attacks in the proper historical context.
First, contrary to much punditry in India and the West, these attacks did not indicate the emergence of a new form of terrorism. Actually, after decades in which terrorism had evolved mostly in the direction of suicide bombings, Mumbai was a painful reminder of the past. The multiple hostage-takings and shootings, carefully planned and executed, were a throwback to the wave of hijackings and hostage situations that were the trademark of terrorists in the Middle East from the 1960s until the 1980s.
The most famous of these events, of course, was the attack on the Israeli delegation at the 1972 Olympic Games. In Munich, the Black September terrorists succeeded in capturing the attention of TV viewers around the world for a whole day. They knew most TV networks had sent crews to cover the Games and thus would broadcast the hostage situation as it unfolded.
The terrorists in Mumbai were even more successful, in that they created a drama that lasted much longer. They did so by aiming at high-profile targets like the hotels that are hubs for Western tourists and businessmen. They knew that viewers around the world would be glued for days to the constant stream of images on their TV and computer screens.
In addition, that the majority of the Mumbai terrorists landed from the sea was another ugly flashback. For years, terrorists favored arriving at Israel's beaches on speed boats to take hostages in residential neighborhoods.
One of the most notorious perpetrators was Samir Kuntar, who in 1979 led a group of terrorists to the beach of Nahariya and shot a police officer and a civilian, Danny Haran, before smashing the skull of Haran's 4-year-old daughter, Einat. Mr. Kuntar was released this year from Israel in a prisoner exchange, and in Damascus was awarded the Syrian Order of Merit.
Yet, despite the horrific nature of the attacks in the past, from a counterterrorism perspective the events in Mumbai were even more worrisome. Though they did not detonate explosive belts, the attackers were truly suicide terrorists. They did not take their hostages for the purpose of negotiations and it is quite clear that they did not hope to leave the scene alive. They also created chaos by attacking several locations at once.
When the terrorists have the advantage of surprise, it really does not matter how well trained the counterterrorism forces are. It takes a long time to figure out what is going on, to gather tactical intelligence and to launch a counterattack. No one should be aware of these facts more than the Israelis who in the 1970s endured a series of similar albeit less sophisticated attacks.
Hence, I have been very surprised to hear Israeli security experts criticizing the Indian response. These experts probably forgot the devastating civilian death tolls of the attacks in Maalot in 1974 (22 Israeli high school students killed), at the Coastal Road in 1978 (37 murdered, including 13 children) and at Misgav Am in 1980 (two kibbutz members killed, one an infant).
These incidents all illustrated the extreme difficulty of rescuing hostages even when the attacked state has highly trained forces and a lot of experience. Yes, Israel enjoyed a few successes that have been glorified around the world. The most famous were the raids on hijacked planes in Lod, Israel, in 1972 and in Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976. But these two airport rescues cannot be compared with the events in Mumbai.
The Israeli success was due mainly to the fact that the terrorists involved were interested in negotiating, giving security forces the opportunity to gather intelligence, devise a rescue plan and take the hijackers by surprise. Hostages and rescuers were killed in both cases. Yet no security experts argued at the time that the Israeli forces were inadequately prepared or failed in their execution.
It is clear that the Indian security forces made some mistakes. However, mistakes are inherent in such crises. At the same time, given the complex nature of the attacks, it seems likely the death toll could have been much higher. After the initial confusion, the Indians seem to have done a thorough job of gathering intelligence and carefully planning their counterattacks. The execution itself was careful and thorough.
Israel and India both face a lasting terrorism challenge. Yet, if I was asked to give India policy recommendations, I would be extremely cautious about advocating the Israeli approach. Protecting a huge multiethnic, multireligious country like India is far more challenging than securing a rather homogeneous, tiny state like Israel.
Just to illustrate, Israel's airport security is rightly considered to be a model. However, the Israeli security establishment took years and experienced a number of direct attacks on travel hubs before it slowly introduced its impressive security measures. That Israel has only one major international airport - Ben-Gurion, near Tel Aviv - made the process much easier.
And so far, Israel has not been able to tightly secure more challenging targets like train and bus systems. The Israeli experience teaches that countering terrorism is a long and frustrating process of trial and error. Terrorists are fast to respond to new obstacles. For example, the security barrier erected after the start of the second intifada in 2000 has brought a sharp decline in the number of suicide attacks. But Hamas adapted quickly. Suicide bombers were replaced by rockets. While the number of casualties caused by the rockets is significantly lower, I am not convinced that residents of the towns near Gaza feel any safer.
The Mumbai attacks showed just how difficult it is for large, multiethnic states to protect themselves from terrorism, something Americans have known well since 9/11. There is certainly much for New Delhi and Washington to learn from the Israeli experience, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
While Israel has much to be proud of in how it has handled terrorism, it also has much to be humble about.
- Ami Pedazhur, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Texas at Austin, is the author of the forthcoming book "The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism."
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