INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO.440
B.RAMAN
(To be read in continuation of my earlier paper of September 4,2008, titled "US Special Forces Launch Hit & Withdraw Raid in S. Waziristan"at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers29/paper2832.html )
The car bomb explosion outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul on July 7,2008, has boomeranged on Pakistan. According to reliable Pakistanipolice sources, the US has been able to collect independent evidence from its own sources that the plan for the explosion was drawn up byserving officers of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and executed through a suicide bomber selected by Serajuddin Haqqani, sonof Jalalludin Haqqani, the senior Taliban Commander.
2. These sources say that while the US has conclusive evidence on the role of some serving officers of the ISI in organising the explosion, itstill does not have adequate evidence to show whether Lt.Gen.Nadeem Taj, the Director-General of the ISI, who is related to Gen.(retd)Pervez Musharraf, was in the picture and whether clearance had been obtained at the political level.
3. The US generally does not act upon intelligence against Pakistan provided by India due to the possibility that it may be motivated. Itacts only when it is able to collect independent evidence from its own sources. The US has not yet been able to identify all the ISI officers,who had played a role in organising this attack just as it was able to identify in 1992-93 all the ISI officers, including Lt.Gen.Javed Nasir, thethen DG of the ISI, who had instigated the Afghan Mujahideen not to sell back the unused Stinger missiles to the US.
4. It may be recalled that after assuming office in January,1993, the then US President Bill Clinton had placed Pakistan in a list of suspectedState-sponsors of international terrorism and pressured Nawaz Sharif, the then Prime Minister, to sack Lt.Gen.Nasir and other officersidentified. Only thereafter was Pakistan's name removed from that list.
5. If the US succeeds in identifying all the officers involved in the Kabul explosion, it may demand their removal from the ISI. It is reportedthat the US investigation has not yet reached that stage.
6. However, the information so far collected by the US investigators on the role of some serving officers of the ISI in the Kabul explosion hasconfirmed the suspicions which it already had even before the Kabl explosion that some serving officers of the ISI and other wings of thePakistan Army have been leaking to Al Qaeda and the Taliban intelligence collected by the US agencies through human and technicalmeans. These suspicions arose following the arrest of some Pashtun tribals by the Taliban and their execution on charges of working forthe US intelligence.
7. Previously, the US was aware that some retired senior officers of the Pakistan Army and its ISI such as Nasir, Lt.Gen.(retd) Hamid Gul,another former DG, etc were allegedly helping the Taliban and Al Qaeda through advice and information. The US also had some vaguesuspicion of the involvement of serving ISI officers at junior level, who had served under Nasir and Gul, when they headed the ISI. Theinvestigation into the Kabul explosion reportedly confirmed the involvement of serving ISI officers even at senior levels.
8. Alarmed by this discovery, the US is reported to have stopped sharing sensitive intelligence with Pakistani Army and ISI officers. Underthe rules of engagement followed till the middle of July, while the US intelligence acted on all information, which called for instant airstrikes, it left it to the Pakistan Army to carry out ground operations where instant follow-up was not required. It was decided in July, withthe approval of President George Bush, that ground-level follow-up would also be done by the US special forces without informing theirPakistani counterparts.
9. The "New York Times" and the BBC, quoting American official sources, have reported that Bush signed a classified order in Julyauthorising ground actions inside Pakistani territory in the tribal belt by the US forces without informing the Pakistan Army beforehand.According to other sources unrelated to the NYT and the BBC,only after the US forces have withdrawn from the Pakistani territory wouldtheir action and the justification for it would be conveyed to the Pakistan Army. It is not clear whether the Presidential orders specify thedepths up to which US forces can enter into Pakistani territory.
10. There are three possible types of cross-border special operations. The first is the hot pursuit into Pakistani territory to kill or capturemembers of the Taliban or Al Qaeda fleeing after attacking NATO forces in the Afghan territory. The second is air-borne raids on suspectedterrorist hideouts to kill or capture Taliban or Al Qaeda operatives on the basis of intelligence about their presence in the hide-outs. Thethird is search and destroy operations on the basis of general and not specific intelligence regarding the location of training camps etc. Itwould seem that only the first two kinds of cross-border operations have been authorised for the present. These would involve the presencein Pakistani territory of the US forces for a very short duration. These would be hit and withdraw or hit and quit operations. The search anddestroy operations, which could involve a longish stay of the US forces in Pakistani territory, do not appear to have been authorised for thepresent.
11. The first raid in Pakistani territory under the new orders took place in the early hours of the morning of September 3,2008, when USSpecial Forces launched a hit and withdraw attack on three houses in the village of Jalal Khel, also known locally as Moosa Nika, in theAngoor Adda area of South Waziristan. The houses were located about one KM inside Pakistani territory from the border with Afghanistan.The village is about one kilometre from Angoor Adda and seven kilometres from the US military base at Machadat in Afghanistan's Paktikaprovince. The raid did not find any high-profile operative of Al Qaeda or the Taliban in the houses raided.The fact that the raid was made soclose to a Frontier Corps (FC)post and that the FC personnel did not react indicated a possible understanding between Admiral Mike Mullen,Chairman, US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Pakistan's Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), when they met on board anAmerican aircraft-carrier on August 26, 2008, about the circumstances under which US Special Forces could launch hit and withdraw raidson suspected hide-outs of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistani territory close to the Afghan border without prior intimation to the Pakistaniposts.
12. The speculation that the raid was made in pursuance of a secret understanding with Kayani created some embarrassment for thePakistan Government and Army. They condemned the raid, but in a low profile manner. But the reports from Washington on September10,2008, which quoted official sources as saying that Bush himself had authorised such raids without informing the Pakistan Army added tothe embarrassment of the Government and the Army. The embarrassment was increased further by comments made openly by Bush in anaddress to the National Defence University at Washington DC on September 9,2008, on the eve of the seventh anniversary of the 9/11terrorist strikes in the US Homeland by Al Qaeda.Bush named Pakistan as among the major battlegrounds in the global war on terrorism andreminded Islamabad that it was its responsibility to eradicate terrorism from the tribal areas. He said: “Defeating these terrorists andextremists is also Pakistan’s responsibility — because every nation has an obligation to govern its own territory and make certain that itdoes not become a safe haven for terror.” He described Iraq, Afghanistan and "parts of Pakistan" as " theatres in the same overall struggle.In all three places, extremists are using violence and terror in an attempt to impose their ideology on whole populations.They murder toimpose their dark vision of the world.”
13.In an unusually strong statement on September 10,2008, Kayani said that his forces would not tolerate such incursions and woulddefend the country's sovereignty "at all costs." "No external force is allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan," he added. Was it only aproforma protest to conceal any Pakistani secret approval of such raids or was it an expression of genuine indignation? It would be difficultto answer this question at present.
(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 )
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
AL QAEDA HAS CHANGED TACTICS, BUT AS DEADLY AS EVER
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR—PAPER NO.439
B.RAMAN
(This was carried by the “Times of India” in its Editorial page on September 11,2008)
Despite the set-backs suffered by Al Qaeda in Iraq, it is constantly on the look-out for opportunities for another act of mass casualty terrorism anywhere in the world where an opportunity presents itself.
Mass casualty operations of the 9/11 kind in countries far removed from the terrorist sanctuaries have been rendered difficult by the enforcement of strict travel and immigration control measures. It has become difficult for terrorists normally resident in one country to go to another country with which there is no common border for carrying out a terrorist strike. The trend is, therefore, increasingly to depend on local residents in the targeted country for carrying out a terrorist strike. Hence, the phenomenon of home-grown jihadis.
From the messages disseminated by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the No.2 to Osama bin Laden, in recent months, it is clear that Al Qaeda is trying to adapt itself to the new ground realities by promoting the concept of a global intifada in the place of a global jihad. Its message to Muslims all over the world has been---- hit wherever you can, whenever you can and in whatever way and with whatever means you can.
US counter-terrorism experts have managed to drive a wedge between the secular Iraqi Arabs of the national resistance movement and the Wahabi Saudi Arabs and their associates from other Arab countries, who constitute the bulk of Al Qaeda in Iraq. This has affected Al Qaeda. It still manages to carry out sporadic terrorist strikes in the Sunni area, but not on the same scale and not as frequently as before.
However, US experts have not succeeded in similarly driving a wedge between the Pashtuns of the Taliban and the Arabs, Uzbeks and Chechens of Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda organizations. The Taliban and Al Qaeda remain firm in their solidarity with each other. Pakistan’s reluctance to act firmly against Al Qaeda sanctuaries in its Pashtun belt and its collusion with the Taliban have posed a cruel dilemma for the US---- either act on its own against the sanctuaries in Pakistani territory, thereby running the danger of driving more Pashtuns into the arms of the Taliban and Al Qaeda or continue bleeding helplessly in Afghanistan. There have been some indications that the US may no longer be averse to undertaking unilateral strikes on the ground in Pakistani territory. Deniable air strikes have been there since 2002, but ground strikes have been avoided till now.
The majority of the Muslims all over the world still do not take seriously Al Qaeda’s goal of an Islamic Caliphate, but they have started paying attention to the call of Al Qaeda and the Taliban to take Islam back to the days of its pristine purity Thus, one finds Al Qaeda and its associates mastering and using modern means of communication and motivation through the Internet etc not for taking their community forward towards modernization, but backwards towards archaic concepts and beliefs.
There is no evidence in South Asia to indicate that formerly peaceful groups are now becoming radical because of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan or other reasons. However, there are three trends which need attention: First, organizations, which were already radical, are becoming more radical due to external (anti-US anger in Pakistan) or internal ( anger over domestic grievances in India) reasons. Second, an increase in the flow of new recruits of individual Muslims to these organizations. Thus, formerly peaceful Muslims are now tending to get radicalized. Third, first signs of concern in the Indian Muslim community over this phenomenon. This has led to an open condemnation of resort to terrorism by some leaders of the Muslim community and a reported split in the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) between those advocating terrorism and those advocating peaceful political means.
Radicalisation in some measure or the other has been there in sections of the Indian Muslim community at least since the 1970s,but what is of comparatively recent origin is pan-Islamisation. Al Qaeda was not the originator of pan-islamic tendencies, but it took advantage of them to promote the concept of a global jihad or a global intifada. There were not many takers for its ideas in the past, but it has now started attracting followers from small sections of the Indian Muslim youth in India as well as abroad.
Anger is the basic root cause of all terrorism. The anger is often caused by domestic or external factors. While India may not have much control over the external factors, it should be able to detect in time signs of anger due to domestic reasons and take action to address them. Unaddressed anger at the domestic level drives the angry into the arms of trans-national organizations such as Al Qaeda in course of time.
(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
(This was carried by the “Times of India” in its Editorial page on September 11,2008)
Despite the set-backs suffered by Al Qaeda in Iraq, it is constantly on the look-out for opportunities for another act of mass casualty terrorism anywhere in the world where an opportunity presents itself.
Mass casualty operations of the 9/11 kind in countries far removed from the terrorist sanctuaries have been rendered difficult by the enforcement of strict travel and immigration control measures. It has become difficult for terrorists normally resident in one country to go to another country with which there is no common border for carrying out a terrorist strike. The trend is, therefore, increasingly to depend on local residents in the targeted country for carrying out a terrorist strike. Hence, the phenomenon of home-grown jihadis.
From the messages disseminated by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the No.2 to Osama bin Laden, in recent months, it is clear that Al Qaeda is trying to adapt itself to the new ground realities by promoting the concept of a global intifada in the place of a global jihad. Its message to Muslims all over the world has been---- hit wherever you can, whenever you can and in whatever way and with whatever means you can.
US counter-terrorism experts have managed to drive a wedge between the secular Iraqi Arabs of the national resistance movement and the Wahabi Saudi Arabs and their associates from other Arab countries, who constitute the bulk of Al Qaeda in Iraq. This has affected Al Qaeda. It still manages to carry out sporadic terrorist strikes in the Sunni area, but not on the same scale and not as frequently as before.
However, US experts have not succeeded in similarly driving a wedge between the Pashtuns of the Taliban and the Arabs, Uzbeks and Chechens of Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda organizations. The Taliban and Al Qaeda remain firm in their solidarity with each other. Pakistan’s reluctance to act firmly against Al Qaeda sanctuaries in its Pashtun belt and its collusion with the Taliban have posed a cruel dilemma for the US---- either act on its own against the sanctuaries in Pakistani territory, thereby running the danger of driving more Pashtuns into the arms of the Taliban and Al Qaeda or continue bleeding helplessly in Afghanistan. There have been some indications that the US may no longer be averse to undertaking unilateral strikes on the ground in Pakistani territory. Deniable air strikes have been there since 2002, but ground strikes have been avoided till now.
The majority of the Muslims all over the world still do not take seriously Al Qaeda’s goal of an Islamic Caliphate, but they have started paying attention to the call of Al Qaeda and the Taliban to take Islam back to the days of its pristine purity Thus, one finds Al Qaeda and its associates mastering and using modern means of communication and motivation through the Internet etc not for taking their community forward towards modernization, but backwards towards archaic concepts and beliefs.
There is no evidence in South Asia to indicate that formerly peaceful groups are now becoming radical because of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan or other reasons. However, there are three trends which need attention: First, organizations, which were already radical, are becoming more radical due to external (anti-US anger in Pakistan) or internal ( anger over domestic grievances in India) reasons. Second, an increase in the flow of new recruits of individual Muslims to these organizations. Thus, formerly peaceful Muslims are now tending to get radicalized. Third, first signs of concern in the Indian Muslim community over this phenomenon. This has led to an open condemnation of resort to terrorism by some leaders of the Muslim community and a reported split in the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) between those advocating terrorism and those advocating peaceful political means.
Radicalisation in some measure or the other has been there in sections of the Indian Muslim community at least since the 1970s,but what is of comparatively recent origin is pan-Islamisation. Al Qaeda was not the originator of pan-islamic tendencies, but it took advantage of them to promote the concept of a global jihad or a global intifada. There were not many takers for its ideas in the past, but it has now started attracting followers from small sections of the Indian Muslim youth in India as well as abroad.
Anger is the basic root cause of all terrorism. The anger is often caused by domestic or external factors. While India may not have much control over the external factors, it should be able to detect in time signs of anger due to domestic reasons and take action to address them. Unaddressed anger at the domestic level drives the angry into the arms of trans-national organizations such as Al Qaeda in course of time.
(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 )
VAVUNIYA RAID: CONFLICTING VERSIONS
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO 438
B.RAMAN
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is increasingly under pressure due to a war of attrition waged against it by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces in the areas controlled by it in the Northern Province, launched a surprise land-cum-air attack on a vital military complex of the armed forces at Vavuniya, about 260 kms North of Colombo, in the early hours of September 9,2008.
2. Even after allowing for the usual exaggeration by the spokesmen of the Armed Forces in projecting the progress made by them, it is evident from independent reports that the LTTE has been forced to fight a defensive battle to retain the territory under its control and to prevent a weakening of its conventional capability due to the loss of its weapons holdings during the battle and its inability to replenish them through smuggling from abroad. While the morale of the LTTE's experienced officers and cadres remains high, it has not been able to reverse the tide of the battle against the armed forces. Even its wing responsible for mounting acts of terrorism in Sinhalese territory has been facing difficulty in mounting spectacular terrorist strikes due to a shortage of cadres trained in suicide terrorism and low stocks of explosives.
3. While the Army's oft-repeated hopes of being able to defeat the LTTE decisively on the ground by the end of this year seem over-optimistic, the tide of the war continues to be in favour of the army. There are two questions involved---- defeating the LTTE conventionally and destroying its capability for continuing its struggle for Tamil Eelam through acts of terrorism. The achievement of both these objectives will depend upon a critical weakening of the morale and motivation of the LTTE officers and cadres, leading to increasing desertions and splits in the organisation. There are no signs of such a weakening of the morale and motivation. Despite the repeated and ruthless use of air strikes against the LTTE by the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) and despite the vast superiority in numbers and equipment of the armed forces due to regular flow of supplies from Pakistan, China, Israel and even India, the LTTE has been fighting doggedly, inflicting increasingly heavy casualties on the Army, which is not admitted by the Government. Thus, the attrition is on both sides. The only advantage enjoyed by the Army is that it is able to make good the attrition through material procured from Pakistan, China, Israel and India with money given by Iran, whereas the LTTE has not been able to make good the attrition.
4. The continuing strong morale and motivation of the LTTE officers and cadres and their ability to take the armed forces by surprise became once again evident from the spectacular and audacious attack jointly mounted by the planes, the artillery and suicide commandoes of the LTTE on the Vavuniya military complex, which co-ordinates the operations of the Armed Forces against the LTTE. It was as spectacular and audacious as a similar attack on an SLAF base at Anuradhapura in October last year and as well-planned and well-executed.
5. The operation, which lasted about three hours, started with a sustained artillery attack in the dead of night followed by bombing by two aircraft ( Zlin 143 )of the LTTE and this was followed by the infiltration of the complex by 10 suicide commandoes (Black Tigers), five of them women. All of them died during the attack, but not before killing 11 personnel of the security forces and badly damaging the equipment kept in the complex, including an Indra radar supplied by India. Among those injured were two Indian radar technicians. It is not clear whether they had been permanently attached to the radar station or come there on a short visit to do the periodic maintenance of the radar. The injuries sustained by the two Indian technicians were not life threatening, but required initial hospitalisation at Colombo.
6. While the LTTE has stated that both its aircraft returned safely to base, the SLAF has claimed that one of its fighter planes (F-7s) ,which had taken off from the Katunayake airfield near Colombo on gettng information of the approach of the LTTE planes ,managed to chase one of them as they were returning to their base after the bombing and shot it down over the skies in the LTTE-controlled Mullaittivu area. However, the SLAF spokesman ( Squadron Leader Sanjaya Adhikari ) admitted that it had no video coverage of this engagement in proof of its claim.
7. As it did after the Anuradhapura raid of last year, the SLAF has tried to project the LTTE raid as a fiasco, which failed in its objective. However, independent reports say that as had happened in the past, the SLAF was once again taken by surprise and was slow to react. The LTTE aircraft managed to drop their load of bombs in the vicinity of the radar station and flee from the scene without being intercepted by the SLAF planes.
8. While the Air Force version of the incident claimed that the Indian-supplied radar did not suffer any damage, the version given by the Sri Lankan Navy in its web site did admit some damage to the radar, but it claimed that it was slight. A web blog run by the Sri Lanka Naval Intelligence said: “ Reports indicated that the radar system was slightly damaged after a bomb fell close to it. Two Indian nationals operating the radar system were injured in the blast.”
9. The two LTTE aircraft were over the complex for about six minutes. During this period, any SLAF aircraft taking off from Katunayake could not have reached Vavuniya and intercepted the LTTE aircraft.
10. While the Sri Lankan Armed Forces repeatedly exaggerate their successes and play down their losses, the LTTE generally gives a factual account of the battles. Even if it did badly in the battles, it does not try to cover up its failures. This is one of the reasons for the high credibility enjoyed by the LTTE's statements in the eyes of its cadres, the Tamil population and diaspora abroad. The LTTE version of the Vavuniya operation has more credibility than the version put out by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces.
11. Even if it is established that the radar has been severely damaged, if not destroyed, this should not affect the on-going ground operations of the Sri Lankan Army. The mastery of the skies enjoyed by the SLAF during day time ensures that the LTTE planes could not pose a threat to the troops engaged in battle. The absence of a radar would not also affect the punitive air strikes made repeatedly by the SLAF on LTTE-held positions. The successful Vavuniya raid would be a morale-booster for the LTTE cadres, but would not turn the tide of the battle against the armed forces. (10-9-08)
(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
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is increasingly under pressure due to a war of attrition waged against it by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces in the areas controlled by it in the Northern Province, launched a surprise land-cum-air attack on a vital military complex of the armed forces at Vavuniya, about 260 kms North of Colombo, in the early hours of September 9,2008.
2. Even after allowing for the usual exaggeration by the spokesmen of the Armed Forces in projecting the progress made by them, it is evident from independent reports that the LTTE has been forced to fight a defensive battle to retain the territory under its control and to prevent a weakening of its conventional capability due to the loss of its weapons holdings during the battle and its inability to replenish them through smuggling from abroad. While the morale of the LTTE's experienced officers and cadres remains high, it has not been able to reverse the tide of the battle against the armed forces. Even its wing responsible for mounting acts of terrorism in Sinhalese territory has been facing difficulty in mounting spectacular terrorist strikes due to a shortage of cadres trained in suicide terrorism and low stocks of explosives.
3. While the Army's oft-repeated hopes of being able to defeat the LTTE decisively on the ground by the end of this year seem over-optimistic, the tide of the war continues to be in favour of the army. There are two questions involved---- defeating the LTTE conventionally and destroying its capability for continuing its struggle for Tamil Eelam through acts of terrorism. The achievement of both these objectives will depend upon a critical weakening of the morale and motivation of the LTTE officers and cadres, leading to increasing desertions and splits in the organisation. There are no signs of such a weakening of the morale and motivation. Despite the repeated and ruthless use of air strikes against the LTTE by the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) and despite the vast superiority in numbers and equipment of the armed forces due to regular flow of supplies from Pakistan, China, Israel and even India, the LTTE has been fighting doggedly, inflicting increasingly heavy casualties on the Army, which is not admitted by the Government. Thus, the attrition is on both sides. The only advantage enjoyed by the Army is that it is able to make good the attrition through material procured from Pakistan, China, Israel and India with money given by Iran, whereas the LTTE has not been able to make good the attrition.
4. The continuing strong morale and motivation of the LTTE officers and cadres and their ability to take the armed forces by surprise became once again evident from the spectacular and audacious attack jointly mounted by the planes, the artillery and suicide commandoes of the LTTE on the Vavuniya military complex, which co-ordinates the operations of the Armed Forces against the LTTE. It was as spectacular and audacious as a similar attack on an SLAF base at Anuradhapura in October last year and as well-planned and well-executed.
5. The operation, which lasted about three hours, started with a sustained artillery attack in the dead of night followed by bombing by two aircraft ( Zlin 143 )of the LTTE and this was followed by the infiltration of the complex by 10 suicide commandoes (Black Tigers), five of them women. All of them died during the attack, but not before killing 11 personnel of the security forces and badly damaging the equipment kept in the complex, including an Indra radar supplied by India. Among those injured were two Indian radar technicians. It is not clear whether they had been permanently attached to the radar station or come there on a short visit to do the periodic maintenance of the radar. The injuries sustained by the two Indian technicians were not life threatening, but required initial hospitalisation at Colombo.
6. While the LTTE has stated that both its aircraft returned safely to base, the SLAF has claimed that one of its fighter planes (F-7s) ,which had taken off from the Katunayake airfield near Colombo on gettng information of the approach of the LTTE planes ,managed to chase one of them as they were returning to their base after the bombing and shot it down over the skies in the LTTE-controlled Mullaittivu area. However, the SLAF spokesman ( Squadron Leader Sanjaya Adhikari ) admitted that it had no video coverage of this engagement in proof of its claim.
7. As it did after the Anuradhapura raid of last year, the SLAF has tried to project the LTTE raid as a fiasco, which failed in its objective. However, independent reports say that as had happened in the past, the SLAF was once again taken by surprise and was slow to react. The LTTE aircraft managed to drop their load of bombs in the vicinity of the radar station and flee from the scene without being intercepted by the SLAF planes.
8. While the Air Force version of the incident claimed that the Indian-supplied radar did not suffer any damage, the version given by the Sri Lankan Navy in its web site did admit some damage to the radar, but it claimed that it was slight. A web blog run by the Sri Lanka Naval Intelligence said: “ Reports indicated that the radar system was slightly damaged after a bomb fell close to it. Two Indian nationals operating the radar system were injured in the blast.”
9. The two LTTE aircraft were over the complex for about six minutes. During this period, any SLAF aircraft taking off from Katunayake could not have reached Vavuniya and intercepted the LTTE aircraft.
10. While the Sri Lankan Armed Forces repeatedly exaggerate their successes and play down their losses, the LTTE generally gives a factual account of the battles. Even if it did badly in the battles, it does not try to cover up its failures. This is one of the reasons for the high credibility enjoyed by the LTTE's statements in the eyes of its cadres, the Tamil population and diaspora abroad. The LTTE version of the Vavuniya operation has more credibility than the version put out by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces.
11. Even if it is established that the radar has been severely damaged, if not destroyed, this should not affect the on-going ground operations of the Sri Lankan Army. The mastery of the skies enjoyed by the SLAF during day time ensures that the LTTE planes could not pose a threat to the troops engaged in battle. The absence of a radar would not also affect the punitive air strikes made repeatedly by the SLAF on LTTE-held positions. The successful Vavuniya raid would be a morale-booster for the LTTE cadres, but would not turn the tide of the battle against the armed forces. (10-9-08)
(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 )
Friday, September 5, 2008
TALIBAN'S CONTINUING ANGER AGAINST CHINA
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.437
B.RAMAN
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has not forgotten the role of China in exercising pressure on the then President Pervez Musharraf to order commando action inside the Lal Masjid of Islamabad from July10 to 13,2007. The commando action led to the death of Abdul Rashid, a cleric popular with the Pashtun tribals, and of a large number of tribal girls from the Pashtun tribal belt studying in a girls' madrasa attached to the Masjid. The madrasa was destroyed during the commando action.
2. Before the commando action, there was an incident in Islamabad in which students studying in the girls' madrasa attached to the Lal Masjid---some of them Uighurs--- kidnapped six Chinese women working in a massage parlour of Islamabad and accused them of working as prostitutes. They were subsequently released. It was after this incident that the Chinese authorities strongly took up with Musharraf the question of taking action against the madrasa students who were responsible for the kidnapping. Unnerved by the strong Chinese reaction, Musharraf ordered the commando action, which resulted in a huge tragedy.
3. The commando action led to a wave of suicide terrorism by tribals from the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in tribal as well as non-tribal areas, including in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Two of the retaliatory attacks after the commando action were directed against Chinese nationals working in Pakistan. In the first attack in Peshawar, three Chinese working for a company importing meat, skin and hide from Pakistan were killed. Chinese engineers travelling to work in a bus in Hub in Balochistan escaped unhurt when a suicide bomber blew himself up near their bus, killing a large number of policemen and civilians. Following these incidents, the Pakistan Government tightened physical security for Chinese nationals working in Pakistan. A Joint Task Force consisting of representatives of the Pakistani security agencies and the Chinese Embassy was set up to co-ordinate the physical security measures.
4. There are different estimates of the total number of Chinese living and working in Pakistan----varying between 3,500 and 5,000. They consist of three categories. In the first category are the Chinese engineers and technicians working in Chinese State-aided projects such as the Gwadar port construction and the Saindak copper-gold extraction projects in Balochistan, the construction of a hydel power station in the FATA and the expansion of the reservoir capacity of the Mangla dam in Mirpur in POK. All these Chinese are well-protected by the Pakistani security forces, but despite this, some of the engineers working in Gwadar and FATA were killed in terrorist attacks in recent years, some allegedly by the Uighurs and one by the late Abdullah Mehsud of South Waziristan, a former detenu in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.
5. The second category consists of independent Chinese businessmen running small-scale business enterprises employing not more than half a dozen Chinese per enterprise like the one in Peshawar, which came under attack. The third category consists largely of single Chinese women in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi working in massage and beauty parlours, dental and native Chinese medicine clinics etc. These two categories do not enjoy any special protection. They are dependent on the local police of the area, where they are living and working, for their protection.
6. There was a campaign of slander against these single Chinese women by the clerics of the Lal Masjid and their Uighur students, which led to the kidnapping of some of them working in Islamabad. While the clerics were describing them as prostitutes corrupting the morals of Muslims, the Uighur students studying in the madrasas attached to the Lal Masjid were accusing them of being agents of the Chinese intelligence agencies sent to Pakistan to monitor the activities of the Uighurs in Pakistan before the Beijing Olympics.
7.Taken aback by the Pashtun anger against the Chinese, the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad tried to reassure the Pakistani religious elements that China had nothing against the Lal Masjid. It denied reports that Beijing forced Musharraf to act against the Masjid following the kidnapping of some Chinese women by the madrasa students.
8. The "China Daily" reported as follows on July 18, 2007: "China did not push Pakistan for operations against the Red Mosque, Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Luo Zhaohui said. It is the consistent policy of China not to meddle in the domestic affairs of other countries, he told The News, a major Pakistani daily. Luo said he was considering an invitation to visit the mosque but it was made impossible due to the unstable security situation. "We enjoy very cordial relations with the ruling party here and likewise we maintain friendly ties with other segments of the society including the political parties of the opposition," he said. "I had no knowledge as to why Chinese nationals are being targeted and were the victims in five recent incidents", Luo said, referring to several Chinese who were killed in that country. He said if Chinese continued to be targeted, cooperation between the two countries could suffer. To protect the 3,000 Chinese working in Pakistan, China and Pakistan have decided to set up a Joint Task Force (JTF), the Ambassador revealed."
9. Following these initiatives by the Chinese Embassy, the anger against the Chinese seemed to have subsided. The fact that this was really not so became evident on August 29,2008, when two Chinese engineers, Zhanggua and Lung, along with their security guard Imranullah and driver Khalil, went missing in the Khall area of the Dir Lower district in the NWFP.They were working for the Zong mobile company, which was running mobile phone services in Dir Upper and Lower districts. They were kidnapped while they were being drven in a car. Following this incident, the Chinese Embassy advised 15 other Chinese engineers working in the area to leave the area. They did so.
10. Subsequently, Muslim Khan, who described himself as a spokesman of the TTP in the Swat Valley, claimed that the Chinese engineers were in the custody of the TTP, which wuld be shortly announcing its demands for their release. Initially he said: “Our aim is to hit the government’s interests wherever they are. We kidnap everyone irrespective of whether he’s Pakistani or Chinese and we’ll continue to do this until they stop killing our people.” But the daily newspaper "The News" reported on September 4,2008, as follows: " The militants' spokesman was critical of the 'Chinese role' in pressurising the Pakistani Government to launch Operation Silence on the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad. The Lal Masjid administration had taken hostage Chinese women who were running a massage centre in Islamabad last year who were later released unharmed. He said the US also played a role in forcing Pakistan to attack the mosque and seminary in which hundreds of students and their teachers were reportedly killed." (5-9-08)
(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
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has not forgotten the role of China in exercising pressure on the then President Pervez Musharraf to order commando action inside the Lal Masjid of Islamabad from July10 to 13,2007. The commando action led to the death of Abdul Rashid, a cleric popular with the Pashtun tribals, and of a large number of tribal girls from the Pashtun tribal belt studying in a girls' madrasa attached to the Masjid. The madrasa was destroyed during the commando action.
2. Before the commando action, there was an incident in Islamabad in which students studying in the girls' madrasa attached to the Lal Masjid---some of them Uighurs--- kidnapped six Chinese women working in a massage parlour of Islamabad and accused them of working as prostitutes. They were subsequently released. It was after this incident that the Chinese authorities strongly took up with Musharraf the question of taking action against the madrasa students who were responsible for the kidnapping. Unnerved by the strong Chinese reaction, Musharraf ordered the commando action, which resulted in a huge tragedy.
3. The commando action led to a wave of suicide terrorism by tribals from the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in tribal as well as non-tribal areas, including in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Two of the retaliatory attacks after the commando action were directed against Chinese nationals working in Pakistan. In the first attack in Peshawar, three Chinese working for a company importing meat, skin and hide from Pakistan were killed. Chinese engineers travelling to work in a bus in Hub in Balochistan escaped unhurt when a suicide bomber blew himself up near their bus, killing a large number of policemen and civilians. Following these incidents, the Pakistan Government tightened physical security for Chinese nationals working in Pakistan. A Joint Task Force consisting of representatives of the Pakistani security agencies and the Chinese Embassy was set up to co-ordinate the physical security measures.
4. There are different estimates of the total number of Chinese living and working in Pakistan----varying between 3,500 and 5,000. They consist of three categories. In the first category are the Chinese engineers and technicians working in Chinese State-aided projects such as the Gwadar port construction and the Saindak copper-gold extraction projects in Balochistan, the construction of a hydel power station in the FATA and the expansion of the reservoir capacity of the Mangla dam in Mirpur in POK. All these Chinese are well-protected by the Pakistani security forces, but despite this, some of the engineers working in Gwadar and FATA were killed in terrorist attacks in recent years, some allegedly by the Uighurs and one by the late Abdullah Mehsud of South Waziristan, a former detenu in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.
5. The second category consists of independent Chinese businessmen running small-scale business enterprises employing not more than half a dozen Chinese per enterprise like the one in Peshawar, which came under attack. The third category consists largely of single Chinese women in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi working in massage and beauty parlours, dental and native Chinese medicine clinics etc. These two categories do not enjoy any special protection. They are dependent on the local police of the area, where they are living and working, for their protection.
6. There was a campaign of slander against these single Chinese women by the clerics of the Lal Masjid and their Uighur students, which led to the kidnapping of some of them working in Islamabad. While the clerics were describing them as prostitutes corrupting the morals of Muslims, the Uighur students studying in the madrasas attached to the Lal Masjid were accusing them of being agents of the Chinese intelligence agencies sent to Pakistan to monitor the activities of the Uighurs in Pakistan before the Beijing Olympics.
7.Taken aback by the Pashtun anger against the Chinese, the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad tried to reassure the Pakistani religious elements that China had nothing against the Lal Masjid. It denied reports that Beijing forced Musharraf to act against the Masjid following the kidnapping of some Chinese women by the madrasa students.
8. The "China Daily" reported as follows on July 18, 2007: "China did not push Pakistan for operations against the Red Mosque, Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Luo Zhaohui said. It is the consistent policy of China not to meddle in the domestic affairs of other countries, he told The News, a major Pakistani daily. Luo said he was considering an invitation to visit the mosque but it was made impossible due to the unstable security situation. "We enjoy very cordial relations with the ruling party here and likewise we maintain friendly ties with other segments of the society including the political parties of the opposition," he said. "I had no knowledge as to why Chinese nationals are being targeted and were the victims in five recent incidents", Luo said, referring to several Chinese who were killed in that country. He said if Chinese continued to be targeted, cooperation between the two countries could suffer. To protect the 3,000 Chinese working in Pakistan, China and Pakistan have decided to set up a Joint Task Force (JTF), the Ambassador revealed."
9. Following these initiatives by the Chinese Embassy, the anger against the Chinese seemed to have subsided. The fact that this was really not so became evident on August 29,2008, when two Chinese engineers, Zhanggua and Lung, along with their security guard Imranullah and driver Khalil, went missing in the Khall area of the Dir Lower district in the NWFP.They were working for the Zong mobile company, which was running mobile phone services in Dir Upper and Lower districts. They were kidnapped while they were being drven in a car. Following this incident, the Chinese Embassy advised 15 other Chinese engineers working in the area to leave the area. They did so.
10. Subsequently, Muslim Khan, who described himself as a spokesman of the TTP in the Swat Valley, claimed that the Chinese engineers were in the custody of the TTP, which wuld be shortly announcing its demands for their release. Initially he said: “Our aim is to hit the government’s interests wherever they are. We kidnap everyone irrespective of whether he’s Pakistani or Chinese and we’ll continue to do this until they stop killing our people.” But the daily newspaper "The News" reported on September 4,2008, as follows: " The militants' spokesman was critical of the 'Chinese role' in pressurising the Pakistani Government to launch Operation Silence on the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad. The Lal Masjid administration had taken hostage Chinese women who were running a massage centre in Islamabad last year who were later released unharmed. He said the US also played a role in forcing Pakistan to attack the mosque and seminary in which hundreds of students and their teachers were reportedly killed." (5-9-08)
(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 )
Thursday, September 4, 2008
US SPECIAL FORCES LAUNCH HIT & WITHDRAW RAID IN S.WAZIRISTAN
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.437
B.RAMAN
"The USSR was defeated by the Afghan Mujahideen in the 1980s because of the reluctance of the Soviet troops to attack their sanctuaries in the FATA and the NWFP. India has been unable to prevail over cross-border jihadi terrorism because of the reluctance of its leadership to attack their sanctuaries in Pakistani territory. The US is unlikely to prevail over the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan unless it is prepared to destroy their infrastructure in the FATA. Deniable Predator air strikes by the US intelligence agencies on suspected terrorist hide-outs in the FATA have been increasing and some of them have been effective in neutralising well-known Al Qaeda operatives. But air strikes alone will not be able to turn the tide against the jihadis. Effective hit and withdraw raids into the FATA in the form of hot pursuit should be the next step. The longer it is delayed the more will be the bleeding"
---Extract from my article of August 22,2008, titled "Pakistan's Falluja" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers29/paper2819.html
--------------------------------------------------------
Fifteen suspected Pashtun (Wazirs) tribal supporters of Al Qaeda, including some women and one child, are reported to have been killed on the night intervening September 2 and 3,2008, when US Special Forces launched a hit and withdraw attack on three houses in the village of Jalal Khel, also known locally as Moosa Nika, in the Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan. The houses were located about one KM inside Pakistani territory from the border with Afghanistan. The village is about one kilometre from Angoor Adda and seven kilometres from the US military base at Machadat in Afghanistan's Paktika province. There are so far no indications of any high-profile operative of Al Qaeda or the Taliban having been killed. The raiding forces landed near the houses in a helicopter, which was escorted by two others, and took off immediately after killing the inmates of the three houses. There are no reports of any resistance either from the inmates or from a post of the Pakistani Frontier Corps (FC) located nearby.
2. The fact that the raid was made so close to an FC post and that the FC personnel did not react would indicate a possible understanding between Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Pakistan's Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), when they met on board an American aircraft-carrier on August 26,2008, about the circumstances under which US Special Forces could launch hit and withdraw raids on suspected hide-outs of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistani territory close to the Afghan border without prior intimation to the Pakistani posts.
3. This conclusion becomes evident from the fact that when US Special Forces earlier made a similar raid on December 29,2002, in the Angoor Adda area after an attack on a US patrol in Afghan territory by a group of terrorists who withdrew into the Pakistani territory after the attack, there was an exchange of fire between US soldiers and personnel of a Pakistani para-military unit stationed in the area. There were conflicting versions of that incident. US spokesmen claimed that when US and Pakistani personnel doing a joint operation in the area had a disagreement, one of the Pakistani soldiers opened fire on the US personnel and was killed along with another Pakistani soldier. A statement issued by the Pentagon on that incident stated that a clash of a minor nature took place on December 29, 2002, near the Afghan village of Sikhin in which two Pakistanis were killed and an American was injured. During the clash, an American F-16 dropped a bomb hitting a madrasa (Muslim religious school) in the South Waziristan area in Pakistani territory. An analysis of the various versions of that incident may be seen in my article titled THE OMENS FROM SOUTH WAZIRISTAN at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers6/paper575.html
4.Unmanned Predator aircraft of the US have been periodically carrying out unadmitted missile strikes on suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban hide-outs in the two Waziristans. Some of these strikes were successful and resulted in the deaths of high-profile Al Qaeda operatives . There were others, which were unsuccessful due to wrong intelligence and resulted in large civilian casualties.
5. From the available information on the latest attack early in the morning of September 3,2008, it is not clear whether the operation could be described as successful or unsuccessful. The Taliban itself has projected the ground strike as unsuccessful in which innocent civilians were killed.
6. There are three significant aspects of the operation. Firstly, the US has officially admitted launching a hit and withdraw attack inside Pakistani territory without worrying about the implications of its admission on public opinion in Pakistan.US spokesmen have projected this operation as the beginning of possibly more to follow. The "New York Times" has quoted an unnamed US official as stating as follows: "“What you’re seeing is perhaps a stepping up of activity against militants in sanctuaries in the tribal areas that pose a direct threat to United States forces and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.There’s potential to see more.”
7. Secondly, the Pakistani officials too have promptly confirmed that such an attack inside Pakistani territory took place. They have reacted with seeming anger, but it is difficult to say to what extent the anger is genuine.Pakistan lodged a “strong protest” with the American Government and reserved the right of “self-defense and retaliation,” said the Pakistani military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. He added: "“Such actions are completely counterproductive and can result in huge losses, because it gives the civilians a cause to rise against the Pakistani military.” A spokesman of the Pakistani Foreign Office said: "This helicopter borne ground attack, supported by air assets based in Afghanistan, is gross violation of Pakistan's territory. It is, indeed, most unfortunate that coalition/ISAF in Afghanistan have resorted to cross-border use of force against civilians. Such actions are counter-productive and certainly do not help our joint efforts to fight terrorism. On the contrary, they undermine the very basis of cooperation and may fuel the fire of hatred and violence that we are trying to extinguish. Moreover, any attack on Pakistani territory is unacceptable and constitutes a grave provocation." The Foreign Office also lodged a formal protest with Anne Patterson, the US Ambassador. All the Pakistani statements so far have been pro forma without signs of genuine indignation. The only genuine anger has been from the residents of the area who have been demonstrating against the attack.
8. Thirdly, by launching this operation after the fasting Ramzan period has begun, the US has made it clear that it is not bound by the Pakistani decision to suspend all military operations in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) during the fasting period.
(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
"The USSR was defeated by the Afghan Mujahideen in the 1980s because of the reluctance of the Soviet troops to attack their sanctuaries in the FATA and the NWFP. India has been unable to prevail over cross-border jihadi terrorism because of the reluctance of its leadership to attack their sanctuaries in Pakistani territory. The US is unlikely to prevail over the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan unless it is prepared to destroy their infrastructure in the FATA. Deniable Predator air strikes by the US intelligence agencies on suspected terrorist hide-outs in the FATA have been increasing and some of them have been effective in neutralising well-known Al Qaeda operatives. But air strikes alone will not be able to turn the tide against the jihadis. Effective hit and withdraw raids into the FATA in the form of hot pursuit should be the next step. The longer it is delayed the more will be the bleeding"
---Extract from my article of August 22,2008, titled "Pakistan's Falluja" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers29/paper2819.html
--------------------------------------------------------
Fifteen suspected Pashtun (Wazirs) tribal supporters of Al Qaeda, including some women and one child, are reported to have been killed on the night intervening September 2 and 3,2008, when US Special Forces launched a hit and withdraw attack on three houses in the village of Jalal Khel, also known locally as Moosa Nika, in the Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan. The houses were located about one KM inside Pakistani territory from the border with Afghanistan. The village is about one kilometre from Angoor Adda and seven kilometres from the US military base at Machadat in Afghanistan's Paktika province. There are so far no indications of any high-profile operative of Al Qaeda or the Taliban having been killed. The raiding forces landed near the houses in a helicopter, which was escorted by two others, and took off immediately after killing the inmates of the three houses. There are no reports of any resistance either from the inmates or from a post of the Pakistani Frontier Corps (FC) located nearby.
2. The fact that the raid was made so close to an FC post and that the FC personnel did not react would indicate a possible understanding between Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Pakistan's Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), when they met on board an American aircraft-carrier on August 26,2008, about the circumstances under which US Special Forces could launch hit and withdraw raids on suspected hide-outs of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistani territory close to the Afghan border without prior intimation to the Pakistani posts.
3. This conclusion becomes evident from the fact that when US Special Forces earlier made a similar raid on December 29,2002, in the Angoor Adda area after an attack on a US patrol in Afghan territory by a group of terrorists who withdrew into the Pakistani territory after the attack, there was an exchange of fire between US soldiers and personnel of a Pakistani para-military unit stationed in the area. There were conflicting versions of that incident. US spokesmen claimed that when US and Pakistani personnel doing a joint operation in the area had a disagreement, one of the Pakistani soldiers opened fire on the US personnel and was killed along with another Pakistani soldier. A statement issued by the Pentagon on that incident stated that a clash of a minor nature took place on December 29, 2002, near the Afghan village of Sikhin in which two Pakistanis were killed and an American was injured. During the clash, an American F-16 dropped a bomb hitting a madrasa (Muslim religious school) in the South Waziristan area in Pakistani territory. An analysis of the various versions of that incident may be seen in my article titled THE OMENS FROM SOUTH WAZIRISTAN at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers6/paper575.html
4.Unmanned Predator aircraft of the US have been periodically carrying out unadmitted missile strikes on suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban hide-outs in the two Waziristans. Some of these strikes were successful and resulted in the deaths of high-profile Al Qaeda operatives . There were others, which were unsuccessful due to wrong intelligence and resulted in large civilian casualties.
5. From the available information on the latest attack early in the morning of September 3,2008, it is not clear whether the operation could be described as successful or unsuccessful. The Taliban itself has projected the ground strike as unsuccessful in which innocent civilians were killed.
6. There are three significant aspects of the operation. Firstly, the US has officially admitted launching a hit and withdraw attack inside Pakistani territory without worrying about the implications of its admission on public opinion in Pakistan.US spokesmen have projected this operation as the beginning of possibly more to follow. The "New York Times" has quoted an unnamed US official as stating as follows: "“What you’re seeing is perhaps a stepping up of activity against militants in sanctuaries in the tribal areas that pose a direct threat to United States forces and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.There’s potential to see more.”
7. Secondly, the Pakistani officials too have promptly confirmed that such an attack inside Pakistani territory took place. They have reacted with seeming anger, but it is difficult to say to what extent the anger is genuine.Pakistan lodged a “strong protest” with the American Government and reserved the right of “self-defense and retaliation,” said the Pakistani military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. He added: "“Such actions are completely counterproductive and can result in huge losses, because it gives the civilians a cause to rise against the Pakistani military.” A spokesman of the Pakistani Foreign Office said: "This helicopter borne ground attack, supported by air assets based in Afghanistan, is gross violation of Pakistan's territory. It is, indeed, most unfortunate that coalition/ISAF in Afghanistan have resorted to cross-border use of force against civilians. Such actions are counter-productive and certainly do not help our joint efforts to fight terrorism. On the contrary, they undermine the very basis of cooperation and may fuel the fire of hatred and violence that we are trying to extinguish. Moreover, any attack on Pakistani territory is unacceptable and constitutes a grave provocation." The Foreign Office also lodged a formal protest with Anne Patterson, the US Ambassador. All the Pakistani statements so far have been pro forma without signs of genuine indignation. The only genuine anger has been from the residents of the area who have been demonstrating against the attack.
8. Thirdly, by launching this operation after the fasting Ramzan period has begun, the US has made it clear that it is not bound by the Pakistani decision to suspend all military operations in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) during the fasting period.
(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 )
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
KURRAM AGENCY CONTINUES TO BLEED
International Terrorism Monitor---Paper No. 435
B. Raman
(An update of my earlier articles on the subject written since November 20,2007)
"Al Qaeda is trying to replicate Iraq in Pakistan by exacerbating the already existing divide between the Shias and the Sunnis in the civil society as well as in the Army." --- Extract from my earlier paper of November 15, 2007, titled "The State of Jihadi Terrorism in Pakistan" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers25/paper2459.html
-------------------------------
Till 1977, the Shias were in a preponderant majority in the Kurram Agency in Pakistan's Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on its border with Afghanistan and in the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) of Jammu and Kashmir, which is presently under Pakistani occupation.
2. After the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in February, 1979, there was a radicalisation of the Shias of these areas. They started demanding the creation of a separate Shia majority province to be called the Karakoram Province, consisting of the Kurram Agency, the Northern Areas and other contiguous Shia majority areas. The leadership of this movement came mainly from the Turi tribe of the Kurram Agency. The movement was allegedly funded by the Iranian intelligence.
3. Gen. Zia-ul-Haq put down this movement ruthlessly. He also started a policy of re-settling the Sunnis in these areas in order to control the Shias and dilute their preponderant majority. While Sunni ex-servicemen from other parts of Pakistan were re-settled in the Northern Areas, Afghan Sunni refugees from the refugee camps were re-settled in the Kurram Agency. This led to widespread resentment among the Shias against the Government as well as the Sunni settlers. The Iraqi intelligence of Saddam Hussein too allegedly funded these Sunni settlers in the Kurram Agency to enable them to fight the radical Shias.
4. There were serious riots in Gilgit in 1988 which were ruthlessly put down by Zia with the help of a combined force of Sunni tribals and Arabs led by Osama bin Laden. Hundreds of Shias were killed. It is generally believed that the anger caused by this massacre contributed to the death of Zia-ul-Haq in a plane crash in August 1988. Enquiries into the crash reportedly brought out that the crash took place when a Shia airman belonging to Gilgit released tear-smoke or some other gas in the cockpit, thereby disorienting the crew.
5. The Kurram Agency has also been the scene of frequent Shia-Sunni clashes, with most of the attacks by the Shias directed against the Afghan and Pakistani Sunni settlers brought in by Zia. There were three major Shia-Sunni clashes in the Agency in 1983, 1988 and 1996, which resulted in the deaths of a total of 1,200 persons belonging to both the sects.
6. There was a recrudescence of the violence in April, 2007, after a gap of 11 years. For nearly three weeks from April 6, 2007, the Kurram Agency became the scene of a no-holds barred jihad waged by the local Shias and Sunnis against each other following an incident of firing allegedly by the Shias on a procession taken out by the Sunnis to mark the Holy Prophet's birthday. The local adherents of the two sects of Islam used not only small arms and ammunition, but also mortars and rocket-launchers against each other, resulting in heavy casualties. The clashes initially started in Parachinar, the capital of the Agency. It then spread to the interior areas. The imposition of a curfew by the Pakistani authorities and severe action against the local leaders and volunteers of the two sects ultimately restored an uneasy normalcy. The Pakistan Army extensively used helicopter gunships to put down the violence.
7. There were conflicting figures of the fatalities inflicted by the two sects against each other and by the security forces on the warring sects. While the Pakistani authorities estimated the total number of fatalities as around 50, non-Governmental sources estimated that at least 80 persons died in the violence.
8. During the clashes of April, 2007, the local leaders of the two sects accused the Pakistani Army of siding with the other sect. Some Sunni leaders also accused Iran of fomenting the Shia attacks against the Sunnis.
9. Addressing the media at the Peshawar Press Club on April 9, 2007, Mast Gul, a Sunni jihadi leader, alleged that since April 6, 2007, Shias had killed hundreds of innocent Sunnis. According to him, just on one day about 28 Sunni women and children were slaughtered in the Kurram Agency. He accused Iran of providing financial resources and weapons to the Shias in the Agency. He warned the Pakistan Army that if it did not take effective action against the Shias, he would appeal to the Sunnis in the other parts of Pakistan and in Jammu and Kashmir to come to Kurram and help the local Sunnis.
10. Mast Gul used to belong to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), which is a founding member of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF) formed in 1998. He used to operate in J&K till 1995. He and his followers were responsible for the burning down of the Islamic holy shrine at Charar-e-Sharief in J&K in 1995.
11. After violence instigated by Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda Sunni tribal elements escalated in South and North Waziristan in October, 2007, there were reports of fresh tension in the Kurram Agency in the wake of reports that the jihadi terrorists loyal to Osama bin Laden were targeting the Shia members of the Frontier Constabulary and the Frontier Corps deployed in these two Agencies. It was alleged that while the terrorists brutally killed the captured Shia soldiers, they let free the Sunnis. Some of the Shias beheaded by the terrorists belonged to the predominantly Shia tribe of Turis in the Kurram Agency. Some Shia leaders of the civil society in these two agencies were also targeted by pro-Al Qaeda elements and killed.
12. These incidents led to a fresh outbreak of violence between the Shias and the Sunnis in the Kurram Agency since the night of November 15, 2007. Despite the imposition of a curfew by the Pakistani authorities and the use of helicopter gunships to quell the riots, violence continued for days. It was reported that the fighting in November was more fierce than in April, 2007, and that about 100 persons, including 11 members of the para-military forces, died in the violence. Police sources suspected that the fresh violence had been engineered by Al Qaeda in order to divert the attention of the Pakistan army from its on-going operations against the jihadis in the Swat Valley.
13. In December,2007, there was a fresh flare-up of clashes between the Shia Turi tribals and Sunni tribals belonging to Al Qaeda and the newly-formed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Many of the Sunni tribals involved in the fresh clashes had reportedly infiltrated into the agency from South Waziristan and the Swat Valley.
14. During the clashes of December,2007, the Shias and the Sunnis used mortars, rocket launchers etc against each other's places of worship and schools, causing large casualties and severe damages to places of worship. Each side accused the other of starting the fresh violence. There were over 150 fatalities in the intermittent clashes, which continued for over a month. The Taliban and Al Qaeda also targeted the Shia members of the local para-military forces.
15.The Pakistan Army, which was preoccupied with the operations against the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) in the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) during December,2007, was not in a position to send reinforcements to the Kurram Agency. It left the anti-Al Qaeda and anti-Taliban operations there in the hands of the para-military forces. Their requests for helicopter gunships were not accepted. The Shias hit back at Al Qaeda and Taliban elements with considerable effectiveness. The Sunni leaders once again accused Iran of sending arms and ammunition to the local Shias. This was denied by the local Shia leaders.
16. While official spokesmen and the Pakistani mainstream media refrained from identifying the dramatis personae and giving details of the fighting, the "Frontier Post" of Peshawar (December 27,2007) reported, inter alia, as follows: " It is worth mentioning that the recent clashes started when a group of local Taliban militants attacked and opened fire on security forces (FC) at Sada.Plus they also attacked the nearby Balishkhel village where Turi tribe is living. As the Sada is the strongest base of Taliban militants therefore the government writ is nil; that is why due to lack of monitoring and writ of government, clashes spread throughout the Kurram Agency and now its control is quiet difficult due to invasion of Taliban militants."
17. The "Post", another Pakistani daily, reported as follows on December 31,2007: " A delegation of notables from Kurram Agency has appealed to President Pervez Musharraf and Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani to stop the ongoing violence that has resulted in the loss of more than 100 lives and billions of rupees' worth of property. Haji Latif Hussain, President, Kurram Welfare Society, said the residents had been fighting the Taliban infiltrating from Afghanistan, North and South Waziristan and Al Qaeda operatives in the area who were thousands in number. He added over 70 people had been killed in furious clashes during the last 45 days. "The armed forces of Pakistan are playing the role of silent spectators instead of countering the attackers and protecting the residents under attack," he said. Latif Hussain said Al Qaeda fighters had occupied various areas of Kurram Agency and blocked the main road from Peshawar to Parachinar, resulting in a shortage of basic commodities. "There is an acute shortage of medicines, food, electricity and water," he added. The Kurram Welfare Society President said that as a result of the war, hundreds of women, children and the elderly had taken refuge in Peshawar while over a hundred students who were unable to move to their native areas because of the war had been forced to stay in Islamabad. Mehdi Ghulam from Kurram Agency said Alizai, Balyamin, Tangi Amro Khail, Arravali, Santikot, Singk, Burqi and Pevar were under Taliban and Al Qaeda attacks while dozens of injured were waiting for their death in the Parachinar hospital owing to a shortage of medicines. He said that although the current confrontation was not sectarian, shrines and mosques of both Sunni and Shiite sects were being damaged by Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. Mehdi said that in Pevar firing from the other side of the border was causing multiple deaths daily. Muhammad Hussain Turi, secretary, Ittehad-e-Ummat Committee, said: "We are not only fighting for our lives and the area but also for the sovereignty of our country.We are fighting the international war against terrorism on our borders by shedding our blood but, instead of helping us, everyone is creating trouble for us by trying to stop us from defending our area." Turi appealed to the President and the Chief of the Army Staff to issue a directive to the army to intervene to save the lives of thousands of people. Gull Ishrat, member, Kurram Welfare Society, said: "We are fighting the battle of the Pakistan Army against those who managed to escape from Swat, Bajaur, North and South Waziristan and Afghanistan and are involved in furious attacks on the Pakistan Army."
18. The clashes, which never really stopped, have picked up fresh intensity since the beginning of July,2008, reportedly resulting in over a thousand fatalities on both sides. The Shias have been fighting with great ferocity. According to some accounts, there have been more fatalities among the Sunnis than among the Shias. Since the beginning of this year, the blood-letting has been worse in the Kurram Agency than it has been in the Bajaur, South Waziristan and the North Waziristan Agencies of the FATA. The permanent sanctuaries of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are located in Bajaur and the two Waziristans. There has been blood-letting in the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) too. The US has been repeatedly expressing its concern over the activities of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Bajaur and the two Waziristans. The situation there has repeatedly found mention in US Congressional testimonies and in the statements of US military officers. The spokesmen of the Afghan National Army too have been expressing their worries over the situation there. The US and the Hamid Karzai Government have been repeatedly urging the Pakistan Army to do more against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in those areas.
19. But, surprisingly---- and intriguingly--- they have been silent on the terrible blood-letting in the Kurram Agency. The situation in Kurram hardly finds mention in US testimonies and statements. There has hardly been any pressure on Pakistan to do more to bring the situation in Kurram under control. Everybody---- Pakistan, the US, Afghanistan, Iran and Al Qaeda---- have been behaving as if it suits them fine if the Shias and the Sunnis---Pakistani and Afghan--- keep killing each other in the Kurram Agency. The more the Sunnis killed by the Shias in Kurram, the less the problems for Pakistan, the US and Afghanistan in Bajaur and the two Waziristans and the less the problems for Iran in its Sunni-majority Baloch areas. Iran suspects that the so-called Jundullahs (Soldiers of Allah) attacking, kidnapping and killing Iranian National Guards in its Baloch areas are operating from sanctuaries in Kurram. The more the Shias killed by the Sunnis, the better it is for Al Qaeda, which suspects that many of the newly-recruited human sources of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Pashtun tribal belt come from the anti-Sunni Shia community. So money and arms and ammunition keep flowing to the two warring communities.
20. The Shia community in the rest of Pakistan is getting increasingly restive over what it sees as the strange silence of the Pakistan Army over the continuing violence in Kurram.While Sunni Pashtuns from other parts of the FATA and the NWFP have been going to the assistance of the Sunnis of Kurram, Shias from other parts of Pakistan have not been doing so till now, but they are now threatening to go in large numbers to Kurram to join the Shia jihad against the Sunnis.
21.On September 1,2008, a big Shia demonstration was held in Karachi at which Shia leaders warned the Government that if the eight-month long siege and economic blockade in Kurram Agency by the Taliban is not ended, they would issue a call for a long march to the Kurram Agency to free the besieged Shias by force. The demonstrators shouted slogans against the Government over its failure to stop the aggression of the Taliban against the Shia community in the Kurram Agency and Dera Ismail Khan in the NWFP. (3-9-08)
(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, September 1, 2008
ZARDARI'S U-TURN ON COUNTER-TERRORISM
iNTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO 434
B.RAMAN
Asif Ali Zardari, the co-chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), who has now become increasingly controversial in Pakistan for his frequent U-Turns in local politics, has made yet another U-Turn---this time in counter-terrorism.
2. After having launched ground and air action against leaders and members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda operating against the NATO forces in Afghanistan from sanctuaries in the Bajaur Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) a month ago and after having intensified the already on-going operations against the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi ( TNSM) in the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), he has suddenly advised the Government of Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani to suspend the operations during the holy Ramazan fasting period starting from August 31,2008.
3. The Government's decision to suspend the operations was announced on August 30 by Rehman Mallik, the Adviser on Internal Security, who is a close confidante of Zardari. He clarified that the suspension did not amount to a ceasefire and added that the security forces would reserve the right to retaliate if attacked by the jihadi terrorists. The suspension would not involve the withdrawal of the security forces from the positions held by them as on August 31.
4.Mallik said the decision was taken to enable a large number of internally displaced tribals, who had run away from their villages due to the operations, to go back to their villages and join their families for the Ramadan. However from statements welcoming the suspension by leaders such as Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the Amir of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema Islam (JUI) Pakistan, which is a member of the ruling coalition, it is clear that the suspension was ordered by Zardari in order to assure himself of the support of the Pahtun members of the National and provincial Assemblies for election as the President of Pakistan on September 6.
5. Fazlur Rahman has already claimed while talking to the local media that the suspension of the operations in the Bajaur Agency and in the Swat Valley and permission to re-open the madrasa for boys and to re-build the madrasa for girls attached to the Lal Masjid in Islamabad were among the conditions imposed by his party for supporting the election of Zardari as the President.
6. While Rehman Mallik did not say anything about the Lal Masjid , other sources have reported that the Government has already permitted the madrasa for boys to re-open and that for girls to be re-built. These sources have also reported that Zardari has also agreed to withdraw all cases under the Anti-Terrorism Act and other laws registered against Abdul Aziz, a cleric of the Masjid, and his associates after they were arrested by the Army following its commando action in the Masjid from July 10 to 13,2007. During the commando action, the boys' madrasa, which is located outside the madrasa campus, was closed down and the girls' madrasa, which was located inside the campus, was destroyed by the commandoes.
7. The decision to suspend the operations in the Bajaur Agency and the Swat Valley came hardly five days after a top secret meeting (August 26) between Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US, and Gen.Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, Pakistan's Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), held on board an US Aircraft Carrier to discuss measures to strengthen mutual co-operation against the Taliban and Al Qaeda and to prevent the leakage to these terrorist organisations of information shared by the US with the Pakistan Army.
8. While the ground operations in the Swat Valley were continuing with varying intensity, those in the Bajaur Agency were already in a state of suspension following severe casualties sustained by the Frontier Corps and the capture of over 30 of their personnel by the Taliban. However, the air strikes were continuing. The suspension announced by Malik means relief to the Taliban and Al Qaeda from fear of air strikes, which were hampering their cross-border terrorism into Afghanistan. This could result in an escalation of their attacks on the US and other NATO forces in Afghan territory during the period of Ramadan, when jihadi terrorists tend to step up their attacks. Martyrdom attacks during this period are considered by them as doubly holy.
9.The TNSM, which is a constituent unit of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has already announced that it will not observe any cease-fire during the fasting period till its demands for the withdrawal of the Army from the Swat Valley, the release of all its members arrested or captured by the security forces and the introduction of the Sharia in the Valley are accepted and implemented by the Government. The only concession made by the Taliban is to release some members of the security forces captured by them as a mark of goodwill during the Ramadan period to their families.
10. The Taliban sees the suspension as yet another trick by Zardari and expects that he will call it off after getting elected in order to re-assure the US that there will be no changes in Pakistan's co-operation with the US in its operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The US forces in Afghanistan, which periodically make unmanned Predator strikes on suspected terrorist hide-outs in Pakistan, are not observing any suspension of their strikes during the holy period. (1-9-08)
(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
Asif Ali Zardari, the co-chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), who has now become increasingly controversial in Pakistan for his frequent U-Turns in local politics, has made yet another U-Turn---this time in counter-terrorism.
2. After having launched ground and air action against leaders and members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda operating against the NATO forces in Afghanistan from sanctuaries in the Bajaur Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) a month ago and after having intensified the already on-going operations against the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi ( TNSM) in the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), he has suddenly advised the Government of Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani to suspend the operations during the holy Ramazan fasting period starting from August 31,2008.
3. The Government's decision to suspend the operations was announced on August 30 by Rehman Mallik, the Adviser on Internal Security, who is a close confidante of Zardari. He clarified that the suspension did not amount to a ceasefire and added that the security forces would reserve the right to retaliate if attacked by the jihadi terrorists. The suspension would not involve the withdrawal of the security forces from the positions held by them as on August 31.
4.Mallik said the decision was taken to enable a large number of internally displaced tribals, who had run away from their villages due to the operations, to go back to their villages and join their families for the Ramadan. However from statements welcoming the suspension by leaders such as Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the Amir of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema Islam (JUI) Pakistan, which is a member of the ruling coalition, it is clear that the suspension was ordered by Zardari in order to assure himself of the support of the Pahtun members of the National and provincial Assemblies for election as the President of Pakistan on September 6.
5. Fazlur Rahman has already claimed while talking to the local media that the suspension of the operations in the Bajaur Agency and in the Swat Valley and permission to re-open the madrasa for boys and to re-build the madrasa for girls attached to the Lal Masjid in Islamabad were among the conditions imposed by his party for supporting the election of Zardari as the President.
6. While Rehman Mallik did not say anything about the Lal Masjid , other sources have reported that the Government has already permitted the madrasa for boys to re-open and that for girls to be re-built. These sources have also reported that Zardari has also agreed to withdraw all cases under the Anti-Terrorism Act and other laws registered against Abdul Aziz, a cleric of the Masjid, and his associates after they were arrested by the Army following its commando action in the Masjid from July 10 to 13,2007. During the commando action, the boys' madrasa, which is located outside the madrasa campus, was closed down and the girls' madrasa, which was located inside the campus, was destroyed by the commandoes.
7. The decision to suspend the operations in the Bajaur Agency and the Swat Valley came hardly five days after a top secret meeting (August 26) between Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US, and Gen.Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, Pakistan's Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), held on board an US Aircraft Carrier to discuss measures to strengthen mutual co-operation against the Taliban and Al Qaeda and to prevent the leakage to these terrorist organisations of information shared by the US with the Pakistan Army.
8. While the ground operations in the Swat Valley were continuing with varying intensity, those in the Bajaur Agency were already in a state of suspension following severe casualties sustained by the Frontier Corps and the capture of over 30 of their personnel by the Taliban. However, the air strikes were continuing. The suspension announced by Malik means relief to the Taliban and Al Qaeda from fear of air strikes, which were hampering their cross-border terrorism into Afghanistan. This could result in an escalation of their attacks on the US and other NATO forces in Afghan territory during the period of Ramadan, when jihadi terrorists tend to step up their attacks. Martyrdom attacks during this period are considered by them as doubly holy.
9.The TNSM, which is a constituent unit of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has already announced that it will not observe any cease-fire during the fasting period till its demands for the withdrawal of the Army from the Swat Valley, the release of all its members arrested or captured by the security forces and the introduction of the Sharia in the Valley are accepted and implemented by the Government. The only concession made by the Taliban is to release some members of the security forces captured by them as a mark of goodwill during the Ramadan period to their families.
10. The Taliban sees the suspension as yet another trick by Zardari and expects that he will call it off after getting elected in order to re-assure the US that there will be no changes in Pakistan's co-operation with the US in its operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The US forces in Afghanistan, which periodically make unmanned Predator strikes on suspected terrorist hide-outs in Pakistan, are not observing any suspension of their strikes during the holy period. (1-9-08)
(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 )
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