INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.410
B.RAMAN
Coinciding with the first anniversary of the Pakistan Army's commando raid into the Lal Masjid of Islamabad, there has been a fresh wave of jihadi terrorism in Pakistan, which has reversed the declining trend seen after the new Government headed by Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani came to office in the last week of March,2008.
2. This new wave started even before the first anniversary with the an Al Qaeda-admitted act of suicide terrorism outside the Danish Embassy in Islamabad on June 2,2008. It has picked up momentum since then-----particularly since July 3,2008, which marked the first anniversary of the siege of the Lal Masjid by the Pakistani security forces and ultimately led to the raid into the Lal Masjid.
3. This new wave has affected tribal as well as non-tribal areas, but the tribal areas more than non-tribal areas till now. In the tribal areas, it has affected the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which are directly controlled from Islamabad with the help of the Army, as well as the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), which is ruled by a coalition headed by the reputedly secular Awami National Party (ANP). The ANP has been trying to deal with the situation with the help of the Frontier Corps (FC), a para-military organisation of Pashtun tribals trained and supervised by the Army.
4.The NWFP was badly affected even last year. Of the 56 attacks of suicide terrorism during 2007, 23 were in the FATA, 21 in the NWFP, including four in the Swat Valley, nine in Punjab, two in Balochistan and one in Sindh. Of the 23 in the FATA, only two were in North Waziristan and one in the Bajaur Agency, where, according to the US, the terrorist infrastructure of Al Qaeda is located. The remaining 20 were in South Waziristan, where there are no confirmed reports of any Al Qaeda infrastructure. All the attacks in South Waziristan came from areas which are controlled by the Mehsuds. In the areas controlled by other tribes, there were no incidents of suicide terrorism. Two cantonments saw repeated suicide strikes--- Rawalpindi (5), where the General Headquarters of the Army are located, and Kohat (3) in the NWFP where an Army cadet school is located.
5. The Ministry of the Interior of the Government of Pakistan has not so far come out with official statistics relating to suicide and non-suicide terrorism this year, but according to Hamid Mir, the highly-respected Pakistani journalist, who works for the GeoTV, a private TV channel,there have been 25 acts of suicide terrorism in Pakistan during the first six months of 2008, resulting in 332 fatalities. However, in his analysis carried by "News" of July 10,2008, he does not indicate how many of these incidents took place before the new Government came to office and how many thereafter. According to official figures released by the Interior Ministry at the end of last year, there were only four acts of suicide terrorism during the first six months of 2007. This shot up to 56 after the Lal Masjid raid. According to my collation, there were 17 acts of suicide terrorism this year before the Gilani Government came to office, and there have been only eight since then, but the number is showing an upward trend.
6. According to Hamid Mir, Afghanistan had 160 suicide bombings in 2007 with 836 people dead and it has had 76 suicide bombings in the first six months of 2008 with 466 dead. There were seven suicide attacks in Afghanistan in March 2008 compared to 17 in March 2007.There was a sudden increase in the attacks in June 2008 with 17 suicide bombings compared to just seven suicide bombings in June 2007. Suicide bombings slightly increased in areas close to the Iranian border. Kandahar and Helmand are close to Pakistan while Nimroz and Farah are close to Iran. There were 15 suicide attacks in Kandahar in 2008 compared to 26 in 2007. There were 15 suicide attacks in Helmand in 2008 compared to 22 in 2007. There were only three attacks in Nimroz in 2007 but eight attacks in the first six months of 2008. Farah is close to the Iranian border and had just five suicide attacks in 2007 but this province saw six suicide attacks in 2008. The increasing number of attacks in areas closer to the Iranian border than to the Pakistani border is intriguing and has thus far remained without a satisfactory explanation.
7.In 2007, one saw acts of suicide terrorism as well as conventional attacks not involving suicide terrorism in the tribal areas. The conventional style attacks were more in the FATA than in the NWFP, except in the Swat Valley, which is the stronghold of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) headed by Mulla Fazlullah. Even though official statistics of conventional style attacks are not available, one can see that there has been an increase in conventional style attacks in other areas of the NWFP too. What one has been seeing is that the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other jihadi groups in the tribal belt not associated with the TTP, have been emulating the tactics of the Taliban of Afghanistan, which consist of a mix of suicide terrorism and conventional guerilla-style attacks. An insurgency-like situation is developing in the tribal belt in the FATA and the NWFP, similar to the situation which has been prevalent in southern and eastern Afghanistan.
8. There has been a deterioration in the control exercised by the ANP-led Government, the army and the para-military forces in the NWFP. This weakening of control is evident in Peshawar too, where the Taliban and pro-Taliban groups are slowly nibbling at the outlying areas bordering the FATA. The worsening situation in the NWFP should be a matter of concern to the international community since many of the areas where Pakistan's Atomic Energy Commission stores its nuclear waste are located there. If these sites come under the control of the jihadi terrorists, Al Qaeda's search for a dirty bomb capability could be facilitated. ( 13-7-08)
(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, July 12, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
BLAST OUTSIDE INDIAN EMBASSY IN KABUL: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS
B.RAMAN
( An article prepared exclusively for 'India Abroad", the weekly published from the US, and its sister online publication Rediff.com. Not to be used by others before July 14,2008)
Forty-one persons, four of them Indian nationals, were killed in a suicide car bomb explosion outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul on July 7,2008, as the staff of the Embassy were arriving to start the day's work.
2. The Indian nationals killed were Brigadier R.D.Mehta, the Defence Attache, V.Venkateswara Rao, an officer of the Indian Foreign Service working as Counsellor, Ajai Pathania, a security guard of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), and Roop Singh, also a security guard of the ITBP. The two security guards of the ITBP were manning the security barrier outside the entrance gate of the Embassy. Brig. Mehta and Rao were coming to the Embassy in a chauffeur-driven car. The Brigadier was sitting in the front seat by the side of the chauffeur and Rao in the rear seat just behind the chauffeur, who was possibly an Afghan national, since his name did not figure among Indian fatalities.
3.The remaining 37 fatalities consisted of six Afghan police officers posted outside the Embassy, a large number of Afghan visa seekers plus some bystanders on the road. Though the blast took place just outside the gate, it was reported to have badly damaged the building of the Indian Embassy and caused some damage to an adjoining building, in which the Indonesian Embassy was located. There were no fatalities among the staff of the Indian Embassy inside the building. Among the over 100 injured persons were two Indonesian diplomats and five Afghan police officers posted outside the Indonesian Embassy.
4.Initial reports suggested that the suicide car bomber came from the opposite direction and rammed his explosive-laden car into two Embassy cars as they were waiting for the gate to open. This gave rise to the possibility that his primary targets were the two Indian officers. Subsequent reports indicated, however, that the suicide bomber was driving behind the car carrying the Indian officers. As the ITBP guards were trying to verify the identity of the car following the Embassy car, the terrorist activated the vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED). From this, it is suspected that his aim was to enter the Embassy premises by taking advantage of the opening of the gate for the Embassy car and then activate the IED, but when the suspicions of the ITBP guards were roused, he activated the IED outside the Embassy itself. If he had succeeded in entering the premises and then activating the IED, the Indian fatalities and the damage to the building might have been more.
5.The Kabul blast outside the Indian Embassy brings to mind a similar suicide car bomb blast near the US Consulate in Karachi on the eve of the arrival in Islamabad from New Delhi of President George Bush in the first week of March,2006. The blast killed a US diplomat, his Pakistani driver and a Pakistani security officer. Briefing the media after the incident, Niaz Siddiqi, an officer of the Karachi Police , was quoted as saying by the "News" of March 3,2006: "Due to strict security arrangements, the suicide bomber could not reach his target [the U.S. Consulate] and blew the car up on the way, when a motorcade of U.S. diplomats was passing through". Pakistani investigators blamed the blast on a little known organisation called the Jundullah (Soldiers of Allah) reported to have been trained in North Waziristan.
6. Terrorists have been using suicide vehicular bombs ( two-wheelers, cars, trucks and boats) since 1983, when a suicide vehicular bomb was first used against the US Marines in Beirut. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been using this modus operandi (MO) since 1987. This MO is being used by Al Qaeda with devastating effect in Iraq since the US-led troops occupied the country in 2003. It has also been used by Al Qaeda in Algeria. A suicide car bomb causes many more fatalities and much more damage than an IED carried by a suicide bomber on his person.
7. There have been many car bomb explosions in India and Pakistan carried out by jihadi terrorists in the past, but these were activated through a remote control device or a mechanical timer and not by a suicide bomber driving the vehicle. As an example, one could cite the Mumbai blasts of March,1993. However, there have been no suicide car bomb explosions in India so far.
8. The increasing use of the MO involving suicide car bombs came into vogue in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region after 9/11. There were no acts of suicide terrorism in Afghanistan before September 9,2001. The assassination of Ahmed Shah Masood, the legendary Tajik leader, by two Arab terrorists on September 9,2001, was the first act of suicide terrorism reported from Afghan territory. Since the Afghan Taliban, headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar, staged a come-back in Afghanistan from sanctuaries in Pakistan in 2004, it has been increasingly using suicide terrorism. The virus of suicide terrorism, which was initially introduced into Pakistan in the 1990s by the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), spread dramatically after the raid by the Pakistan Army commandos into the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July last year.
9. In both Pakistan and Afghanistan, the suicide bombers carried the IEDs on their person, but since 2006 there has been an increasing number of instances of vehicle-borne suicide terrorism in both countries.Training in the use of this MO is reported to have been imparted to the volunteers of the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan and the various pro-Taliban and pro-Al Qaeda organisations of Pakistan in the training camps of Al Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG), another Uzbek organisation, in North Waziristan in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan.
10.There has been a sharp increase in acts of terrorism in Afghanistan since the new Government headed by Yousef Raza Gilani assumedoffice in Islamabad in the last week of March,2008. NATO officers in Afghanistan have spoken of a 40 per cent increase in the infiltration ofjihadi terrorists from the tribal belt of Pakistan into Afghanistan since the new Pakistani Government suspended military operations againstthe Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and entered into peace negotiations with them. Even as acts of terrorism----including suicide terrorism---have increased in Afghan territory, there has been a sharp decrease in acts of suicide terrorism in Pakistani territory. This indicates that thenew Government has made a deal with the Taliban allowing it to operate freely in Afghanistan in return for its stepping down its operationsin Pakistani territory.
11.In a despatch on July 7,2008, Luis Martinez of the ABC News of the US said: "As the number of U.S. fatalities has dropped in Iraq, those in Afghanistan have been steadily rising. In June, U.S. military fatalities in Afghanistan nearly equaled those in Iraq and were the highest since the start of the war in 2001. It's a reflection of a resurgent Taliban that has refocused the attention of Pentagon planners, but drawn little attention in a presidential campaign in which politicians have been more focused on Iraq. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen told reporters last week that he has been "deeply troubled" by the rising violence in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have "without question, grown more effective and more aggressive in recent weeks, and as the casualty figures clearly demonstrate." The 28 American deaths in Afghanistan in June were one short of the 29 in Iraq, where the U.S. has more than four times as many troops. There are currently 32,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and 145,000 in Iraq. But the casualty rates of NATO allies are also rising. For the second month in a row, the total number of coalition combat deaths exceeded those in Iraq -- 46 in Afghanistan, compared with 31 in Iraq."
12.The ABC report added: "Military officials cite several reasons for the increase in violence, namely the Taliban's "safe haven" in the western tribal areas of Pakistan, where they can launch operations across the border into Afghanistan. Also, unable to defeat U.S. and NATO troops in conventional fighting, the various groups that make up the Taliban insurgency have resorted to tactics like those seen in Iraq, primarily the use of roadside bombs. A third factor cited by American commanders is that with more American troops on the ground than ever there is more combat as they move into areas controlled by insurgents. The commander of U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, was more precise last week when he said that the number of violent incidents in his sector had jumped by 40 per cent in the first five months of this year over last year. This is in a region praised as a success story of American counterinsurgency efforts. Schloesser and other military officials describe the "safe haven" in Pakistan as a major factor for the increase in violence in eastern Afghanistan as insurgents are able to easily slip back and forth along the border into Afghanistan. The safe haven was created by ceasefire agreements negotiated by the Pakistani government with tribal leaders."
13.In an article contributed to the "Washington Post" on July 7,2008, Greg Bruno of the Council on Foreign Relations, said: ' A June 2008 report on Afghan security by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, finds that despite $10 billion in U.S. aid, only two of 105 Afghan National Army (ANA) units are judged "fully capable" . None of the 433 units of Afghanistan's National Police (ANP) are capable of conducting independent patrols, and only twelve -- 3 per cent -- are capable of leading operations with coalition support, the GAO says. Weakness of Afghan security services was exposed in a July 7 blast that leveled the Indian mission in Kabul , killing dozens. "
14. There are only three terrorist organisations in Afghanistan, which are capable of a vehicle-borne suicide terrorist strike like the one of July 7----the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan, the Hizb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Heckmatyar and Al Qaeda. Of these, only the Neo Taliban has repeatedly demonstrated a capability for suicide terrorist strikes in Kabul----even in supposedly well-protected areas. It has repeatedly struck at soft as well as hard targets. Al Qaeda, based in the FATA, has a similar capability, but it prefers to train the Neo Taliban and guide it in its operations instead of itself operating. One reason for this is that it has a dwindling cadre of fresh Arab recruits and does not want to lose them in acts of suicide terrorism. It has kept them reserved for training volunteers from all over the world and for more important operations outside Afghanistan. The two Uzbeck organisations have a larger cadre and are in a position to operate in Kabul either on their own or as members of the Neo Taliban. The capability of the Hizb-e-Islami for operations in Kabul is unknown.
15. It is, therefore, assessed that there is a strong possibility of the Neo Taliban having carried out the blast outside the Indian Embassy.One Zabihullah Mujahid, who claimed to be a spokesman of the Neo Taliban, is reported to have denied the involvement of his group.This denial means nothing. If the Neo Taliban admits its involvement, it will provide a connecting link to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which has provided sanctuaries to its leaders, including Mulla Mohammad Omar, and cadres in Pakistani territory. Since the survivors of Al Qaeda and the Taliban withdrew into the tribal belt of Pakistan after the US strikes destroyed their sanctuaries in Afghan territory after 9/11, Pakistan has been following a dual policy in its co-operation with the US in the war against terrorism. It has been co-operating in the operations against Al Qaeda to the extent necessary and unavoidable, but avoiding action against the Neo Taliban. It wants to preserve the Neo Taliban as a fighting unit to regain its pre-9/11 influence in Afghanistan if and when the US and other NATO forces leave Afghanistan and to counter the Indian presence in Afghanistan.
16. The fact that the ISI has been playing a double game in respect of the Taliban-----pretending to co-operate, but not actually co-operating--- has been admitted even by many US analysts. 'The Times" of London wrote on July 8,2008: "A US Department of Defence funded study undertaken by the RAND Corporation and published last month also stated that elements of the ISI were aiding the Taliban.“Right now, the Taliban and other groups are getting help from individuals within Pakistan’s Government, and until that ends, the region’s long-term security is in jeopardy,” concluded the report’s author Seth Jones.He said the support included medical care for wounded fighters, logistical and financial support. He also said ISI trainers were instructing insurgents in camps at Quetta, Mansehra, Shamshattu and Parachinar and other areas of Pakistan. “NATO officials uncovered several instances in which ISI operatives provided intelligence to Taliban insurgents at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels,” the report says."
17. "The Times" added: " Privately there is acknowledgement that a level of complicity is a reality. “There is an acceptance that elements of the ISI are engaged with the insurgents,” said one source serving in the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) for Afghanistan yesterday. “The issue that remains unresolved is the degree of higher level acceptance of this, and how much they (the ISI) can actually be controlled.”British officers confirmed to The Times an incident last summer in which a Taliban corpse found on the battlefield in Helmand turned out to be carrying papers identifying the body as that of a serving ISI Colonel. When British officials challenged the Islamabad Government on the issue, they received an explanation that the man was ’on leave’ at the time of his death."
18. Was the ISI involved in the Kabul blast? The Afghan Government seems convinced it was.Talking to the media after the blast, Humayun Hamidzada, a spokesperson of President Hamid Karzai, was quoted as saying: “Everything has the hallmark of a particular intelligence agency that has conducted similar terrorist acts inside Afghanistan in the past.We believe firmly that there is a particular intelligence agency behind it.I’m not going to name it anymore, I think it’s pretty obvious.”
19. Indian investigators must still be collecting the evidence. Even if they find the smoking gun connecting the ISI with the blast, it is doubtful whether the Government of Dr.Manmohan Singh would go public with its charge against Pakistan. Since his meeting with President Pervez Musharraf at Havana in September,2006, our Prime Minister has been following a policy of not implicating the ISI in public in acts of terrorism----even if there be strong evidence---- lest such public airing affect the confidence-building process which he has undertaken in our relations with Pakistan. But we should have no illusions that the Pakistani leadership----military or political---- genuinely wishes well of India---either in Afghanistan, within India or elsewhere. There has been no change in Pakistan's mindset of wanting to keep us bleeding wherever possible and whenever possible.
20.The increasing Indian presence in Afghanistan for assisting in the economic development of Afghanistan and for strengthening thecapability of the Afghan Government in various fields has been a constant source of criticism by Pakistan, which has taken up the issuerepeatedly with the US and other NATO countries. Sections of the media and the religious parties in Pakistan have also been critical of theclose relations of the Karzai Government with India.Urdu newspapers in Pakistan had even accused India of fomenting trouble inBalochistan from covert bases in Afghan territory.
21.Instead of condemning without any reservation the Pakistani use of the Taliban against the Afghan Government of Karzai and against the Indian nationals and interests in Afghanistan, many American scholars and experts----governmental as well as non-governmental--- try to project it as deplorable, but understandable in view of the Pakistani concerns over the Indian presence. This further encourages the ISI's use of the Taliban and gives Pakistan the confidence that so far as the use of terrorists against India is concerned, it can get away with its misdeeds.
22.Testifying before the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee on October 10,2007, Lisa Curtis, Senior Research Fellow in the Heritage Foundation of Washington DC, which is close to the Republican Party, said : "One reason for continued Pakistani ambivalence toward the Taliban stems from the concern that India is trying to encircle it by gaining influence in Afghanistan. In this context, the Taliban offers the best chance for countering India’s regional influence. Pakistan believes ethnic Tajiks in the Afghan Government receive support from New Delhi. India, in cooperation with Russia and Iran, supported the Afghan Northern Alliance against the Taliban in the late 1990s and almost certainly retains links to Northern Alliance elements now in the Afghan Government. Pakistan also complains that the Indian consulates in the border cities of Jalalabad and Kandahar are involved in fomenting insurgency in its Baluchistan area. Because of the regional rivalry between Pakistan and India, Islamabad has been reluctant to allow Indian trans-shipment of goods across its territory into Afghanistan. The U.S. should encourage India and Pakistan to work toward greater economic cooperation in Afghanistan as a way to defuse their tensions. Participants in unoffiial talks on improving Indo-Pakistani ties have suggested that the two countries add Afghanistan as an agenda item in their formal dialogue".
23.Lisa Curtis is a former diplomat from the State Department. After serving in Pakistan for some years, she worked as a Congressional aide and then moved over to the Heritage Foundation. She was testifying before the Committee on “Security Challenges Involving Pakistan and Policy Implications for the Department of Defense."
24. However, there are some experts who are a little more forthright in exposing the duplicity of Pakistan in Afghanistan. Claudio Franco, a senior investigator of the NEFA Foundation, a US counter-terrorism think-tank, has come out with an analysis on "the Evolution of the Taliban in Pakistan during the February-May,2008, period: The Peace Accord Era"----that is, since the elections which brought the present Government to power. He says in his study: " The Government is not negotiating the dismantling of the TTP, but the retargeting of the organisation towards Afghanistan. In other words, from Islamabad's point of view, if the tribal context cannot be stabilised once and for all, at least they want to have a say concerning when and where to strike across the border. Tribal frontier armies have often been used as a foreign policy tool and that is probably one of the reasons why they managed to keep their historical autonomy."
25. He adds: " Realistically wih India becoming closer and closer to the Afghan regime financially and politically, why should Islamabad forsake one of its best assets in the Afghan scenario without trying to turn the situation to its strategic advantage? The TTP could be a proxy army engaged in support for the Afghan Taliban when necessary, an arrangement which would entail exceptional leverage on the Taliban leadership, with a third party doing the dirty work---plausible deniability at its very best.This role "in defence" of Pakistan is certainly clear to Faqir Mohammad ( a leader of the TTP) : "We will continue our activities until we achieve the purpose for which Pakistan was created. In Afghanistan and other Islamic countries, a war is going on against the cruelty of America and its allies. Unless and until America and its allies are expelled, Mujahideen activities will continue."
26. In 1989, the ISI started its proxy war against India in Kashmir. It directly funded, trained and armed Kashmiri jihadi oranisations such as the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), the Hizbul Mujahideen etc. After coming to office in January 1993, President Bill Clinton placed Pakistan on a so-called watch list of suspected state-sponsors of international terrorism and warned Nawaz Sharif, the then Prime Minister, that he would declare Pakistan a state-sponsor of international terrorism if its policies did not change. Thereafter, the ISI adopted a new policy which came to be known as privatisation of assistance to jihadi groups operating against India. Instead of assisting them directly, it started assisting them through selected Pakistani organisations such as the Jamaat-e-Islami,the Jamaat-ul-Ulema Islam, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the Lashkar-e-Toiba etc. The money was given to them and they were asked to distribute it to the Kashmiri organisations and to take over from the ISI the responsibility for running training camps. Retired officers of the Army were placed at the disposal of these organisations for running the training camps.
27. A similar policy is now sought to be followed by the Gilani Government. Cut off direct links of the ISI with the Taliban of Afghanistan and funnel future assistance to the Neo Taliban through the TTP. All the instructions to the Neo Taliban on whom to attack and where and when to attack will be conveyed through the TTP, which will also arrange for the training of the suicide bombers in the camps in North Waziristan.
28. India has done well not to lose its cool as a result of the Kabul blast and to express its determination to stay put in Afghanistan and implement its on-going and future projects. At the same time, it would be necessary to examine the physical security of all our missions and offices in Afghanistan and undertake the necessary enhancements. The attack of July 7 should not be treated as an isolated incident, but as the beginnig of more to come.
29. Additional protective measures are the immediate priority, but they alone would not be sufficient. They have to be supplemented by meaures to make it clear to Pakistan that it will pay a heavy price for its use of the jihadi terrorist organisations against India----either in Afghan or Indian territory. (9-7-08)
(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 )
( An article prepared exclusively for 'India Abroad", the weekly published from the US, and its sister online publication Rediff.com. Not to be used by others before July 14,2008)
Forty-one persons, four of them Indian nationals, were killed in a suicide car bomb explosion outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul on July 7,2008, as the staff of the Embassy were arriving to start the day's work.
2. The Indian nationals killed were Brigadier R.D.Mehta, the Defence Attache, V.Venkateswara Rao, an officer of the Indian Foreign Service working as Counsellor, Ajai Pathania, a security guard of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), and Roop Singh, also a security guard of the ITBP. The two security guards of the ITBP were manning the security barrier outside the entrance gate of the Embassy. Brig. Mehta and Rao were coming to the Embassy in a chauffeur-driven car. The Brigadier was sitting in the front seat by the side of the chauffeur and Rao in the rear seat just behind the chauffeur, who was possibly an Afghan national, since his name did not figure among Indian fatalities.
3.The remaining 37 fatalities consisted of six Afghan police officers posted outside the Embassy, a large number of Afghan visa seekers plus some bystanders on the road. Though the blast took place just outside the gate, it was reported to have badly damaged the building of the Indian Embassy and caused some damage to an adjoining building, in which the Indonesian Embassy was located. There were no fatalities among the staff of the Indian Embassy inside the building. Among the over 100 injured persons were two Indonesian diplomats and five Afghan police officers posted outside the Indonesian Embassy.
4.Initial reports suggested that the suicide car bomber came from the opposite direction and rammed his explosive-laden car into two Embassy cars as they were waiting for the gate to open. This gave rise to the possibility that his primary targets were the two Indian officers. Subsequent reports indicated, however, that the suicide bomber was driving behind the car carrying the Indian officers. As the ITBP guards were trying to verify the identity of the car following the Embassy car, the terrorist activated the vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED). From this, it is suspected that his aim was to enter the Embassy premises by taking advantage of the opening of the gate for the Embassy car and then activate the IED, but when the suspicions of the ITBP guards were roused, he activated the IED outside the Embassy itself. If he had succeeded in entering the premises and then activating the IED, the Indian fatalities and the damage to the building might have been more.
5.The Kabul blast outside the Indian Embassy brings to mind a similar suicide car bomb blast near the US Consulate in Karachi on the eve of the arrival in Islamabad from New Delhi of President George Bush in the first week of March,2006. The blast killed a US diplomat, his Pakistani driver and a Pakistani security officer. Briefing the media after the incident, Niaz Siddiqi, an officer of the Karachi Police , was quoted as saying by the "News" of March 3,2006: "Due to strict security arrangements, the suicide bomber could not reach his target [the U.S. Consulate] and blew the car up on the way, when a motorcade of U.S. diplomats was passing through". Pakistani investigators blamed the blast on a little known organisation called the Jundullah (Soldiers of Allah) reported to have been trained in North Waziristan.
6. Terrorists have been using suicide vehicular bombs ( two-wheelers, cars, trucks and boats) since 1983, when a suicide vehicular bomb was first used against the US Marines in Beirut. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been using this modus operandi (MO) since 1987. This MO is being used by Al Qaeda with devastating effect in Iraq since the US-led troops occupied the country in 2003. It has also been used by Al Qaeda in Algeria. A suicide car bomb causes many more fatalities and much more damage than an IED carried by a suicide bomber on his person.
7. There have been many car bomb explosions in India and Pakistan carried out by jihadi terrorists in the past, but these were activated through a remote control device or a mechanical timer and not by a suicide bomber driving the vehicle. As an example, one could cite the Mumbai blasts of March,1993. However, there have been no suicide car bomb explosions in India so far.
8. The increasing use of the MO involving suicide car bombs came into vogue in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region after 9/11. There were no acts of suicide terrorism in Afghanistan before September 9,2001. The assassination of Ahmed Shah Masood, the legendary Tajik leader, by two Arab terrorists on September 9,2001, was the first act of suicide terrorism reported from Afghan territory. Since the Afghan Taliban, headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar, staged a come-back in Afghanistan from sanctuaries in Pakistan in 2004, it has been increasingly using suicide terrorism. The virus of suicide terrorism, which was initially introduced into Pakistan in the 1990s by the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), spread dramatically after the raid by the Pakistan Army commandos into the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July last year.
9. In both Pakistan and Afghanistan, the suicide bombers carried the IEDs on their person, but since 2006 there has been an increasing number of instances of vehicle-borne suicide terrorism in both countries.Training in the use of this MO is reported to have been imparted to the volunteers of the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan and the various pro-Taliban and pro-Al Qaeda organisations of Pakistan in the training camps of Al Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG), another Uzbek organisation, in North Waziristan in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan.
10.There has been a sharp increase in acts of terrorism in Afghanistan since the new Government headed by Yousef Raza Gilani assumedoffice in Islamabad in the last week of March,2008. NATO officers in Afghanistan have spoken of a 40 per cent increase in the infiltration ofjihadi terrorists from the tribal belt of Pakistan into Afghanistan since the new Pakistani Government suspended military operations againstthe Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and entered into peace negotiations with them. Even as acts of terrorism----including suicide terrorism---have increased in Afghan territory, there has been a sharp decrease in acts of suicide terrorism in Pakistani territory. This indicates that thenew Government has made a deal with the Taliban allowing it to operate freely in Afghanistan in return for its stepping down its operationsin Pakistani territory.
11.In a despatch on July 7,2008, Luis Martinez of the ABC News of the US said: "As the number of U.S. fatalities has dropped in Iraq, those in Afghanistan have been steadily rising. In June, U.S. military fatalities in Afghanistan nearly equaled those in Iraq and were the highest since the start of the war in 2001. It's a reflection of a resurgent Taliban that has refocused the attention of Pentagon planners, but drawn little attention in a presidential campaign in which politicians have been more focused on Iraq. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen told reporters last week that he has been "deeply troubled" by the rising violence in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have "without question, grown more effective and more aggressive in recent weeks, and as the casualty figures clearly demonstrate." The 28 American deaths in Afghanistan in June were one short of the 29 in Iraq, where the U.S. has more than four times as many troops. There are currently 32,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and 145,000 in Iraq. But the casualty rates of NATO allies are also rising. For the second month in a row, the total number of coalition combat deaths exceeded those in Iraq -- 46 in Afghanistan, compared with 31 in Iraq."
12.The ABC report added: "Military officials cite several reasons for the increase in violence, namely the Taliban's "safe haven" in the western tribal areas of Pakistan, where they can launch operations across the border into Afghanistan. Also, unable to defeat U.S. and NATO troops in conventional fighting, the various groups that make up the Taliban insurgency have resorted to tactics like those seen in Iraq, primarily the use of roadside bombs. A third factor cited by American commanders is that with more American troops on the ground than ever there is more combat as they move into areas controlled by insurgents. The commander of U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, was more precise last week when he said that the number of violent incidents in his sector had jumped by 40 per cent in the first five months of this year over last year. This is in a region praised as a success story of American counterinsurgency efforts. Schloesser and other military officials describe the "safe haven" in Pakistan as a major factor for the increase in violence in eastern Afghanistan as insurgents are able to easily slip back and forth along the border into Afghanistan. The safe haven was created by ceasefire agreements negotiated by the Pakistani government with tribal leaders."
13.In an article contributed to the "Washington Post" on July 7,2008, Greg Bruno of the Council on Foreign Relations, said: ' A June 2008 report on Afghan security by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, finds that despite $10 billion in U.S. aid, only two of 105 Afghan National Army (ANA) units are judged "fully capable" . None of the 433 units of Afghanistan's National Police (ANP) are capable of conducting independent patrols, and only twelve -- 3 per cent -- are capable of leading operations with coalition support, the GAO says. Weakness of Afghan security services was exposed in a July 7 blast that leveled the Indian mission in Kabul , killing dozens. "
14. There are only three terrorist organisations in Afghanistan, which are capable of a vehicle-borne suicide terrorist strike like the one of July 7----the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan, the Hizb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Heckmatyar and Al Qaeda. Of these, only the Neo Taliban has repeatedly demonstrated a capability for suicide terrorist strikes in Kabul----even in supposedly well-protected areas. It has repeatedly struck at soft as well as hard targets. Al Qaeda, based in the FATA, has a similar capability, but it prefers to train the Neo Taliban and guide it in its operations instead of itself operating. One reason for this is that it has a dwindling cadre of fresh Arab recruits and does not want to lose them in acts of suicide terrorism. It has kept them reserved for training volunteers from all over the world and for more important operations outside Afghanistan. The two Uzbeck organisations have a larger cadre and are in a position to operate in Kabul either on their own or as members of the Neo Taliban. The capability of the Hizb-e-Islami for operations in Kabul is unknown.
15. It is, therefore, assessed that there is a strong possibility of the Neo Taliban having carried out the blast outside the Indian Embassy.One Zabihullah Mujahid, who claimed to be a spokesman of the Neo Taliban, is reported to have denied the involvement of his group.This denial means nothing. If the Neo Taliban admits its involvement, it will provide a connecting link to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which has provided sanctuaries to its leaders, including Mulla Mohammad Omar, and cadres in Pakistani territory. Since the survivors of Al Qaeda and the Taliban withdrew into the tribal belt of Pakistan after the US strikes destroyed their sanctuaries in Afghan territory after 9/11, Pakistan has been following a dual policy in its co-operation with the US in the war against terrorism. It has been co-operating in the operations against Al Qaeda to the extent necessary and unavoidable, but avoiding action against the Neo Taliban. It wants to preserve the Neo Taliban as a fighting unit to regain its pre-9/11 influence in Afghanistan if and when the US and other NATO forces leave Afghanistan and to counter the Indian presence in Afghanistan.
16. The fact that the ISI has been playing a double game in respect of the Taliban-----pretending to co-operate, but not actually co-operating--- has been admitted even by many US analysts. 'The Times" of London wrote on July 8,2008: "A US Department of Defence funded study undertaken by the RAND Corporation and published last month also stated that elements of the ISI were aiding the Taliban.“Right now, the Taliban and other groups are getting help from individuals within Pakistan’s Government, and until that ends, the region’s long-term security is in jeopardy,” concluded the report’s author Seth Jones.He said the support included medical care for wounded fighters, logistical and financial support. He also said ISI trainers were instructing insurgents in camps at Quetta, Mansehra, Shamshattu and Parachinar and other areas of Pakistan. “NATO officials uncovered several instances in which ISI operatives provided intelligence to Taliban insurgents at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels,” the report says."
17. "The Times" added: " Privately there is acknowledgement that a level of complicity is a reality. “There is an acceptance that elements of the ISI are engaged with the insurgents,” said one source serving in the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) for Afghanistan yesterday. “The issue that remains unresolved is the degree of higher level acceptance of this, and how much they (the ISI) can actually be controlled.”British officers confirmed to The Times an incident last summer in which a Taliban corpse found on the battlefield in Helmand turned out to be carrying papers identifying the body as that of a serving ISI Colonel. When British officials challenged the Islamabad Government on the issue, they received an explanation that the man was ’on leave’ at the time of his death."
18. Was the ISI involved in the Kabul blast? The Afghan Government seems convinced it was.Talking to the media after the blast, Humayun Hamidzada, a spokesperson of President Hamid Karzai, was quoted as saying: “Everything has the hallmark of a particular intelligence agency that has conducted similar terrorist acts inside Afghanistan in the past.We believe firmly that there is a particular intelligence agency behind it.I’m not going to name it anymore, I think it’s pretty obvious.”
19. Indian investigators must still be collecting the evidence. Even if they find the smoking gun connecting the ISI with the blast, it is doubtful whether the Government of Dr.Manmohan Singh would go public with its charge against Pakistan. Since his meeting with President Pervez Musharraf at Havana in September,2006, our Prime Minister has been following a policy of not implicating the ISI in public in acts of terrorism----even if there be strong evidence---- lest such public airing affect the confidence-building process which he has undertaken in our relations with Pakistan. But we should have no illusions that the Pakistani leadership----military or political---- genuinely wishes well of India---either in Afghanistan, within India or elsewhere. There has been no change in Pakistan's mindset of wanting to keep us bleeding wherever possible and whenever possible.
20.The increasing Indian presence in Afghanistan for assisting in the economic development of Afghanistan and for strengthening thecapability of the Afghan Government in various fields has been a constant source of criticism by Pakistan, which has taken up the issuerepeatedly with the US and other NATO countries. Sections of the media and the religious parties in Pakistan have also been critical of theclose relations of the Karzai Government with India.Urdu newspapers in Pakistan had even accused India of fomenting trouble inBalochistan from covert bases in Afghan territory.
21.Instead of condemning without any reservation the Pakistani use of the Taliban against the Afghan Government of Karzai and against the Indian nationals and interests in Afghanistan, many American scholars and experts----governmental as well as non-governmental--- try to project it as deplorable, but understandable in view of the Pakistani concerns over the Indian presence. This further encourages the ISI's use of the Taliban and gives Pakistan the confidence that so far as the use of terrorists against India is concerned, it can get away with its misdeeds.
22.Testifying before the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee on October 10,2007, Lisa Curtis, Senior Research Fellow in the Heritage Foundation of Washington DC, which is close to the Republican Party, said : "One reason for continued Pakistani ambivalence toward the Taliban stems from the concern that India is trying to encircle it by gaining influence in Afghanistan. In this context, the Taliban offers the best chance for countering India’s regional influence. Pakistan believes ethnic Tajiks in the Afghan Government receive support from New Delhi. India, in cooperation with Russia and Iran, supported the Afghan Northern Alliance against the Taliban in the late 1990s and almost certainly retains links to Northern Alliance elements now in the Afghan Government. Pakistan also complains that the Indian consulates in the border cities of Jalalabad and Kandahar are involved in fomenting insurgency in its Baluchistan area. Because of the regional rivalry between Pakistan and India, Islamabad has been reluctant to allow Indian trans-shipment of goods across its territory into Afghanistan. The U.S. should encourage India and Pakistan to work toward greater economic cooperation in Afghanistan as a way to defuse their tensions. Participants in unoffiial talks on improving Indo-Pakistani ties have suggested that the two countries add Afghanistan as an agenda item in their formal dialogue".
23.Lisa Curtis is a former diplomat from the State Department. After serving in Pakistan for some years, she worked as a Congressional aide and then moved over to the Heritage Foundation. She was testifying before the Committee on “Security Challenges Involving Pakistan and Policy Implications for the Department of Defense."
24. However, there are some experts who are a little more forthright in exposing the duplicity of Pakistan in Afghanistan. Claudio Franco, a senior investigator of the NEFA Foundation, a US counter-terrorism think-tank, has come out with an analysis on "the Evolution of the Taliban in Pakistan during the February-May,2008, period: The Peace Accord Era"----that is, since the elections which brought the present Government to power. He says in his study: " The Government is not negotiating the dismantling of the TTP, but the retargeting of the organisation towards Afghanistan. In other words, from Islamabad's point of view, if the tribal context cannot be stabilised once and for all, at least they want to have a say concerning when and where to strike across the border. Tribal frontier armies have often been used as a foreign policy tool and that is probably one of the reasons why they managed to keep their historical autonomy."
25. He adds: " Realistically wih India becoming closer and closer to the Afghan regime financially and politically, why should Islamabad forsake one of its best assets in the Afghan scenario without trying to turn the situation to its strategic advantage? The TTP could be a proxy army engaged in support for the Afghan Taliban when necessary, an arrangement which would entail exceptional leverage on the Taliban leadership, with a third party doing the dirty work---plausible deniability at its very best.This role "in defence" of Pakistan is certainly clear to Faqir Mohammad ( a leader of the TTP) : "We will continue our activities until we achieve the purpose for which Pakistan was created. In Afghanistan and other Islamic countries, a war is going on against the cruelty of America and its allies. Unless and until America and its allies are expelled, Mujahideen activities will continue."
26. In 1989, the ISI started its proxy war against India in Kashmir. It directly funded, trained and armed Kashmiri jihadi oranisations such as the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), the Hizbul Mujahideen etc. After coming to office in January 1993, President Bill Clinton placed Pakistan on a so-called watch list of suspected state-sponsors of international terrorism and warned Nawaz Sharif, the then Prime Minister, that he would declare Pakistan a state-sponsor of international terrorism if its policies did not change. Thereafter, the ISI adopted a new policy which came to be known as privatisation of assistance to jihadi groups operating against India. Instead of assisting them directly, it started assisting them through selected Pakistani organisations such as the Jamaat-e-Islami,the Jamaat-ul-Ulema Islam, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the Lashkar-e-Toiba etc. The money was given to them and they were asked to distribute it to the Kashmiri organisations and to take over from the ISI the responsibility for running training camps. Retired officers of the Army were placed at the disposal of these organisations for running the training camps.
27. A similar policy is now sought to be followed by the Gilani Government. Cut off direct links of the ISI with the Taliban of Afghanistan and funnel future assistance to the Neo Taliban through the TTP. All the instructions to the Neo Taliban on whom to attack and where and when to attack will be conveyed through the TTP, which will also arrange for the training of the suicide bombers in the camps in North Waziristan.
28. India has done well not to lose its cool as a result of the Kabul blast and to express its determination to stay put in Afghanistan and implement its on-going and future projects. At the same time, it would be necessary to examine the physical security of all our missions and offices in Afghanistan and undertake the necessary enhancements. The attack of July 7 should not be treated as an isolated incident, but as the beginnig of more to come.
29. Additional protective measures are the immediate priority, but they alone would not be sufficient. They have to be supplemented by meaures to make it clear to Pakistan that it will pay a heavy price for its use of the jihadi terrorist organisations against India----either in Afghan or Indian territory. (9-7-08)
(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 )
Monday, July 7, 2008
SUICIDE CAR BOMBER TARGETS INDIAN MISSION IN KABUL
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO. 409
B.RAMAN
"While Afghan security sources have projected the incident as an attempt to kill Mr. Karzai, the Neo Taliban has projected it as an operation to demonstrate its capability even in Kabul, despite all the security precautions taken by the Government. The incident has revealed serious deficiencies in route security and perimeter security. The deficiencies in route security enabled six terrorists heavily armed enter the city and reach the hotel without being detected and intercepted anywhere. The deficiencies in perimeter security enabled the perpetrators to take up position in a room of the hotel without being detected and fire from there. Apart from these physical security deficiencies, was there also a complicity by any members of the security forces? That is a question, which should be worrying the Afghan authorities. In Iraq, many successful terrorist strikes have been made possible by internal complicity. In Afghanistan, till now, there have been few instances of such complicity."----Extract from my article on the unsuccessful attempt to kill President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan during an Afghan national parade at Kabul on April 27,2008 available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers27/paper2686.html---------------
Forty persons are reported to have been killed by a suicide bomber with a Vehicle-borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) outside the gates of the Indian Embassy in Kabul on the morning of July 7,2008. Four of them are stated to be Indian nationals---including the Indian Defence Attache, a Counsellor-level diplomat and two security guards. The remaining were Afghan nationals, many of whom had come to the mission for visas.
2.From the indications available so far, it is evident that it was a targeted attack on the Indian mission. Was it also a targeted attack on the Defence Attache? This question arises from the fact that the vehicle-borne suicide bomber reportedly rammed his vehicle against two cars of the mission as they were about to enter the mission. This would indicate the possibility that the primary targets were the occupants of the two cars. The rest of the fatalities were apparently collateral.
3.There has been a sharp increase in acts of terrorism in Afghanistan since the new Government headed by Yousef Raza Gilani assumed office in Islamabad in the last week of March,2008. NATO officers in Afghanistan have spoken of a 40 per cent increase in the infiltration of jihadi terrorists from the tribal belt of Pakistan into Afghanistan since the new Pakistani Government suspended military operations against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and entered into peace negotiations with them. Even as acts of terrorism----including suicide terrorism--- have increased in Afghan territory, there has been a sharp decrease in acts of suicide terrorism in Pakistani territory. This indicates that the new Government has made a deal with the Taliban allowing it to operate freely in Afghanistan in return for its stepping down its operations in Pakistani territory.
4. The increasing Indian presence in Afghanistan for assisting in the economic development of Afghanistan and for strengthening the capability of the Afghan Government in various fields has been a constant source of criticism by Pakistan, which has taken up the issue repeatedly with the US and other NATO countries. Sections of the media and the religious parties in Pakistan have also been critical of the close relations of the Karzai Government with India.Urdu newspapers in Pakistan had even accused India of fomenting trouble in Balochistan from covert bases in Afghan territory.
5. Pakistan thus has a strong motive to target Indian nationals and interests in Afghanistan through surrogate Taliban. During the last three years, there has been a steep increase in acts of suicide terrorism by the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar. Initially, the suicide attacks were by individual suicide bombers who carried the IEDs on their person. Subsequently, they increasingly started using VBIEDs. During the recent attack on the Kandahar prison, they used a VBIED to break open the gates.
6. The Modus Operandi (MO) using VBIED, which causes many more fatalities than individual bombers carrying the IED on their person, was and is still being used with devastating effect in Iraq by Al Qaeda. Training in the use of this MO has been imparted by Al Qaeda to the Neo Taliban volunteers in the training camps of Al Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG), another Uzbek organisation, in North Waziristan in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan.
7. The successful attack outside the Indian mission has been made possible by poor road security on the road on which the Indian mission is located. It has been reported that the Afghan Interior Ministry is also located on the same road. One would have, therefore, expected the level of road security and access security on this road to have been high. This was apparently not so as evident from the fact that a vehicle carrying an IED was able to come upto the vicinity of the Indian mission without being stopped and checked anywhere by Afghan security barriers.
8. The details available so far do not speak of any specific physical security deficiency in the Indian mission itself. Despite this, the physical security set-ups in all the Indian missions and offices in Afghanistan, whether located in Kabul or in other places, need to be urgently examined and the required security enhancements undertaken. A vulnerability assessment of all Indian missions and offices is urgently called for.
9. An operation of this type would have been undertaken by the Neo Taliban----even if instigated by Pakistan--- only with the knowledge of and in close consultation with its Al Qaeda mentors. Al Qaeda has been looking for opportunities for a major terrorist strike against the US and Israel. Even if Al Qaeda has no motive presently for targeting Indian nationals and interests, it badly needs a successful terrorist strike against the US or other Western powers in order to prove to its followers and admirers that its capability for action against the US and Israel remains strong. In his confessional statement before the US military tribunal trying him, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who had allegedly masterminded the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US homeland, had stated that Al Qaeda had wanted to strike the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, but could not. It would still be looking for opportunities to attack US and Israeli targets in India. This has to be constantly factored into in our vulnerability assessments.(7-7-08)
(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
"While Afghan security sources have projected the incident as an attempt to kill Mr. Karzai, the Neo Taliban has projected it as an operation to demonstrate its capability even in Kabul, despite all the security precautions taken by the Government. The incident has revealed serious deficiencies in route security and perimeter security. The deficiencies in route security enabled six terrorists heavily armed enter the city and reach the hotel without being detected and intercepted anywhere. The deficiencies in perimeter security enabled the perpetrators to take up position in a room of the hotel without being detected and fire from there. Apart from these physical security deficiencies, was there also a complicity by any members of the security forces? That is a question, which should be worrying the Afghan authorities. In Iraq, many successful terrorist strikes have been made possible by internal complicity. In Afghanistan, till now, there have been few instances of such complicity."----Extract from my article on the unsuccessful attempt to kill President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan during an Afghan national parade at Kabul on April 27,2008 available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers27/paper2686.html---------------
Forty persons are reported to have been killed by a suicide bomber with a Vehicle-borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) outside the gates of the Indian Embassy in Kabul on the morning of July 7,2008. Four of them are stated to be Indian nationals---including the Indian Defence Attache, a Counsellor-level diplomat and two security guards. The remaining were Afghan nationals, many of whom had come to the mission for visas.
2.From the indications available so far, it is evident that it was a targeted attack on the Indian mission. Was it also a targeted attack on the Defence Attache? This question arises from the fact that the vehicle-borne suicide bomber reportedly rammed his vehicle against two cars of the mission as they were about to enter the mission. This would indicate the possibility that the primary targets were the occupants of the two cars. The rest of the fatalities were apparently collateral.
3.There has been a sharp increase in acts of terrorism in Afghanistan since the new Government headed by Yousef Raza Gilani assumed office in Islamabad in the last week of March,2008. NATO officers in Afghanistan have spoken of a 40 per cent increase in the infiltration of jihadi terrorists from the tribal belt of Pakistan into Afghanistan since the new Pakistani Government suspended military operations against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and entered into peace negotiations with them. Even as acts of terrorism----including suicide terrorism--- have increased in Afghan territory, there has been a sharp decrease in acts of suicide terrorism in Pakistani territory. This indicates that the new Government has made a deal with the Taliban allowing it to operate freely in Afghanistan in return for its stepping down its operations in Pakistani territory.
4. The increasing Indian presence in Afghanistan for assisting in the economic development of Afghanistan and for strengthening the capability of the Afghan Government in various fields has been a constant source of criticism by Pakistan, which has taken up the issue repeatedly with the US and other NATO countries. Sections of the media and the religious parties in Pakistan have also been critical of the close relations of the Karzai Government with India.Urdu newspapers in Pakistan had even accused India of fomenting trouble in Balochistan from covert bases in Afghan territory.
5. Pakistan thus has a strong motive to target Indian nationals and interests in Afghanistan through surrogate Taliban. During the last three years, there has been a steep increase in acts of suicide terrorism by the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar. Initially, the suicide attacks were by individual suicide bombers who carried the IEDs on their person. Subsequently, they increasingly started using VBIEDs. During the recent attack on the Kandahar prison, they used a VBIED to break open the gates.
6. The Modus Operandi (MO) using VBIED, which causes many more fatalities than individual bombers carrying the IED on their person, was and is still being used with devastating effect in Iraq by Al Qaeda. Training in the use of this MO has been imparted by Al Qaeda to the Neo Taliban volunteers in the training camps of Al Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG), another Uzbek organisation, in North Waziristan in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan.
7. The successful attack outside the Indian mission has been made possible by poor road security on the road on which the Indian mission is located. It has been reported that the Afghan Interior Ministry is also located on the same road. One would have, therefore, expected the level of road security and access security on this road to have been high. This was apparently not so as evident from the fact that a vehicle carrying an IED was able to come upto the vicinity of the Indian mission without being stopped and checked anywhere by Afghan security barriers.
8. The details available so far do not speak of any specific physical security deficiency in the Indian mission itself. Despite this, the physical security set-ups in all the Indian missions and offices in Afghanistan, whether located in Kabul or in other places, need to be urgently examined and the required security enhancements undertaken. A vulnerability assessment of all Indian missions and offices is urgently called for.
9. An operation of this type would have been undertaken by the Neo Taliban----even if instigated by Pakistan--- only with the knowledge of and in close consultation with its Al Qaeda mentors. Al Qaeda has been looking for opportunities for a major terrorist strike against the US and Israel. Even if Al Qaeda has no motive presently for targeting Indian nationals and interests, it badly needs a successful terrorist strike against the US or other Western powers in order to prove to its followers and admirers that its capability for action against the US and Israel remains strong. In his confessional statement before the US military tribunal trying him, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who had allegedly masterminded the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US homeland, had stated that Al Qaeda had wanted to strike the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, but could not. It would still be looking for opportunities to attack US and Israeli targets in India. This has to be constantly factored into in our vulnerability assessments.(7-7-08)
(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 )
FRESH SUICIDE TERRORISM IN NON-TRIBAL AREAS OF PAKISTAN
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.408
B.RAMAN
On July 2,2007, following complaints from the Chinese authorities about threats to Chinese women living and working in Islamabad from the students of the two madrasas attached to the Lal Masjid of Islamabad,President Pervez Musharraf ordered the deployment of the Rangers, a para-military unit, outside the Masjid to prevent any more raids into the city by the students of the two madrasas.
2. On July 3,2007, there was a clash between some students of the madrasas and the Rangers when the students snatched a rifle from a member of the Rangers and opened fire. Musharraf thereupon ordered the Special Services Group (SSP), a commando unit of the Army, to take over the masjid and the two madrasas and restore order.
4. From July 3,2007, the SSG surrounded the premises and tried to persuade/pressurise the inmates to come out and surrender. Many did, including the students of the male madrasa called Jamia Faridia, which was located outside the Masjid campus. They were allowed to go home. Abdul Aziz Ghazi, the chief cleric of the Masjid, tried to escape with some girl students by covering himself up in a burqa. He was spotted by the SSG and arrested.
5.Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the brother of Abdul Aziz, and a large number of students of the girls' madrasa located inside the campus, and some male students, who had taken shelter inside the complex, refused to surrender. There were also some members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan(IMU), the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), the extremist anti-Shia organisation, and some Uighurs inside the complex. They too refused to surrender.The SSG entered the campus on July 10,2007. Its attempt to take possession of the masjid and the girls' madrasa was violently resisted by the inmates. It took the SSG three days to overcome their resistance and take possession of the complex after arresting the survivors. Abdul Rashid Ghazi and about 300 madrasa students, all of them Pashtun tribals and most of them girls, were killed. The SSG itself gave the number of fatalities, including from its ranks, as around 100.
6. The anger over the SSG raid and the deaths of a large number of tribal girls led to a wave of suicide terrorism in the tribal belt as well as in the non-tribal areas, including in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Sargodha, Peshawar and many Cantonments.Many of the suicide attacks were directed at the Army, including the SSG, the Air Force, the Navy and the Police. It is believed that those arrested in connection with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto had stated during their interrogation that they participated in her assassination because of their anger over her support to the commando raid into the Lal Masjid. Among those killed during the wave of suicide terrorism was a Lt.Gen. of the Army, who headed the Army Medical Corps.
7.Osama bin Laden and , his No.2 in Al Qaeda Ayman al-Zawahiri came out in strong support of the clerics and the students and called for reprisals against Musharraf.
8. The surviving students and the clerics supporting them demanded that the control of the Masjid and the two madrasas should be handed back to Abdul Aziz, who should be released from detention along with other detainees,that the two madrasas should be allowed to be re-opened and that an enquiry held into the commando raid and action taken against those responsible for the massacre of the students. Musharraf rejected their demands and handed over the control of the Masjid and the madrasas to a Government-appointed cleric.
9. After the present Government headed by Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani assumed office in the last week of March,2008, it entered into a dialogue with the students of the two madrasas as well as with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) headed by Baitullah Mehsud of South Waziristan, and the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) headed by Maulana Fazlullah of the Swat Valley in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Al Qaeda, the IMU, the Islamic Jihad Union or Group, another Uzbeck organisation, the TTP and the TNSM have been supporting the students in their demands.
10. A compromise candidate was appointed as the officiating chief cleric of the Masjid. The Govt. did not release Abdul Aziz and others arrested, but promised that it would not oppose their bail applications. It was disinclined to accept the demand for an enquiry as the Army was against it.
11. Since July 2,2008, the first anniversary of the commando raid is being observed not only in the Lal Masjid, but also in many madrasas in the tribal belt. A large number of tribal students from the madrasas in the tribal belt have congregated in Islamabad to express their solidarity with the students of the two madrasas of the Lal Masjid and to pay homage to those killed during the commando action last year.Meetings are being held inside the Lal Masjid every day at which virulent attacks are being made on Musharraf, the Army and the US and there are calls for an enquiry and the arrest and trial of Musharraf.
12. On July 4,2008, the "Daily Times" of Lahore reported that Al Qaeda had issued a videotape paying tribute to those killed during last year’s military operation against the Lal Masjid. The tape, which included messages of Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Al Zawahiri and Abu Yahya Al Abbi, was sent to Ary One World TV , a private Pakistani channel, on the completion of one year of the commando raid. Al Qaeda leaders in the tape called Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, the slain deputy prayer leader of the mosque, the Imam of the Ummah. The tape criticised leaders of religious and political parties for not supporting the demands of the students. It appealed to the Pakistani tribesmen and mujahideen to remain united.
13. On July 6,2008, a major religious conference was held in the Lal Masjid, which was attended by students from many madrasas of the NWFP and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). While the Masjid authorities undertook the responsibility for maintaining order inside, the Punjab Police had made elaborate security arrangements outside. The atmosphere inside the Masjid was highly emotional with virulent attacks on Musharraf and the US. Despite this, everything went off smoothly till a truckload of the choicest mangoes of the season arrived outside the Masjid. Some policemen, who came with the truck, told the students that the mangoes had been sent by Rehman Malik, the Advisor on Internal Security, as a gift from Asif Ali Zardari, the co-chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP).
14. The students were wildly provoked. They were outraged that Zardari and Malik should think that the sorrow over the massacre of nearly 300 girl students last year could be wiped out with a mango. They demanded that the truck should go back immediately. It did. Some clerics inside the Masjid intervened and pacified the students. The rest of the proceedings went off smoothly.
15. After the conference was over, the policemen deployed outside the Masjid withdrew to a place about one and a half Kms from the Masjid and assembled for a roll-call ( counting of number) before they dispersed for the day. As an Inspector of Police was taking the roll-call, a suicide bomber went near them and blew himself up, killing 19 persons---- 15 of them policemen.
16. Since the new Government took office, there were indications that the anger over last year's commando action had subsided. There was no act of suicide terrorism in the non-tribal areas and the number in the tribal areas sharply came down. Rehman Malik claimed in the National Assembly recently while intervening during the discussions on the budgetary demand of his Ministry that since the new Government took office, the number of terrorist incidents involving the use of improvised explosive devices had come down by 50 per cent in the tribal areas and by 95 per cent in the non-tribal areas.
17. Does the suicide attack of July 6 ,2008, in Islamabad presage the beginning of a new wave of suicide terrorism or will it be only an isolated incident? Was it due to persisting old anger over last year's commando action in the Lal Masjid or new anger over the clean-up operation presently underway in the Khyber Agency or both? The Government has no answers to these questions. This is the second suicide attack in Islamabad since the new Government took over. The first one, for which the responsibility was claimed by Al Qaeda, took place outside the Danish Embassy on June 2,2008, in protest against the publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammad in Denmark.For the present, the Government is treating the July 6 attack as a stand-alone incident without connecting it either to the Lal Masjid raid of last year or the current situation in the Khyber Agency.In the meanwhile, the students had announced even before the suicide attack that they would be holding meetings in memory of those killed last year in different cities on the 10th of every month, starting with a meeting in Quetta on July 10,2008.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
On July 2,2007, following complaints from the Chinese authorities about threats to Chinese women living and working in Islamabad from the students of the two madrasas attached to the Lal Masjid of Islamabad,President Pervez Musharraf ordered the deployment of the Rangers, a para-military unit, outside the Masjid to prevent any more raids into the city by the students of the two madrasas.
2. On July 3,2007, there was a clash between some students of the madrasas and the Rangers when the students snatched a rifle from a member of the Rangers and opened fire. Musharraf thereupon ordered the Special Services Group (SSP), a commando unit of the Army, to take over the masjid and the two madrasas and restore order.
4. From July 3,2007, the SSG surrounded the premises and tried to persuade/pressurise the inmates to come out and surrender. Many did, including the students of the male madrasa called Jamia Faridia, which was located outside the Masjid campus. They were allowed to go home. Abdul Aziz Ghazi, the chief cleric of the Masjid, tried to escape with some girl students by covering himself up in a burqa. He was spotted by the SSG and arrested.
5.Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the brother of Abdul Aziz, and a large number of students of the girls' madrasa located inside the campus, and some male students, who had taken shelter inside the complex, refused to surrender. There were also some members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan(IMU), the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), the extremist anti-Shia organisation, and some Uighurs inside the complex. They too refused to surrender.The SSG entered the campus on July 10,2007. Its attempt to take possession of the masjid and the girls' madrasa was violently resisted by the inmates. It took the SSG three days to overcome their resistance and take possession of the complex after arresting the survivors. Abdul Rashid Ghazi and about 300 madrasa students, all of them Pashtun tribals and most of them girls, were killed. The SSG itself gave the number of fatalities, including from its ranks, as around 100.
6. The anger over the SSG raid and the deaths of a large number of tribal girls led to a wave of suicide terrorism in the tribal belt as well as in the non-tribal areas, including in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Sargodha, Peshawar and many Cantonments.Many of the suicide attacks were directed at the Army, including the SSG, the Air Force, the Navy and the Police. It is believed that those arrested in connection with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto had stated during their interrogation that they participated in her assassination because of their anger over her support to the commando raid into the Lal Masjid. Among those killed during the wave of suicide terrorism was a Lt.Gen. of the Army, who headed the Army Medical Corps.
7.Osama bin Laden and , his No.2 in Al Qaeda Ayman al-Zawahiri came out in strong support of the clerics and the students and called for reprisals against Musharraf.
8. The surviving students and the clerics supporting them demanded that the control of the Masjid and the two madrasas should be handed back to Abdul Aziz, who should be released from detention along with other detainees,that the two madrasas should be allowed to be re-opened and that an enquiry held into the commando raid and action taken against those responsible for the massacre of the students. Musharraf rejected their demands and handed over the control of the Masjid and the madrasas to a Government-appointed cleric.
9. After the present Government headed by Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani assumed office in the last week of March,2008, it entered into a dialogue with the students of the two madrasas as well as with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) headed by Baitullah Mehsud of South Waziristan, and the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) headed by Maulana Fazlullah of the Swat Valley in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Al Qaeda, the IMU, the Islamic Jihad Union or Group, another Uzbeck organisation, the TTP and the TNSM have been supporting the students in their demands.
10. A compromise candidate was appointed as the officiating chief cleric of the Masjid. The Govt. did not release Abdul Aziz and others arrested, but promised that it would not oppose their bail applications. It was disinclined to accept the demand for an enquiry as the Army was against it.
11. Since July 2,2008, the first anniversary of the commando raid is being observed not only in the Lal Masjid, but also in many madrasas in the tribal belt. A large number of tribal students from the madrasas in the tribal belt have congregated in Islamabad to express their solidarity with the students of the two madrasas of the Lal Masjid and to pay homage to those killed during the commando action last year.Meetings are being held inside the Lal Masjid every day at which virulent attacks are being made on Musharraf, the Army and the US and there are calls for an enquiry and the arrest and trial of Musharraf.
12. On July 4,2008, the "Daily Times" of Lahore reported that Al Qaeda had issued a videotape paying tribute to those killed during last year’s military operation against the Lal Masjid. The tape, which included messages of Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Al Zawahiri and Abu Yahya Al Abbi, was sent to Ary One World TV , a private Pakistani channel, on the completion of one year of the commando raid. Al Qaeda leaders in the tape called Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, the slain deputy prayer leader of the mosque, the Imam of the Ummah. The tape criticised leaders of religious and political parties for not supporting the demands of the students. It appealed to the Pakistani tribesmen and mujahideen to remain united.
13. On July 6,2008, a major religious conference was held in the Lal Masjid, which was attended by students from many madrasas of the NWFP and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). While the Masjid authorities undertook the responsibility for maintaining order inside, the Punjab Police had made elaborate security arrangements outside. The atmosphere inside the Masjid was highly emotional with virulent attacks on Musharraf and the US. Despite this, everything went off smoothly till a truckload of the choicest mangoes of the season arrived outside the Masjid. Some policemen, who came with the truck, told the students that the mangoes had been sent by Rehman Malik, the Advisor on Internal Security, as a gift from Asif Ali Zardari, the co-chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP).
14. The students were wildly provoked. They were outraged that Zardari and Malik should think that the sorrow over the massacre of nearly 300 girl students last year could be wiped out with a mango. They demanded that the truck should go back immediately. It did. Some clerics inside the Masjid intervened and pacified the students. The rest of the proceedings went off smoothly.
15. After the conference was over, the policemen deployed outside the Masjid withdrew to a place about one and a half Kms from the Masjid and assembled for a roll-call ( counting of number) before they dispersed for the day. As an Inspector of Police was taking the roll-call, a suicide bomber went near them and blew himself up, killing 19 persons---- 15 of them policemen.
16. Since the new Government took office, there were indications that the anger over last year's commando action had subsided. There was no act of suicide terrorism in the non-tribal areas and the number in the tribal areas sharply came down. Rehman Malik claimed in the National Assembly recently while intervening during the discussions on the budgetary demand of his Ministry that since the new Government took office, the number of terrorist incidents involving the use of improvised explosive devices had come down by 50 per cent in the tribal areas and by 95 per cent in the non-tribal areas.
17. Does the suicide attack of July 6 ,2008, in Islamabad presage the beginning of a new wave of suicide terrorism or will it be only an isolated incident? Was it due to persisting old anger over last year's commando action in the Lal Masjid or new anger over the clean-up operation presently underway in the Khyber Agency or both? The Government has no answers to these questions. This is the second suicide attack in Islamabad since the new Government took over. The first one, for which the responsibility was claimed by Al Qaeda, took place outside the Danish Embassy on June 2,2008, in protest against the publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammad in Denmark.For the present, the Government is treating the July 6 attack as a stand-alone incident without connecting it either to the Lal Masjid raid of last year or the current situation in the Khyber Agency.In the meanwhile, the students had announced even before the suicide attack that they would be holding meetings in memory of those killed last year in different cities on the 10th of every month, starting with a meeting in Quetta on July 10,2008.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Thursday, July 3, 2008
IS BIN LADEN DYING AT LAST?
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.407
B.RAMAN
Is Osama bin Laden dying again?
2. That is the headline under which many skeptic online journals of the world have carried a story of the Time magazine that some CIAanalysts believe that bin Laden is finally in his death bed due to a progressive deterioration of his kidneys. How did they come to thisconclusion? On the basis of source reports regarding the kind of medicines he is taking. It is said that these medicines can help him forsome time, but cannot prevent his death. If this report is to be believed, the count-down for his death has already started. At the same time,the magazine has added in its report that other CIA officials deny that any such report had been prepared in the CIA.
3. This report reminds one of a report carried by a French regional newspaper on September 23,2006, that according to the Frenchintelligence, bin Laden had died after a severe attack of typhoid. According to the newspaper, the French intelligence got the information ofbin Laden's death from its Saudi counterpart. Some weeks later, to the consternation of everybody, bin Laden came out with new audiomessages, which tended to prove that he was definitely alive, though he may not be quite that kicking.
4. His earlier imminent death was reported by the CNN on October 26,2002, when it carried the following report: "- The editor-in-chief of aLondon-based Arab news magazine said a purported will it published Saturday was written late last year by Osama bin Laden, and shows"he's dying or he's going to die soon." U.S. intelligence officials say they have the purported will, but are not able to say if it is genuine. CNNhas not been able to verify that the document is bin Laden's will. "He did write the will as someone saying good-bye," Hani Nakshabandi ofthe Arab news magazine Al Majalla told CNN. He said one of the magazine's reporters obtained the four-page document, said to be signed bythe leader of the al Qaeda terrorist network and dated December 14, 2001, in Afghanistan. In the document, which was translated for CNN,the writer expresses disappointment with the Taliban, who harbored him in Afghanistan, speaks of betrayal, and urges his children to shunal Qaeda. "Even amongst the students of religion, only few stood their ground and fought, and the rest either surrendered or fled," thedocument says, referring to the Taliban, according to a translation for CNN. Despite the setbacks, the purported will says, "We will bevictorious against the U.S. and the infidel West even if it takes tens of years." "My last advice is to the mujahedeen everywhere," thedocument says. "Take a breather and put aside for the time being, fighting the Jews and the Crusaders, and instead devote your efforts topurifying your groups from the agents and the cowards and those impostors who claim to be scholars amongst you."
5.It was apparent to anyone that this was a psywar operation carried out by the CIA in the hope of creating a divide between Al Qaeda andthe Taliban and confusion in their ranks. This was such a crude attempt that nobody took it seriously.
6. It has been reported since the middle 1990s that bin Laden was suffering from a kidney deficiency, which he developed when he was living in Khartoum before 1996 and that he required periodic dialysis. There were even reports that he was undergoing the dialysis in amilitary hospital in Peshawar. The Saudi media had even quoted one of his wives living in Saudi Arabia as saying that he was suffering froma kidney deficiency.
7. There has been speculation from time to time as to how he is getting his dialysis done now. Police sources in Pakistan discount American claims that he is in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) because, according to them, he would not be able to get his dialysis done regularly in the FATA. They, therefore, surmise that if he has been managing to get his dialysis done, he must be in one of the cities of Pakistan such as Peshawar or Quetta and not in the remote tribal areas.
8. What is the present state of his kidneys? Is his death approaching? Only the doctors treating him will know the answers to thesequestions. If the CIA really has access to these doctors or their staff, why is it not using them to catch him or kill him by administering wrongmedicines to him?
9. It is said that when he was the Prime Minister before October, 1999, Nawaz Sharif used to say that it would be in the interest of theinternational community that bin Laden died at the hands of his doctor rather than at the hands of the Americans. If he died at the hands ofthe Americans, he would become even a greater hero in the eyes of the Muslims. If he died at the hands of a doctor, the Ummah would forget him shortly thereafter.
10. Will bin Laden die definitively at least now---- to prove the CIA right?
11. Annexed is an article written by me on September 24,2006 on this subject..
(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 )
ANNEXURE
HOW WORLD WILL KNOW OF BIN LADEN'S END? (http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers20/paper1964.html)
By B.Raman
The ultimate denouement in the Osama bin Laden saga will come about in one of the following ways:
He wins the jihadi war against the US-led coalition and is proclaimed either the Amir of the global Islamic Caliphate or at least of Saudi Arabia.
He is captured by the security forces of the US-led coalition or Pakistan or both acting together.
He is killed in a ground encounter or in an air strike by the US-led coalition or Pakistan or both.
He dies a natural death, without his adversaries being aware of it.
2. The first possibility can be ruled out as of today. In the eventuality of his capture, the security forces responsible for his capture wouldknow for certain. In the eventuality of his death in a ground encounter or an air strike, the proof will come in the form of the recovery of thedead body or from the interrogation of anyone of his associates captured during the encounter or by monitoring the communications of thesurvivors of the encounter or air strike. Where the dead body is not recovered, the intelligence agencies will be able to establish his deaththrough the other means (interrogation of associates or communications interception ) with two-thirds certainty, but not a hundred per centcertainty.
3.If he dies a natural death, the indicators would come either from the doctor or doctors, who had treated him or from one of his associates,who was with him at the time of his death---if any of them could be captured by the security forces--- or from his relatives in Saudi Arabia.
4. One had seen in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), where many Pakistani and other foreign jihadi terrorists operate, that the first indicator of thedeath of any foreign terrorist due to natural causes came from his home country when the local intelligence received information about therelatives holding a religious function to mark the death of the terrorist. Generally, reliable information about such religious functions beingheld in the home country are an important indicator of the death of the terrorist in a foreign land. Instances, where the relatives are told by aterrorist organisation to hold false religious functions to mislead the intelligence agencies and security forces are rare, but cannot be ruledout.
5. Bin Laden's health had been fragile for some years. He suffered from a kidney infection while he was living in Khartoum before 1996. Thisultimately affected the performance of his kidneys after he shifted to Afghanistan in 1996. Though it was not life-threatening, he had toundergo periodic dialysis in a Pakistani military hospital at Peshawar.
6. He suffered a splinter injury at the Tora Bora encounter in Afghanistan with the US security forces. This affected his speech and partiallyparalysed one of his limbs. In the beginning of 2002, after he had escaped into Pakistan from Afghanistan, the late Mufti NizamuddinShamzai of the Binori madrasa of Karachi, who was very close to bin Laden and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had him shiftedto the Binori complex with the permission of the ISI. He was being treated there till August 2002. He recovered his speech and the paralysiscaused by the splinter was reportedly cured.
7. When bin Laden was in the Binori complex, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), who had orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, andRamzi Binalshibh of Al Qaeda were also living clandestinely in Karachi, but at different places with the knowledge and connivance of the ISI.The US intelligence, which apparently came to know about the presence of Ramzi and KSM in Karachi, stepped up its search for them. Thisled to the capture of Ramzi, but KSM managed to escape to Quetta and from there he went to Rawalpindi where he was finally arrested inMarch, 2003, in the house of a woman functionary of the Jamaat-e-Islami.
8. In August, 2002, reports about the presence of OBL in Binori and his medical treatment there stopped coming. Subsequent enquiriesindicated that he had moved back to the tribal areas of Pakistan. He became active again recording many video and audio messages fortelecast by Al Jazeera and other TV channels and radio stations. He remained active till the eve of the US Presidential elections inNovember,2004, and then became incommunicado. There were no video or audio messages for 13 months.
9. There were reports of a deterioration in his health due to the kidney condition in 2005. During the Friday prayers in some of the mosquesof the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the Mullas started reciting prayers for the good health of Osama's son. This gave rise tostrong speculation that bin Laden had died of a multiple organ failure arising from his renal problem.
10. Then suddenly, his audio messages started surfacing again since January 19,2006, but there were no video messages.Thus, his voicebecame the only indicator of his being alive. Since July, there has been no audio message either of current origin. Old pre-July messages ofhis continue circulating. Cut and paste versions of his pre-November,2004 video messages also continue circulating.
11.The speculation about his being alive or dead has again revived following the publication by L'Est Republicain, a French regionalnewspaper, on September 23,2006, of extracts from a document dated September 21,2006, of the French external intelligence agencystating that bin Laden died in Pakistani territory on August 23,2006, due to complications, including a paralysis, arising after a severe attackof typhoid. The information has been attributed to the Saudi intelligence sources, who reportedly came to know of it on September 4,2006.The Saudi services are reportedly trying to verify the information.
12. The fact that the French Government has reportedly ordered an enquiry into how the newspaper came into possession of a classifieddocument indicates that the document is probably genuine, but not necessarily the information contained in the document. One does notknow how the Saudi services came to know of this information.
13. If bin Laden had died in Pakistani territory while undergoing medical treatment there should be doctors in Pakistan who must havetreated him. In the past, the Pakistani authorities had detained a doctor of Lahore, who had returned from the US after working for someyears there, on a charge of providing medical assistance to Al Qaeda cadres injured in Afghanistan. He was ultimately released for want ofprosecutable evidence against him. The questioning of this doctor and other doctors, who were in the past suspected or known to havetreated ill or injured Al Qaeda and Taliban cadres might provide a useful lead.
14. It is possible that the Saudi intelligence services picked up the information from bin Laden's relatives in Saudi Arabia, who would know ifhe is dead. If the Saudi intelligence services had told the French about it, they would have definitely alerted the ISI and the US intelligencetoo.
15.The policy of the Western intelligence agencies has been to presume that bin Laden is alive and kicking, until he is proved to be dead.That proof is yet to come. Any evidence coming from his relatives in Saudi Arabia or from the doctors or others in Pakistan will be tentative.The only conclusive evidence will be a statement from Al Qaeda admitting his death.
16.If the report about his death is incorrect, one can shortly expect another audio message from him to prove to his followers that he isalive.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi,and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,Chennai. )
B.RAMAN
Is Osama bin Laden dying again?
2. That is the headline under which many skeptic online journals of the world have carried a story of the Time magazine that some CIAanalysts believe that bin Laden is finally in his death bed due to a progressive deterioration of his kidneys. How did they come to thisconclusion? On the basis of source reports regarding the kind of medicines he is taking. It is said that these medicines can help him forsome time, but cannot prevent his death. If this report is to be believed, the count-down for his death has already started. At the same time,the magazine has added in its report that other CIA officials deny that any such report had been prepared in the CIA.
3. This report reminds one of a report carried by a French regional newspaper on September 23,2006, that according to the Frenchintelligence, bin Laden had died after a severe attack of typhoid. According to the newspaper, the French intelligence got the information ofbin Laden's death from its Saudi counterpart. Some weeks later, to the consternation of everybody, bin Laden came out with new audiomessages, which tended to prove that he was definitely alive, though he may not be quite that kicking.
4. His earlier imminent death was reported by the CNN on October 26,2002, when it carried the following report: "- The editor-in-chief of aLondon-based Arab news magazine said a purported will it published Saturday was written late last year by Osama bin Laden, and shows"he's dying or he's going to die soon." U.S. intelligence officials say they have the purported will, but are not able to say if it is genuine. CNNhas not been able to verify that the document is bin Laden's will. "He did write the will as someone saying good-bye," Hani Nakshabandi ofthe Arab news magazine Al Majalla told CNN. He said one of the magazine's reporters obtained the four-page document, said to be signed bythe leader of the al Qaeda terrorist network and dated December 14, 2001, in Afghanistan. In the document, which was translated for CNN,the writer expresses disappointment with the Taliban, who harbored him in Afghanistan, speaks of betrayal, and urges his children to shunal Qaeda. "Even amongst the students of religion, only few stood their ground and fought, and the rest either surrendered or fled," thedocument says, referring to the Taliban, according to a translation for CNN. Despite the setbacks, the purported will says, "We will bevictorious against the U.S. and the infidel West even if it takes tens of years." "My last advice is to the mujahedeen everywhere," thedocument says. "Take a breather and put aside for the time being, fighting the Jews and the Crusaders, and instead devote your efforts topurifying your groups from the agents and the cowards and those impostors who claim to be scholars amongst you."
5.It was apparent to anyone that this was a psywar operation carried out by the CIA in the hope of creating a divide between Al Qaeda andthe Taliban and confusion in their ranks. This was such a crude attempt that nobody took it seriously.
6. It has been reported since the middle 1990s that bin Laden was suffering from a kidney deficiency, which he developed when he was living in Khartoum before 1996 and that he required periodic dialysis. There were even reports that he was undergoing the dialysis in amilitary hospital in Peshawar. The Saudi media had even quoted one of his wives living in Saudi Arabia as saying that he was suffering froma kidney deficiency.
7. There has been speculation from time to time as to how he is getting his dialysis done now. Police sources in Pakistan discount American claims that he is in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) because, according to them, he would not be able to get his dialysis done regularly in the FATA. They, therefore, surmise that if he has been managing to get his dialysis done, he must be in one of the cities of Pakistan such as Peshawar or Quetta and not in the remote tribal areas.
8. What is the present state of his kidneys? Is his death approaching? Only the doctors treating him will know the answers to thesequestions. If the CIA really has access to these doctors or their staff, why is it not using them to catch him or kill him by administering wrongmedicines to him?
9. It is said that when he was the Prime Minister before October, 1999, Nawaz Sharif used to say that it would be in the interest of theinternational community that bin Laden died at the hands of his doctor rather than at the hands of the Americans. If he died at the hands ofthe Americans, he would become even a greater hero in the eyes of the Muslims. If he died at the hands of a doctor, the Ummah would forget him shortly thereafter.
10. Will bin Laden die definitively at least now---- to prove the CIA right?
11. Annexed is an article written by me on September 24,2006 on this subject..
(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 )
ANNEXURE
HOW WORLD WILL KNOW OF BIN LADEN'S END? (http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers20/paper1964.html)
By B.Raman
The ultimate denouement in the Osama bin Laden saga will come about in one of the following ways:
He wins the jihadi war against the US-led coalition and is proclaimed either the Amir of the global Islamic Caliphate or at least of Saudi Arabia.
He is captured by the security forces of the US-led coalition or Pakistan or both acting together.
He is killed in a ground encounter or in an air strike by the US-led coalition or Pakistan or both.
He dies a natural death, without his adversaries being aware of it.
2. The first possibility can be ruled out as of today. In the eventuality of his capture, the security forces responsible for his capture wouldknow for certain. In the eventuality of his death in a ground encounter or an air strike, the proof will come in the form of the recovery of thedead body or from the interrogation of anyone of his associates captured during the encounter or by monitoring the communications of thesurvivors of the encounter or air strike. Where the dead body is not recovered, the intelligence agencies will be able to establish his deaththrough the other means (interrogation of associates or communications interception ) with two-thirds certainty, but not a hundred per centcertainty.
3.If he dies a natural death, the indicators would come either from the doctor or doctors, who had treated him or from one of his associates,who was with him at the time of his death---if any of them could be captured by the security forces--- or from his relatives in Saudi Arabia.
4. One had seen in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), where many Pakistani and other foreign jihadi terrorists operate, that the first indicator of thedeath of any foreign terrorist due to natural causes came from his home country when the local intelligence received information about therelatives holding a religious function to mark the death of the terrorist. Generally, reliable information about such religious functions beingheld in the home country are an important indicator of the death of the terrorist in a foreign land. Instances, where the relatives are told by aterrorist organisation to hold false religious functions to mislead the intelligence agencies and security forces are rare, but cannot be ruledout.
5. Bin Laden's health had been fragile for some years. He suffered from a kidney infection while he was living in Khartoum before 1996. Thisultimately affected the performance of his kidneys after he shifted to Afghanistan in 1996. Though it was not life-threatening, he had toundergo periodic dialysis in a Pakistani military hospital at Peshawar.
6. He suffered a splinter injury at the Tora Bora encounter in Afghanistan with the US security forces. This affected his speech and partiallyparalysed one of his limbs. In the beginning of 2002, after he had escaped into Pakistan from Afghanistan, the late Mufti NizamuddinShamzai of the Binori madrasa of Karachi, who was very close to bin Laden and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had him shiftedto the Binori complex with the permission of the ISI. He was being treated there till August 2002. He recovered his speech and the paralysiscaused by the splinter was reportedly cured.
7. When bin Laden was in the Binori complex, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), who had orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, andRamzi Binalshibh of Al Qaeda were also living clandestinely in Karachi, but at different places with the knowledge and connivance of the ISI.The US intelligence, which apparently came to know about the presence of Ramzi and KSM in Karachi, stepped up its search for them. Thisled to the capture of Ramzi, but KSM managed to escape to Quetta and from there he went to Rawalpindi where he was finally arrested inMarch, 2003, in the house of a woman functionary of the Jamaat-e-Islami.
8. In August, 2002, reports about the presence of OBL in Binori and his medical treatment there stopped coming. Subsequent enquiriesindicated that he had moved back to the tribal areas of Pakistan. He became active again recording many video and audio messages fortelecast by Al Jazeera and other TV channels and radio stations. He remained active till the eve of the US Presidential elections inNovember,2004, and then became incommunicado. There were no video or audio messages for 13 months.
9. There were reports of a deterioration in his health due to the kidney condition in 2005. During the Friday prayers in some of the mosquesof the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the Mullas started reciting prayers for the good health of Osama's son. This gave rise tostrong speculation that bin Laden had died of a multiple organ failure arising from his renal problem.
10. Then suddenly, his audio messages started surfacing again since January 19,2006, but there were no video messages.Thus, his voicebecame the only indicator of his being alive. Since July, there has been no audio message either of current origin. Old pre-July messages ofhis continue circulating. Cut and paste versions of his pre-November,2004 video messages also continue circulating.
11.The speculation about his being alive or dead has again revived following the publication by L'Est Republicain, a French regionalnewspaper, on September 23,2006, of extracts from a document dated September 21,2006, of the French external intelligence agencystating that bin Laden died in Pakistani territory on August 23,2006, due to complications, including a paralysis, arising after a severe attackof typhoid. The information has been attributed to the Saudi intelligence sources, who reportedly came to know of it on September 4,2006.The Saudi services are reportedly trying to verify the information.
12. The fact that the French Government has reportedly ordered an enquiry into how the newspaper came into possession of a classifieddocument indicates that the document is probably genuine, but not necessarily the information contained in the document. One does notknow how the Saudi services came to know of this information.
13. If bin Laden had died in Pakistani territory while undergoing medical treatment there should be doctors in Pakistan who must havetreated him. In the past, the Pakistani authorities had detained a doctor of Lahore, who had returned from the US after working for someyears there, on a charge of providing medical assistance to Al Qaeda cadres injured in Afghanistan. He was ultimately released for want ofprosecutable evidence against him. The questioning of this doctor and other doctors, who were in the past suspected or known to havetreated ill or injured Al Qaeda and Taliban cadres might provide a useful lead.
14. It is possible that the Saudi intelligence services picked up the information from bin Laden's relatives in Saudi Arabia, who would know ifhe is dead. If the Saudi intelligence services had told the French about it, they would have definitely alerted the ISI and the US intelligencetoo.
15.The policy of the Western intelligence agencies has been to presume that bin Laden is alive and kicking, until he is proved to be dead.That proof is yet to come. Any evidence coming from his relatives in Saudi Arabia or from the doctors or others in Pakistan will be tentative.The only conclusive evidence will be a statement from Al Qaeda admitting his death.
16.If the report about his death is incorrect, one can shortly expect another audio message from him to prove to his followers that he isalive.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi,and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,Chennai. )
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
MAOISTS SURPRISE GREYHOUNDS
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--- PAPER NO.406
B.RAMAN
Only twenty-nine members of the highly-reputed Greyhounds counter-insurgency action force of the Andhra Pradesh Police managed to escape a well-organised ambush in water laid on June 29,2008, by a group of Maoist terrorists as a party of 65 Greyhounds was returning to Andhra Pradesh by a boat after an unsuccessful combing operation for Maoists in the territory of Orissa. Thirty-four Greyhounds are missing and two others are reported to have been killed. It is not yet known whether the 34 missing were also killed or whether some of them had been captured by the Maoists, who have not made any claim so far.
2. The Greyhounds party, which had entered the territory of Orissa reportedly on information received by them about the plans of the Maoists to hold a meeting, was returning to Andhra Pradesh in a single motorised boat belonging to the Balimela hydel project. They were returning by the Sileru river. As the boat entered the Balimela reservoir in the territory of Orissa created by the hydel project, it was attacked by an unknown number of Maoists, who had taken up position on the surrounding hills. The Greyhounds, who were taken by surprise, tried to retaliate, but their return fire against the Maoists located on the hills above the reservoir was ineffective. The boat kept moving despite initially being hit by some bullets, but capsized after having been hit by one or more grenades thrown or fired from a launcher by the Maoists. All on board jumped into the water. While some swam to safety, others were not lucky. Their final fate is not yet known.
3. The boat had a three-member crew one of whom fell into the hands of the Maoists, but they released him unharmed.His interview by Suryanarayan Pattnaik of the "Times of India" ( July 1,2008) gives the most authentic account of the ambush. He is quoted as saying in the interview: " We were three staff in the boat that belongs to the Balimela hydro project. On Saturday (June 28) evening, we were just told to be ready to leave for some place the next day. We did not know the destination. Around 4 AM on Sunday, two policemen from Chiltrakonda police station came and we five left for Janbai to bring Greyhound personnel of AP. We came to know that they had gone to Papermetla in Orissa three days ago on an anti-Maoist operation. We reached Janbai where the Greyhounds policemen boarded the boat. We were 65 people on board then and left Janbai. The boat had hardly gone about 5 to 7 Kms when the Maoists started firing on the boat. While the boat was crossing a narrow waterway, one bullet hit it. Before the Greyhounds could act, the Maoists from the hills rained bullets on the boat. Though a few policemen retaliated, it bore little fruit.The Maoists then hurled grenades on the boat. A part of the vessel was damaged. The boat started sinking. We were helpless and all of us started jumping into the water to save our lives. I also jumped out of the boat. While I was swimming towards the bank, I desperately shouted that I was a civilian. My screaming worked. The extremists stopped firing at me, but they asked me to swim towards them. They were six in number, including two women. All were heavily armed. They took me into the deep forests of Gunupur hill. They grilled me for a few hours. After some time, they told me they would release me on condition that I should never help policemen in future."
4. From his account, the following facts emerge:
The Greyhounds party had gone into Orissa three days before the ambush. It is not clear how they went---by another boat or by road Three days of combing in Orissa territory did not lead to any Maoists. They decided to return to Andhra Pradesh. A request for a boat of the hydel project was made the previous night through the Orissa Police, but the project authorities were not told that the boat was for the Greyhounds. But since the request came through the Orissa Police,anyone aware of this should not have had any difficulty in guessing that the boat was being requisitioned for the travel of a police party.
The number of Maoists who successfully laid the ambush was small. They were not in their hundreds as reported by sections of the media.
The boatman did not find any Greyhounds personnel in the custody of the team of six Maoists, who captured and released him after interrogation. It is possible there were other Maoist groups in the area, which had also participated in the ambush of which the boatman was not aware.
5. Another "Times of India" report had stated that the Greyhounds had gone into Orissa on receiving information that the Maoists were to hold a meeting in Orissa territory. It is not clear whether the Greyhounds received this information from one of their sources or from the Orissa police.
6. Whatever be the case, it is evident that certain omissions of securitry precautions by the Greyhounds enabled the Maoists to mount this successful ambush. Since the Greyhounds were on an unsuccessful combing operation in Orissa territory for three days, while planning for their return to their base in Andhra Pradesh they should have taken into account the possibility that the Maoists would have come to know of their presence in Orissa territory and would be waiting for their return in order to mount an ambush. There was also a possibility of a leak of their return plans the previous night when the boatmen were alerted to be ready to take a party to Andhra Pradesh early in the morning.
7.These factors necessitated two precautions: Stationing of police parties on land on the surrounding hill tops as the boat was moving to prevent any ambush and avoiding the entire party of about 65 travelling by one boat at the same time. In an ambush on land, a police party, if its reflexes are good, has a reasonable chance of re-grouping and retaliating when ambushed. When ambushed on water particularly from a height, the chances of re-grouping and retaliating are low and nil if the boat is hit and capzises.
8. This ambush is definitely a set-back for the Greyhounds, but this need not dent their reputation as one of the best counter-insurgency police forces in India.Set-backs cannot always be avoided. The difference between a good force and a not so good force is that a good force learns from its mistakes and avoids repeating them. A not so good force does not. Being a good force, one can expect that the Greyhounds will draw the right lessons for their future operations.
9. The audacious manner in which the Maoists successfully mounted this ambush of a water-borne police party speaks of their continuing motivation, excellent reflexes and ability to plan and execute operations at short notice. The jihadi terrorism outside Kashmir is mainly urban terrorism.The Maoist terrorism is mainly rural terrorism. The jihadis attack hard and soft targets, the security forces as well as innocent civilians. Their attacks on civilians are indiscriminate. The Maoists focus on hard targets from the security forces and their perceived class enemies.Their terrorism is well-calibrated and selective in order not to create feelings of revulsion against them in the minds of the public. The muted public reaction to the Maoist ambush is indicative of the success of their methods.
10. The Greyhounds have become a legend with the police forces in the States affected by Maoist insurgency. There has been a lot of public adulation of the Greyhounds. As a result, the Andhra Pradesh Police have acquired the conviction that such forces are the real answer to terrorism. After a number of jihadi acts of terrorism in Hyderabad last year, the Andhra Pradesh police decided to raise a separate, but similar force tailor-made to deal with the urban jihadi terrorism. It has been named the Octopus.
11. The AP Police seem to have a fascination for such esoteric names for their special forces. Such forces alone cannot effectively deal with terrorism unless complemented by skillful political handling of the public grievances that give rise to terrorism and strengthening traditional policing in matters like urban and rural patrolling, police-community relations and successful investigation and prosecution of terrorism-related cases. The record of the AP Police in the investigation and prosecution of terrorism-related cases is quite poor.Unless their traditional policing improves, forces such as the Greyhounds and the Octopus alone cannot neutralise terrorism.
12. Annexed are some extracts from the chapter on Maoist terrorism in my book titled "Terrorism: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow" published this month by the Lancer Publishers of New Delhi (www.lancerpublishers.com ) (2-7-08)
(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 ( Extracts from the chapter on Maoist terrorism in my book )
Our Intelligence Bureau (IB), which is largely an urban-based organisation, has very little capability for preventive intelligence collection in the rural areas. We have to depend on the rural police for this purpose. The ability of the rural police to collect intelligence depends to a considerable extent on its mobility (patrolling) and its relationship with the village communities in the affected areas. Fears caused by the frequent use of landmines with devastating effect by the Maoists and the failure of the States to provide the police with adequate mine detection and clearing capability have affected the mobility and rural patrolling. This has also an impact on police-community relationship. A police force, which is not able to remain in regular touch with the villagers, cannot collect much worthwhile intelligence.
The inability of the State to deal with the Maoist insurgency-cum-terrorism effectively so far can be attributed to the absence of a mix of political and operational strategies. The political strategy has to identify and address the root causes of the spreading Maoism. While the spread is alarming, it is not yet out of control. There are still large areas in the tribal belt where the people are not supporting the Maoists and are observing law and order. The State has so far failed to undertake a crash development of these areas, which have not yet been infected by Maoism, in order to prove to the people that they can achieve their justified economic and social objectives through peaceful means, without having to take up arms against the State. Simultaneously, there has to be an improvement in rural policing and intelligencecollection in order to thwart the efforts of the Maoists to bring these areas too under their sway.
The areas, which have already come under the effective control of the Maoists, need a different strategy, with the emphasis more on the professional and operational aspects of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency than on the political and economic. The objective is to wrest control of these areas from the Maoists. This would be possible only through expanding and strengthening the police presence in the areas, creating in the IB and the intelligence wings of the Police an improved capability for intelligence collection in the rural areas and strengthening the capability of the police and the para-military forces to counter the modus operandi of the Maoists such as their devastating use of landmines.
Concerned over the spread of Maoist terrorism and insurgency, suggestions are increasingly being made for giving the police a military edge through training in jungle warfare techniques etc. We should definitely improve the technical capabilities of the police in matters such as mine-detection and neutralisation, but we should not militarise the methods of operation of the police.
The growing interest in some of our officers----serving and retired---in the highly militarized British and American methods of dealing with insurgency and terrorism needs to be curbed. The former British occupying power in Malaya used and the current American occupying power in Iraq uses highly militarised methods. They were/are operating against foreign nationals in foreign territory and had/have, therefore, no qualms about the kind of methods they were/are using to suppress the insurgency-cum-terrorism.
Our Police and para-military forces are operating in our own territory against our own people. We have to temper effectiveness with self-restraint. We had to use the jungle warfare methods in Mizoram and certain areas of the North-East in the 1960s and the 1970s because of the involvement of Pakistan and China in keeping the insurgency sustained in those areas. We cannot unintelligently use those methods in our tribal heartland in Central India. Modernisation of the police forces' rural counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency capability, yes;but, militarisation, no.
While dealing with the Maoist insurgency, we have to make a distinction between the poor people who have legitimate causes for anger against the State and against those whom they perceive as the exploiting classes of society and the Maoist ideologues, who are trying to exploit this anger to achieve political power through the barrel of the gun. The ideologues must be made to realise that they cannot achieve their objective by using the rural poor as their cannon fodder. The State has to act firmly against them. At the same time, it is important toprevent the rural poor from letting themselves be used as the cannon fodder of the Maoist ideologues. This is only possible through appropriate anger containment and reduction measures. Unless they perceive the State as the protector of the poor and exploited classes and not of the exploiting classes, it would not be possible to wean them away from the Maoist ideologues.
A comprehensive strategy of anger containment and reduction on the one side and better counter-insurgency and security in the rural areas on the other is required. This strategy has to be worked out centrally with inputs from the affected States and co-ordinated in its implementation from the Centre. Such a comprehensive strategy is presently lacking.
B.RAMAN
Only twenty-nine members of the highly-reputed Greyhounds counter-insurgency action force of the Andhra Pradesh Police managed to escape a well-organised ambush in water laid on June 29,2008, by a group of Maoist terrorists as a party of 65 Greyhounds was returning to Andhra Pradesh by a boat after an unsuccessful combing operation for Maoists in the territory of Orissa. Thirty-four Greyhounds are missing and two others are reported to have been killed. It is not yet known whether the 34 missing were also killed or whether some of them had been captured by the Maoists, who have not made any claim so far.
2. The Greyhounds party, which had entered the territory of Orissa reportedly on information received by them about the plans of the Maoists to hold a meeting, was returning to Andhra Pradesh in a single motorised boat belonging to the Balimela hydel project. They were returning by the Sileru river. As the boat entered the Balimela reservoir in the territory of Orissa created by the hydel project, it was attacked by an unknown number of Maoists, who had taken up position on the surrounding hills. The Greyhounds, who were taken by surprise, tried to retaliate, but their return fire against the Maoists located on the hills above the reservoir was ineffective. The boat kept moving despite initially being hit by some bullets, but capsized after having been hit by one or more grenades thrown or fired from a launcher by the Maoists. All on board jumped into the water. While some swam to safety, others were not lucky. Their final fate is not yet known.
3. The boat had a three-member crew one of whom fell into the hands of the Maoists, but they released him unharmed.His interview by Suryanarayan Pattnaik of the "Times of India" ( July 1,2008) gives the most authentic account of the ambush. He is quoted as saying in the interview: " We were three staff in the boat that belongs to the Balimela hydro project. On Saturday (June 28) evening, we were just told to be ready to leave for some place the next day. We did not know the destination. Around 4 AM on Sunday, two policemen from Chiltrakonda police station came and we five left for Janbai to bring Greyhound personnel of AP. We came to know that they had gone to Papermetla in Orissa three days ago on an anti-Maoist operation. We reached Janbai where the Greyhounds policemen boarded the boat. We were 65 people on board then and left Janbai. The boat had hardly gone about 5 to 7 Kms when the Maoists started firing on the boat. While the boat was crossing a narrow waterway, one bullet hit it. Before the Greyhounds could act, the Maoists from the hills rained bullets on the boat. Though a few policemen retaliated, it bore little fruit.The Maoists then hurled grenades on the boat. A part of the vessel was damaged. The boat started sinking. We were helpless and all of us started jumping into the water to save our lives. I also jumped out of the boat. While I was swimming towards the bank, I desperately shouted that I was a civilian. My screaming worked. The extremists stopped firing at me, but they asked me to swim towards them. They were six in number, including two women. All were heavily armed. They took me into the deep forests of Gunupur hill. They grilled me for a few hours. After some time, they told me they would release me on condition that I should never help policemen in future."
4. From his account, the following facts emerge:
The Greyhounds party had gone into Orissa three days before the ambush. It is not clear how they went---by another boat or by road Three days of combing in Orissa territory did not lead to any Maoists. They decided to return to Andhra Pradesh. A request for a boat of the hydel project was made the previous night through the Orissa Police, but the project authorities were not told that the boat was for the Greyhounds. But since the request came through the Orissa Police,anyone aware of this should not have had any difficulty in guessing that the boat was being requisitioned for the travel of a police party.
The number of Maoists who successfully laid the ambush was small. They were not in their hundreds as reported by sections of the media.
The boatman did not find any Greyhounds personnel in the custody of the team of six Maoists, who captured and released him after interrogation. It is possible there were other Maoist groups in the area, which had also participated in the ambush of which the boatman was not aware.
5. Another "Times of India" report had stated that the Greyhounds had gone into Orissa on receiving information that the Maoists were to hold a meeting in Orissa territory. It is not clear whether the Greyhounds received this information from one of their sources or from the Orissa police.
6. Whatever be the case, it is evident that certain omissions of securitry precautions by the Greyhounds enabled the Maoists to mount this successful ambush. Since the Greyhounds were on an unsuccessful combing operation in Orissa territory for three days, while planning for their return to their base in Andhra Pradesh they should have taken into account the possibility that the Maoists would have come to know of their presence in Orissa territory and would be waiting for their return in order to mount an ambush. There was also a possibility of a leak of their return plans the previous night when the boatmen were alerted to be ready to take a party to Andhra Pradesh early in the morning.
7.These factors necessitated two precautions: Stationing of police parties on land on the surrounding hill tops as the boat was moving to prevent any ambush and avoiding the entire party of about 65 travelling by one boat at the same time. In an ambush on land, a police party, if its reflexes are good, has a reasonable chance of re-grouping and retaliating when ambushed. When ambushed on water particularly from a height, the chances of re-grouping and retaliating are low and nil if the boat is hit and capzises.
8. This ambush is definitely a set-back for the Greyhounds, but this need not dent their reputation as one of the best counter-insurgency police forces in India.Set-backs cannot always be avoided. The difference between a good force and a not so good force is that a good force learns from its mistakes and avoids repeating them. A not so good force does not. Being a good force, one can expect that the Greyhounds will draw the right lessons for their future operations.
9. The audacious manner in which the Maoists successfully mounted this ambush of a water-borne police party speaks of their continuing motivation, excellent reflexes and ability to plan and execute operations at short notice. The jihadi terrorism outside Kashmir is mainly urban terrorism.The Maoist terrorism is mainly rural terrorism. The jihadis attack hard and soft targets, the security forces as well as innocent civilians. Their attacks on civilians are indiscriminate. The Maoists focus on hard targets from the security forces and their perceived class enemies.Their terrorism is well-calibrated and selective in order not to create feelings of revulsion against them in the minds of the public. The muted public reaction to the Maoist ambush is indicative of the success of their methods.
10. The Greyhounds have become a legend with the police forces in the States affected by Maoist insurgency. There has been a lot of public adulation of the Greyhounds. As a result, the Andhra Pradesh Police have acquired the conviction that such forces are the real answer to terrorism. After a number of jihadi acts of terrorism in Hyderabad last year, the Andhra Pradesh police decided to raise a separate, but similar force tailor-made to deal with the urban jihadi terrorism. It has been named the Octopus.
11. The AP Police seem to have a fascination for such esoteric names for their special forces. Such forces alone cannot effectively deal with terrorism unless complemented by skillful political handling of the public grievances that give rise to terrorism and strengthening traditional policing in matters like urban and rural patrolling, police-community relations and successful investigation and prosecution of terrorism-related cases. The record of the AP Police in the investigation and prosecution of terrorism-related cases is quite poor.Unless their traditional policing improves, forces such as the Greyhounds and the Octopus alone cannot neutralise terrorism.
12. Annexed are some extracts from the chapter on Maoist terrorism in my book titled "Terrorism: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow" published this month by the Lancer Publishers of New Delhi (www.lancerpublishers.com ) (2-7-08)
(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 ( Extracts from the chapter on Maoist terrorism in my book )
Our Intelligence Bureau (IB), which is largely an urban-based organisation, has very little capability for preventive intelligence collection in the rural areas. We have to depend on the rural police for this purpose. The ability of the rural police to collect intelligence depends to a considerable extent on its mobility (patrolling) and its relationship with the village communities in the affected areas. Fears caused by the frequent use of landmines with devastating effect by the Maoists and the failure of the States to provide the police with adequate mine detection and clearing capability have affected the mobility and rural patrolling. This has also an impact on police-community relationship. A police force, which is not able to remain in regular touch with the villagers, cannot collect much worthwhile intelligence.
The inability of the State to deal with the Maoist insurgency-cum-terrorism effectively so far can be attributed to the absence of a mix of political and operational strategies. The political strategy has to identify and address the root causes of the spreading Maoism. While the spread is alarming, it is not yet out of control. There are still large areas in the tribal belt where the people are not supporting the Maoists and are observing law and order. The State has so far failed to undertake a crash development of these areas, which have not yet been infected by Maoism, in order to prove to the people that they can achieve their justified economic and social objectives through peaceful means, without having to take up arms against the State. Simultaneously, there has to be an improvement in rural policing and intelligencecollection in order to thwart the efforts of the Maoists to bring these areas too under their sway.
The areas, which have already come under the effective control of the Maoists, need a different strategy, with the emphasis more on the professional and operational aspects of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency than on the political and economic. The objective is to wrest control of these areas from the Maoists. This would be possible only through expanding and strengthening the police presence in the areas, creating in the IB and the intelligence wings of the Police an improved capability for intelligence collection in the rural areas and strengthening the capability of the police and the para-military forces to counter the modus operandi of the Maoists such as their devastating use of landmines.
Concerned over the spread of Maoist terrorism and insurgency, suggestions are increasingly being made for giving the police a military edge through training in jungle warfare techniques etc. We should definitely improve the technical capabilities of the police in matters such as mine-detection and neutralisation, but we should not militarise the methods of operation of the police.
The growing interest in some of our officers----serving and retired---in the highly militarized British and American methods of dealing with insurgency and terrorism needs to be curbed. The former British occupying power in Malaya used and the current American occupying power in Iraq uses highly militarised methods. They were/are operating against foreign nationals in foreign territory and had/have, therefore, no qualms about the kind of methods they were/are using to suppress the insurgency-cum-terrorism.
Our Police and para-military forces are operating in our own territory against our own people. We have to temper effectiveness with self-restraint. We had to use the jungle warfare methods in Mizoram and certain areas of the North-East in the 1960s and the 1970s because of the involvement of Pakistan and China in keeping the insurgency sustained in those areas. We cannot unintelligently use those methods in our tribal heartland in Central India. Modernisation of the police forces' rural counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency capability, yes;but, militarisation, no.
While dealing with the Maoist insurgency, we have to make a distinction between the poor people who have legitimate causes for anger against the State and against those whom they perceive as the exploiting classes of society and the Maoist ideologues, who are trying to exploit this anger to achieve political power through the barrel of the gun. The ideologues must be made to realise that they cannot achieve their objective by using the rural poor as their cannon fodder. The State has to act firmly against them. At the same time, it is important toprevent the rural poor from letting themselves be used as the cannon fodder of the Maoist ideologues. This is only possible through appropriate anger containment and reduction measures. Unless they perceive the State as the protector of the poor and exploited classes and not of the exploiting classes, it would not be possible to wean them away from the Maoist ideologues.
A comprehensive strategy of anger containment and reduction on the one side and better counter-insurgency and security in the rural areas on the other is required. This strategy has to be worked out centrally with inputs from the affected States and co-ordinated in its implementation from the Centre. Such a comprehensive strategy is presently lacking.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
COUNT-DOWN TO BEIJING OLYMPICS
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.405
B.RAMAN
While the Falun Gong has kept up its public campaign against the Beijing Olympics due in August, the Tibetan supporters of the Dalai Lama have toned down their campaign. There has been pressure on His Holiness from the Western Governments not to create difficulties for the Chinese before and during the Olympics.
2. Not only officials connected with the so-called Government-in-exile of his Holiness based in Dharmsala in India, but even the radical Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC), whose radicalism has increased since September last year due to the role played by some American citizens of Tibetan origin, who had migrated to the US from India, have been avoiding any anti-Olympics statements. The Chinese as well as the Dalai Lama's followers have toned their rhetoric against each other. Though the rhetoric has not completely disappeared from their propaganda against each other, the harsh words of the past have been toned down.
3. The Chinese have toned down their demonisation of His Holiness, but they continue to demonise the TYC by projecting it as a terrorist organisation, which allegedly advocates suicide terrorism. Lodi Gyari, the Washington DC based representative of the Dalai Lama, who leads the two-member team of the Dalai Lama in the on-again, off-again dialogue with Chinese officials, has become a new target of attack.Some Chinese columnists have been projecting him as a founding-leader of the TYC and hence as radical as the TYC.
4. Some Chinese columnists have expressed the view that the only way of making His Holiness give up what they see as his present policy of confrontation with Beijing is by having pressure exercised on him through his external supporters. By external supporters,they mean the US and the non-Governmental organisations and Congressmen in the US, who have been supporting him.
5. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) of the US continues to be an important target of attack. Its denial of any responsibility for the March,2008, uprising in the Tibetan-inhabited areas of China has not been accepted by the Chinese. They have a strong suspicion that the NED is behind the radicalisation of the TYC and that funds flow to the TYC from the NED through Lodi Gyari. The NED makes no secret of its financial contributions to various Tibetan organisations. Details of these contributions are available in its web site. Uncorroborated reports that the NED had organised a training camp for Buddhist monks from Myanmar and Tibet in techniques of political agitation in a camp in South Africa are bound to add to this suspicion.
6. While the Chinese authorities and columnists avoid any negative or critical references to India with reference to the activities of the Dalai Lama and his supporters, their concern and suspicions over the activities of the TYC could become a contentious issue if the involvement of American citizens of Tibetan origin in its activities in Indian territory increases.
7.The State-owned Xinhua news agency reported on June 30,2008, as follows: "The authorities announced Sunday that relevant central government departments will meet personal representatives of the Dalai Lama at his request in early July.The central authorities have kept a constant and clear policy towards the Dalai Lama, a government spokesman said. "Our door is always open for the dialogue with the Dalai Lama," he said, "(We) hope that the Dalai Lama would treasure this opportunity and give positive response to the requirements of the central authorities." This would be the second meeting since the March uprising. The first one was held in China on May 4,2008.
8. While the announcement on the second meeting was expected for some time, interestingly it coincided with the visit of Ms.Condoleezza Rice , the US Secretary of State, to Beijing and the quake-hit areas of the Sichuan province. During her stay in Beijing, she met President Hu Jintao on June 30,2008. She had also met Prime Minister Wen Jiabo. Her visit had nothing to do with the announcement since the Chinese had agreed to this second meeting even earlier. And yet, the fact that the Chinese chose to make the announcement during her visit is interesting.
9. The Chinese media reported that during her meeting with Hu, she told him that President George Bush was looking forward to his meeting with him during the forthcoming G-8 summit in Japan. She apparently did not refer to Bush's planned visit to Beijing to attend the inaugural function of the Olympics. One would have expected her to say that Bush was looking forward to meeting Hu in the G-8 summit and to participating in the Olympics inaugural ceremony. However, she confined her remarks only to the summit. From this, one should not jump to the interpretation that Bush may be having second thoughts on his participation in the inaugural function.. All it shows is that he is keeping his options open .
10. Despite the toning down of the war of words between Beijing and the followers of the Dalai Lama, Chinese concerns over the possibility of violent attacks by Tibetan youth to embarrass the Chinese have not subsided. While they do not anticipate any acts of violence by the Tibetans in Beijing itself, they do apprehend diversionary acts of violence not only in Lhasa, but also in New Delhi and Western cities where there is a strong Tibetan presence.A question often posed by them is: Can the Tibetan youth kidnap a Chinese diplomat and hold him hostage during the Olympics to draw attention to their cause? Such acts will not be in the interest of the Tibetan cause and will prove counter-productive.
11. The Chinese have worked out a comprehensive physical security plan for the Olympics and the implementation of this plan has already started. This plan covers all important aspects such as civil aviation security, other public transport security, security in the venues of the games and the places of stay of the teams and public security in all important places which are likely to be visited by the teams, journalists and foreign spectators. They are also exercising caution while processing the visa applications of all intending visitors to China till the Olympics are over.
12. Of all the Muslim groups, only the Uighurs of Xinjiang origin living in the West and Turkey have kept up their campaign against Beijing. Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda organisations, including those of Pakistan, which are members of the International Islamic Front of bin Laden, have been silent on the Beijing Olympics. Their silence need not necessarily mean that they have no plans to disrupt the Olympics at Beijing or create diversionary attacks against the Chinese in Pakistan and the Central Asian Republics, which have a strong Uighur diaspora with religious and ethnic links to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) or Group, which is also an Uzbek organisation, and the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan. All the three of them have their headquarters in North Waziristan in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. If there is an act of jihadi disruption during the Olympics---either in Beijing or in Shanghai, where the football matches are to be held, or in Hong Kong where the equitation events are to be held--- it will most probably emanate from North Waziristan. The Chinese are depending on the goodwill and co-operation of the Pakistani authorities to prevent any incident plotted from Pakistani territory.
13. One does not know whether a contingent from Denmark is participating in the Olympics. If it does, its security should be of the greatest concern to the Chinese security agencies---- particularly after the recent Al Qaeda-owned attempt to blow up the Danish Embassy in Islamabad, in which eight Muslims---mostly Pakistanis---were killed. Al Qaeda organised the suicide explosion to protest against the publication and re-publication of cartoons by the Danish media on the Holy Prophet. The anger against the Danish cartoons persists---in the minds of jihadi organisations as well as individual Muslims right across the Ummah. If the Danish contingent participates, its members will be interacting with Muslim athletes from all over the Ummah. Even if no jihadi organisation mounts an attack on the Danes, the possibility of anger-of-the-moment attacks on the Danes by individual Muslims has to be factored into in any plan for the protection of the Danes.
14. While the Chinese physical security is tight, one is not certain whether their preventive intelligence capabilities have been revamped and strengthened after the March uprising in Lhasa when they were taken completely by surprise. China has a large number of Muslim students from the Ummah. Those of them, who had left China in the months before the Olympics ostensibly to visit their relatives and returned just before the Olympics, would need special attention. (1-7-08)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
While the Falun Gong has kept up its public campaign against the Beijing Olympics due in August, the Tibetan supporters of the Dalai Lama have toned down their campaign. There has been pressure on His Holiness from the Western Governments not to create difficulties for the Chinese before and during the Olympics.
2. Not only officials connected with the so-called Government-in-exile of his Holiness based in Dharmsala in India, but even the radical Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC), whose radicalism has increased since September last year due to the role played by some American citizens of Tibetan origin, who had migrated to the US from India, have been avoiding any anti-Olympics statements. The Chinese as well as the Dalai Lama's followers have toned their rhetoric against each other. Though the rhetoric has not completely disappeared from their propaganda against each other, the harsh words of the past have been toned down.
3. The Chinese have toned down their demonisation of His Holiness, but they continue to demonise the TYC by projecting it as a terrorist organisation, which allegedly advocates suicide terrorism. Lodi Gyari, the Washington DC based representative of the Dalai Lama, who leads the two-member team of the Dalai Lama in the on-again, off-again dialogue with Chinese officials, has become a new target of attack.Some Chinese columnists have been projecting him as a founding-leader of the TYC and hence as radical as the TYC.
4. Some Chinese columnists have expressed the view that the only way of making His Holiness give up what they see as his present policy of confrontation with Beijing is by having pressure exercised on him through his external supporters. By external supporters,they mean the US and the non-Governmental organisations and Congressmen in the US, who have been supporting him.
5. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) of the US continues to be an important target of attack. Its denial of any responsibility for the March,2008, uprising in the Tibetan-inhabited areas of China has not been accepted by the Chinese. They have a strong suspicion that the NED is behind the radicalisation of the TYC and that funds flow to the TYC from the NED through Lodi Gyari. The NED makes no secret of its financial contributions to various Tibetan organisations. Details of these contributions are available in its web site. Uncorroborated reports that the NED had organised a training camp for Buddhist monks from Myanmar and Tibet in techniques of political agitation in a camp in South Africa are bound to add to this suspicion.
6. While the Chinese authorities and columnists avoid any negative or critical references to India with reference to the activities of the Dalai Lama and his supporters, their concern and suspicions over the activities of the TYC could become a contentious issue if the involvement of American citizens of Tibetan origin in its activities in Indian territory increases.
7.The State-owned Xinhua news agency reported on June 30,2008, as follows: "The authorities announced Sunday that relevant central government departments will meet personal representatives of the Dalai Lama at his request in early July.The central authorities have kept a constant and clear policy towards the Dalai Lama, a government spokesman said. "Our door is always open for the dialogue with the Dalai Lama," he said, "(We) hope that the Dalai Lama would treasure this opportunity and give positive response to the requirements of the central authorities." This would be the second meeting since the March uprising. The first one was held in China on May 4,2008.
8. While the announcement on the second meeting was expected for some time, interestingly it coincided with the visit of Ms.Condoleezza Rice , the US Secretary of State, to Beijing and the quake-hit areas of the Sichuan province. During her stay in Beijing, she met President Hu Jintao on June 30,2008. She had also met Prime Minister Wen Jiabo. Her visit had nothing to do with the announcement since the Chinese had agreed to this second meeting even earlier. And yet, the fact that the Chinese chose to make the announcement during her visit is interesting.
9. The Chinese media reported that during her meeting with Hu, she told him that President George Bush was looking forward to his meeting with him during the forthcoming G-8 summit in Japan. She apparently did not refer to Bush's planned visit to Beijing to attend the inaugural function of the Olympics. One would have expected her to say that Bush was looking forward to meeting Hu in the G-8 summit and to participating in the Olympics inaugural ceremony. However, she confined her remarks only to the summit. From this, one should not jump to the interpretation that Bush may be having second thoughts on his participation in the inaugural function.. All it shows is that he is keeping his options open .
10. Despite the toning down of the war of words between Beijing and the followers of the Dalai Lama, Chinese concerns over the possibility of violent attacks by Tibetan youth to embarrass the Chinese have not subsided. While they do not anticipate any acts of violence by the Tibetans in Beijing itself, they do apprehend diversionary acts of violence not only in Lhasa, but also in New Delhi and Western cities where there is a strong Tibetan presence.A question often posed by them is: Can the Tibetan youth kidnap a Chinese diplomat and hold him hostage during the Olympics to draw attention to their cause? Such acts will not be in the interest of the Tibetan cause and will prove counter-productive.
11. The Chinese have worked out a comprehensive physical security plan for the Olympics and the implementation of this plan has already started. This plan covers all important aspects such as civil aviation security, other public transport security, security in the venues of the games and the places of stay of the teams and public security in all important places which are likely to be visited by the teams, journalists and foreign spectators. They are also exercising caution while processing the visa applications of all intending visitors to China till the Olympics are over.
12. Of all the Muslim groups, only the Uighurs of Xinjiang origin living in the West and Turkey have kept up their campaign against Beijing. Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda organisations, including those of Pakistan, which are members of the International Islamic Front of bin Laden, have been silent on the Beijing Olympics. Their silence need not necessarily mean that they have no plans to disrupt the Olympics at Beijing or create diversionary attacks against the Chinese in Pakistan and the Central Asian Republics, which have a strong Uighur diaspora with religious and ethnic links to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) or Group, which is also an Uzbek organisation, and the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan. All the three of them have their headquarters in North Waziristan in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. If there is an act of jihadi disruption during the Olympics---either in Beijing or in Shanghai, where the football matches are to be held, or in Hong Kong where the equitation events are to be held--- it will most probably emanate from North Waziristan. The Chinese are depending on the goodwill and co-operation of the Pakistani authorities to prevent any incident plotted from Pakistani territory.
13. One does not know whether a contingent from Denmark is participating in the Olympics. If it does, its security should be of the greatest concern to the Chinese security agencies---- particularly after the recent Al Qaeda-owned attempt to blow up the Danish Embassy in Islamabad, in which eight Muslims---mostly Pakistanis---were killed. Al Qaeda organised the suicide explosion to protest against the publication and re-publication of cartoons by the Danish media on the Holy Prophet. The anger against the Danish cartoons persists---in the minds of jihadi organisations as well as individual Muslims right across the Ummah. If the Danish contingent participates, its members will be interacting with Muslim athletes from all over the Ummah. Even if no jihadi organisation mounts an attack on the Danes, the possibility of anger-of-the-moment attacks on the Danes by individual Muslims has to be factored into in any plan for the protection of the Danes.
14. While the Chinese physical security is tight, one is not certain whether their preventive intelligence capabilities have been revamped and strengthened after the March uprising in Lhasa when they were taken completely by surprise. China has a large number of Muslim students from the Ummah. Those of them, who had left China in the months before the Olympics ostensibly to visit their relatives and returned just before the Olympics, would need special attention. (1-7-08)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
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