B.RAMAN
The strongly-presumed hand of Mossad, the Israeli external intelligence agency, in the successful neutralisation of a Damascus-based leader of the Hamas (Mahmoud al- Mabhouh ) while he was on a visit to Dubai in January last has come in the wake of other suspected covert actions of the Mossad in recent months, which were directed against Iranian nuclear scientists, who were reportedly playing a role in the development of the uranium enrichment technology.
2.While all these operations succeeded in eliminating the intended targets who posed a threat to Israel's national security, those directed against the Iranian scientists were copybook examples of covert actions whereas the one against the Hamas leader was not.The Mossad was able to maintain the total deniability of its strikes against the Iranian scientists.Till today, Iranian intelligence officials and police investigators have not been able to find out what happened. Apart from allegations, they have no evidence of the involvement of the Mossad, which has taken care not to leave any trace of its involvement.
3. In the case of the Dubai operation, the deniability has been weak and many tell-tale traces left behind by those who participated in the alleged elimination of the Hamas leader have enabled the Dubai Police to reconstruct in a fairly convincing manner what happened.The employment of an unusually large team of agents for carrying out the action and their inability to make the closed circuit TV in the hotel non-functional have enabled the Dubai police to make a break-through in the investigation.
4. The fact that the Mossad agents decided to go ahead with the operation despite their inability to make the CCTV non-functional strongly speaks of local collusion in the covert action. Since the CCTV was presumably functioning, those in the security control room of the hotel who would have been monitoring the CCTV, would have definitely noticed the Mossad agents forcing their way into the room of the Hamas leader. The fact that they did not raise an alarm for hours, which enabled the Mossad agents to flee Dubai without being intercepted, is an indicator of collusion in the hotel.
5.Even when they travel incognito, Hamas leaders are usually accompanied by at least one person from their security set-up who takes up a room opposite the room occupied by the leader so that they could keep a look-out for any attempt to break into the room of the leader. The fact that no one intervened as the Mossad agents forced their way into the room indicates that either there was collusion by Hamas elements too or the Mossad agents had neutralised the security detail of the Hamas leader before attacking him.
6.The entire story of the covert action will never come out.Particulars of any collusion will remain unknown for some time to come.
7.The Dubai operation of the Mossad was not copy-book perfect, but it was a successful operation in the sense that the agency eliminated a worrying threat to Israel's national security and to the lives of Israeli citizens and other Jewish persons.It was an attack carried out in exercise of the right of self-defence of the Israeli nation and people.
8. Laws of all countries---including India---- provide this right of self-defence and this rigt can be exercised by individuals as well as States.
9. Those opposed to covert actions might argue that despite the repeated resort to covert actions against identified enemies of the State of Israel and its people, Israel has not succeeded in eliminating terrorism and in countering effectively States like Iran which are determined to destroy Israel. Another way of looking at it is that but for such covert actions Israel and the Jewish people might have been forced to their knees by now by their enemies. It is such successful covert actions which have enabled the State of Israel to survive and even flourish.
10.The importance of selective covert actions to ensure the security of a State and its people has been recognised by many States----democratic and authoritarian. Some States----such as the US and Israel---admit that they have a covert action capability. Others don't, but they maintain the capability clandestinely. Pakistan is an example of a State in Asia which has over the years maintained an effective covert action capability for use against India. It has followed the model of other rogue States such as North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iraq of Saddam Hussain and Sudan in using terrorism as a way of waging a covert warfare.
11. Since 1997, India has been a pathetic victim of Pakistan's covert actions waged through different terrorist organisations. Pakistan has been using terrorism as a means of covert action against India since 1981.Between 1981 and 1997, India was retaliating in its own limted manner. The policy of covert retaliation was stopped in 1997 and has been totally discarded since then.
12. None of the Indian Prime Ministers in office since 1997 has had the political will to revert to a policy of at least limited retaliation against the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and its terrorist surrogates. The result has been that our national security has been continuously endangered and our people have been dying in their hundreds. When Pakistan, through its intelligence agencies and terrorist surrogates, has been waging a relentless covert warfare against India, we cannot protect the State and the people merely by revamping our counter-terrorism atchitecture.
13. Unless we create a capability for retaliatory covert actions in a deniable manner and use that capability we will continue to bleed.
14. Between 1981 and 1997, the Prime Ministers in office followed a dual policy of "talk, talk, hit, hit" against Pakistan. They never fought shy of talking to Pakistani leaders and officials. At the same time, they never missed an opportunity to undermine the State of Pakistan covertly in retaliation against its covert actions against India.
15. Since 1997, our policy has been reduced to one of talk, talk and more talk with no retaliation even covertly. Our political leadership and large sections of our bureaucracy have no concept of the importance of covert action in an assymetric proxy war.That is the tragedy of our country. ( 19-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
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11 comments:
If Sonia Gandhi is reading this particular column then this message is for you “pls.pls.pls. It’s really time for you to prove that you are truly a daughter in law of ‘the’ Indira Gandhi.” Have mercy on us poor Indians & allow RAW free hands in its operations. I beg of you.
There have been a lot of israeli covert operations which we are yet to understand. There ability lies in there urge to resist, survive, fight back and outlive. India is yet to come out of the mahatama's shells.
Like sun tzu says, "it is important to out think the enemy than to outfight him".
The islamic conquests in india resulted in 80 million deaths. That is the high point for many pakistani's. But the fact is, we didn't submit. Sun tzu says, "casualties do not matter when you are on your way to winning". That has proved true for vietnam, iraq and afghanistan.
In that sense, the hundreds of death's in terrorists attacks are a small price to pay to win. But are we supposed to stop right there cause were winning? Can't we take some actions to restrict pakistan from launching such attacks?
Sun tzu says, "a skillful leader subdues the enemy without fighting". Attacks are either direct or indirect. Proxy warfares are part of indirect attacks. So what are the "sticks" we have at our disposal?
Sir,
In my opinion its high time our think tank on national security switch to proactive mode from defending mode.
In this era of pragmatic thinking and new methods of terrorism erupting, agencies like RAW has got bigger role to play with smooth cross functional competence and thinking from top-brass.
As rightly pointed out by you sir, May be we should do more hit, hit and less watch, watch.
Regards,
thanks a lot for this article! r we restared building some covert capability in chidambarum's tenure, i hope so
When George Bush and Tony Blair decided to attack Iraq, the whole world advised them against this. yet they went ahead and began a war. Today they are losing, only because of Bush-Blair obstinacy. Similarly, when UPA-led India has decided to re-begin peace talks with Pakistan (without Pakistan fulfilling their promises and without India holding a stick), the whole of India is advising the government against this move. I just hope we aren't walking into a similar abyss, just because of Manmohan Singh's obtinacy.
(The rest of the world supports talks for their own selfish reasons, but in their heart they too know that talks between India and Pakistan at this stage are counter-productive for India)
mr. ramans analysis is spot on!...when will our leaders realise that in the fight against paki terrorists we are all alone! running to UNKIL SAM will be of no benifit to us,i hope our intel agencies proactively carry out hits against these pig'LeT's. today hamas leaders are so scared about their future that most of the time even their kin dont know their whereabouts.we must realise that in a football match if a team puts all their player behind the halfline in defencive positions the opponents will eventually manage to score goals, so a teams statergy should be to put pressure on the opponent through offencive actions. we need to learn from history, if india wants to be a respectable power in the world it must destroy this wall which obstructs its path.
The moment government decided not hang terrorists like afzal, in the hope of gaining muslim votes, we lost half of the battle. Getting muslim votes is the priority number 1 to 10. Our government has followed the "carrot & stick" policy. Carrots for terrorists & sticks for security forces.
MMS is the worst PM for India & it's a shame that we Indians have voted for these people.
If we still had those covert operation ability then instead of asking terroristan (read pakistan) to hand over likes of Dawood and Hafiz Saeed we could have send these dogs to their 72 virgins in a hurry! These dogs should thank IK Gujral who stripped India of the covert operation ability.
In most five star hotels, unlike supermarkets, where shoplifting is an ever present nuisance, CCTV Cameras are not monitored all the time. They are there to record activity and store it for playback if there is an incident like theft. In fact, the recorded content is erased and overwritten after a specific period of time if there is no untoward incident.
So this does not prove local involvement. Compared to the bad publicity Israel and Mossad suffered, this hit did not bring Israel any strategic advantage except to stroke their ego. After all, as a news commentator wrote, people like Mahbhouh are immediately replaced and sometimes by people with better abilities.
You & your readers should also read this article...http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=/data/opinion/2010/February/opinion_February137.xml§ion=opinion
funny how subhash chandra bose was made a martyr and mabouh a terrorist when both of them were doing the same thing for their country using the same means...raman sir, wake up and shake your bias.
dear smartis Raman sir is neutral. he is neither on the side of hamas nor of Mossad. he is just looking from the perspective of operation's success or failure. & how covert actvities are initiated to achieve desirable means. india has good relation with israel as well as palestine people. hamas leader is doing his job & mossad is doing his. that's it. period.
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