A.Q.KHAN GAGGED, THREATENED WITH IN CAMERA TRIAL

B.RAMAN

There has been widespread disapproval in Pakistan of the interviews given by Dr.A.Q.Khan, the detained Pakistani nuclear scientist, to the Associated Press of the US and to the Kyodo News Agency of Japan as well as to some domestic TV channels regarding the involvement of President Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistan Army in the sale of centrifuges for uranium enrichment to North Korea in 2000. Even his traditional supporters such as the Muslim fundamentalist parties and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) of Nawaz Sharif have been embarrassed by his implicating the army as an institution in the clandestine transaction.

2. The main line of criticism is that by implicating Musharraf as the Head of State and the Army as an institution in this transaction, he has implicated Pakistan as a State in this transaction and thereby provided international critics of Pakistan with one more stick with which to beat Pakistan.

3. There was considerable confusion and panic in the Government headed by Yousef Raza Gilani over the likely consequences of his disclosures. It was decided to let the Army handle the damage control without the civilian Ministers getting involved in it. The entire damage control exercise was handled by Lt.Gen. (retd) Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, the head of the Strategic Planning Division, which, inter alia, is responsible for the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. He is thought of highly in the US and carries some credibility in the US policy-making circles. It was he and Lt.Gen. Ehsanul Haq, the then Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), who had played a role in pressurising A.Q. Khan to admit his role, in his individual capacity, in the sale of nuclear technology and equipment to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

4. As part of this damage control exercise, Kidwai invited a small group of Pakistani journalists enjoying the confidence of the Army for a briefing and refuted in detail the various allegations made by A.Q.Khan. According to these journalists, firstly, he denied that the confession of A.Q.Khan had been obtained under duress or through false promises. He asserted that the confession was made voluntarily and that A.Q.Khan himself had made some modifications in his handwriting in his confessional statement.He offered to show the confessional statement to independent Pakistani observers to prove that no force or false promises were used.

5. He said that though there was sufficient ground for prosecuting Khan, Musharraf decided not to do so keeping in view his national stature and contribution to Pakistan's quest for a nuclear capability. According to Kidwai, Musharraf pardoned Khan under two conditions. He would not talk to journalists on the subject and no fresh disclosures would come up in future which might warrant his prosecution. He accused Khan of violating the condition regarding not talking to journalists and indicated that the ban on his meeting journalists has been re-imposed. He also talked of a possible in-camera trial of Khan for endangering national security.

6. As regards the dealings with North Korea, he admitted that there was a State-to-State contract with North Korea under which Pakistan bought medium-range missiles from North Korea for cash. He projected this as a legitimate commercial transaction to which nobody can object. He denied that Pakistan had bought any long-range missiles from North Korea. He said that Khan did submit a proposal for the purchase of North Korean long-range missiles, but claimed that Musharraf did not approve it. It was not clear why he denied officially the purchase of any long-range missiles though it is widely known that the long-range missiles were also procured by Pakistan from North Korea since China had declined to sell them on the ground that their sale would be a violation of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). He apparently wanted to protect North Korea from any accusations of having violated the MTCR.

7. Kidwai vehemently denied that North Korea sold the missiles in return for the centrifuges. He maintained that the supply of the centrifuges by Khan to North Korea was an individual illegal transaction without the knowledge of the State, which had nothing to do with it. He was silent on Khan's statement that Musharraf had sent him to North Korea during the Kargil conflict with India in 1999 along with a senior Army officer to procure shoulder-fired missiles.

8. Khan has been taken aback by the widespread public disapproval of his interviews to the AP and Kyodo and has mounted a damage control exercise of his own. He has accused the AP of having distorted his remarks. He has denied having implicated the Army, but not denied having implicated Musharraf. He has denied endangering national security since the fact that the centrifuges in North Korea's possession were from Pakistan had been admitted by Musharraf himself. The only additional fact he has mentioned is that Musharraf was aware of the supply. He has also said that to avoid such distortions he has decided not to give interviews to foreign journalists in future.

9. As part of the six-power (US,Russia, China, South Korea, North Korea and Japan) talks under the auspices of China, North Korea had agreed to submit a full, verifiable declaration of its nuclear-capable assets. It has so far submitted to the group only a declaration of its assets relating to the plutonium route to an atom bomb. Pakistan had played no role in this and hence was not worried over it.

10. North Korea has been delaying the submission of a declaration relating to the enriched uranium route in which the Pakistani centrifuges were crucial. According to well-informed sources, there is considerable nervousness in the Pakistani Army over this lest the North Korean declaration, if and when it is made, does not totally corroborate the Pakistani stand that the supply of the centrifuges was a rogue operation of Khan without the knowledge of the State. According to these sources, Pakistan is hoping that China will ensure that North Korea will not cause any embarrassment to Pakistan in its declaration.

11. Annexed are two more past articles of mine on this subject. (6-7-08)

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and,presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )

ANNEXURE I

Extracts From Article of September 29,2006, titled "MUSHARRAF'S MEIN KAMPF" http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers20/paper1969.html The article was my comment on his book "In the Line of Fire" and the observations made by him in response to questions during his tour of Europe and the US in September,2006, in promotion of the book

Quote from the article: See the kind of falsehoods he has uttered in his book and during his promotional tour in West Europe and the US. I have already drawn attention to his falsehoods about the Kargil conflict in an earlier article on the book ("Musharraf: Throwing Dust in His Own Eyes"). Let me mention some others:

The Pakistani military units posted in the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant could not detect the removal of centrifuges from the plant by A. Q. Khan, the nuclear scientist, for being sent to Iran and North Korea because their job was to protect the plant from external attacks and not the prevention of internal thefts. A. Q. Khan just put the centrifuges in his car and took them away, without his car being checked.The "Daily Times" of Lahore reported as follows on September 26, 2006, on Musharraf's interview on the CBS the previous evening: "Gen Musharraf was closely questioned as to how the centrifuges that Dr Khan is charged with having supplied to North Korea and Iran could have been taken out of Pakistan’s highly-secured and military-guarded nuclear facilities undetected by the government or the army. He replied that the military was there to safeguard the facilities from outside attack. When the interviewer suggested that in that case the internal controls were a “little weak,” Gen Musharraf disagreed, asserting that they were not weak but “very strong”. He said the centrifuges, whose designs, parts and they themselves had been sent out, could easily have been placed in a car and moved out. When the interviewer wondered if 18 tonnes of equipment could have been thus removed without anyone noticing, Gen Musharraf replied that it could not have been done at one time. “It must have been transported many times” and thereafter put on a C-130 and flown out. All the C-130s in the country are owned and flown by the Pakistan Air Force, but this question was not put to the President. Asked if the reason nobody from outside had been allowed to talk to Dr Khan was the fear that he might incriminate the army, the President replied, “That is absolutely not the case,” adding that US President Bush and CIA’s George Tenet are “very satisfied and quite comfortable with whatever we have done”.Musharraf has insinuated that there were some Indians working in the Dubai network of A. Q. Khan, who "disappeared" after the network was detected by the US and speculated that Pakistan's enrichment technology must have leaked to India through them. He has not named these so-called Indians in A. Q. Khan's Dubai network. Nor has he indicated why the detailed investigations made by the intelligence agencies of the US and other countries and by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of Vienna have not brought out any "disappeared" Indians. Buhary Seyed Abu Tahir, who headed A. Q. Kan's Dubai network and who set up a plant in Malaysia for the clandestine manufacture of new centrifuges at the instance of A. Q. Khan, was a Sri Lankan Muslim of Indian origin, who subsequently married a Malaysian and settled down in Malaysia. He has not disappeared. He was arrested and interrogated by the Malaysian Police. Why has he not said anything about the so-called "disappeared" Indians? Ever since the Indo-US deal for civil nuclear co-operation was signed in July last year, Ms. Shireen Mazari, the Pakistani analyst, who wrote a book on the Kargil conflict at the instance of Musharraf, has been spreading nuclear canards about India allegedly supplying nuclear technology to Iran, Iraq and other countries. The story of the so-called "disappeared" Indians was also her canard, which Musharraf has borrowed."

ANNEXURE II
26. 10. 2006

NUCLEAR NORTH KOREA: NERVOUSNESS IN PAKISTAN http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers21/paper2004.html

According to well-informed sources in Pakistan of well-established credibility, there is nervousness in Pakistan that fresh enquiries by the US into North Korea's nuclear capability might bring out hitherto unknown (to the international community) information relating to co-operation between Pakistan and North Korea in the nuclear and missile fields. These sources say that Maj. Gen. (retd) Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistan's Ambassador to the US, who is a close personal friend of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has informed Gen. Musharraf that after the North Korean nuclear test of October 9, 2006, the US intelligence has been asked to do an update of a National Intelligence Estimate of 2002 on Pakistan-North Korea nuclear co-operation and to talk to Mrs. Benazir Bhutto and Mr. Nawaz Sharif, former Pakistani Prime Ministers, about it. Details of the reported National Intelligence Estimate were given by Mr. Seymour Hersh, the well-known investigative journalist, in an article published by the New Yorker magazine on January 27, 2003. A copy of the article is annexed.

2. While Pakistan's military relationship with North Korea in the field of purchase and joint development of conventional weapons dates back to the period before the outbreak of the Indo-Pak war of 1971, the co-operation in the missile and nuclear fields dates back to the visit of Mrs. Benazir Bhutto, the then Prime Minister, to Pyongyang in 1993. The visit and the resulting discussions on bilateral co-operation in the field of missile purchase and development were facilitated by China.

3. The Chinese entities, which were supplying the M-9 and M-11 missiles to Pakistan, had come under intense scrutiny by the US during the tenure (1988-92) of Mr. George Bush, the father of the present President, and the subsequent tenure of President Bill Clinton. This pressure partly contributed to the Chinese decision to put Pakistan in touch with North Korea and facilitate the acquisition of North Korean missiles and related technology by Islamabad. Mrs. Bhutto's talks in Pyongyang were successful and led to the signing of a formal agreement on this subject in 1995.

4. Pakistan's missile and nuclear relationship with North Korea since then has proceeded as follows:
· 1993-97: The co-operation was confined to missiles and missile-related technology.
· 1997-2003: The co-operation was expanded to cover the nuclear field. What was initially a missile for cash and wheat deal became a missiles and missile know-how for nuclear material and nuclear know-how barter deal. This decision to convert it into a barter deal was attributable partly to the cash crunch faced by Pakistan, the difficulties faced by Pakistan in procuring wheat from abroad for supplying to North Korea and North Korea's decision to go nuclear and the reported Chinese reluctance to help it directly since the Chinese nuclear entities were under close watch by the US intelligence. The Pakistan-North Korea nuclear co-operation took the form of transfer of know-how, visits of North Korean nuclear scientists to Pakistani nuclear establishments, the presence of North Korean nuclear scientists during the nuclear tests carried out by Pakistan at Chagai in May, 1998, and the supply of centrifuges for uranium enrichment to North Korea.

5. Till 2000, the transport of missiles and nuclear material in the two directions was mainly by sea and air. During the Clinton Administration, Mr. Richard Armitage, who was at that time doing security consultancy work, was commissioned by a Congressional Committee to prepare a paper on how to prevent the clandestine transport of nuclear-related material by sea. He presented a paper on this subject to the Committee and also gave an oral testimony. He suggested interdiction of suspected ships and proposed other ideas, which became the subsequent basis of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) under the Bush Administration. Mr. Armitage, who functioned as the Deputy Secretary of State during the first tenure of Mr. Bush, continued to take interest in the subject of interdictions as one of the options to prevent proliferation.

6. This led to a re-examination by Pakistan and North Korea----with the reported knowledge of China--- of the mode of a transport used till then and to the decision to transport the material thereafter by train via China and by road from the Xinjiang Province of China via the Karakoram Highway, initially built with Chinese assistance in the 1960s and the 1970s and now being upgraded, also with Chinese assistance.

7. The policy of General Pervez Musharraf has been to accept only those aspects of the co-operation about which the US has obtained credible evidence and deny the rest and to put all the blame on Dr. A. Q. Khan, the nuclear scientist. Till 2003, Musharraf denied the supply of centrifuges and admitted it only after it had been established by the US. He has not so far admitted any Pakistani role in assisting North Korea in the field of plutonium re-processing and the use of the overland route for the proliferation activities.

8. The nervousness in Islamabad after the North Korean nuclear test is due to, firstly, fears that fresh enquiries by the US might bring out hitherto unadmitted (by Pakistan) aspects of its co-operation with North Korea; secondly, fears that the pressure on it to hand over A. Q. Khan for interrogation by US investigators might increase; and, thirdly, that Mrs. Benazir Bhutto and Mr. Nawaz Sharif, who were considerably in the picture about this c-operation, might reveal the details to the US because of their anger over Musharraf's refusal to let them return to Pakistan and contest next year's elections to the National Assembly. If rightly approached by the US, Mrs. Bhutto and Mr. Sharif might be inclined to speak about the role of the Army---particularly Musharraf--in this co-operation, but not about their own role. According to these sources, Musharraf is particularly nervous that Mrs. Bhutto, who is more knowledgeable than Mr. Sharif, might start talking about this co-operation with the Americans. It is to pre-empt her doing so that he has reportedly been trying to make some political overtures to her.

9. The present visit to the US of Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai, the head of Pakistan's Strategic Plan Division, who oversees the nuclear and missile programme on behalf of Musharraf---whether the visit it is at his instance or in response to a summons from the US-- is being utilised by him to remove any misperceptions in the US about Pakistan's role, explain its reluctance to hand over Khan and to project Pakistan as willing to co-operate with the US in any further investigation. He has been meeting Congressional aides---since most Congressmen are busy with the Congressional elections-- research scholars of think-tanks and proliferation experts. He also held an unattributable (to him) briefing for the media in the Pakistani Embassy in Washington.

10. During his interactions, Lt. Gen. Kidwai has reportedly been making the following points:
· A. Q. Khan gave the centrifuges to North Korea for the low grade enrichment of uranium for the production of electricity and not high grade enrichment for military purposes.
· A. Q. Khan has had no role in helping North Korea in respect of the plutonium reprocessing technology or weapon design.
· However, if the US wants fresh enquiries to be made, Pakistan will be willing to co-operate without handing over Khan.

11. He has also been utilising the opportunity of his interactions to stress upon the US policy-makers the need to have a second look at the US-India civilian nuclear co-operation deal in the light of the North Korean nuclear test. His argument has been: either put the deal with India in the cold storage or if the US has to go ahead with it, treat Pakistan on par with India. He has also been making the point that China has offered to supply six more nuclear power stations to Pakistan and that it will not be in the US interest for Pakistan to become dependent on China because of the US' discriminatory attitude.

ANNEXURE TO THE ABOVE ARTICLE

THE COLD TEST

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

What the Administration knew about Pakistan and the North Korean nuclear program.

Last June, four months before the current crisis over North Korea became public, the Central Intelligence Agency delivered a comprehensive analysis of North Korea's nuclear ambitions to President Bush and his top advisers. The document, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, was classified as Top Secret S.C.I. (for "sensitive compartmented information"), and its distribution within the government was tightly restricted. The C.I.A. report made the case that North Korea had been violating international law—and agreements with South Korea and the United States—by secretly obtaining the means to produce weapons-grade uranium.

The document's most politically sensitive information, however, was about Pakistan. Since 1997, the C.I.A. said, Pakistan had been sharing sophisticated technology, warhead-design information, and weapons-testing data with the Pyongyang regime. Pakistan, one of the Bush Administration's important allies in the war against terrorism, was helping North Korea build the bomb.
In 1985, North Korea signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which led to the opening of most of its nuclear sites to international inspection. By the early nineteen-nineties, it became evident to American intelligence agencies and international inspectors that the North Koreans were reprocessing more spent fuel than they had declared, and might have separated enough plutonium, a reactor by-product, to fabricate one or two nuclear weapons. The resulting diplomatic crisis was resolved when North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, entered into an agreement with the Clinton Administration to stop the nuclear-weapons program in return for economic aid and the construction of two light-water nuclear reactors that, under safeguards, would generate electricity.

Within three years, however, North Korea had begun using a second method to acquire fissile material. This time, instead of using spent fuel, scientists were trying to produce weapons-grade uranium from natural uranium—with Pakistani technology. One American intelligence official, referring to the C.I.A. report, told me, "It points a clear finger at the Pakistanis. The technical stuff is crystal clear—not hedged and not ambivalent." Referring to North Korea's plutonium project in the early nineteen-nineties, he said, "Before, they were sneaking." Now "it's off the wall. We know they can do a lot more and a lot more quickly."

North Korea is economically isolated; one of its main sources of export income is arms sales, and its most sought-after products are missiles. And one of its customers has been Pakistan, which has a nuclear arsenal of its own but needs the missiles to more effectively deliver the warheads to the interior of its rival, India. In 1997, according to the C.I.A. report, Pakistan began paying for missile systems from North Korea in part by sharing its nuclear-weapons secrets. According to the report, Pakistan sent prototypes of high-speed centrifuge machines to North Korea. And sometime in 2001 North Korean scientists began to enrich uranium in significant quantities. Pakistan also provided data on how to build and test a uranium-triggered nuclear weapon, the C.I.A. report said.
It had taken Pakistan a decade of experimentation, and a substantial financial investment, before it was able to produce reliable centrifuges; with Pakistan's help, the North Koreans had "chopped many years off" the development process, the intelligence official noted. It is not known how many centrifuges are now being operated in North Korea or where the facilities are. (They are assumed to be in underground caves.) The Pakistani centrifuges, the official said, are slim cylinders, roughly six feet in height, that could be shipped "by the hundreds" in cargo planes. But, he added, "all Pakistan would have to do is give the North Koreans the blueprints. They are very sophisticated in their engineering." And with a few thousand centrifuges, he said, "North Korea could have enough fissile material to manufacture two or three warheads a year, with something left over to sell."

A former senior Pakistani official told me that his government's contacts with North Korea increased dramatically in 1997; the Pakistani economy had foundered, and there was "no more money" to pay for North Korean missile support, so the Pakistani government began paying for missiles by providing "some of the know-how and the specifics." Pakistan helped North Korea conduct a series of "cold tests," simulated nuclear explosions, using natural uranium, which are necessary to determine whether a nuclear device will detonate properly. Pakistan also gave the North Korean intelligence service advice on "how to fly under the radar," as the former official put it—that is, how to hide nuclear research from American satellites and U.S. and South Korean intelligence agents.

Whether North Korea had actually begun to build warheads was not known at the time of the 1994 crisis and is still not known today, according to the C.I.A. report. The report, those who have read it say, included separate and contradictory estimates from the C.I.A., the Pentagon, the State Department, and the Department of Energy regarding the number of warheads that North Korea might have been capable of making, and provided no consensus on whether or not the Pyongyang regime is actually producing them.

Over the years, there have been sporadic reports of North Korea's contacts with Pakistan, most of them concerning missile sales. Much less has been known about nuclear ties. In the past decade, American intelligence tracked at least thirteen visits to North Korea made by A. Q. Khan, who was then the director of a Pakistani weapons-research laboratory, and who is known as the father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb. This October, after news of the uranium program came out, the Times ran a story suggesting that Pakistan was a possible supplier of centrifuges to North Korea. General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's leader, attacked the account as "absolutely baseless," and added, "There is no such thing as collaboration with North Korea in the nuclear area." The White House appeared to take the Musharraf statement at face value. In November, Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters he had been assured by Musharraf that Pakistan was not currently engaging in any nuclear transactions with North Korea. "I have made clear to him that any . . . contact between Pakistan and North Korea we believe would be improper, inappropriate, and would have consequences," Powell said. "President Musharraf understands the seriousness of the issue." After that, Pakistan quickly faded from press coverage of the North Korea story.

The Bush Administration may have few good options with regard to Pakistan, given the country's role in the war on terror. Within two weeks of September 11th, Bush lifted the sanctions that had been imposed on Pakistan because of its nuclear-weapons activities. In the view of American disarmament experts, the sanctions had in any case failed to deal with one troubling issue: the close ties between some scientists working for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and radical Islamic groups. "There is an awful lot of Al Qaeda sympathy within Pakistan's nuclear program," an intelligence official told me. One American nonproliferation expert said, "Right now, the most dangerous country in the world is Pakistan. If we're incinerated next week, it'll be because of H.E.U."—highly enriched uranium—"that was given to Al Qaeda by Pakistan."

Pakistan's relative poverty could pose additional risks. In early January, a Web-based Pakistani-exile newspaper opposed to the Musharraf government reported that, in the past six years, nine nuclear scientists had emigrated from Pakistan—apparently in search of better pay—and could not be located.
An American intelligence official I spoke with called Pakistan's behavior the "worst nightmare" of the international arms-control community: a Third World country becoming an instrument of proliferation. "The West's primary control of nuclear proliferation was based on technology denial and diplomacy," the official said. "Our fear was, first, that a Third World country would develop nuclear weapons indigenously; and, second, that it would then provide the technology to other countries. This is profound. It changes the world."

Pakistan's nuclear program flourished in the nineteen-eighties, at a time when its military and intelligence forces were working closely with the United States to repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The official said, "The transfer of enrichment technology by Pakistan is a direct outgrowth of the failure of the United States to deal with the Pakistani program when we could have done so. We've lost control."

The C.I.A. report remained unpublicized throughout the summer and early fall, as the Administration concentrated on laying the groundwork for a war with Iraq. Many officials in the Administration's own arms-control offices were unaware of the report. "It was held very tightly," an official told me. "Compartmentalization is used to protect sensitive sources who can get killed if their information is made known, but it's also used for controlling sensitive information for political reasons."

One American nonproliferation expert said that, given the findings in the June report, he was dismayed that the Administration had not made the information available. "It's important to convey to the American people that the North Korean situation presented us with an enormous military and political crisis," he said. "This goes to the heart of North Asian security, to the future of Japan and South Korea, and to the future of the broader issue of nonproliferation."

A Japanese diplomat who has been closely involved in Korean affairs defended the Bush Administration's delay in publicly dealing with the crisis. Referring to the report, he said, "If the intelligence assessment was correct, you have to think of the implications. Disclosure of information is not always instant. You need some time to assess the content." He added, "To have a dialogue, you really have to find the right time and the right conditions. So far, President Bush has done the right thing, from our perspective." (The White House and the C.I.A. did not respond to requests for comment.)

NUCLEAR WAL-MART: US AS GUILTY OF COVER-UP AS PAKISTAN

B.RAMAN

I do not wish it, but I apprehend that if there is an act of terrorism involving nuclear material in the US homeland by Al Qaeda, it would have originated from Pakistani territory and Al Qaeda would have most probably acqired the material either from Pakistan or from one of the Central Asian Republics. And Al Qaeda's acquisition of the nuclear material and the expertise in using it would have been facilitated by the US role in the cover-up of the involvement of the late Gen.Zia-ul-Haq,Gen.Pervez Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in the nuclear trade indulged in Dr.A.Q.Khan and others on the orders of and with the total knowledge and support of Musharraf, Benazir and Nawaz.

2. There has been a well-staged drama going on for three years now as if the US is anxious that A.Q. Khan be subjected to interrogation by experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna, in order to find out the full ramifications of the nuclear trade and to establish whether non-state actors might have also been beneficiaries of this trade, but it does not want to exercise too much pressure on Musharraf lest he incur the wrath of his people.

3. The truth of the matter is that it is not only Musharraf and other Pakistani leaders, who do not want the truth to come out. Even the US does not want the entire truth to come out since it would show that it was all the time aware of the involvement of Pakistani military and political leaders in this trade, but preferred to close its eyes to it for geopolitical reasons. It went after the Pakistani scientists----but not after the Pakistani political leaders and military officers--- only after the dangers of Al Qaeda getting hold of the nuclear material and expertise from Pakistan increased.That too, it went about it in a careful manner in order to spare any embarrassment for the Pakistani leaders and military officers and for its own policy-makers, who were projecting the post-9/11 Musharraf as the greatest thing that could have happened to Pakistan and the world.

4. Now that A.Q Khan is out of the bottle, he is going after Musharraf with a vengeance by claiming that whatever he did in assisting North Korea for achieving an uranium enrichment capability was within the knowledge of Musharraf and on his orders. He is not yet speaking of the US, but wait and see. I am reliably told that he is planning to come out with a statement that the US was aware of Zia-ul-Haq's decision to give the military nuclear technology to Iran, but it kept quiet because of the helpful role being played by Zia in the proxy war against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

5. Unless, of course, to stop him from making any more damaging disclosures, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has him eliminated and shows his death as due to natural causes since he was a cardiac patient and suffering from other ailments. Before the ISI, with the collusion of all the Pakistani leaders and military officers involved in this trade, has Dr.A.Q.Khan eliminated in the doctor's cabin, the IAEA should get hold of him and take him out of the country.

6. But, of course, A.Q.Khan, in foreign custody may not be as talkative and as co-operative as A.Q.Khan in Pakistani territory, but the chance has to be taken.

7. Since the restrictions on his interacting with Pakistani and foreign journalists were relaxed by the present Government, he has been making one damaging disclosure after another, but his earlier disclosures merely related to his claiming that the statements made by him in the past were made under duress. Previously, he did not give any details of the nuclear trade. Now, he has started giving these details in respect of North Korea, which is not an Islamic country.

8. The "Dawn" of Karachi of July 5,2008, has reported as follows: " Detained nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan on Friday accused President Pervez Musharraf and the army of being involved in transferring nuclear technology to North Korea. He said no sensitive shipment could be sent to any country from any airport in Pakistan without the knowledge and supervision of the army. “People know that a military aircraft or a foreign country’s plane was used for sending the consignment,” he said. In one of his statements, Dr Khan said that the uranium enrichment equipment had been sent from Pakistan in a North Korean plane which was loaded under the supervision of Pakistani security officials. Asked what was his involvement in the transfer of nuclear technology, he said only that centrifuges had been picked from Kahuta.Dr Khan said the army had “complete knowledge” of the shipment of used P-1 centrifuges to North Korea and that it must have been sent with the consent of Musharraf, who was the army chief and president. “It was a North Korean plane and the army had complete knowledge about it and the equipment,” Dr Khan said.“It must have gone with his (Musharraf’s) consent.” When asked why had he taken the sole responsibility for the nuclear proliferation, Dr Khan said he had been persuaded to do so by friends, including PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujjat Hussain, a key figure in the ruling party at the time. They said that it was in the best national interest. He said that he had been promised complete freedom in return, but “those promises were not honoured”. Dr Khan also said that he had travelled to North Korea in 1999 with a Pakistan army general to buy shoulder-launched missiles." “No flight, no equipment could go outside without the clearance from the ISI and SPD and they used to be at the airport, not me,” Dr Khan said, referring to the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency and the Strategic Planning Division that manages Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.Dr Khan said he had visited North Korea twice, in 1994 and then in 1999, when he was sent to procure missiles during the so-called Kargil conflict. Dr Khan told Kyodo that the missiles were shoulder-fired SA 15. Dr Khan told AP that Musharraf had requested him to make the second trip and he did so accompanied on a special plane by General Iftikhar Hussain Shah."

9. For many years, I have been reporting in detail about the involvement of senior Pakistani Army officers and political leaders in the supply of military nuclear technology to North Korea in return for the supply of long-range missiles and connected technology by North Korea to Pakistan. I have also been reporting in some detail about the triangular strategic co-operation involving Pakistan, North Korea and Iran for over two decades.Almost everything---conventional weapons or missiles---that went to Iran from North Korea went via Pakistan. North Korea's long-range missile development programme was funded by Iranian money funnelled through Pakistan.

10. The entire missile arsenal of Pakistan is of Chinese or North Korean origin, even though Musharraf and others claim that it is totally of indigenous origin. Has any other country in the world claimed to have carried out so many missile tests as Pakistan has since Musharraf came to power? Does Pakistan have the know-how and capability for manufacturing so many missiles one after the other in quick succession? So many long-range missiles in Pakistan's possession speak of the voluminous nature of the missile supplies by North Korea. If North Korea has given so many missiles to Pakistan for use against India, it is reasonable to apprehend that it has sold an equal number, if not more, to Iran for possible use against Israel.

11. The truth of the extent of the involvement of Pakistan and Iran --- separately of each other as well as jointly--- has to be found out in the interest of international peace and security.

12. The entire truth can be found out only if the US wants it to be found out, even at the risk of exposing the past mistakes of its policy of supporting and pampering Pakistan, right or wrong.

13. Does the US want the truth to be found out?
14. Since Pakistan tested its first North Korean missile in 1998, I had written over a dozen articles on Pakistan's nuclear Wal-mart. I am annexing two of them. (5-7-08)

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )

ANNEXURE I

From my paper of April 7, 2003, titled "THE PAKISTANI-NORTH KOREAN WMD AXIS" (http://www.saag.org/papers7/paper654.html). This was also published by the "Indian Defence Review" (January-March,2003) of the Lancer Publishers And Distributors of New Delhi .

Quote Pakistan’s arms supply relationship with North Korea dates back to 1971 when the late Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, the then Foreign Minister under the late Gen. Yahya Khan, visited Pyongyang and sought North Korean arms supplies to strengthen the Pakistani Armed Forces in the face of a looming war with India. Pakistan then did not have diplomatic relations with North Korea. However, the visit led to the signing of an agreement on September 18,1971, 10 weeks before the outbreak of the war with India, for the supply of North Korean-made conventional weapons to Pakistan. Under another agreement signed the same day, the two countries agreed to set up mutual consular relations, which were upgraded to full-fledged diplomatic relations on November 9,1972.

Under the agreement of September 18,1971, Pakistan received from North Korea, in return for payment in US dollars, many shipments of items such as rocket launchers, ammunition etc. In the 1980s, Pakistan also acted as an intermediary in facilitating arms supply agreements concluded by Pyongyang with Libya and Iran. During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, North Korea became a principal supplier of weapons to Iran, which was the target of an arms embargo imposed by the Western countries. To escape detection by the Western intelligence agencies, North Korean arms shipments meant for Iran used to be received by sea at Karachi and from there transported in Pakistani trucks to Iran across Balochistan. Amongst the supplies made by North Korea to Iran via Karachi were over 100 Scud B (known as the Hwasong 5 in North Korea) ballistic missiles and equipment for the assembly, maintenance and ultimate production of these missiles in Iranian territory.

In this transaction, Pakistan played a double game. On the one hand, the then ruling military regime of the late Zia-ul-Haq collaborated with the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Iraqi intelligence in destabilisation operations directed at the Sunni Balochis living on the Iranian side of the border. At the same time, it clandestinely allowed the transport by road of North Korean arms and ammunition meant for use by the Iranian Army against the Iraqis. Pakistani army officers were also sent to Libya to help in the training of Libyan Army officers in the use and maintenance of North Korean weaponry.

During the Zia regime, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and its North Korean counterpart collaborated closely for the clandestine acquisition of nuclear and missile-related equipment and technology from the then West Germany and other Western countries. Since North Korea did not have either a presence or the funds and other capability to be able to indulge in clandestine procurement from the West, it gave lists of its requirements to the ISI, which procured them and passed them on.

This co-operation between the two countries, the foundation for which was laid by Z. A.Bhutto, was further strengthened during the two tenures of Mrs.Benazir Bhutto as the Prime Minister (1988-90 and 1993-96). It was during this time that Pakistan failed in its efforts to develop an indigenous missile production capability (the Hatf series) and it sought Chinese and North Korean supplies of missiles as well as technology for their production in Pakistan. During her second tenure, Benazir visited Pyongyang during which the scope of the arms supply agreement concluded when her father was the Foreign Minister was expanded to include co-operation in the nuclear and missile fields---including the training of the scientists and engineers of the KRL (Kahuta Research Laboratories) in North Korea, the training of North Korean scientists and engineers in the Pakistani uranium enrichment plant at Kahuta and the supply of the No-Dong missiles and the related technology to Pakistan.

Earlier, during the first tenure (1990-93) of Nawaz Sharif as the Prime Minister, Lt.Gen.Javed Nasir, the Director-General of the ISI, visited Pyongyang to sign a secret agreement with the North Korean intelligence for the joint production through reverse engineering of the US-made, shoulder-fired Stinger missiles and their batteries. Some of the missiles in the stock of the Pakistani army were given to the North Korean intelligence for this purpose. The Iranian intelligence agreed to fund this project. It is not known whether this project succeeded in producing an imitated version of the Stingers and their batteries. The ISI was particularly interested in the batteries because it was unable to use a large number of Stinger missiles in its stocks since the life-period of the batteries supplied by the USA before 1988 to enable the use of these missiles against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan had expired.

Throughout the 1990s, whoever was at the helm in Islamabad, the trilateral co-operation involving Pakistan, Iran and North Korea in the development and production of the Scud—C (called Hwasong 6 in North Korea) and the No-Dong missiles continued without interruption despite Teheran’s anger against Pakistan for backing the Taliban and for failing to prevent the periodic massacre of Pakistani Shias and Iranian nationals by the Sunni extremist Sipah-e-Sahaba, Pakistan, and its militant wing, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ).

During 1992, when Nawaz Sharif was the Prime Minister, a team of Pakistani scientists and engineers had visited North Korea’s missile development centre, reportedly for a joint examination of some technical problems encountered by North Korea in the development of the No-Dong. The same year also saw a visit by Kim Yong-nam, the then North Korean Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, to Syria, Iran and Pakistan in July-August. Pakistani and Iranian scientists and engineers visited North Korea in May,1993, to witness the launching of one No-Dong and three Scud missiles (model not known).

The visit of Benazir to Beijing and Pyongyang in December,1993, was followed by the visits of a number of North Korean personalities to Pakistan in 1994-95 to discuss bilateral nuclear and missile co-operation. Important amongst these visits were:
* During April,1994, Pak Chung-kuk, deputy to the Supreme People's Assembly, visited Iran and Pakistan at the head of a team of officials of the North Korean Foreign Ministry and the nuclear and missile establishment.
* During September,1994, Choe Hui-chong, Chairman of the State Commission of Science and Technology, visited Pakistan at the head of a team of North Korean nuclear and missile experts.
* During November 1995, a delegation of North Korean military officers and nuclear and missile experts headed by Choe Kwang,Vice Chairman of the National Defense Commission, Minister of the People's Armed Forces, and Marshal of the Korean People's Army, visited Pakistan. The delegation met senior officials of the Armed Forces and visited Pakistan’s nuclear and missile establishments, including the KRL The team included senior officials of the Fouth Machine Industry Bureau of the Second Economic Committee and the Changgwang Sinyong Corporation ( also known as the North Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation). During the visit, the KRL and the Changgwang Sinyong Corporation signed an agreement for the supply to Pakistan of the No-Dong missiles as well as fuel tanks and rocket engines. The agreement also provided for the stationing of North Korean missile experts in the KRL for the training of their Pakistani counterparts in the use and maintenance of the missiles supplied by North Korea and for the supply and development of mobile erector launchers for the missiles.

These visits contributed to the speeding up of Pakistan’s missile programme and culminated in the firing of the so-called Ghauri missile by the KRL on April 6,1998, which was projected by Pakistan as its own indigenously-developed missile. Despite this, the US State Department imposed two-year sanctions against the KRL and the Changgwang Sinyong Corporation on April 24, 1998, which expired on April 23, 2000. The KRL had earlier been the subject of similar sanctions imposed by the State Department in August 1993 for its clandestine procurement of the M-11 missiles from China.

Thus, the sanctions imposed on March 24, 2003, are the third against the KRL. These sanctions have had no effect either on Pakistan or North Korea. The KRL and the North Korean Corporation are State-owned entities, run and managed by officers of the Armed Forces of the two countries. Pakistan had used a US-supplied aircraft of its Air Force for transporting the missiles to Pakistan. The missiles and other weapons sent by North Korea to Iran in the 1980s had transited through Pakistani territory, escorted by the Pakistan Army. Pakistan and North Korea have a joint project for the reverse engineering of the US-made Stingers. North Korean nuclear scientists witnessed Pakistan’s Chagai nuclear tests of May,1998. Pakistan has been helping North Korea in the development of its uranium enrichment facility. The two countries have been training each other’s nuclear and missile scientists in their respective establishments. In return for the North Korean assistance, Pakistan had diverted to North Korea wheat purchased from the USA and Australia and had been paying it from its huge dollar reserves built up after 9/11, thereby enabling Pyongyang to withstand the economic boycott by the West. To hoodwink the US intelligence, Pakistan had got transported some of the Chinese as well as North Korean missiles by road via the Karakoram Highway. Pakistan's diplomatic mission in Pyongyang is generally headed and staffed by serving or retired army officers, who had previously served in the clandestine nuclear and missile procurement set-up of the ISI. The latest instance in this regard is Maj.Gen. (retd) Fazle Ghafoor.

In spite of all this, for the US to pretend as if the repeated violations of nuclear and missile related regulations by Pakistan were the misdeeds of errant individual entities for which the State cannot be held responsible shows the extent to which it is prepared to close its eyes to what Pakistan has been doing.
If there is one country in the world which has been systematically violating with impunity all regulations relating to nuclear and missile proliferation and from which there is a real danger of leakage of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and related technologies to pan-Islamic terrorists, that is Pakistan. The US double standards in this matter are evident from the alacrity and vigour with which it has acted against Iraq despite the lack of any credible evidence against it and the care with which it protects the regime in Pakistan, despite all the evidence available against it.Unquote.

ANNEXURE II

A.Q.KHAN & OSAMA BIN LADEN http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers10/paper960.html 24-3-04

Gen.Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's US-blessed military dictator, continues to assert, without any fears of contradiction or punitive action by the US, that the action of a group of scientists of Pakistan headed by A.Q.Khan in clandestinely selling or transfering military nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea was a rogue operation without the knowledge or approval of the political or military leadership of the country.

2. In his latest assertion on the subject, he told the CNN, the US TV channel, in an interview on March 19, 2004, as follows: " I am extremely positive neither the Government nor the military was involved. The Pakistan Government had carried out investigations into the episode and concluded that it was these individuals who carried out the proliferation of nuclear technology."

3. His repeatedly-asserted contention has been that after the interception by the intelligence agencies of the US and the UK of a ship in October last year which was found carrying to Libya a clandestine consignment of centrifuges for uranium enrichment got manufactured at the instance of A.Q.Khan by a company in Malaysia with the assistance of a Sri Lankan Muslim, he became aware of the extensive non-proliferation activities of the A.Q.Khan group and immediately acted against them.

4. According to Musharraf, details of the clandestine travels and proliferation network of A.Q. Khan came to notice during the subsequent investigation. In one of his statements, he has even blamed the US intelligence agencies for not uncovering this network earlier than October last year and asserted that if they had done so, he would have acted against it even earlier.

5. Not many experts and analysts of the world have been convinced of the innocence of Pakistan's military in this affair. Many of us, including this writer, have been pointing out that this proliferation started and continued at the instance and with the blessing of Pakistan's military leadership. I have also been pointing out in many articles that while the late Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan's military dictator, who ruled the country from 1977 to 1988, authorised the proliferation to Iran, Musharraf himself had authorised that to Libya and North Korea and was totally in the picture.

6. But, unfortunately, for reasons of realpolitik, the US Administration has chosen to accept the denials of military responsibility by Musharraf. It has not only given him a clean chit, but has even rewarded him and his country by confering on it the status of a Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA).

7. Despite the efforts of Musharraf, with the benediction of the US, to keep his cupboard tightly shut to prevent the discovery of any more skeletons, nuclear skeletons keep propping up here, there and everywhere much to his consternation. The skeletons are there everywhere if only the US wants to look at them.

8. Was the discovery of the centrifuges in the ship intercepted last October the first wake-up call as contended by Musharraf? No.

9. In 2000, Abdul Ma"bood Siddiqui, a London-based chartered accountant of Pakistani origin, had written a book on his reminiscences, which was published by the Hurmat Publications of Islamabad. In that book, Siddiqui claimed to be a close personal friend of A.Q.Khan and to have accompanied him in at least three of his travels abroad. He gives the following details of these travels:

(Citation starts) "In February,1998, I received a call from Tahir Mian (My comments: He is the Sri Lankan Tamil who helped A.Q.Khan by getting the centrifuges manufactured in Malaysia), a dear friend of mine and a very close associate of Dr.Khan. He said that A.Q.Khan is planning a visit to Timbuktu and you are invited to join him. My joy knew no bounds at the prospect of spending a few days with A.Q.Khan. I reached Dubai on 19 February 1998 and met Dr.A.Q.Khan. He had with him one Mr. Hanks, a Dutch businessman dealing in air filtration system, solar energy, metallurgical machinery and materials. Lt.Gen.Dr. Chauhan, former Surgeon-General of Pakistan Army and now Director-General of Medical Services Division of KRL ( My comments: The Khan Research Laboratories of Kahuta, which produces enriched uranium for atomic bombs) and Brig.Sajawal. Dr.Khan told us that we would fly to Timbuktu via Casablanca in Morocco and Bamako, capital of Mali. (My comments: Mr.Nawaz Sharif was the Prime Minister at that time)

"At Casablanca, the First Secretary of Pakistan Embassy, Mr.Inayatullah Kakar, received us. The Honorary Consul-General of Pakistan in Morocco Hussain bin Jiloon gave a dinner in honour of Dr.Khan, which was also attended by our Ambassador Azmat Hussain. Next day, we caught the Royal Morocco Airline for Bamako. From Bamako, a plane was chartered for US $ 4,000 to take us to Timbuktu. We had only a few hours at Timbuktu, which we spent in sight-seeing. We returned to Dubai by the same route.

" Next I met Dr.Khan on 28 June 1998 in Kuala Lumpur at the wedding of Tahir Mian. (My comment: Nawaz Sharif was still in power). It was decided there to make another trip to Timbuktu because the last visit was short and we could not see much of the city. I got the summons in February 1999 and was on my way to Dubai on 19 February 1999. (My comment: Nawaz Sharif still in power) Dr.Khan was already there with his old group with additions of Dr.Fakhrul Hasan Hashmi, Chief Scientific Adviser to Dr.A.Q.Khan, Brig.Tajwar, Director-General Security KRL, and Dr.Nazir Ahmed, Director-General S&TC Division KRL. Dr.Khan told us that this time we would take a different route to Timbuktu. We will fly there via Sudan and Nigeria.

" We left Dubai for Khartoum on 21 February 1999. The Education Minister of Sudan received the group and we were lodged at the State Guest House. After making a short stopover in a Nigerian city, we reached Timbuktu on 24 February 1999. After spending a couple of days, we were on our way back and our first stop was Niamey, capital of Niger. Our next stop was N'Djamena, capital of Chad, where we were accorded official protocol. Next day, we flew to Khartoum. After Dr.Khan has attended to some business, we visited the Shifa factory that was destroyed last year by the American missiles. Dr.Khan met the Sudanese President. We were back in Dubai on 28 February 1999.

" We were again airborne for Timbuktu on 20 February 2000 (My comments: Musharraf had seized power on October 12,1999) From Dubai, we flew to Khartoum, where two Sudanese friends joined us. We reached Niamey, capital of Niger, on 22 February 2000. Our Ambassador Brig. Nisar welcomed the group and gave a dinner in honour of Dr.Khan. Brig.Nisar had also served as the Military Secretary of Nawaz Sharif. Niger has big uranium deposits. We reached Timbuktu on 24 February 2000 for a stay of two days and were lodged in the newly-built (completed in December 1999) Hotel La Colombe. We started the return journey on 26 February 2000 touching various countries on the way. We broke our journey in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, where First Secretary in the Pakistan Embassy Mr.Najmus Saqib, welcomed us. We were back in Dubai on 29 February 2000 after having visited 10 African countries."

10. These accounts of three of the travels of Dr.A.Q.Khan establish conclusively the following facts:
* He had kept the Pakistani Foreign Office informed of his travels. The Foreign Office had instructed the Pakistani diplomatic missions in the countries visited by him to accord the due honours of protocol to him.* In all the countries, he was received by officers of the Pakistani diplomatic missions and entertained by the heads of missions.
* In Sudan, he was accorded the honours of protocol generally given to a member of the Cabinet and called on the President of the country.
* He was accompanied by senior serving scientists of Pakistan's nuclear establishment, who were among those responsible for Pakistan's military nuclear development. They could not have gone abroad and remained absent for days without the knowledge and clearance of the Government.
* At least one Lt.Gen. belonging to the Pakistan Army's Medical Corps, who had headed it, and two Brigadiers had accompanied him. They could not have gone and remained away from the country without the knowledge and clearance of the Military Headquarters. .

11. The uranium enriched at KRL, Kahuta, used to come from Africa, mainly Niger. This partly explains the frequent travels of A.Q.Khan to Africa. From the accounts given by the Pakistani author, two intriguing questions arise:
* Why did Khan consider it necessary to visit the site of a factory in Sudan, which became the target of US Cruise missile attacks after the explosions outside the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam by Al Qaeda in August 1998? The Americans had alleged at that time that this factory belonged to Osama bin Laden and was producing chemicals for weaponisation purposes. Denying this, the Sudanese authorities had claimed that it was producing anti-malaria drugs.
* Why was he visiting frequently Timbuktu, which has apparently no importance from the nuclear point of view? Pakistani officials have alleged that he had illegally constructed a hotel there ( Hotel La Colombe?) in the name of his wife. If he was going there to supervise the construction of the hotel, he should have been accompanied by experts in building construction and the hotel industry. No such person accompanied him. He was always accompanied by scientists and Army officers associated with KRL and Tahir Mian, who was helping him in the procurement of centrifuges.

12. It is reliably learnt from well-placed observers that it also came out during the recent interrogation of the associates of Khan in Pakistan's nuclear establishment that after Osama bin Laden shifted from Khartoum to Afghanistan in 1996, Dr.Khan was also looking after bin Laden's extensive investments in the mining industry in many African countries and that the money invested in the Timbuktu hotel had come from these investments of bin Laden. The Pakistani authorities have reportedly suppressed this information and not shared it with the US.

MAOISTS SURPRISE GREYHOUNDS

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--- PAPER NO.406

B.RAMAN

Only twenty-nine members of the highly-reputed Greyhounds counter-insurgency action force of the Andhra Pradesh Police managed to escape a well-organised ambush in water laid on June 29,2008, by a group of Maoist terrorists as a party of 65 Greyhounds was returning to Andhra Pradesh by a boat after an unsuccessful combing operation for Maoists in the territory of Orissa. Thirty-four Greyhounds are missing and two others are reported to have been killed. It is not yet known whether the 34 missing were also killed or whether some of them had been captured by the Maoists, who have not made any claim so far.

2. The Greyhounds party, which had entered the territory of Orissa reportedly on information received by them about the plans of the Maoists to hold a meeting, was returning to Andhra Pradesh in a single motorised boat belonging to the Balimela hydel project. They were returning by the Sileru river. As the boat entered the Balimela reservoir in the territory of Orissa created by the hydel project, it was attacked by an unknown number of Maoists, who had taken up position on the surrounding hills. The Greyhounds, who were taken by surprise, tried to retaliate, but their return fire against the Maoists located on the hills above the reservoir was ineffective. The boat kept moving despite initially being hit by some bullets, but capsized after having been hit by one or more grenades thrown or fired from a launcher by the Maoists. All on board jumped into the water. While some swam to safety, others were not lucky. Their final fate is not yet known.

3. The boat had a three-member crew one of whom fell into the hands of the Maoists, but they released him unharmed.His interview by Suryanarayan Pattnaik of the "Times of India" ( July 1,2008) gives the most authentic account of the ambush. He is quoted as saying in the interview: " We were three staff in the boat that belongs to the Balimela hydro project. On Saturday (June 28) evening, we were just told to be ready to leave for some place the next day. We did not know the destination. Around 4 AM on Sunday, two policemen from Chiltrakonda police station came and we five left for Janbai to bring Greyhound personnel of AP. We came to know that they had gone to Papermetla in Orissa three days ago on an anti-Maoist operation. We reached Janbai where the Greyhounds policemen boarded the boat. We were 65 people on board then and left Janbai. The boat had hardly gone about 5 to 7 Kms when the Maoists started firing on the boat. While the boat was crossing a narrow waterway, one bullet hit it. Before the Greyhounds could act, the Maoists from the hills rained bullets on the boat. Though a few policemen retaliated, it bore little fruit.The Maoists then hurled grenades on the boat. A part of the vessel was damaged. The boat started sinking. We were helpless and all of us started jumping into the water to save our lives. I also jumped out of the boat. While I was swimming towards the bank, I desperately shouted that I was a civilian. My screaming worked. The extremists stopped firing at me, but they asked me to swim towards them. They were six in number, including two women. All were heavily armed. They took me into the deep forests of Gunupur hill. They grilled me for a few hours. After some time, they told me they would release me on condition that I should never help policemen in future."

4. From his account, the following facts emerge:

The Greyhounds party had gone into Orissa three days before the ambush. It is not clear how they went---by another boat or by road Three days of combing in Orissa territory did not lead to any Maoists. They decided to return to Andhra Pradesh. A request for a boat of the hydel project was made the previous night through the Orissa Police, but the project authorities were not told that the boat was for the Greyhounds. But since the request came through the Orissa Police,anyone aware of this should not have had any difficulty in guessing that the boat was being requisitioned for the travel of a police party.

The number of Maoists who successfully laid the ambush was small. They were not in their hundreds as reported by sections of the media.

The boatman did not find any Greyhounds personnel in the custody of the team of six Maoists, who captured and released him after interrogation. It is possible there were other Maoist groups in the area, which had also participated in the ambush of which the boatman was not aware.

5. Another "Times of India" report had stated that the Greyhounds had gone into Orissa on receiving information that the Maoists were to hold a meeting in Orissa territory. It is not clear whether the Greyhounds received this information from one of their sources or from the Orissa police.

6. Whatever be the case, it is evident that certain omissions of securitry precautions by the Greyhounds enabled the Maoists to mount this successful ambush. Since the Greyhounds were on an unsuccessful combing operation in Orissa territory for three days, while planning for their return to their base in Andhra Pradesh they should have taken into account the possibility that the Maoists would have come to know of their presence in Orissa territory and would be waiting for their return in order to mount an ambush. There was also a possibility of a leak of their return plans the previous night when the boatmen were alerted to be ready to take a party to Andhra Pradesh early in the morning.

7.These factors necessitated two precautions: Stationing of police parties on land on the surrounding hill tops as the boat was moving to prevent any ambush and avoiding the entire party of about 65 travelling by one boat at the same time. In an ambush on land, a police party, if its reflexes are good, has a reasonable chance of re-grouping and retaliating when ambushed. When ambushed on water particularly from a height, the chances of re-grouping and retaliating are low and nil if the boat is hit and capzises.

8. This ambush is definitely a set-back for the Greyhounds, but this need not dent their reputation as one of the best counter-insurgency police forces in India.Set-backs cannot always be avoided. The difference between a good force and a not so good force is that a good force learns from its mistakes and avoids repeating them. A not so good force does not. Being a good force, one can expect that the Greyhounds will draw the right lessons for their future operations.

9. The audacious manner in which the Maoists successfully mounted this ambush of a water-borne police party speaks of their continuing motivation, excellent reflexes and ability to plan and execute operations at short notice. The jihadi terrorism outside Kashmir is mainly urban terrorism.The Maoist terrorism is mainly rural terrorism. The jihadis attack hard and soft targets, the security forces as well as innocent civilians. Their attacks on civilians are indiscriminate. The Maoists focus on hard targets from the security forces and their perceived class enemies.Their terrorism is well-calibrated and selective in order not to create feelings of revulsion against them in the minds of the public. The muted public reaction to the Maoist ambush is indicative of the success of their methods.

10. The Greyhounds have become a legend with the police forces in the States affected by Maoist insurgency. There has been a lot of public adulation of the Greyhounds. As a result, the Andhra Pradesh Police have acquired the conviction that such forces are the real answer to terrorism. After a number of jihadi acts of terrorism in Hyderabad last year, the Andhra Pradesh police decided to raise a separate, but similar force tailor-made to deal with the urban jihadi terrorism. It has been named the Octopus.

11. The AP Police seem to have a fascination for such esoteric names for their special forces. Such forces alone cannot effectively deal with terrorism unless complemented by skillful political handling of the public grievances that give rise to terrorism and strengthening traditional policing in matters like urban and rural patrolling, police-community relations and successful investigation and prosecution of terrorism-related cases. The record of the AP Police in the investigation and prosecution of terrorism-related cases is quite poor.Unless their traditional policing improves, forces such as the Greyhounds and the Octopus alone cannot neutralise terrorism.

12. Annexed are some extracts from the chapter on Maoist terrorism in my book titled "Terrorism: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow" published this month by the Lancer Publishers of New Delhi (www.lancerpublishers.com ) (2-7-08)

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE ( Extracts from the chapter on Maoist terrorism in my book )

Our Intelligence Bureau (IB), which is largely an urban-based organisation, has very little capability for preventive intelligence collection in the rural areas. We have to depend on the rural police for this purpose. The ability of the rural police to collect intelligence depends to a considerable extent on its mobility (patrolling) and its relationship with the village communities in the affected areas. Fears caused by the frequent use of landmines with devastating effect by the Maoists and the failure of the States to provide the police with adequate mine detection and clearing capability have affected the mobility and rural patrolling. This has also an impact on police-community relationship. A police force, which is not able to remain in regular touch with the villagers, cannot collect much worthwhile intelligence.

The inability of the State to deal with the Maoist insurgency-cum-terrorism effectively so far can be attributed to the absence of a mix of political and operational strategies. The political strategy has to identify and address the root causes of the spreading Maoism. While the spread is alarming, it is not yet out of control. There are still large areas in the tribal belt where the people are not supporting the Maoists and are observing law and order. The State has so far failed to undertake a crash development of these areas, which have not yet been infected by Maoism, in order to prove to the people that they can achieve their justified economic and social objectives through peaceful means, without having to take up arms against the State. Simultaneously, there has to be an improvement in rural policing and intelligencecollection in order to thwart the efforts of the Maoists to bring these areas too under their sway.

The areas, which have already come under the effective control of the Maoists, need a different strategy, with the emphasis more on the professional and operational aspects of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency than on the political and economic. The objective is to wrest control of these areas from the Maoists. This would be possible only through expanding and strengthening the police presence in the areas, creating in the IB and the intelligence wings of the Police an improved capability for intelligence collection in the rural areas and strengthening the capability of the police and the para-military forces to counter the modus operandi of the Maoists such as their devastating use of landmines.

Concerned over the spread of Maoist terrorism and insurgency, suggestions are increasingly being made for giving the police a military edge through training in jungle warfare techniques etc. We should definitely improve the technical capabilities of the police in matters such as mine-detection and neutralisation, but we should not militarise the methods of operation of the police.

The growing interest in some of our officers----serving and retired---in the highly militarized British and American methods of dealing with insurgency and terrorism needs to be curbed. The former British occupying power in Malaya used and the current American occupying power in Iraq uses highly militarised methods. They were/are operating against foreign nationals in foreign territory and had/have, therefore, no qualms about the kind of methods they were/are using to suppress the insurgency-cum-terrorism.

Our Police and para-military forces are operating in our own territory against our own people. We have to temper effectiveness with self-restraint. We had to use the jungle warfare methods in Mizoram and certain areas of the North-East in the 1960s and the 1970s because of the involvement of Pakistan and China in keeping the insurgency sustained in those areas. We cannot unintelligently use those methods in our tribal heartland in Central India. Modernisation of the police forces' rural counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency capability, yes;but, militarisation, no.

While dealing with the Maoist insurgency, we have to make a distinction between the poor people who have legitimate causes for anger against the State and against those whom they perceive as the exploiting classes of society and the Maoist ideologues, who are trying to exploit this anger to achieve political power through the barrel of the gun. The ideologues must be made to realise that they cannot achieve their objective by using the rural poor as their cannon fodder. The State has to act firmly against them. At the same time, it is important to prevent the rural poor from letting themselves be used as the cannon fodder of the Maoist ideologues. This is only possible through appropriate anger containment and reduction measures. Unless they perceive the State as the protector of the poor and exploited classes and not of the exploiting classes, it would not be possible to wean them away from the Maoist ideologues.

A comprehensive strategy of anger containment and reduction on the one side and better counter-insurgency and security in the rural areas on the other is required. This strategy has to be worked out centrally with inputs from the affected States and co-ordinated in its implementation from the Centre. Such a comprehensive strategy is presently lacking.

WORLD TIBET DAY: NEED TO BE ALERT ON JULY 6

B.RAMAN

Members of the Tibetan diaspora all over world observe two important anniversaries.

2. They observe March 10 every year as the Tibetan Uprising Day to mark the anniversary of the day in 1959 when His Holiness the Dalai Lama crossed over from Tibet into India after the collapse of the Tibetan revolt against the Chinese. Generally, this anniversary passes off peacefully, but this year, being the year of the Beijing Olympics, it took a dramatic turn with widespread demonstrations and incidents of violence in Lhasa and other Tibetan-inhabited areas of China. The resulting unrest continued for some weeks before the Chinese authorities were able to bring it under control. A few days after the event, some Tibetan girls living in New Delhi managed to forcibly enter the Chinese Embassy after breaking the security cordon of the police and created anxious moments for the police and the staff of the Embassy.

3. The Tibetans all over the world observe July 6 every year as the World Tibet Day to mark the birth anniversary of His Holiness. Usually, the observance is peaceful with photo exhibitions, films and talks. The observance of the World Tibet Day started in 1998 at the initiative of some American friends of the Dalai Lama with three objectives in view, namely: to create an annual worldwide event to help restore essential freedoms for those living in Tibet; to increase global awareness of the genocidal threats to the Tibetan people; and , to celebrate the unique beauty and value of Tibetan culture and thought.

4. The US-based Free Tibet Movement has issued instructions for the observance of the "World Tibet Day" on July 6,2008, in a similar manner as in the previous years. Since this year's World Tibet Day falls just a month before the Beijing Olympics, it would be necessary for the police force responsible for physical security outside the Chinese diplomatic mission in Delhi and consular missions in Mumbai and Kolkata to be extra vigilant to prevent the possibility of any incident similar to what happened in New Delhi in March last.
5.One should not rule out the possibility of fresh demonstrations in Tibet, where the public mood is still sullen (2-7-08)

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retired), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India,New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )

COUNT-DOWN TO BEIJING OLYMPICS

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.405

B.RAMAN

While the Falun Gong has kept up its public campaign against the Beijing Olympics due in August, the Tibetan supporters of the Dalai Lama have toned down their campaign. There has been pressure on His Holiness from the Western Governments not to create difficulties for the Chinese before and during the Olympics.

2. Not only officials connected with the so-called Government-in-exile of his Holiness based in Dharmsala in India, but even the radical Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC), whose radicalism has increased since September last year due to the role played by some American citizens of Tibetan origin, who had migrated to the US from India, have been avoiding any anti-Olympics statements. The Chinese as well as the Dalai Lama's followers have toned their rhetoric against each other. Though the rhetoric has not completely disappeared from their propaganda against each other, the harsh words of the past have been toned down.

3. The Chinese have toned down their demonisation of His Holiness, but they continue to demonise the TYC by projecting it as a terrorist organisation, which allegedly advocates suicide terrorism. Lodi Gyari, the Washington DC based representative of the Dalai Lama, who leads the two-member team of the Dalai Lama in the on-again, off-again dialogue with Chinese officials, has become a new target of attack.Some Chinese columnists have been projecting him as a founding-leader of the TYC and hence as radical as the TYC.

4. Some Chinese columnists have expressed the view that the only way of making His Holiness give up what they see as his present policy of confrontation with Beijing is by having pressure exercised on him through his external supporters. By external supporters,they mean the US and the non-Governmental organisations and Congressmen in the US, who have been supporting him.

5. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) of the US continues to be an important target of attack. Its denial of any responsibility for the March,2008, uprising in the Tibetan-inhabited areas of China has not been accepted by the Chinese. They have a strong suspicion that the NED is behind the radicalisation of the TYC and that funds flow to the TYC from the NED through Lodi Gyari. The NED makes no secret of its financial contributions to various Tibetan organisations. Details of these contributions are available in its web site. Uncorroborated reports that the NED had organised a training camp for Buddhist monks from Myanmar and Tibet in techniques of political agitation in a camp in South Africa are bound to add to this suspicion.

6. While the Chinese authorities and columnists avoid any negative or critical references to India with reference to the activities of the Dalai Lama and his supporters, their concern and suspicions over the activities of the TYC could become a contentious issue if the involvement of American citizens of Tibetan origin in its activities in Indian territory increases.

7.The State-owned Xinhua news agency reported on June 30,2008, as follows: "The authorities announced Sunday that relevant central government departments will meet personal representatives of the Dalai Lama at his request in early July.The central authorities have kept a constant and clear policy towards the Dalai Lama, a government spokesman said. "Our door is always open for the dialogue with the Dalai Lama," he said, "(We) hope that the Dalai Lama would treasure this opportunity and give positive response to the requirements of the central authorities." This would be the second meeting since the March uprising. The first one was held in China on May 4,2008.

8. While the announcement on the second meeting was expected for some time, interestingly it coincided with the visit of Ms.Condoleezza Rice , the US Secretary of State, to Beijing and the quake-hit areas of the Sichuan province. During her stay in Beijing, she met President Hu Jintao on June 30,2008. She had also met Prime Minister Wen Jiabo. Her visit had nothing to do with the announcement since the Chinese had agreed to this second meeting even earlier. And yet, the fact that the Chinese chose to make the announcement during her visit is interesting.

9. The Chinese media reported that during her meeting with Hu, she told him that President George Bush was looking forward to his meeting with him during the forthcoming G-8 summit in Japan. She apparently did not refer to Bush's planned visit to Beijing to attend the inaugural function of the Olympics. One would have expected her to say that Bush was looking forward to meeting Hu in the G-8 summit and to participating in the Olympics inaugural ceremony. However, she confined her remarks only to the summit. From this, one should not jump to the interpretation that Bush may be having second thoughts on his participation in the inaugural function.. All it shows is that he is keeping his options open .

10. Despite the toning down of the war of words between Beijing and the followers of the Dalai Lama, Chinese concerns over the possibility of violent attacks by Tibetan youth to embarrass the Chinese have not subsided. While they do not anticipate any acts of violence by the Tibetans in Beijing itself, they do apprehend diversionary acts of violence not only in Lhasa, but also in New Delhi and Western cities where there is a strong Tibetan presence.A question often posed by them is: Can the Tibetan youth kidnap a Chinese diplomat and hold him hostage during the Olympics to draw attention to their cause? Such acts will not be in the interest of the Tibetan cause and will prove counter-productive.

11. The Chinese have worked out a comprehensive physical security plan for the Olympics and the implementation of this plan has already started. This plan covers all important aspects such as civil aviation security, other public transport security, security in the venues of the games and the places of stay of the teams and public security in all important places which are likely to be visited by the teams, journalists and foreign spectators. They are also exercising caution while processing the visa applications of all intending visitors to China till the Olympics are over.

12. Of all the Muslim groups, only the Uighurs of Xinjiang origin living in the West and Turkey have kept up their campaign against Beijing. Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda organisations, including those of Pakistan, which are members of the International Islamic Front of bin Laden, have been silent on the Beijing Olympics. Their silence need not necessarily mean that they have no plans to disrupt the Olympics at Beijing or create diversionary attacks against the Chinese in Pakistan and the Central Asian Republics, which have a strong Uighur diaspora with religious and ethnic links to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) or Group, which is also an Uzbek organisation, and the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan. All the three of them have their headquarters in North Waziristan in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. If there is an act of jihadi disruption during the Olympics---either in Beijing or in Shanghai, where the football matches are to be held, or in Hong Kong where the equitation events are to be held--- it will most probably emanate from North Waziristan. The Chinese are depending on the goodwill and co-operation of the Pakistani authorities to prevent any incident plotted from Pakistani territory.

13. One does not know whether a contingent from Denmark is participating in the Olympics. If it does, its security should be of the greatest concern to the Chinese security agencies---- particularly after the recent Al Qaeda-owned attempt to blow up the Danish Embassy in Islamabad, in which eight Muslims---mostly Pakistanis---were killed. Al Qaeda organised the suicide explosion to protest against the publication and re-publication of cartoons by the Danish media on the Holy Prophet. The anger against the Danish cartoons persists---in the minds of jihadi organisations as well as individual Muslims right across the Ummah. If the Danish contingent participates, its members will be interacting with Muslim athletes from all over the Ummah. Even if no jihadi organisation mounts an attack on the Danes, the possibility of anger-of-the-moment attacks on the Danes by individual Muslims has to be factored into in any plan for the protection of the Danes.

14. While the Chinese physical security is tight, one is not certain whether their preventive intelligence capabilities have been revamped and strengthened after the March uprising in Lhasa when they were taken completely by surprise. China has a large number of Muslim students from the Ummah. Those of them, who had left China in the months before the Olympics ostensibly to visit their relatives and returned just before the Olympics, would need special attention. (1-7-08)

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )

JIHADI ANARCHY IN PAKISTAN:THE FREE FOR ALL TRIBAL BELT

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.404

B.RAMAN

After a three-month futile courtship with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan ( TTP) headed by Baitullah Mehsud of South Waziristan, the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) headed by Maulana Fazlullah of the Swat Valley in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and other jihadi organisations, the Pakistani Government headed by Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani has ordered a clean-up operation in the Khyber Agency and South Waziristan of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and in the Swat Valley. The operation started on June 28,2008, in the Khyber Agency.

2. While the resumed clean-up operation in South Waziristan and the Swat Valley is meant to put down recrudescence of jihadi terrorism by the TTP and the TNSM, which is a member of the TTP, the new clean-up operation in the Khyber Agency is designed to put down inter-sectarian, inter-tribal and inter-Mullah clashes, which have already caused a large number of deaths in the Khyber Agency and are threatening to spread to Peshawar, the capital of the NWFP. The Khyber Agency, which is adjoining Peshawar, has been seeing increasing attacks by local tribal jihadi groups on convoys carrying oil and other essential supplies for the NATO forces in Afghanistan from the Karachi port.

3. The courtship with the TTP, which was accompanied by a suspension of operations by the security forces and the TTP against each other and peace talks , has reportedly seen a 40 per cent increase in the infiltration of Taliban terrorists from the FATA and other areas into Eastern Afghanistan, thereby enabling the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan, headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar, to step up its attacks on the NATO forces. A wave of panic in Peshawar in the wake of forays by Khyber-based jihadis into the city for intimidating sections of the local population, including some Christians working in a local hospital, growing resentment in the Shia community of Pakistan over continuing attacks on Shias in the Kurram Agency of the FATA allegedly by Khyber-based Sunni terrorists and repeated expressions of serious concern by US commanders in Afghanistan over the casualties inflicted on NATO forces and members of the Afghan National Army (ANA) by infiltrators from Pakistani territory made the Government sit up and take notice of the deterioration in the situation right across the tribal belt and order action by the security forces even at the risk of a collapse of the peace talks, which could lead to a revival of acts of suicide terrorism in the non-tribal areas, including Islamabad, Rawalpindi and other cantonment towns and even in Punjab. While the courtship and the peace talks did not lead to real peace in the tribal belt, they did lead to a steep fall in acts of suicide terrorism in the non-tribal areas.

4. The decision to order the clean-up operation was taken after a meeting of some members of the Cabinet on June 25,2008, which was briefed on the deteriorating situation by Gen.Pervez Ashfaq Kiyani, the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS). Normally, the alarming situation should have been discussed by the National Security Council (NSC), which is chaired by President Pervez Musharraf. The Gilani Government avoided requesting for a meeting of the NSC. Nor did it brief Musharraf about the decision to order a clean-up operation. However, Gen.Kiyani, at his own initiative, called on Musharraf on June 27,2008, briefed him on the proposed course of action and took his clearance before implementing the decision of the Cabinet.

5. Well-informed sources say that he has been finding himself in a difficult situation with the Cabinet giving instructions in national security matters without consulting Musharraf or even keeping him in the picture. However, Gen.Kiyani has been trying to be correct by frequently meeting Musharraf, who continues to be his direct boss as the President and the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. The decision to relax restrictions on the movements of Dr.A.Q.Khan, the nuclear scientist, and on his interactions with the media also appears to have been taken by the Cabinet despite cautionary advice by Musharraf not to do so lest it add to US concerns over Pakistan.

6. The entire decision-making process in national security matters is in a mess, with too many cooks adding to the potency of the jihadi broth. While Gilani is the de jure Prime Minister, in matters relating to action against terrorism it is Rehman Malick, a close confidante of Asif Ali Zardari,the co-chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), who has been issuing confusing and contradictory instructions----sometimes to the Army, sometimes to the para-military forces such as the Frontier Corps (FC), sometimes to the Police and sometimes to the provincial Government of the NWFP. He is designated as the Adviser on Internal Security with the status of a Cabinet Minister. It is alleged by well-informed police sources that he takes his orders directly from Zardari without keeping Gilani in the picture. Thus, one has a strange situation with Gilani giving instructions without consulting Musharraf and with Malick issuing instructions at the instance of Zardari without consulting Gilani.

7.The NWFP Government was extremely unhappy over the manner in which Malick----on his own without consulting either Gilani or the provincial Government of the NWFP headed by the Awami National Party (ANP)--- announced the suspension of the peace deal negotiated by the provincial Government with the TNSM. When this caused friction in the ruling coalition at Islamabad of which the ANP is a member, he denied having issued any such order.

8. This growing confusion in the action against terrorism has resulted in a situation in which the Cabinet has reportedly ordered Gen.Kiyani to undertake the clean-op operation, but at the same time, instructed that he should use only the Frontier Corps (FC), which is increasingly infiltrated by pro-Taliban tribals, for this operation and should not use regular army troops. One does not know whether Musharraf approved of this or whether he instructed the COAS not to hesitate to use the Army if he considered it necessary to do so.

9. During his negotiations with the Government, Baitullah was demanding that the Army should be withdrawn from the FATA and that the responsibility for maintaining internal security should be re-entrusted to the FC. Even while ordering the clean-up operation, the Gilani Government has taken care not to hurt the sensitivities of Baitullah by ordering that the FC should be in the forefront of the clean-up operations and not the Army.

10. Last year,Musharraf inducted the Army in large numbers into South Waziristan and ordered it to act against the TTP because of reports of collusion between FC personnel and the TTP and the surrender of a large number of FC personnel including officers with their arms and ammunition to the TTP without putting up a fight. US commanders in Afghanistan make no secret of their doubts about the dependability of the FC, which they look upon as the secret protector of the Talibans of various hues, which have come up in the tribal belt.

11. There are Talibans and Talibans in the tribal belt-----some accepting the leadership of Baitullah and others not; some claiming to fight against the Americans and not against the Pakistan Army and others fighting against both; some consisting largely of Punjabis such as the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), which is active in parts of the Swat Valley, and known locally as the Punjabi Taliban and others consisting largely of Pashtuns and hence locally known as the Pashtun Taliban; some such as the Pashtun Taliban claiming to be waging a jihad purely for local objectives such as the enforcement of the Sharia in the tribal belt and others such as the Punabi Taliban claiming to be fighting for the pan-Islamic objectives of Al Qaeda; some virulently anti-Shia and others not.

12. Whenever they are not operating against the Pakistani security forces and the Americans, they keep operating against each other, dubbing and killing each other as American agents. The tribal belt on the Pakistani side of the border is ablaze with inter-sectarian, inter-tribal and inter-Mullah clashes over who is a better Muslim and who is closer to Allah. Disputes over the distribution of the growing narcotics money from Afghanistan among themselves are adding to the gravity of the situation. It is jihadi anarchy of the worst kind, the like of which the history of Pakistan has not seen. Every Mullah, who is some Mullah, has his own FM Radio station through which he keeps instigating his followers to attack rivals and the security forces. To keep the FC inactive, these Mullahs allegedly give its officers a share of the narcotics money.

13. These radio stations have been instigating the Pakistani Taliban---Punjabi as well as Pashtun--- to attack American military and intelligence officers and NATO supply convoys in Pakistani territory. They have been calling for attacks on ships bringing NATO supplies to the Karachi port and on the Karachi offices of truck companies whose trucks are used by the NATO. They have been calling upon the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG) and the Chechens to step up their jihad in Russian and Central Asian territories to disrupt the movement of NATO supplies through this route.

14.The Khyber Agency, better developed than the other Agencies of the FATA,is inhabited mainly by the Afridi and Shinwari tribes. Like the Swat Valley, it used to attract a large number of domestic and foreign tourists. The Agency was relatively peaceful till 2003. Trouble broke out in 2003, when a a local tribesman by name Haji Namdar returned from Saudi Arabia after performing Haj and set up an organization called Amr bil maroof wa nahi anil munkir, meaning the organisation for the “Suppression of Vice and Promotion of Virtue” . He started a campaign against music, dance, films and the TV and started punishing Muslims who did not regularly attend prayers in the mosques He started an FM radio station on which Mufti Munir Shakir, a virulently anti-Shia Mullah from the Kurram Tribal Agency, used to make anti-Shia broadcasts.

15.Mufti Shakir formed an organisation of his own called the Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) with its headquarters in the Bara town of the Khyber Agency. To counter the activities of the Wahabi-Deobandi LI, Pir Saif-ur-Rahman, a Mullah from Afghanistan who had settled down in the Agency and who belonged to the more tolerant Barelvi sect with its advocacy of Sufi traditions, started his own organisation called the Ansar-ul-Islam (AI). The AI also started making FM broadcasts against the LI and its Wahabi-Deobandi followers. In 2006, the two organisations came to frequent clashes. Following this, a jirga of the local Afridi tribes was held and the two were forced to leave the Agency by the local tribesmen in February 2006.

16.Following their expulsion, one Mangal Bagh Afridi, a 35-year-old local tribal, who had fought in Afghanistan with the Mujahideen against the Soviet troops, took over the leadership of the LI, which established its control over the whole of the Bara sub-division of the Agency.In April 2008, the LI extended its control to the Jamrud region of the Bara sub-division after a series of bloody clashes with the local Kukikhel sub-tribes of the Afridi tribe.The main artery connecting Peshawar to Kabul goes via the Khyber Pass. The Agency has two sib-divisions called Bara and Landikotal. Bara borders Peshawar.

17. The leadership of the Ansar-ul-Islam was taken over by one Maulana Mehboobul Haq. It is not known whether he too is a Barelvi or a Deobandi. However, under his leadership, the AI continued with its policy of resisting the activities of the LI. This resulted in many clashes with a large number of fatalities in the Teerah Valley of the Agency. The Pakistani security forces, which were preoccupied with their operations against the Taliban in South Waziristan and the Swat Valley, did not intervene in the Khyber Agency. Taking advantage of this, the LI consolidated its hold in the Khyber Agency and started enforcing its ban on music etc and punishing Muslims not attending prayers in the neighbouring areas of Peshawar too. It kidnapped 16 Christians, but released them later without harming them. It claimed that it mistook them for Muslims indulging in unislamic way of life, but released them on coming to know that they were Christians.

18. Mangal Bagh denies any links with Al Qaeda or the TTP. He does not accept the leadership of Baitullah. He says his fight is not against the Pakistani authorities, but against Muslims who are not living the life of true Muslims. While supporting the Taliban's jihad against the NATO forces in Afghanistan, he denies that his men are involved in the jihad against the NATO forces. Following a scare in Peshawar that the LI was about to attack Peshawar and capture it, he said in an interview on June 26,2008: “I am not about to attack Hayatabad or any other part of Peshawar.Ours is a reformist organization trying to promote virtue and prevent vice. We have rid Bara of drug-traffickers, gamblers, kidnappers, car-snatchers and other criminals and we want to cleanse Jamrud as well of those selling drugs and liquor and running gambling dens. That was the reason for us to send our mujahideen to Jamrud to accomplish the job. Lashkar-e-Islam is now able to enforce its code of conduct in almost the whole of Khyber Agency except parts of Jamrud inhabited by Kukikhels and a two-kilometre stretch of territory in Maidan area of Tirah valley. We have 120,000 men under arms who at a short notice would be able to assemble in case of need. All I have to do is to make an announcement on our FM radio channel and my mujahideen volunteers would be ready to fight for the Lashkar-e-Islam. I have no links with Al Qaeda or Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. I didn’t send my fighters to fight on the side of Taliban in Waziristan, Swat and Darra Adamkhel. The Taliban (of Mullah Mohammad Omar) are waging a jihad in Afghanistan for a just cause against foreign forces in their homeland. However, there are so many Taliban groups (in Pakistan) that it is difficult to tell as to which one is genuine."

19. Peshawar has on three sides areas over which the Pakistani security forces have no effective control. The Khyber Agency is under the effective control of the LI, which does not form part of the TTP. The Darra Adamkhel and Mohmand areas are largely under the control of the TTP. This situation has caused alarm not only to the non-religious political parties and the administration, but also to the traditional religious parties of the pre-9/11 vintage, who find a new generation of Mullahs of different hues supplanting them and making them increasingly irrelevant. Compared to the newly-emerging Mullahs of today, the pre-9/11 vintage appears rather moderate.The Reuters has quoted the Jamiat -ul-Ulema-Islam chief Fazlur Rehman, a member of the ruling coalition, who used to support Al Qaeda and the Neo Taliban in the past, as warning as follows: " “It’s just a matter of months before news comes that the entire NWFP has slipped out of control.”

20. Nobody seems to be in effective control in the free-for-all tribal belt of Pakistan---- neither Musharraf nor Gilani nor Zardari nor Gen.Kiyani nor the provincial Government of the NWFP. It has to be seen to what extent, under these circumstances, the clean-up operation succeeds. ( 29-6-08)

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )