International Terrorism Monitor -- Paper No.530
B. Raman
A question from a journalist working for an American newspaper asks: "Why has the Taliban attacked the ISI? Isn't that like biting the hand that feeds?"
2. This question was in pursuance of the commando-style attack at Lahore on May 27, 2009, which targeted the Lahore Police and the local office of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), killing 15 police officers, one Lt. Col. of the ISI and 10 other persons.
3. While analysing the Lahore attack, one has to keep in mind certain ground realities. The first ground reality is that there are Talibans and Talibans and in each Taliban, there are mini-Talibans. As I had mentioned in one of my past articles, there are virtually as many Talibans in the Pashtun belt as there are tribal sirdars (leaders). The second ground reality is the clear distinction in behaviour and operations between the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan headed Mullah Mohammad Omar, based in Quetta, and the various Pakistani Talibans led by tribal sirdars such as Baitullah Mehsud of South Waziristan, Hakemullah Mehsud, who is responsible for operations in the Khyber, Kurrum and Orakzai areas, Maulana Fazlullah of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), who is a son of the Swat soil, and Sufi Mohammad, his father-in-law, who is actually from Dir and not Swat. Of these various Talibans, only the Neo Taliban of Mullah Mohammad Omar, which was created by the ISI in 1994 when Benazir Bhutoo was the Prime Minister, still owes its loyalty to the ISI and the Pakistan Government. The Neo Taliban is active against the US-led NATO forces in Afghan territory from sanctuaries in Pakistan, but it has never been involved in an act of terrorism in Pakistani territory against Pakistani targets----whether from the Army or the ISI or the Police. All the attacks in Pakistani territory on Pakistani Govt. targets were carried out by different Pakistani Taliban groups or by the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JED), which has transferred its headquarters from Bahawalpur to Swat, and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), an anti-Shia terrorist organisation.
4. The third ground reality is the distinction between the Pakistani Punjabi Taliban and the Pakistani Pashtun Taliban, All of them advocate the same Wahabised Islamic ideology based on the Sharia, but their ethnic composition differs. The term Punjabi Taliban is used to refer to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Lashkar-Toiba (LET), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the LEJ. Punjabis constitute the majority of their cadres. All of them except the JEM are of the 1980s/ 1990s vintage. The JEM was born in 2000 through a split in the HUM. Of these organisations, the LET, like the Neo Taliban, is the favoured tool of the ISI, which uses the Neo Taliban in Afghanistan and the LET against India. Like the Neo Taliban, the LET too has never attacked a Pakistani target in Pakistani territory. In fact, there has never been a confirmed instance of an attack by the LET on foreign targets in Pakistani territory lest it create problems from the ISI. The JEM and the LEJ never hesitate to attack Pakistani Government targets, either on their own or at the instance of Al Qaeda. The attitude of the HUM and the HUJI is ambivalent.
5. The fourth ground reality is that while the Pakistani Punjabi Taliban and the Neo Taliban have been in existence for over a decade, the Pakistani Pashtun Talibans are a product of the commando raid into the Lal Masjid in Islamabad in July, 2007, in which a large number of Pashtun tribal children, many of them girls, were killed. It was after this that tribal sirdars such Fazlullah, Baitullah and Hakeemullah called for a jihad against the Pakistan Army and the ISI in retaliation for the raid. While the TNSM has been in existence since the early 1990s, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) came into existence after the Lal Masjid raid.
6. The various tribal sirdars, who are supporting the TTP, repeatedly make the following points: Firstly, they did not want to fight against the Pakistan Army. It was the Army which forced them to take to arms against it by raiding the Lal Masjid and killing their children. Secondly, their real enemy is the US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan and not the Pakistan Army. They are fighting against the Pakistan Army because it prevents them from assisting the Neo Taliban against the US-led NATO forces. Thirdly, they will stop fighting against the Pakistan Army if it makes amends for the alleged massacre of tribal children in the Lal Masjid, removes restrictions on their going into Afghanistan to fight against the US-led NATO troops and stops assisting the US-led NATO troops in their war against the Neo Taliban.
7. The Pakisan Army is facing difficulties in its operations against the various Pakistani Pashtun Taliban groups because they have many Pashtun ex-servicemen assisting them----retired officers as well as other ranks. The attack by the Pakistani Taliban against the ISI at Lahore was not its first attack against the ISI. It had attacked the ISI twice before in Islamabad/ Rawalpindi, inflicting even heavier casualties than it was able to do in Lahore.
8. In this connection, I am annexing two of my previous articles---- one of November 25, 2007, titled "Jihadis Strike At Pak Army & ISI Again" and the other of December 3, 2007, titled "Well-Trained Insurgent Force in Swat."
(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)
ANNEXURES
"Jihadis Strike at Pak Army & ISI again" (http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers25/paper2475.html)
By B. Raman
Physical security regulations in the office of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) at Rawalpindi exempt officers of the rank of Brigadier and above coming in their own vehicle from frisking at the outer gate. They undergo a frisking only after they have entered the premises, parked their car in the space allotted to them in the garage and then enter the building in which their office is located. Officers below the rank of Brigadier undergo frisking twice, whether they are in their own vehicle or in a bus ----at the outer gate and again inside before they enter the building. At the outer gate, they have to get out of their vehicle, undergo frisking and then get into their vehicle and drive in.
2. Since all officers travel in civilian clothes in unmarked vehicles, which cannot be identified with the Army or the ISI, there is a special hand signalling system for Brigadiers and above by which the security staff at the outer gate can recognise their rank and let them drive in without undergoing frisking. This hand signalling is changed frequently.
3. On the morning of November 24, 2007, a car reached the outer gate and the man inside showed a hand signal, which was in use till the previous day. It had been changed on November 23 and a new signal was in force from the morning of November 24, 2007. He was not aware of it. The security staff got suspicious and did not allow the car to drive in. They asked the man driving it to get out for questioning and frisking. He blew himself up.
4. As he did so, an unmarked chartered bus carrying over 40 civilian and junior military employees of the ISI reached the outer gate and stopped so that those inside can get out for frisking. The bus bore the brunt of the explosion, which caused the death of about 35 persons---- from among those inside the bus as well as the security staff. The Pakistani authorities have admitted the death of only 18 persons.
5. Around the same time, a man driving a vehicle towards the premises of the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Pakistan Army in another part of Rawalpindi was stopped by the security staff at a physical security barrier. He blew himself up killing two of the security staff. The offices of Gen. Pervez Musharraf in his capacity as the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) and of Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, the Vice Chief of Army Staff, are located in the GHQ.
7. These two well-synchronised suicide strikes in Rawalpindi, the sanctum sanctorum of Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment, have come about six weeks after a similar attack targeting the ISI and the Army at Rawalpindi at the same time. On September 4, 2007. a suicide attacker blew himself up after boarding a bus carrying ISI employees. A roadside bomb went off near a commercial area in Rawalpindi, while a car carrying an unidentified senior Army officer to the GHQ was passing. Twenty-five persons died in the two attacks. The Army officer escaped unhurt. On October 30, 2007, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a checkpoint several hundred yards from the GHQ killing seven persons, most of the from the security staff.
8. Since the Pakistan Army's commando raid into the Lal Masjid of Islamabad from July 10 to 13, 2007, there have been two targeted attacks near the GHQ in Rawalpindi, two attacks on the ISI also at Rawalpindi, one attack on officers of the Special Services Group (SSG), the US-trained and US-assisted special forces unit to which Musharraf himself used to belong, in their mess at their headquarters in Tarbella and one attack on a bus carrying Air Force officers to the Pakistan Air Force base in Sargodha. There were many attacks targeting police officers too. These were the targeted attacks outside the tribal belt. There have been many more suicide attacks targeting security and intelligence personnel inside the tribal belt.
9. The two attacks near the GHQ were not based on any inside information. The suicide bomber took his chance hoping that he would not be frisked at the security barrier. When the security staff insisted on frisking him, he blew himself up. The two attacks directed at the ISI and the PAF were based on inside information. In the case of the explosion at the outer gate of the ISI complex on November 24, 2007, the suicide bomber was aware of the hand signalling code for Brigadiers and above. However, he was not aware that the signal code had been changed the previous day. Since these codes are communicated personally to Brigadiers and above, their existence is supposed to be known only to Brigadiers and above and the physical security staff. The suicide bomber's inside accomplice was either an ISI officer of the rank of Brigadier or above or a member of the physical security staff. According to sources, the suicide attack in the SSG mess was carried out by a Pashtun officer of the SSG while taking dinner in the mess with his colleagues. The SSG had carried out the raid into the Lal Masjid.
10. The twin bombings of November 24, 2007, came three days after the Attorney-General of Musharraf's Government had told the rubber-stamp Supreme Court bench hearing a petition agains the imposition of the Emergency that the security situation had improved after the imposition of the Emergency on November 3, 2007, and that suicide attacks in non-tribal areas had stopped. This was one of the arguments used by the court to dismiss the petition against the Emergency.
11. There are two alarming aspects of the security situation in Pakistan. The first is the upsurge in acts of suicide terrorism directed against security and intelligence personnel and their establishments. These give clear evidence of the penetration of jihadi elements inside the Armed Forces, the intelligence agencies and the Police. The second is the inability or unwillingness of the Police to vigorously investigate these incidents, including the attempt to kill Mrs. Benazir Bhutto in Karachi on October 18, 2007. Nobody knows definitively till today who are responsible for these suicide attacks---- tribal followers of Baitullah Mehsud of South Waziristan or those of Maulana Fazlullah of the Swat Valley or the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), the anti-Shia sectarian organisation, or Al Qaeda and its Uzbek associates or the angry students of the two madrasas run by the Lal Masjid?
12. The Rawalpindi cantonment where the headquarters of the Army and other sensitive units of the Pakistan Army and the ISI are located, and the adjoining Islamabad, the capital, where the headquarters of the federal Government and the National Assembly are located, had seen terrorist strikes even in the past. Amongst them, one could mention the 1989 explosion in the Rawalpindi office of Dr. Farooq Haider, the then President of one of the factions of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which was attributed to a rival faction led by Amanullah Khan; the explosion outside the Egyptian Embassy at Islamabad in the 1990s, which was attributed to some Egyptian opponents of President Hosni Mubarak; the grenade attack inside an Islamabad church frequented by the diplomatic community in March 2002 in which the wife of a US diplomat and their daughter were killed; the unsolved assassination of Maulana Azam Tariq, the Amir of the Sipah-eSahaba, Pakistan, the political wing of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, at Islamabad in 2003, the terrorist attack on a a group of workers of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of Benazir Bhutto in Islamabad earlier this year, the alleged firing of a rocket on Musharraf's plane from the terrace of a house in Islamabad again earlier this year and the alleged firing of rockets by unidentified elements from a park in Islamabad last year.
13. If one leaves aside the JKLF factional politics, the only terrorist organisations which had operated in the Islamabad-Rawalpindi area in the past (before July 2007) were the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), which was blamed for the church grenade attack; the Sipah Mohammad, the Shia terrorist organisation, which was suspected in the murder of Azam Tariq; and Al Qaeda. Many Pakistani and Kashmiri jihadi organisations such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Hizbul Mujahideen, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) etc have their offices in Rawalpindi, but do not indulge in terrorist activities there.
14. There was no evidence to show that the Egyptians responsible for the explosion outside the Egyptian Embassy were then the followers of Osama bin Laden. The first indication of some local support for Al Qaeda in Rawalpindi came in March, 2003, when Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), supposedly the man who co-ordinated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, was arrested from the house of a women's wing leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) in Rawalpindi by the Pakistani authorities and handed over to the USA's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
15. KSM was living in Karachi till September, 2002, when he fled from there to Quetta in Balochistan following the arrest of Ramzi Binalshibh, another Al Qaeda operative there. From Quetta, he shifted to Rawalpindi in the beginning of 2003, fearing betrayal by the Shias of Quetta. After his arrest, no thorough enquiries would appear to have been made either by the ISI or the Police to determine why he took shelter in Rawalpindi, a highly guarded military cantonment. Did he and/or Al Qaeda have any other accomplices in Rawalpindi, in addition to the JEI leader and the members of her family, who included one junior Army officer belonging to a signals battalion, who was also detained for interrogation? Did Al Qaeda or the Pakistani organisations allied to it in the International Islamic Front (IIF) have a sleeper cell or cells in the cantonment? If they had, the sleeper cells could have functioned undetected only with the complicity of at least some in the Armed Forces.
16. After the arrest and the handing-over of KSM to the US, anti-Musharraf and pro-jihadi pamphlets typed on the official letter-head used in the army offices in the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi started circulating in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The ISI and the Police were unable to determine who was circulating these pamphlets and no arrests were made in this connection. Instead, a leader of the Nawaz Sharif-led faction of the Pakistan Muslim League, who drew the attention of the National Assembly and the public to these pamphlets, was ordered to be arrested by Musharraf on a charge of treason.
17. Then followed the two serious assassination attempts on Musharraf as he was commuting between Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The first on December 14, 2003, was made immediately after he had returned by air from Karachi. The second on December 25, 2003, was made when he was doing one of his daily commutings between his residence in Rawalpindi and his office in Islamabad, a distance of about 12 miles.
18. After the April, 2003, arrest in Karachi of Waleed bin Attash of Al Qaeda, one of the suspects in the case relating to the Al Qaeda attack on the US naval ship USS Cole at Aden in October, 2000, many of the Al Qaeda members living in Karachi were reported to have shifted to the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Balochistan , the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Rawalpindi.
19. Their shifting to Rawalpindi and taking shelter there would not have been possible without the complicity of not only the Pakistani jihadi groups, but also supporters in the Armed Forces and the police. The Pakistani security agencies have not been able to identify and dismantle Al Qaeda and IIF cells in the Rawalpindi cantonment. The fact that the perpetrators of the two attacks of December, 2003, on Musharraf, whether they belonged to Al Qaeda or to any of the Pakistani components of the IIF, chose to act on both the occasions from Rawalpindi instead of Karachi where Musharraf was before the first attack on December 14 showed their confidence in being able to operate undetected from Rawalpindi rather than from Karachi. Pakistani investigators claimed to have established that the two unsuccessful attacks on Musharraf were jointly carried out by Al Qaeda and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), with the complicity of some junior officers of the Army and the Air Force, who were identified and arrested.
20. Pakistani Police sources also say that apart from Al Qaeda and its associates, the Hizbut Tehrir (HUT) has also many followers and sympathisers in the lower and middle levels of the Armed Forces, but it has not so far indulged in any act of terrorism in Pakistani territory. Its terrorism has been confined to the Central Asian Republics.
21. It is intriguing that after the March, 2002, attack on some Americans inside an Islamabad church, there has been no terrorist strike or attempted strike targeting US nationals or interests in the Islamabad area. Attacks targeting Americans have been confined to the Karachi area. No explanation for this has been forthcoming.
"Well-Trained Insurgent Force in Swat" (http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers25/paper2486.html)
By B. Raman
Despite optimistic claims put out by the Pakistan Army every day with inflated body counts of hostiles killed or captured, it is apparent its ground operations against the forces of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) in the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) continue to face difficulties. The TNSM volunteers, many of whom lost their daughters during the Army's commando action in the Lal Masjid of Islamabad from July 10 to 13, 2007, have proved themselves to be not just a small group of desperate suicide terrorists, but a small, well-trained, well-motivated, well-organised insurgent army capable of fighting small-scale conventional battles on the ground.
2. The guerilla tactics----reminiscent of those of the Neo Taliban in Afghanistan--- adopted by them to harass the Army and para-military forces continue to disrupt movement of reinforcements and supplies in the area of operations. The insurgents have been able to stand and fight an army far superior in training and in the arms and ammunition in its possession. Despite their lack of anti-air capability, they have not been frightened by the frequent use of helicopter gunships by the army against the positions controlled by the insurgents. Well-informed police sources in the NWFP say that many of the volunteers of the TNSM are well-trained Pashtun ex-servicemen.
3. Embarrassed by the long time taken (three weeks) by the Army to prevail over the volunteers of the TNSM, military spokesmen are now putting out stories that even though the Army had been deployed in the Swat Valley, the ground operations are still being conducted by the para-military forces---namely the Frontier Corps and the Frontier Constabulary.
4. The Army's efforts to persuade Maulana Sufi Mohammad, the founder of the TNSM, who has been under arrest since 2002, to appeal to Maulana Fazlullah, his son-in-law, and his force to give up fighting have not succeeded. Sufi Mohammad has not said no, but he has reportedly been demanding that he should be released so that he could go back to his people and talk to them. The Army does not want to accept this demand lest he take over the leadership of the insurgent force and continue fighting against the Army.
5. Both Maulana Fazlullah, to whom informal approaches were made through pro-Government tribal intermediaries, and Maulana Sufi Mohammad, presently in a hospital in Dera Ismail Khan for a medical check-up, have reportedly been saying that they were fighting against the American forces in Afghanistan, but not against the Pakistan Army and alleging that it was the Pakistan Army that forced them to fight against it by killing a large number of tribal girls in the Lal Masjid.
6. Fazlullah and Sufi Mohammad have also reportedly told the Army that they would be prepared to call off the fighting if President Musharraf apologises for the commando action in the Lal Masjid, proclaims the Shariat law in the entire Malakand Division and allows the TNSM volunteers to go back into Afghanistan and re-join the Neo Taliban in its operations against the Americans. They have been denying any links with Al Qaeda.
7. Contrary to the claims of the Army that it has silenced the FM radio station operated by Fazlullah, he continues to boadcast to his followers from unidentified locations. The Army, which has brought in more reinforcements to the Valley, has realised that it may not be able to defeat the insurgents quickly. Its present strategy is to push them into the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and keep them confined there so that normalcy can be restored in the Swat Valley before the forthcoming elections. According to these police sources, the insurgents have till now been refusing to accept an Army offer of safe passage into the FATA in return for their vacating the areas controlled by them.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
WHY TALIBAN TARGETS MULTAN NOW?
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO. 529
B.Raman
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakisan (TTP), headed by Baitullah Mehsud, is reported to have claimed responsibility for the commando-style terrorist attack involving the use of hand-held weapons and a car bomb in Lahore on May 27,2009, in which 15 police officers, an officer of the Lahore office of the Inter-Services Intelligence ( Lt-Col Mohammad Amir) and 10 others were killed. The terrorists were reported to have used a mix of RDX and TNT in the car bomb. This illustrates once again the growing menace of the proliferation of small arms and ammunition and powerful, military-grade explosives all over Pakistan which enables the terrorists to procure them easily for use anywhere in the country. No attempt has been made to stop this proliferation.
2. According to Amir Mir of the "News" (May 28), the terrorist attack was suspected to have been carried out by the Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), an anti-Shia organisation . According to Amir, Qari Mohammad Zafar is currently the chief operational commander of the LEJ. However, the statement of the TTP claiming responsibility for the attack does not refer to the LEJ.
3.According to a report disseminated by the British Broadcasting Corporation on May 28,2009, a deputy to Baitullah Mehsud, who identified himself as Hakimullah Mehsud, told the BBC by telephone that the attack was in response to the army's operation in the Swat valley. He warned as follows: "We love the people of Pakistan, and because of this love we politely ask the citizens of Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Multan to please evacuate their cities because we have marked out government targets there against whom we will carry out attacks as have never happened before."
4.While Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi have been the targets of frequent attacks by the TTP, Multan has now been threatened with a major attack. It is located in the Seraiki belt of southern Punjab. The Seraikis constitute about 60 per cent of its population. The rest consist of Punjabis, Pashtuns, Sindhis, Balochs and Mohajirs. It has a large number of Sufi shrines and is known as the city of Sufis. It is a popular pilgrimage centre for Sufis, who have been the targets of the Taliban which looks upon Sufism as unislamic. The majority of the population of Multan are Barelvis known for their tolerant traditions and their opposition to the Wahabised Deobandis. It is also the home town of Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Quereshi. The Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) headed by Maulana Masood Azhar, which operates jointly with the TTP, has an active presence in the Seraiki belt. Bahawalpur, in the Seraiki belt, is the home town of Azhar.
5.The II Corps of the Pakistan Army based at Multan is actively involved in the anti-Taliban operations. Its 14th Infantry Division was made responsible in 2007 for the operations against the followers of Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan. Multan is also an important base for the Air Force and the Army Aviation Corps. The helicopter gunships used against the Taliban in the Swat Valley are co-ordinated and serviced by the base in Multan.
6. The TTP's threat to attack Multan in retaliation for the military operation in the Swat Valley indicates the precise intelligence which the TTP has of the deployments of the Pakistani armed forces and the identities of different units involved in the anti-Taliban operations and the location of their rear bases, which could be attacked.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studieas, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.Raman
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakisan (TTP), headed by Baitullah Mehsud, is reported to have claimed responsibility for the commando-style terrorist attack involving the use of hand-held weapons and a car bomb in Lahore on May 27,2009, in which 15 police officers, an officer of the Lahore office of the Inter-Services Intelligence ( Lt-Col Mohammad Amir) and 10 others were killed. The terrorists were reported to have used a mix of RDX and TNT in the car bomb. This illustrates once again the growing menace of the proliferation of small arms and ammunition and powerful, military-grade explosives all over Pakistan which enables the terrorists to procure them easily for use anywhere in the country. No attempt has been made to stop this proliferation.
2. According to Amir Mir of the "News" (May 28), the terrorist attack was suspected to have been carried out by the Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), an anti-Shia organisation . According to Amir, Qari Mohammad Zafar is currently the chief operational commander of the LEJ. However, the statement of the TTP claiming responsibility for the attack does not refer to the LEJ.
3.According to a report disseminated by the British Broadcasting Corporation on May 28,2009, a deputy to Baitullah Mehsud, who identified himself as Hakimullah Mehsud, told the BBC by telephone that the attack was in response to the army's operation in the Swat valley. He warned as follows: "We love the people of Pakistan, and because of this love we politely ask the citizens of Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Multan to please evacuate their cities because we have marked out government targets there against whom we will carry out attacks as have never happened before."
4.While Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi have been the targets of frequent attacks by the TTP, Multan has now been threatened with a major attack. It is located in the Seraiki belt of southern Punjab. The Seraikis constitute about 60 per cent of its population. The rest consist of Punjabis, Pashtuns, Sindhis, Balochs and Mohajirs. It has a large number of Sufi shrines and is known as the city of Sufis. It is a popular pilgrimage centre for Sufis, who have been the targets of the Taliban which looks upon Sufism as unislamic. The majority of the population of Multan are Barelvis known for their tolerant traditions and their opposition to the Wahabised Deobandis. It is also the home town of Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Quereshi. The Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) headed by Maulana Masood Azhar, which operates jointly with the TTP, has an active presence in the Seraiki belt. Bahawalpur, in the Seraiki belt, is the home town of Azhar.
5.The II Corps of the Pakistan Army based at Multan is actively involved in the anti-Taliban operations. Its 14th Infantry Division was made responsible in 2007 for the operations against the followers of Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan. Multan is also an important base for the Air Force and the Army Aviation Corps. The helicopter gunships used against the Taliban in the Swat Valley are co-ordinated and serviced by the base in Multan.
6. The TTP's threat to attack Multan in retaliation for the military operation in the Swat Valley indicates the precise intelligence which the TTP has of the deployments of the Pakistani armed forces and the identities of different units involved in the anti-Taliban operations and the location of their rear bases, which could be attacked.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studieas, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
SIXTH MAJOR SWARM ATTACK SINCE MUMBAI:IS THERE A COMMON COMMAND & CONTROL?
International Terrorism Monitor--Paper No.. 528
B.Raman
At least 23 persons---many of them Lahore police officers --- are reported to have been killed and over 200 injured in a swarm attack by unidentified terrorists in a busy area on the Mall Road of Lahore. A number of important government buildings housing the offices of the Lahore Police, the Lahore office of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Lahore High Court are located around the area where a car suspected to be carrying explosives exploded when it was sought to be stopped by the police. There have been reports of exchange of fire between the security personnel posted in the area and an unidentified number of terrorists before the car exploded. There are no reports of any continuing exchange of fire after the explosion.
2. A building in which the emergency control room of the police, with a staff of 50, was located bore the brunt of the explosion and was totally destroyed. Other buildings in the area too suffered damages. No details are available regarding the damages, if any, sustained by the building housing the ISI office and whether there were any casualties. Sections of the Pakistani media have reported that Prof.Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed, the Amir of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), the political arm of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), who is under house arrest, was to appear in the court today in connection with the hearing on a petition in which he has challenged his house arrest.
3. A swarm attack is a commando-style attack involving multiple targets and/ or multile modus operandi----that is a mix of the use of hand-held weapons and explosives. Since the Mumbai terrorist attack of November 26 to 29,2008, which was itself a major swarm attack, there have been six more---- three in Kabul, Kandahar and Khost in Afghanistan and three in Lahore including the latest one. The two earlier swarm attacks in Lahore were directed at a Sri Lankan cricket team (March 3,2009) and a police training a school (March 30,2009). There were no multiple targets in the earlier two attacks in Lahore
4.The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) headed by Baitullah Mehsud had claimed responsibility for the attack on the police training school. Pakistani authorities had suspected that the TTP was also responsible for the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. They seem to suspect the hand of the TTP in the latest attack also.
5. Different cities of Pakistan---including Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Sargoda--- have seen a never-ending succession of suicide and non-suicide attacks involving the use of car bombers and suicide bombers since the commando raid in the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July,2007. During 2007 and 2008, the attacks were uni-targeted and mainly involved the use of explosives. They were not commando style attacks. They were often carried out by a single individual or by two persons. Commando-style attacks involving a group of persons is a phenomenon seen in India since 2001. One saw it in the attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi in December,2001. then in the attack on the security guards outside the US Consulate in Kolkata in January 2002, in the attack on a temple in Ahmedabad in September,2002, and in the attack on a training centre of the Centre Reserve Police Force at Rampur in Uttar Pradesh on January 1,2008. The originalty of the Mumbai attack of November 2008 was that the attackers came by sea whereas those involved in the earlier attacks came by land.
6. Similar commando-style attacks had not been seen in Pakistan before 2009. The Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) were the prime suspects in the commando style attacks in Indian territory mentioned above. The Pakistani and Afghan authorities seem to suspect the hand of the Taliban in the attacks in their territory.
7. The increasing resort to commando-style attacks by different groups in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan gives rise to the following questions: Are they merely instances of copy-cat terrorism or is there a common training centre for different organisations? If so, who runs this centre? Is there a common command and control co-ordinating these attacks?
8. It would be useful for the investigating agencies of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan to exchange notes on their respective investigations and to pick each other's brains. One should not fight shy of agreeing to a common brain-storming on the investigations.
(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
At least 23 persons---many of them Lahore police officers --- are reported to have been killed and over 200 injured in a swarm attack by unidentified terrorists in a busy area on the Mall Road of Lahore. A number of important government buildings housing the offices of the Lahore Police, the Lahore office of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Lahore High Court are located around the area where a car suspected to be carrying explosives exploded when it was sought to be stopped by the police. There have been reports of exchange of fire between the security personnel posted in the area and an unidentified number of terrorists before the car exploded. There are no reports of any continuing exchange of fire after the explosion.
2. A building in which the emergency control room of the police, with a staff of 50, was located bore the brunt of the explosion and was totally destroyed. Other buildings in the area too suffered damages. No details are available regarding the damages, if any, sustained by the building housing the ISI office and whether there were any casualties. Sections of the Pakistani media have reported that Prof.Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed, the Amir of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), the political arm of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), who is under house arrest, was to appear in the court today in connection with the hearing on a petition in which he has challenged his house arrest.
3. A swarm attack is a commando-style attack involving multiple targets and/ or multile modus operandi----that is a mix of the use of hand-held weapons and explosives. Since the Mumbai terrorist attack of November 26 to 29,2008, which was itself a major swarm attack, there have been six more---- three in Kabul, Kandahar and Khost in Afghanistan and three in Lahore including the latest one. The two earlier swarm attacks in Lahore were directed at a Sri Lankan cricket team (March 3,2009) and a police training a school (March 30,2009). There were no multiple targets in the earlier two attacks in Lahore
4.The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) headed by Baitullah Mehsud had claimed responsibility for the attack on the police training school. Pakistani authorities had suspected that the TTP was also responsible for the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. They seem to suspect the hand of the TTP in the latest attack also.
5. Different cities of Pakistan---including Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Sargoda--- have seen a never-ending succession of suicide and non-suicide attacks involving the use of car bombers and suicide bombers since the commando raid in the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July,2007. During 2007 and 2008, the attacks were uni-targeted and mainly involved the use of explosives. They were not commando style attacks. They were often carried out by a single individual or by two persons. Commando-style attacks involving a group of persons is a phenomenon seen in India since 2001. One saw it in the attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi in December,2001. then in the attack on the security guards outside the US Consulate in Kolkata in January 2002, in the attack on a temple in Ahmedabad in September,2002, and in the attack on a training centre of the Centre Reserve Police Force at Rampur in Uttar Pradesh on January 1,2008. The originalty of the Mumbai attack of November 2008 was that the attackers came by sea whereas those involved in the earlier attacks came by land.
6. Similar commando-style attacks had not been seen in Pakistan before 2009. The Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) were the prime suspects in the commando style attacks in Indian territory mentioned above. The Pakistani and Afghan authorities seem to suspect the hand of the Taliban in the attacks in their territory.
7. The increasing resort to commando-style attacks by different groups in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan gives rise to the following questions: Are they merely instances of copy-cat terrorism or is there a common training centre for different organisations? If so, who runs this centre? Is there a common command and control co-ordinating these attacks?
8. It would be useful for the investigating agencies of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan to exchange notes on their respective investigations and to pick each other's brains. One should not fight shy of agreeing to a common brain-storming on the investigations.
(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 )
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
OBAMA & COUNTER-INSURGENCY IN CHINESE COLOURS
International Terrorism Monitor -- Paper No.527
B. Raman
Nothing illustrates more starkingly the helplessness and confusion that prevails in the corridors of the Obama Administration over its Af-Pak policy than a report carried by the "Los Angeles Times" on May 25, 2009, regarding a recent visit which Richard C. Holbrooke, the Administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is reported to have made to China and Saudi Arabia in pursuance of his mandate.
2. To quote a news agency message based on the report carried by the "LA Times": "The Obama Administration has appealed to China to provide training and even military equipment to help Pakistan counter a growing militant threat, US officials said. .....Richard C Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, has visited China and Saudi Arabia, another key ally, in recent weeks as part of the effort, says Paul Richter of LAT. The American appeal to China underscores the country’s importance in security issues. The United States considers China to be the most influential country for dealing with militaristic North Korea. China also plays a crucial role in the international effort to pressure Iran over its nuclear ambitions......A senior US official, while acknowledging China’s hesitation to become more deeply involved, said, “You can see that they’re thinking about it.” He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the subject. US officials believe China is skilled at counterinsurgency, a holdover of the knowledge gained during the country’s lengthy civil war that ended with a Communist victory in 1949. And with China’s strong military ties with Pakistan, US officials hope Beijing could help craft a more sophisticated strategy than Pakistan’s current heavy-handed approach."
3. I did not know whether to laugh or cry when I read that the Obama Administration believed that "China is skilled in counter-insurgency", that it acquired its skills during its "war of liberation" against the KMT troops and that it can teach Pakistan "a more sophisticated strategy than Pakistan's current heavy-handed approach."
4. What do the Chinese regard as terrorism or insurgency? Which are the terrorist/insurgent organisations in their perception? Anyone, who has been following Chinese methods of internal security management would know that in the Chinese assessment there are two "terrorist/insurgent" organisations posing a threat to China's internal security----- the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC), which they project as no different from Al Qaeda in its modus operandi and the Islamic Movement of East Turkestan (IMET) of the Uighurs. Since the pro-Dalai Lama uprising in the Tibetan-inhabited areas of China in March, 2008, the Chinese have been repeatedly and consistently condemning the TYC as a terrorist organisation. They have arrested a large number of Tibetan monks and youth and mass trials have been going on. If Obama and his advisers want to have details of what the Chinese have been doing in Tibet since March, 2008, under the pretext of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency, all they have to do is to read the transcripts of the broadcasts of Radio Free Asia funded by the US State Department and to read the various statements issued by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his followers. Does the Obama Administration consider this as skilful and sophisticated counter-insurgency techniques?
5. What the Chinese have been doing against the Uighurs in the Xinjiang Province? Indiscriminate arrests, trials and executions. To get details, Obama and his advisers should read the periodic reports of the Human Rights Watch, which is a reputed non-Governmental organisation of the US, and the annual reports of the US State Department on human rights in China. The Chinese counter-insurgency strategy against the Uighurs is based on the principle "catch and kill". That was why the George Bush Administration refused to hand over to China the Uighur jihadis arrested in Afghanistan. The entire community of the human rights organisations of the West was against their being handed over to China since they apprehended that the Chinese would execute them. That was why Albania was persuaded to give sanctuary to these Uighurs.
6. There are two components to the Chinese counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism strategy in Xinjiang---- "catch and kill" and impose restrictions on the practice of Islam. Under this policy of restrictions, construction of new mosques is not allowed, many old mosques have been forced to close down under the pretext that they were constructed illegally and the people are forced to observe their holy fast inside their houses and not to congregate in public places. This is China's "skilful and sophisticated" counter-insurgency.
7. IF Pakistan follows even some of these methods, the day will not be far off when Pakistan will become a State ruled by a combine of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. As it is, there is considerable anti-US and anti-Army anger in Pakistan. Instead of finding ways of containing and reducing this anger, the Obama Administration is coming out with shocking ideas such as "Counter-insurgency in Chinese colours", which could make an already difficult situation even more difficult to handle.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is alaso associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
B. Raman
Nothing illustrates more starkingly the helplessness and confusion that prevails in the corridors of the Obama Administration over its Af-Pak policy than a report carried by the "Los Angeles Times" on May 25, 2009, regarding a recent visit which Richard C. Holbrooke, the Administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is reported to have made to China and Saudi Arabia in pursuance of his mandate.
2. To quote a news agency message based on the report carried by the "LA Times": "The Obama Administration has appealed to China to provide training and even military equipment to help Pakistan counter a growing militant threat, US officials said. .....Richard C Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, has visited China and Saudi Arabia, another key ally, in recent weeks as part of the effort, says Paul Richter of LAT. The American appeal to China underscores the country’s importance in security issues. The United States considers China to be the most influential country for dealing with militaristic North Korea. China also plays a crucial role in the international effort to pressure Iran over its nuclear ambitions......A senior US official, while acknowledging China’s hesitation to become more deeply involved, said, “You can see that they’re thinking about it.” He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the subject. US officials believe China is skilled at counterinsurgency, a holdover of the knowledge gained during the country’s lengthy civil war that ended with a Communist victory in 1949. And with China’s strong military ties with Pakistan, US officials hope Beijing could help craft a more sophisticated strategy than Pakistan’s current heavy-handed approach."
3. I did not know whether to laugh or cry when I read that the Obama Administration believed that "China is skilled in counter-insurgency", that it acquired its skills during its "war of liberation" against the KMT troops and that it can teach Pakistan "a more sophisticated strategy than Pakistan's current heavy-handed approach."
4. What do the Chinese regard as terrorism or insurgency? Which are the terrorist/insurgent organisations in their perception? Anyone, who has been following Chinese methods of internal security management would know that in the Chinese assessment there are two "terrorist/insurgent" organisations posing a threat to China's internal security----- the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC), which they project as no different from Al Qaeda in its modus operandi and the Islamic Movement of East Turkestan (IMET) of the Uighurs. Since the pro-Dalai Lama uprising in the Tibetan-inhabited areas of China in March, 2008, the Chinese have been repeatedly and consistently condemning the TYC as a terrorist organisation. They have arrested a large number of Tibetan monks and youth and mass trials have been going on. If Obama and his advisers want to have details of what the Chinese have been doing in Tibet since March, 2008, under the pretext of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency, all they have to do is to read the transcripts of the broadcasts of Radio Free Asia funded by the US State Department and to read the various statements issued by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his followers. Does the Obama Administration consider this as skilful and sophisticated counter-insurgency techniques?
5. What the Chinese have been doing against the Uighurs in the Xinjiang Province? Indiscriminate arrests, trials and executions. To get details, Obama and his advisers should read the periodic reports of the Human Rights Watch, which is a reputed non-Governmental organisation of the US, and the annual reports of the US State Department on human rights in China. The Chinese counter-insurgency strategy against the Uighurs is based on the principle "catch and kill". That was why the George Bush Administration refused to hand over to China the Uighur jihadis arrested in Afghanistan. The entire community of the human rights organisations of the West was against their being handed over to China since they apprehended that the Chinese would execute them. That was why Albania was persuaded to give sanctuary to these Uighurs.
6. There are two components to the Chinese counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism strategy in Xinjiang---- "catch and kill" and impose restrictions on the practice of Islam. Under this policy of restrictions, construction of new mosques is not allowed, many old mosques have been forced to close down under the pretext that they were constructed illegally and the people are forced to observe their holy fast inside their houses and not to congregate in public places. This is China's "skilful and sophisticated" counter-insurgency.
7. IF Pakistan follows even some of these methods, the day will not be far off when Pakistan will become a State ruled by a combine of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. As it is, there is considerable anti-US and anti-Army anger in Pakistan. Instead of finding ways of containing and reducing this anger, the Obama Administration is coming out with shocking ideas such as "Counter-insurgency in Chinese colours", which could make an already difficult situation even more difficult to handle.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is alaso associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
Friday, May 22, 2009
PAK ARMY'S TALIBAN HUNT: SEEMING MOTION WITHOUT MOVEMENT
International Terrorism Monitor -- Paper No. 526
B. Raman
The operations of the Pakistani security forces against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its affiliate the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) have been marked by a lack of intelligence, physical security in the non-tribal areas, an over-all strategy, direction and prioritisation of different stages of the operations.
2. The disconcertingly inadequate intelligence is evident from the fact that neither the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of the Army nor the Intelligence Bureau (IB) of the Ministry of the Interior seem to have the vaguest idea of the command and control of either the TTP or the TNSM. One knows more about the command and control of Al Qaeda than about those of the TTP and the TNSM. One knows a lot about their leaders---- Baitullah Mehsud of the TTP and Sufi Mohammad and Maulana Fazlullah of the TNSM--- but beyond that one knows very little. How are they organised, where are they trained, who are their individual commanders, where and how are they deployed----the answers to these questions are inadequate. So much is known about their ideology, but so little about their operational capabilities and potential.
3. A basic requirement of a good counter-insurgency operation is your ability to protect your back as you are engaged in your battle against the enemy. Your ability to protect your back depends on good physical security behind you. Good physical security depends on the police and the IB of Pakistan. The fact that the TTP and the TNSM have been able to indulge repeatedly in terrorist strikes in non-tribal areas----even in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Sargoda---- even as the security forces are confronting them in the tribal areas speaks poorly of the state of physical security in Pakistan. This is the result of long years of neglect of the police and the IB. The need for their revamping and modernisation has not received the attention of either Pakistan or the US.
4. No counter-insurgency operation can be effective unless it is sustained and driven by a determination to succeed in the over-all national interest. The counter-insurgency operations of the Pakistani security forces in the Pashtun tribal belt have neither been sustained nor marked by a determination to succeed. One has been seeing this in the operations undertaken by them in 2003 in South and North Waziristan, in the Swat Valley since 2007 and subsequently in the Bajaur Agency, the two Dirs and Buner districts of the Malakand Division of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).
5. The operations have been in fits and starts depending on the extent of the pressure to act exercised on the Pakistani leadership by the US. When the pressure is high, the action is high. When the pressure declines, the action declines. The repeated statements by President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani and Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), on Pakistan's determination to defeat the TTP and the TNSM have not been reflected in appropriate operational action on the ground. These statements have been made to reassure the US leaders ----President Obama as well those in the Congress--- of the determination of the Pakistani security forces to act. They have not come out of a genuine conviction in the Pakistani political and military leadership that Pakistan's future would be in danger if the Security forces do not neutralise the Taliban.
6. Openly, to reassure the US, Pakistani leaders charactetrise the Taliban as a threat, but, in reality, they look upon it more as a worrisome nuisance than as a serious threat to the state of Pakistan. Since Pakistan became independent in 1947, the Pakistan Army never had effective control over the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the Malakand Division, which had always remained the spawning ground of religious extremism. After 9/11, even the little control that was there before 9/11 has further weakened and the religious extremism emanating from this area has further increased. Large sections of the Pakistani civil society have been concerned over this development, but not the political class and the military-intelligence establishment. The Army's objective is to reduce this nuisance to its pre-9/11 level and to contain it.
7. It thinks it will neither be possible nor advisable to totally eradicate the influence of the Taliban. It is not possible because it would not have the required local support for its operations in the tribal belt. It is not advisable because, in the Army's view, the tribals such as the Mehsuds and the Wazirs have acted as force multipliers against India during the past conflicts with India and will be prepared to do so again in any future conflict. It is also not advisable because of the strategic potential of the Taliban to serve Pakistan's interests in Afghanistan.
8. The lack of a determination to succeed is evident from the lack of an over-all strategy, direction and prioritisation of different phases of the operations. The areas affected by the activities of the Taliban fall into three categories. The first category consists of North and South Waziristan, which are under the virtual de facto control of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and their allies since 2003. The increasing number of Predator strikes by the US in this area have kept the terrorists on the run without weakening their operational presence and capability. Only sustained and effective ground operations either by the US or by Pakistan or by both can achieve this result. Pakistan is opposed to any US role in the ground operations. At the same time, it is either unwilling or unable or both to undertake such ground operations on its own.
9. The second category consists of Bajaur, Swat and other areas of the Malakand Division. The Taliban has a certain measure of de facto control in these areas. There is no role for the US in these areas. Counter-Taliban operations in these areas have to be the responsibility of the Pakistani security forces. Through their open statements, Pakistani political and military leaders seek to give the impression of admitting their responsibility for action, but this admission has not been translated into effective action. Instead of first identifying the weakest points in the control of the Taliban, targeting them, removing the Taliban from there and then expanding the operations to areas where the Taliban control is stronger, the security forces have been hitting around blindly here and there without an over-all plan. There are too many fronts and too little progress.
10. The third category consists of the other districts of the NWFP where the Taliban's presence is more ideological than operational. No plan has been drawn up for preventing these areas from coming under the operational control of the Taliban.
11. The Obama Administration's policy of showering Pakistan with money and arms and ammunition even in the absence of proof of sincerity and conviction and even in the absence of progress on the ground is once again creating a worrisome impression in the Pakistani leaders that to continue to benefit from US support and largesse all they have to do is to create an illusion of motion without actual movement. That is what they are doing.
12. That is what Pervez Musharraf did when he was the President. The two Waziristans came under the effective control of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and their associates and the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan, operating from sanctuaries in Balochistan, staged its spectacular come-back in Afghanistan when he was the President and was the beneficiary of billions of dollars given by the Bush Administration. What promises he made to the Bush Administration to reform and modernise the madrasas and prevent their misuse for jihad! How much money he took from the US for madrasa reforms! What happened to those reforms?
13. That is exactly what Zardari, Gilani and Kayani are doing now. Creating an illusion of motion without actual movement, while extracting billions of dollars from the US. The Pakistani leadership---political and military--- has developed into a fine art the extraction of money from the US by exploiting the presence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in their territory.
14. If the Taliban ultimately succeeds in further strengthening and expanding its control in Pakistan, the US will have to share a major portion of the responsibility for failing to make Pakistan act effectively instead of merely seeming to do so.
(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 operations of the Pakistani security forces against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its affiliate the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) have been marked by a lack of intelligence, physical security in the non-tribal areas, an over-all strategy, direction and prioritisation of different stages of the operations.
2. The disconcertingly inadequate intelligence is evident from the fact that neither the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of the Army nor the Intelligence Bureau (IB) of the Ministry of the Interior seem to have the vaguest idea of the command and control of either the TTP or the TNSM. One knows more about the command and control of Al Qaeda than about those of the TTP and the TNSM. One knows a lot about their leaders---- Baitullah Mehsud of the TTP and Sufi Mohammad and Maulana Fazlullah of the TNSM--- but beyond that one knows very little. How are they organised, where are they trained, who are their individual commanders, where and how are they deployed----the answers to these questions are inadequate. So much is known about their ideology, but so little about their operational capabilities and potential.
3. A basic requirement of a good counter-insurgency operation is your ability to protect your back as you are engaged in your battle against the enemy. Your ability to protect your back depends on good physical security behind you. Good physical security depends on the police and the IB of Pakistan. The fact that the TTP and the TNSM have been able to indulge repeatedly in terrorist strikes in non-tribal areas----even in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Sargoda---- even as the security forces are confronting them in the tribal areas speaks poorly of the state of physical security in Pakistan. This is the result of long years of neglect of the police and the IB. The need for their revamping and modernisation has not received the attention of either Pakistan or the US.
4. No counter-insurgency operation can be effective unless it is sustained and driven by a determination to succeed in the over-all national interest. The counter-insurgency operations of the Pakistani security forces in the Pashtun tribal belt have neither been sustained nor marked by a determination to succeed. One has been seeing this in the operations undertaken by them in 2003 in South and North Waziristan, in the Swat Valley since 2007 and subsequently in the Bajaur Agency, the two Dirs and Buner districts of the Malakand Division of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).
5. The operations have been in fits and starts depending on the extent of the pressure to act exercised on the Pakistani leadership by the US. When the pressure is high, the action is high. When the pressure declines, the action declines. The repeated statements by President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani and Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), on Pakistan's determination to defeat the TTP and the TNSM have not been reflected in appropriate operational action on the ground. These statements have been made to reassure the US leaders ----President Obama as well those in the Congress--- of the determination of the Pakistani security forces to act. They have not come out of a genuine conviction in the Pakistani political and military leadership that Pakistan's future would be in danger if the Security forces do not neutralise the Taliban.
6. Openly, to reassure the US, Pakistani leaders charactetrise the Taliban as a threat, but, in reality, they look upon it more as a worrisome nuisance than as a serious threat to the state of Pakistan. Since Pakistan became independent in 1947, the Pakistan Army never had effective control over the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the Malakand Division, which had always remained the spawning ground of religious extremism. After 9/11, even the little control that was there before 9/11 has further weakened and the religious extremism emanating from this area has further increased. Large sections of the Pakistani civil society have been concerned over this development, but not the political class and the military-intelligence establishment. The Army's objective is to reduce this nuisance to its pre-9/11 level and to contain it.
7. It thinks it will neither be possible nor advisable to totally eradicate the influence of the Taliban. It is not possible because it would not have the required local support for its operations in the tribal belt. It is not advisable because, in the Army's view, the tribals such as the Mehsuds and the Wazirs have acted as force multipliers against India during the past conflicts with India and will be prepared to do so again in any future conflict. It is also not advisable because of the strategic potential of the Taliban to serve Pakistan's interests in Afghanistan.
8. The lack of a determination to succeed is evident from the lack of an over-all strategy, direction and prioritisation of different phases of the operations. The areas affected by the activities of the Taliban fall into three categories. The first category consists of North and South Waziristan, which are under the virtual de facto control of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and their allies since 2003. The increasing number of Predator strikes by the US in this area have kept the terrorists on the run without weakening their operational presence and capability. Only sustained and effective ground operations either by the US or by Pakistan or by both can achieve this result. Pakistan is opposed to any US role in the ground operations. At the same time, it is either unwilling or unable or both to undertake such ground operations on its own.
9. The second category consists of Bajaur, Swat and other areas of the Malakand Division. The Taliban has a certain measure of de facto control in these areas. There is no role for the US in these areas. Counter-Taliban operations in these areas have to be the responsibility of the Pakistani security forces. Through their open statements, Pakistani political and military leaders seek to give the impression of admitting their responsibility for action, but this admission has not been translated into effective action. Instead of first identifying the weakest points in the control of the Taliban, targeting them, removing the Taliban from there and then expanding the operations to areas where the Taliban control is stronger, the security forces have been hitting around blindly here and there without an over-all plan. There are too many fronts and too little progress.
10. The third category consists of the other districts of the NWFP where the Taliban's presence is more ideological than operational. No plan has been drawn up for preventing these areas from coming under the operational control of the Taliban.
11. The Obama Administration's policy of showering Pakistan with money and arms and ammunition even in the absence of proof of sincerity and conviction and even in the absence of progress on the ground is once again creating a worrisome impression in the Pakistani leaders that to continue to benefit from US support and largesse all they have to do is to create an illusion of motion without actual movement. That is what they are doing.
12. That is what Pervez Musharraf did when he was the President. The two Waziristans came under the effective control of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and their associates and the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan, operating from sanctuaries in Balochistan, staged its spectacular come-back in Afghanistan when he was the President and was the beneficiary of billions of dollars given by the Bush Administration. What promises he made to the Bush Administration to reform and modernise the madrasas and prevent their misuse for jihad! How much money he took from the US for madrasa reforms! What happened to those reforms?
13. That is exactly what Zardari, Gilani and Kayani are doing now. Creating an illusion of motion without actual movement, while extracting billions of dollars from the US. The Pakistani leadership---political and military--- has developed into a fine art the extraction of money from the US by exploiting the presence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in their territory.
14. If the Taliban ultimately succeeds in further strengthening and expanding its control in Pakistan, the US will have to share a major portion of the responsibility for failing to make Pakistan act effectively instead of merely seeming to do so.
(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)
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
LTTE: WHAT I WROTE IN MAY 2008
B. Raman
(From my book titled "Terrorism: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow" published in June last by the Lancer Publishers of New Delhi (www.lancerpublishers.com)
The termination of the 2002 cease-fire agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by the Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and of the role of the foreign cease-fire monitors and facilitators underlines the determination of the Government of Sri Lanka not to let anything stand in the way of its military operations against the LTTE reaching their logical conclusion.
In its objective, such a logical conclusion would be the disruption, if not the destruction, beyond recovery of the command and control of the LTTE and the re-enforcement of the writ of the Government over the areas in the Northern Province, which are still under the control of the LTTE. Nobody can quarrel with this objective.
This objective is sought to be achieved through a two-pronged action---- intensified air strikes against the LTTE's command and control in the Wanni region and graduated ground operations, which are initially focussed more on a decimation of the LTTE's rank and file than on recovery of territory. If and when the rank and file is weakened substantially, the focus would turn to the recovery of territory presently under the LTTE's control.
The more the command and control is disrupted by the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF), the easier will be the ground operations. The longer the command and control remains intact, the slower will be the progress of the ground operations. Unlike Al Qaeda, which is a decentralised organisation with its operatives capable of autonomous operations for a long time even in the absence of a centralised command and control, the LTTE is a very rigid and centralised organisation. Its operatives do not seem to have the same capability as the operatives of Al Qaeda for autonmous action. The disruption of the command and control could have a debilitating effect on the organisation.
The LTTE has a very narrow pyramid at the top. Its command and control is concentrated in the hands of essentially three persons---Prabakaran, its leader, Pottu Amman, the chief of its Intelligence wing, and Soosai, the chief of the Sea Tigers. If the air strikes can eliminate these three persons, that could mark the beginning of the end of the LTTE as it is constituted today and the ground operations could achieve their objective without large-scale civilian casualties.
The law of diminishing options and assets has set in for the LTTE. The law is already operating inexorably. It has very little option for offensive ground action of the guerilla type not amounting to terrorism. It has been reduced to fighting one defensive action after another against a harassing army in order to retain control of the territory and retard the advance of the Army towards Wanni. A guerilla force without offensive options slowly bleeds to death. It still has the option of the card of terrorism in areas outside the Tamil belt. It has already been using this card, killing innocent civilians without minding about the impact of its acts of terrorism on the international community. It has already lost considerable international support and understanding for the Sri Lankan Tamil cause. The more it resorts to terrorism against soft targets, the more will be the loss of international support and the ultimate casualty will be that of the Tamil cause.
It has still two options left for it to use---- a successful ground strike to destroy the fighter planes of the SLAF and a successful attack on an economic target of considerable strategic significance for the Government. To use these options, it needs assets----human and material. Its human assets are still well-motivated and capable of turning the tide in its favour. But, its material assets are diminishing due to the disruption of its supply channels from abroad and its inability to mount successful offensive operations against the Army, which could replenish its stocks of arms, ammunition and explosives. Human assets alone, however top grade, cannot produce miracles without adequate material assets.
Internationally, the LTTE finds itself more and more isolated. What goodwill it had in the international community till 1991! A series of political blunders by Prabakaran like the brutal assassinations of Rajiv Gandhi, Premadasa and Laxman Kadirgamar, the unsuccessful attempt to kill Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunge, when she was the President, and its frequent resort to terrorism against Sri Lankan Tamil leaders disliked by Prabakaran and other innocent civilians have severely damaged this goodwill. Prabakaran has shown again and again a tendency to lift huge boulders and drop them on his own feet. He started his career as the well-heard voice of the Sri Lankan Tamil cause. He has squandered away this goodwill.
There is no need to feel concerned over the self-created predicament of the LTTE and its ultimate fate. But one has to feel concerned over the fate of the Sri Lankan Tamil cause. Rajapaksa and his advisers have been saying soothing words about the importance of India for Sri Lanka, their receptivity to India's security concerns, their readiness to right the wrongs done to the Sri Lankan Tamils in the past etc.
But, let there be no doubt about it. If they succeed militarily, the dictated peace, which they will seek to impose on the Tamils, will be the peace of medieval conquerors over the conquered. They will seek to take Sri Lanka back to 1982 and the years before.
India has done well to assist the Sri Lankan Navy in its operations against the LTTE's Navy. It will also be justified in assisting the SLAF in destroying the so-called air force of the LTTE. The LTTE's naval and air capabilities pose a threat to the security of not only Sri Lanka, but also of the region as a whole. But this assistance should have been as a quid pro quo to simultaneous steps by the Rajapaksa Government to address the aspirations and grievances of the Sri Lankan Tamils, with firm commitments on the kind of peace, which would be acceptable to India and the world. India's action in not insisting on a visible and palpable quid pro quo in favour of the Tamil cause can prove to be a strategic blunder.
(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)
(From my book titled "Terrorism: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow" published in June last by the Lancer Publishers of New Delhi (www.lancerpublishers.com)
The termination of the 2002 cease-fire agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by the Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and of the role of the foreign cease-fire monitors and facilitators underlines the determination of the Government of Sri Lanka not to let anything stand in the way of its military operations against the LTTE reaching their logical conclusion.
In its objective, such a logical conclusion would be the disruption, if not the destruction, beyond recovery of the command and control of the LTTE and the re-enforcement of the writ of the Government over the areas in the Northern Province, which are still under the control of the LTTE. Nobody can quarrel with this objective.
This objective is sought to be achieved through a two-pronged action---- intensified air strikes against the LTTE's command and control in the Wanni region and graduated ground operations, which are initially focussed more on a decimation of the LTTE's rank and file than on recovery of territory. If and when the rank and file is weakened substantially, the focus would turn to the recovery of territory presently under the LTTE's control.
The more the command and control is disrupted by the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF), the easier will be the ground operations. The longer the command and control remains intact, the slower will be the progress of the ground operations. Unlike Al Qaeda, which is a decentralised organisation with its operatives capable of autonomous operations for a long time even in the absence of a centralised command and control, the LTTE is a very rigid and centralised organisation. Its operatives do not seem to have the same capability as the operatives of Al Qaeda for autonmous action. The disruption of the command and control could have a debilitating effect on the organisation.
The LTTE has a very narrow pyramid at the top. Its command and control is concentrated in the hands of essentially three persons---Prabakaran, its leader, Pottu Amman, the chief of its Intelligence wing, and Soosai, the chief of the Sea Tigers. If the air strikes can eliminate these three persons, that could mark the beginning of the end of the LTTE as it is constituted today and the ground operations could achieve their objective without large-scale civilian casualties.
The law of diminishing options and assets has set in for the LTTE. The law is already operating inexorably. It has very little option for offensive ground action of the guerilla type not amounting to terrorism. It has been reduced to fighting one defensive action after another against a harassing army in order to retain control of the territory and retard the advance of the Army towards Wanni. A guerilla force without offensive options slowly bleeds to death. It still has the option of the card of terrorism in areas outside the Tamil belt. It has already been using this card, killing innocent civilians without minding about the impact of its acts of terrorism on the international community. It has already lost considerable international support and understanding for the Sri Lankan Tamil cause. The more it resorts to terrorism against soft targets, the more will be the loss of international support and the ultimate casualty will be that of the Tamil cause.
It has still two options left for it to use---- a successful ground strike to destroy the fighter planes of the SLAF and a successful attack on an economic target of considerable strategic significance for the Government. To use these options, it needs assets----human and material. Its human assets are still well-motivated and capable of turning the tide in its favour. But, its material assets are diminishing due to the disruption of its supply channels from abroad and its inability to mount successful offensive operations against the Army, which could replenish its stocks of arms, ammunition and explosives. Human assets alone, however top grade, cannot produce miracles without adequate material assets.
Internationally, the LTTE finds itself more and more isolated. What goodwill it had in the international community till 1991! A series of political blunders by Prabakaran like the brutal assassinations of Rajiv Gandhi, Premadasa and Laxman Kadirgamar, the unsuccessful attempt to kill Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunge, when she was the President, and its frequent resort to terrorism against Sri Lankan Tamil leaders disliked by Prabakaran and other innocent civilians have severely damaged this goodwill. Prabakaran has shown again and again a tendency to lift huge boulders and drop them on his own feet. He started his career as the well-heard voice of the Sri Lankan Tamil cause. He has squandered away this goodwill.
There is no need to feel concerned over the self-created predicament of the LTTE and its ultimate fate. But one has to feel concerned over the fate of the Sri Lankan Tamil cause. Rajapaksa and his advisers have been saying soothing words about the importance of India for Sri Lanka, their receptivity to India's security concerns, their readiness to right the wrongs done to the Sri Lankan Tamils in the past etc.
But, let there be no doubt about it. If they succeed militarily, the dictated peace, which they will seek to impose on the Tamils, will be the peace of medieval conquerors over the conquered. They will seek to take Sri Lanka back to 1982 and the years before.
India has done well to assist the Sri Lankan Navy in its operations against the LTTE's Navy. It will also be justified in assisting the SLAF in destroying the so-called air force of the LTTE. The LTTE's naval and air capabilities pose a threat to the security of not only Sri Lanka, but also of the region as a whole. But this assistance should have been as a quid pro quo to simultaneous steps by the Rajapaksa Government to address the aspirations and grievances of the Sri Lankan Tamils, with firm commitments on the kind of peace, which would be acceptable to India and the world. India's action in not insisting on a visible and palpable quid pro quo in favour of the Tamil cause can prove to be a strategic blunder.
(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, May 18, 2009
POST-PRABAKARAN: QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO. 525
B.RAMAN
Can the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) stage a come-back like the Baloch freedom movement did in Balochistan and the Taliban did in Afghanistan?
Unlikely. The late Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto could destroy only the cadres of the Baloch freedom movement through his Army and Air Force. He could not destroy the leadership which managed to take sanctuary in Afghanistan and re-built the organization before starting a new phase of their freedom struggle. After re-organising their set-up, the old leadership handed over the leadership of the new organization to a new set of leaders, who are now leading what has come to be known as the Balochs’ third war of independence. The Americans could not destroy either the leadership or the cadre of the Taliban headed by its Amir Mulla Mohammad Omar. The Taliban avoided a frontal confrontation with the US-led forces. The leaders, including the Amir, took sanctuary in Pakistan and the cadres dispersed to their respective villages. After re-organising their set-up, the Neo Taliban as the re-organised Taliban has come to be known has resumed its operations in Afghan territory for the last three years. The Neo Taliban has benefited from the sanctuaries and assistance provided by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). In the case of the LTTE, the Sri Lankan Armed forces have not only neutralized a large number of its cadres, but they have also decimated the entire ground-based leadership. The LTTE benefited in the 1980s from the sanctuaries in India and from political and moral support provided by the Indian State. Its assassination of former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in 1991 has ensured that it will not get these benefits again. With its entire leadership gone and denied these benefits of sanctuaries and support from the Indian State, it will be very difficult to revive the LTTE as an insurgent-cum-terrorist organization.
Can the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora play a role in the revival of the LTTE?
The diaspora’s role in the past was limited to fund collection, arms procurement, shipping, lobbying, political consultancy and agitprop activities. After 9/11, fund collection and arms procurement had become increasingly difficult. This became almost impossible after the European Union (EU) countries declared the LTTE a terrorist organization and the US arrested a number of Sri Lankan Tamils and prosecuted them on a charge of attempted arms procurement for the LTTE. As a result, the diaspora may not be able to play the kind of role which it used to play in the past. But if another leader is to emerge and start a new freedom struggle as the Balochs have started, all this expertise in the diaspora will be available to him. Some highly qualified Tamils in the diaspora with access to important moulders of public opinion, non-Governmental organizations and legislators played an important role as political advisers to Prabakaran and as lobbyists for the Tamil Eelam cause. They will still be available to anyone who starts a new freedom movement. But the diaspora can play the same role as it was doing under Prabakaran only if there is the hard-core of an insurgent organization active on the ground in the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka. It will take time for such a hard core to emerge. No other Army in the world has destroyed the leadership of an insurgent organisation as completely as the Sri Lankan Army has done except the Russian Army in Chechnya.
Will the end of the LTTE be the end of terrorism in Sri Lanka and against Sri Lankans?
Not necessarily. Individual, self-motivated terrorism could continue in some form or the other. Some of the most serious incidents of violence in the case of Khalistani terrorism took place after the successful attack by the Indian Army in the Golden Temple in June 1984 under Operation Blue Star. Examples: the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, by her own Sikh security guards, the assassination of Gen.V.S.Vaidya, who was the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) at the time of Operation Blue Star at Pune where he was living in retirement, the blowing-up of the Kanishka aircraft of Air India killing all the passengers, the unsuccessful attempt to blow up another Air India plane at Tokyo, the unsuccessful attempt to kill Jule Ribeiro, who was the DG of Police of Punjab, at Bucharest where he was posted as the Ambassador and the kidnapping of Liviu Radu, a Romanian diplomat posted at Delhi. The successful commando raid into the Lal Masjid in Islamabad in July,2007, has been followed by a wave of suicide attacks against the Pakistani Armed Forces, Police and the assassination of Mrs. Benazir Bhutto. Sometimes, it takes years for such anger to subside. In Punjab, it took 11 years. In Pakistan, after two years, it has not subsided.
What will be the attitude of the international community---particularly the West--- to the successful operation by the SL Armed Forces?
No country in the world can criticize the successful action against the LTTE, a terrorist organization, and its leadership. At the same time, there has been considerable disquiet in the West over the reports of large-scale civilian casualties due to the use of air strikes and heavy artillery by the SL Army. The West considerably assisted the SL Army by banning the LTTE and dismantling its arms procurement and fund collection network. It has been greatly upset that the Sri Lankan Government showed total indifference to the concerns and entreaties of the West on the human rights situation and carried on a vilification campaign against Western NGOs and media. The Sri Lankan Government had imposed a total iron curtain in the Tamil areas similar to the iron curtain imposed by Russia in Chechnya. There are already demands in the West for an enquiry into the civilian casualties in order to determine accountability. It remains to be seen whether this demand picks up momentum or dies down now that the war is over.
What will be the next step of the diaspora?
It will concentrate its immediate efforts on getting an enquiry launched into the civilan casualties. After the Second World War, international support for the Jewish people and Israel increased tremendously when the extent of the atrocities suffered by the Jewish population at the hands of the Nazis came to be known. The Tamils in the diaspora are hoping that a similar revelation by an enquiry of the sufferings of the civilian Tamils during the counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations could lead to a groundswell of support for the Tamil cause. (19-5-09)
(The writer is the 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
Can the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) stage a come-back like the Baloch freedom movement did in Balochistan and the Taliban did in Afghanistan?
Unlikely. The late Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto could destroy only the cadres of the Baloch freedom movement through his Army and Air Force. He could not destroy the leadership which managed to take sanctuary in Afghanistan and re-built the organization before starting a new phase of their freedom struggle. After re-organising their set-up, the old leadership handed over the leadership of the new organization to a new set of leaders, who are now leading what has come to be known as the Balochs’ third war of independence. The Americans could not destroy either the leadership or the cadre of the Taliban headed by its Amir Mulla Mohammad Omar. The Taliban avoided a frontal confrontation with the US-led forces. The leaders, including the Amir, took sanctuary in Pakistan and the cadres dispersed to their respective villages. After re-organising their set-up, the Neo Taliban as the re-organised Taliban has come to be known has resumed its operations in Afghan territory for the last three years. The Neo Taliban has benefited from the sanctuaries and assistance provided by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). In the case of the LTTE, the Sri Lankan Armed forces have not only neutralized a large number of its cadres, but they have also decimated the entire ground-based leadership. The LTTE benefited in the 1980s from the sanctuaries in India and from political and moral support provided by the Indian State. Its assassination of former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in 1991 has ensured that it will not get these benefits again. With its entire leadership gone and denied these benefits of sanctuaries and support from the Indian State, it will be very difficult to revive the LTTE as an insurgent-cum-terrorist organization.
Can the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora play a role in the revival of the LTTE?
The diaspora’s role in the past was limited to fund collection, arms procurement, shipping, lobbying, political consultancy and agitprop activities. After 9/11, fund collection and arms procurement had become increasingly difficult. This became almost impossible after the European Union (EU) countries declared the LTTE a terrorist organization and the US arrested a number of Sri Lankan Tamils and prosecuted them on a charge of attempted arms procurement for the LTTE. As a result, the diaspora may not be able to play the kind of role which it used to play in the past. But if another leader is to emerge and start a new freedom struggle as the Balochs have started, all this expertise in the diaspora will be available to him. Some highly qualified Tamils in the diaspora with access to important moulders of public opinion, non-Governmental organizations and legislators played an important role as political advisers to Prabakaran and as lobbyists for the Tamil Eelam cause. They will still be available to anyone who starts a new freedom movement. But the diaspora can play the same role as it was doing under Prabakaran only if there is the hard-core of an insurgent organization active on the ground in the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka. It will take time for such a hard core to emerge. No other Army in the world has destroyed the leadership of an insurgent organisation as completely as the Sri Lankan Army has done except the Russian Army in Chechnya.
Will the end of the LTTE be the end of terrorism in Sri Lanka and against Sri Lankans?
Not necessarily. Individual, self-motivated terrorism could continue in some form or the other. Some of the most serious incidents of violence in the case of Khalistani terrorism took place after the successful attack by the Indian Army in the Golden Temple in June 1984 under Operation Blue Star. Examples: the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, by her own Sikh security guards, the assassination of Gen.V.S.Vaidya, who was the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) at the time of Operation Blue Star at Pune where he was living in retirement, the blowing-up of the Kanishka aircraft of Air India killing all the passengers, the unsuccessful attempt to blow up another Air India plane at Tokyo, the unsuccessful attempt to kill Jule Ribeiro, who was the DG of Police of Punjab, at Bucharest where he was posted as the Ambassador and the kidnapping of Liviu Radu, a Romanian diplomat posted at Delhi. The successful commando raid into the Lal Masjid in Islamabad in July,2007, has been followed by a wave of suicide attacks against the Pakistani Armed Forces, Police and the assassination of Mrs. Benazir Bhutto. Sometimes, it takes years for such anger to subside. In Punjab, it took 11 years. In Pakistan, after two years, it has not subsided.
What will be the attitude of the international community---particularly the West--- to the successful operation by the SL Armed Forces?
No country in the world can criticize the successful action against the LTTE, a terrorist organization, and its leadership. At the same time, there has been considerable disquiet in the West over the reports of large-scale civilian casualties due to the use of air strikes and heavy artillery by the SL Army. The West considerably assisted the SL Army by banning the LTTE and dismantling its arms procurement and fund collection network. It has been greatly upset that the Sri Lankan Government showed total indifference to the concerns and entreaties of the West on the human rights situation and carried on a vilification campaign against Western NGOs and media. The Sri Lankan Government had imposed a total iron curtain in the Tamil areas similar to the iron curtain imposed by Russia in Chechnya. There are already demands in the West for an enquiry into the civilian casualties in order to determine accountability. It remains to be seen whether this demand picks up momentum or dies down now that the war is over.
What will be the next step of the diaspora?
It will concentrate its immediate efforts on getting an enquiry launched into the civilan casualties. After the Second World War, international support for the Jewish people and Israel increased tremendously when the extent of the atrocities suffered by the Jewish population at the hands of the Nazis came to be known. The Tamils in the diaspora are hoping that a similar revelation by an enquiry of the sufferings of the civilian Tamils during the counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations could lead to a groundswell of support for the Tamil cause. (19-5-09)
(The writer is the Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)