CYBER COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE: NEED FOR FINESSE

B.RAMAN

Intelligence is the collection of information from the real world that could be important for our national security.

2.Counter-intelligence is the technique of preventing our ill-wishers from collecting intelligence about us that could weaken our national security.

3. Cyber-intelligence is the collection of intelligence having a bearing on our national security by systematically monitoring the web.

4.Cyber counter-intelligence is the prevention, detection and neutralisation of attempts by our ill-wishers to weaken our national security by misusing the web for destabilising us. It is also the prevention, detection and neutralisation of attempts by our ill-wishers to penetrate our cyber security architecture for the collection of  information about us and for using this capability for disrupting our economy and the fighting capabilities of our armed forces.

5.The Task Force For the Revamping of the Intelligence Apparatus headed by Gary Saxena, former head of the R&AW, which was set up by the Government of A.B.Vajpayee in 2000, had, inter alia, gone into our cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence capabilities and made a set of recommendations.

6.It had suggested that the Intelligence Bureau (IB) should be given the additional responsibility for cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence. It had also recommended that the IB should be made responsible for all counter-intelligence----whether in the real or virtual world--- and that its capabilities in this regard should be further strengthened,

7.One was given to understand that the NDA Government accepted these recommendations, but gave these new responsibilities for cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence to the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), which was set up as a Techint agency on the pattern of the National Security Agency (NSA) of the US.

8. In the US, the NSA used to have additional responsibility for cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence. Two years ago, it was decided to set up an independent Cyber Command for this purpose, but to place it under the head of the NSA. The NSA and the Cyber Command are separate organisations with separate staff and separate budgets, but they have a common chief.

9. As a result of the NDA Government’s decision to entrust the responsibility for cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence to the NTRO, we now have the IB dealing with intelligence and counter-intelligence in the real world and the NTRO in the virtual world of the Internet and the social media sites that have come up in recent years.

10. The recent incidents relating to Psyjihad sought to be waged against us through the Net and its social media sites and mobile telephones by exploiting Muslim anger over the anti-Muslim violence in the Rakhine State of Myanmar and in our Assam State and our incoherent and ill-coordinated reaction to it bring out two serious deficiencies:

( a).The NTRO has not been systematically monitoring the Net and its Social Media Sites for cyber chatter that could have a bearing on our internal and external security in order to sound a wake-up call to the Govt when the contents of the cyber chatter indicate possible attempts at destabilisation. This is clearly evident from the fact that the large number of websites disseminating exaggerated accounts of the anti-Muslim violence with the help of morphed images seems to have been noticed by the NTRO only after the violent incidents in the Azad Maidan of Mumbai on August 11 and the panic departure  from South India and Pune of many people from the North-East working and living there. Had these web sites and their false and provocative propaganda been noticed in time, the Government might have been able to take pre-emptive action to prevent the violence and contain the panic.

( b ).The NTRO has not yet developed a capability for the identification of suspects who have been misusing the Net and its social media sites for their Psyjihad meant to destabilise us. As a result, one could see over-reaction and an attempt at a disproportionate use of the powers under the existing laws for cyber surveillance. After the surveillance failed initially due to lack of alertness  on the part of our agencies, there has been a disproportionate use of the surveillance powers by way of large-scale blocking of web sites and attempted control over social media sites without applying our mind. Instead of targeting our counter-action on the suspects responsible for the Psyjihad, we have been targeting the instruments used by them for their Psyjihad such as Facebook and Twitter. These instruments have benign and malign uses. Our actions should have been targeted against malign uses, but there is an impression that we have been trying to discourage both benign and malign uses in order to deter the use of these sites and instruments  even for well-intentioned criticism of the Government and its policies. The misuse by ill-wishers of the country has been sought to be  exploited for preventing legitimate uses of the social media networks even by well-wishers of the country.

11. There is a need for a mid-course correction in the follow-up actions initiated after the recent panic in order to introduce an element of finesse in our cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence architecture and techniques. Target the ill-wishers of the country who have been misusing the Net and the social media sites for nefarious purposes, but don’t target the well-wishers. Make the ill-wishers dysfunctional and not the Net and the social media sites.

12. The Naresh Chandra Task Force on national security has in its report submitted to the Prime Minister on May 24 devoted a chapter to cyber security. Its chapter on intelligence revamp also contains some important recommendations on this subject. While vetting them, the lessons drawn from our recent experience in handling our existing  cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence architecture and techniques should also be taken into consideration in order to see whether any modifications in the recommendations during implementation are called for. (23-8-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

THE JINX AGAINST WOMEN SECRET AGENTS IN R&AW

B.RAMAN

Till 1972, under the long-time Director of the USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) J. Edgar Hoover, only men could be FBI agents. After his death in May 1972, partly under the pressure of the equal rights laws, the FBI started recruiting women as Agents. The first two women agents of the FBI joined the FBI in July 1972 and underwent training in the FBI Academy along with men recruits. They and many other women who followed their example have since distinguished themselves as Agents of whom the FBI and the US can be proud .

2. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the Second World War precursor of the Central Intelligence agency (CIA),  had a few legendary women operatives. Well-known amongst them was Virginia Hall, who served behind Nazi lines in France.

3. Despite this, the CIA, which came into existence in 1947, inherited some of the prejudices of the FBI against women as secret Agents. There were many women who were recruited as administrative staff and analysts, but hardly any to serve as secret Agents in the top secret operations division.

4. As Valerie Wilson, a former CIA woman operative wrote: “CIA’s premier spy cadre was carefully recruited from the male, moneyed, white, establishment crowd that went to the Ivies. For the first four decades of the CIA’s existence, the very few females that got into operations were usually drawn from the secretarial or support staffs. These smart, persistent, and gutsy women tired of seeing the men have all the fun and back-doored themselves into case-officer jobs—meeting and recruiting assets, planning ops, and in some rare cases in the 1970s, managing operations overseas. These women were tough as nails—they had to be—and they poured everything into their careers, often at the expense of their personal lives. I met some of these women during my time at the CIA and they could intimidate me like nobody else. My female colleagues and I owe them a deep debt of gratitude for their groundbreaking careers.”

5. Despite the success of these women who managed to gravitate into the Operations Division from the Administrative or analysis divisions, the number of direct women recruits to the Operations Division remained low till Ronald Reagan became the President. During his presidency, under the pressure of the operational requirements for the covert war against the USSR in Afghanistan, the recruitment of women operatives to the CIA increased.

6. To quote Valerie Wilson again: “Under Director Bill Casey, the CIA loosened its recruitment policies, involving schools other than the Ivies. Additionally, they began hiring women specifically to go into operations. Of course, attitudes take a long time to change and many a dinosaur who thought women should really just be at home and not running clandestine agents still roamed the halls at headquarters.”

7. In 1991, 400 women employees of the CIA working in various divisions filed a class action suit alleging discrimination against women in the agency under various pretexts. An enquiry declared their complaints legitimate. Since then,  there has been an improvement in the position of women Agents who have been doing as well as their male counterparts. It took nearly 40 years for the CIA to admit that women Agents could be as daring, as capable and as successful as male Agents. The death in December 2009 of Elizabeth Hanson, an officer of the analysis division posted as the station chief in Kabul, along with seven of her colleagues in a suicide attack by Al Qaeda at Khost brought the much-deserved recognition for the women operatives of the CIA and their bravery.

8. In September 2010, women crossed another landmark in the history of the US intelligence community when Letitia A. Long became the first woman director of a major U.S. intelligence agency  taking over as the chief of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a Techint agency.

9. Reports published in sections of the US media at that time indicated that women represented  38 per cent of the total intelligence work force. In six of the most prominent agencies, 27 per cent of senior intelligence positions were held by women.

10. While women in the US had to wait till 2010 to be accepted as capable of heading an intelligence agency, in the UK, Dame Stella Rimington became the head of the Security Service known as the MI-5 in 1992 and continued in that post till 1996.The MI-5 had the distinction of being headed by another woman chief Dame Eliza Manningham Buller from 2002 to 2007, during the Iraq war in 2003 and the London Metro attacks by some jihadi suicide terrorists in 2005.The MI-5 and the MI-6, the external intelligence agency known as the Secret Intelligence Service, had a longer tradition of accepting women as analysts and operatives on par with men than their US counterparts.

11.Till 1972, the Indian intelligence community had some women serving in administrative posts such as stenographers and ministerial assistants, but no officers serving as either analysts or operatives. The R&AW under R.N.Kao was the first in the Indian intelligence community to induct women as officers to perform analysis as well as operational duties in the headquarters as well as in the field. The first women inductees into the R&AW were taken on deputation from other Government services. Thereafter, three women fresh from the universities were directly recruited into the Research and Analysis Service (R&AS). This was followed by the induction of two women officers of the IPS and one economic expert on deputation. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) emulated the example set up by Kao and started taking women IPS officers on deputation.

12.Unfortunately, while the women intelligence agents of the US and the UK have been doing as well as, if not better than, their male counterparts, this cannot be said of the women operatives of the R&AW. Two of the deputationists of the 1970s created problems because of their alleged inability to maintain a low profile and their alleged habits of dropping names and throwing their weight around.

13. Of the three direct recruits, two got involved in embarrassing controversies due to personal reasons or professional inadequacies. The economic expert and the two IPS deputationists did well, but one of them went back to the State. Of the eight officers taken into the organisation since 1972, four were found to be professionally unsatisfactory.

14.Whereas  in the intelligence agencies of the US and the UK, women analysts and operatives have been doing extremely well, it is perceived to be not so in the case of the R&AW. What is it due to? Careless selection? Inadequate training? Unfair discrimination and prejudices that come in the way of their giving off their best? One does not know the answers to these questions. While women officers  have been doing extremely well in other services and departments of the Government of India, it is said to be not so in the R&AW.

15.It is important to go into this in a professional manner to improve the intake of women officers into the R&AW and their performance. ( 22-8-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

MY TAKE ON POLICE HANDLING OF A RAMPAGING MUSLIM MOB IN MUMBAI

B.RAMAN

The way Arup Patnaik, the Commissioner of Police of Mumbai, handled a Muslim mob that went on a rampage at the Azad Maidan in Mumbai on August 11,2012, has come in for mixed comments. The mob had been demonstrating against the recent anti-Muslim violence in the Rakhine State of Myanmar and India’s Assam State.

2. Some, including me, have praised Patnaik for bringing the situation quickly under control and for preventing its degenerating into widespread communal riots. Others, including some pro-Hindutva organisations, have criticised him for not dealing with the mob more forcefully and for not preventing it from widespread vandalising, including at a monument erected in homage to the Unknown Indian Soldier.

3. I found it difficult to believe Patnaik when he told Barkha Dutt of NDTV in her The Buck Stops Here Show on the night of August 21 that there  were no political instructions  and that riot control in general is rarely influenced by directions from the political leadership.

4.In the few years that I had spent as an IPS officer in Madhya Pradesh between 1962 and 1967, I had handled many instances of violent agitation by industrial workers at Kymore and Bhilai and violent anti-Muslim agitations by Hindu refugees from Pakistan at Katni. Those were the days when the Congress was in power at New Delhi and in Madhya Pradesh.

5.There used to be a continuous flow of directions from the Congress leadership as to how to handle the situation. These directions did not come directly to the field police officers, but through the Chief Secretary and the Inspector-General of Police. If the instructions came directly from the political leadership, one could have said ‘no” to any of them considered incorrect, but when they came as orders of the Chief Secretary and the IGP one had to comply with them in the interest of discipline.

6.Things have much worsened since then and there is much greater interference in police working by the political leadership now than there was when I was a police officer in the field. The assertions of Patnaik that there  were no political directions do not, therefore, carry conviction.

7. After having stated that, I do feel that Patnaik deserves credit for bringing the situation quickly under control and for preventing over-reaction by his force in the face of the rampaging Muslim mobs. Not infrequently, situations get out of control not because of the violent mobs, but because of  over-reaction by the police in dealing with the mobs and disproportionate use of force by the police.

8. When Patnaik reached the spot after the mobs had gone on rampage, his first reflex was to ensure that his force did not add to the heat of the riots by losing its cool and over-reacting. If Patnaik had not kept its force under control, there might have been many more fatalities resulting in a serious aggravation of the situation. In literally forcing the policemen to keep their cool and not to overact, Patnaik had acted according to his professional instincts, the training that he had received as a young officer and his long years of experience in dealing with such situations. Let us give him the credit for the way he exercised his leadership during those critical moments when the riots could have spread to many parts of Mumbai.

9. Generally political directions come before a riot and thereafter and not during a riot. I am prepared to believe that his permitting the Muslims to hold a protest meeting must have been on the directions of the political leadership or in consultation with it. I won’t be surprised if instructions continue to come from the political leadership as to what legal action he should take against the Muslims who indulged in acts of violence and vandalising.

10. It is to be expected that, keeping in view the 2014 elections, the political leadership will try to prevent the law from taking its course against the Muslim rioters. There will be political pressure on Patnaik to let bygones be bygones and not to pursue the cases against the rioters vigorously. From the way Patnaik denied, in response to questions from Barkha, that there were many instances of the molesting of women members of the Police by the mob I got the impression that he is already under pressure not to be too severe in his follow-up legal action.

11.If he resists the pressure, he may be transferred out. If he succumbs, he might lose some of the credit that he earned from many of us for the way he handled the riots. The real mettle of a police officer comes out not only during a riot, but equally thereafter in taking legal action disregarding political pressure against those who rioted.

12. We saw the best of Patnaik from the way he handled a volatile situation. Will we see the best of him again from the way he pursues the cases against the rioters? One has to keep one’s fingers crossed. ( 22-8-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

POST-ASSAM INCIDENTS: OVERT & COVERT

B.RAMAN, Camp New Delhi

The post-Assam  incidents in the rest of India had overt and covert dimensions.

2. The overt dimension related to the protests by groups of Muslims against the anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar and Assam which were seen in the Azad Maidan of Mumbai on August 5,2012, and in Lucknow on August 17,2012.These protests  were triggered off by exaggerated accounts of the anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar and Assam. These exaggerated accounts were disseminated with the help of morphed images through web sites of Islamic fundamentalist organisations, some of them located in Pakistan. The fact that these organisations in Pakistan such as the Jamaat-e-Islami had them uploaded in their web sites does not necessarily mean they had produced them.

3.Some of the visuals uploaded in many web sites of different organisations had inter alia, morphed images of two incidents---- the large number of dead bodies recovered after an earth quake in the Sichuan province of China  some years ago and public protests by the opponents of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in Bangkok in 2009.The appearance of  similar or same morphed images in several web sites across the region indicated a common source  of the production of these visuals. This common source has not so far been identified. All we have is the total number of web sites in Pakistan that had uploaded these visuals. These visuals definitely played a part in inflaming passions in Mumbai and Lucknow.

4.It was reported in sections of foreign media last week that President Thein Sein of Myanmar has brought these morphed images of unconnected incidents that had taken place outside Myanmar to the notice of the OIC delegation that was in Myanmar. He reportedly told the OIC delegation that a false impression of a genocide of the Rohingya Muslims of the Rakhine State of Myanmar was sought to be created  through the circulation and uploading of such images. We must get from Myanmar details of all the evidence that they have been able to collect in this regard.

5.Now, after the damage has been caused in Mumbai and Lucknow, we seem to have woken up and taken action for the blocking of the web sites in Pakistan which had uploaded these provocative visuals. Was it not possible to notice them before and do it? Since the Muslim-Buddhist violence broke out in the Rakhine State in May last, I have been closely monitoring it and had written a number of articles on it. In an article on August 9 before the recent incidents, I had also drawn attention to the dangers of the emergence of what I called a new epicenter of Muslim anger in the Myanmar-Bangladesh-Indian region due to the recent incidents in  the Rakhine State and Assam and reported feelings among the Muslim victims of these incidents that there was discrimination against them in the matter of distribution of humanitarian relief.  In this connection, please refer to my article dated August 9,2012, titled “Don’t Fuel The Fire” carried by Outlook Online at http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?281942 .Nobody seems to have paid attention to these developments and taken anticipatory action. However, these were controllable developments and our Police, after having been taken by surprise, was able to control the situation creditably.

6. The covert dimension related to the circulation of one or more SMS messages among residents from the North-East living in the South that they would be the targets of violence after the Ramadan fasting period concluded on August 20. There is so far no evidence to show that these SMS messages were incited or inspired or orchestrated from Pakistan. These appear to have been locally incited or inspired or orchestrated by unidentified elements in India.

7.While details are still lacking, certain unexplainable factors need to be highlighted:

( a ). The messages were disseminated more in the South and Pune than in the North, thereby creating more panic in the South and Pune than in the North.

(b).These messages appear to have been received only by people from the North-East living in the South and Pune and not by locals. If bulk messages had been used, this would not have been possible.

( c ). The person or persons who circulated these messages knew the identities of some people from the North-East and their telephone numbers.

(d). There were no references in the SMS messages to Assam or Myanmar. The connections appear to have been made by the people who received these messages in their mind, but these were not there in the messages.

( e ). The fact of the threat contained in these messages rapidly spread like prairie fire among the people from the North-East in the South and Pune and their relatives back home in Assam. This led to mental pressure on some of thm to go back to their homes.Some of the pressure was self-generated and some by their relatives in Assam.

8. It would be unfair to blame the police for being taken by surprise. They could not have known about the impending panic. What we saw in the South and Pune was the herd reflex. Once one member fled, many fled with him  or her without applying own mind. One cannot blame the people from the North-East either. That is the way you and I might have behaved when overtaken by fears which one does not know  whether true or not. One was reminded of the famous incident in Chennai during the second World War when a rumour that a Japanese submarine had been spotted led to the exodus of large sections of the city residents to their villages.

9. According to the media briefing given by the Home Secretary of the Government of India on August 18, the Karnataka police have identified seven suspects of whom three have been taken into custody for interrogation and one more has been identified by the central agencies independently. Better to await authentic details of their background and interrogation. ( 19-8-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India )

THE ISLAMIC PSYJIHAD

B.RAMAN

( This is an update of a paper titled “From Internet To Islamnet” that I had presented at an international conference at Bali, Indonesia, in October,2005. Available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers16%5Cpaper1584.html  )

What we have been seeing since May,2012, is a proxy jihad through the Internet and modern means of communications such as the cellphone and I-pad being waged by a new generation of IT savvy jihadis still unidentified.

2. It started in the Rakhine State of Myanmar following  violent clashes between some Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims whom Myanmar looks upon as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The clashes resulted in about 80 fatalities from both the communities and the internal displacement of a large number of Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims.

3. Following these clashes, a group of as yet unidentified Islamic elements, possibly based in the Myanmar-Bangladesh-India region, started a vicious campaign through the Internet and the new social media sites for the demonization of the Myanmar Government and for promoting Islamic solidarity.

4.President Thein Sein of Myanmar was reported to have told a delegation of the OIC that visited Myanmar last week that through  the Internet and its social media sites these elements circulated highly exaggerated reports of what they called a genocide of Muslims in Myanmar with the help of morphed pictures of violent incidents in other countries not related to Myanmar.

5. This Psyjihad was meant to destabilise not only the Rakhine State of Myanmar, but also the Sheikh Hasina Government of Bangladesh, which has refused to allow the Rohingyas  enter Bangladesh and use it as a rear base for their destabilisation operations in Myanmar.

6.One noticed a similar Psyjihad being waged in India through the Internet and its social media sites by a group of unidentified Muslim extremists after the outbreak of violent clashes between some Bodos and illegal immigrants from Bangladesh in Kokrajhar and other Bodo areas of Assam last month.

7.These elements used the Internet and its social media sites for the dissemination of exaggerated accounts of the violence in Assam and for re-circulating the fabricated Psyjihad material produced by or on behalf of the Rohingyas of the Rakhine State.

8. These sought to inflame the passions of impressionable Muslims in different parts of India during the holy fasting period of Ramadan. It resulted in incidents of shocking violence and vandalisation by some Muslims during and after a public meeting held in the Azad Maidan of Mumbai on August 5,2012, to protest against the violent incidents in the Assam State of India and in the Rakhine State of Myanmar.

9. Some Muslims incited to violence by the Psyjihad material and the highly emotional speeches attacked police men, including women members of the police, vandalised a memorial in homage of the Unknown Indian Soldier, attacked sections of the media and burnt down some media vehicles. While the anger of such incited Muslim extremist mobs against the police is nothing unusual, its anger against the media was. Its rage against sections of the media was due to the fact that, in its view, the media did not give sufficient publicity to the Psyjihad material produced by or on behalf of the Rohingyas.

10. After the Mumbai incidents which have been condemned by many leaders of the Muslim community, these unidentified elements have been directing their Psyjihad against people from the North-East, who have been working in Pune and certain cities of South India like Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai in order to create feelings of insecurity in their minds and make them go back to the North-East.

11. There is an underlying message in this new phase of the Psyjihad directed at people from the North-East living and working in South India and Pune. That is: “If the Government does not regularise the illegal immigration of Bangladeshis into the North-East, we will not allow people from the North-East to migrate to work in other parts of India.” One has to note that the Psyjihad directed at the people from the North-East is not based on their religion. Many of them are Christians and not Hindus. It is based on their right to migrate to other parts of India.

12. As a result of the feelings of insecurity created in the minds of people from the North-East in South India, many have already left for their homes, creating the danger of a fresh wave of communal violence when the displaced people of the North-East reach their homes with their tales of how they were intimidated resulting in their decision to come back home.

13.During the last 20 years the mental divide between the people of the North-East and those in the rest of India, that had given rise to different insurgencies, had disappeared. The insurgencies started losing public support and a large number of youngsters from the North-East had started identifying themselves with the rest of India. Many of them migrated to other parts of India in search of jobs. They were welcomed by people in other parts of India. A process of natural integration between the people of the North-East and other parts of India began.

14.In the Psyjihad directed against the people from the North-east, one sees the beginning of an insidious attempt to re-create the mental divide and drive a new wedge.

15. Unfortunately, one does not have the impression that our intelligence agencies and police have been able to keep pace with the evolution of the Psyjihad being waged through the Internet, mobile phones and I-pads. One does not see signs of any coherent and co-ordinated attempt to counter and neutralise it, identify the elements behind this Psyjihad and act against them firmly under the laws of the land.

16.In addition to neutralising this Psyjihad, it is important to initiate urgent measures to restore the sense of security of the people from the North-East by interacting with them continuously and vigorously and by providing them additional protection. The civil society too has an important role in this matter. This is the time to further strengthen our bonds of solidarity with them and reassure them that the civil society will stand by them.

17. All political parties should resist the urge, which could prove suicidal for the nation, to exploit these developments for their partisan advantage. This is the time for everybody to come together and unite against the new breed of extremists, who can turn out to be more dangerous than those of the past who relied on improvised explosive devices for destabilising us. ( 17-8-2012)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

PAK TALIBAN TARGETS AIRBORNE EARLY WARNING AIRCRAFT OF PAF

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO.760

B.RAMAN

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), as the Pakistani Taliban is known, has claimed responsibility for a successful raid into the Minhas base of the Northern Command of the Pakistani Air Force (PAF) early on the morning of August 16,2012.

2. According to the “Dawn” of Karachi, Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan claimed that nine heavily armed TTP militants stormed the PAF Minhas airbase at Kamra, located about 70 kms from the capital Islamabad in Punjab’s Attock city, leading to an intense gun battle lasting almost five hours.

3.“The attack was launched from two different sides. A team of four members entered from one side and five from the other and then they launched a collective attack inside the camp,” Ehsan reportedly  told Dawn. He added that all the nine attackers were killed.

4.He claimed  that the raiders killed more than a dozen security personnel. Ehsan said the TTP had carried out the attack “to avenge the deaths of Osama bin Laden, the TTP Amir Baitullah Mehsud and other fighters who had been killed by the Pakistani security forces.”

5.  According to the official version of the Pakistani authorities, only one security guard was killed and one aircraft was damaged by a rocket-propelled grenade. A PAF spokesman has been quoted by the Pakistani media as saying that the terrorists were wearing uniform, but he did not specify whether they were wearing the uniform of the Air Force or the Army. Air Commodore Muhammad Azam, the commanding officer of the PAF Base, was reported to  have been seriously injured. PAF officials denied media reports that there were nuclear weapons stored inside the base.

6. The significance of the Minhas base as a Taliban target arises from two factors. Firstly, it is the base in which the entire PAF holdings of aircraft fitted with Airborne Early Warning Systems are located. In 2007, the PAF had ordered five  Swedish-made SAAB 2000 aircraft, four of them fitted with Saab-Ericsson ERIEYE Airborne Early Warning system. The first of these fitted with Erieye was delivered to the PAF on April 3,2008, and the second in April last year. The PAF has also ordered from Sweden six ground receiving stations.

7. In addition, the PAF has reportedly ordered four  Shaanxi ZDK-03 ‘Karakoram Eagle’ airborne early warning and control (AEW & C) aircraft from China, the first of which was delivered in November 2010.Thus, the PAF presently has two SAAB 2000 and one Chinese ZDK-03 planes fitted with airborne early warning systems.

8. According to reliable Pakistani sources, the main objective of the TTP raiders into the Minhas base was to locate and destroy these three planes fitted with airborne early warning systems. These sources say that the raiders managed to damage at least one of them.

9. The Minhas raid resembled the TTP raid into PNS Mehran, the headquarters of the Pakistani Naval Air Arm, located inside the Faisal base of the Pakistan Air Force at Karachi on the night of May 22, 2011, during which the TTP managed to destroy two of the three US-made Orion P-3C maritime surveillance aircraft of the Pakistan Navy. After having destroyed two of the maritime surveillance aircraft, the TTP has now tried to destroy the aircraft of the PAF fitted with Airborne early warning systems.

10. The second significance of Minhas as the target arises from the fact that the Sino-Pakistan aircraft manufacturing complex at Kamra is located next to the PAF base. At this complex, Chinese engineers are helping Pakistan in the assembly and ultimate manufacture of Chinese-made JF-17 aircraft. According to the Dawn, 11 Chinese engineers are presently based in Kamra. The details of the raid available so far do not indicate that the TTP tried to attack the manufacturing complex too.

11. The Dawn has reported as follows: “All Chinese and others foreign engineers and technicians involved in co-production of Chinese and Pakistan JF-17 Thunder aircraft project were shifted to a high profile secure location, official sources told Dawn.com, adding that the engineers were not present near the attack area.”

12. Who are these other foreign engineers? Could these be North Koreans since China would not like to associate any other country with the assembly and manufacture of its aircraft? An answer to this question is not available.

13. Sections of the Pakistani media have reported that advance intelligence regarding the likelihood of TTP attacks on PAF establishments around this period had been conveyed by the Ministry of the Interior under which the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the internal intelligence agency, functions. If true, despite this, the PAF has been taken by surprise. The repeated successful raids of the TTP into supposedly heavily-protected military establishments underlines once again the poor state of physical security in these establishments and the likely complicity of insiders with the TTP raiders.

14. Despite this, the Pakistani Foreign Office on August 16  once again maintained that its strategic nuclear assets are safe under a robust command and control system. In his weekly media briefing, spokesman Moazzam Ahmad Khan  said the world should not have concerns for the safety of the country’s nuclear assets. He said elaborate measures are in place to secure the nuclear weapons.

15. This may please be read in continuation of my article of July 14,2012, titled “Pak Taliban On Come-Back Trail In Non-Tribal Areas” at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers52%5Cpaper5116.html   (16-8-2012)

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

MR.PRIME MINISTER, TIME TO JUMP OUT OF THE WELL

B.RAMAN

There are 35 substantive paras in the Independence Day address of our Prime Minister, Dr.Manmohan Singh, from the Red Fort on the morning of August 15,2012.

2.Two of these paras relate to internal security, two to the Armed and para-military forces and one to the measures for the eradication of corruption and the improvement of governance. There is no reference to foreign policy and our relations with our neighbours. The remaining 30 paras are related to the state of our economy and bread and butter issues of the common man.

3. One can understand the over-riding preoccupation of the address with economic issues. The economy is in a bad shape. The monsoon seems to be deserting us. All sections of our society----the rich, the middle class and the poor---have been affected by the economic downslide, which he has attributed to global factors  without admitting any policy deficiencies. Having been an economic expert all his professional life with very limited exposure to issues concerning national security and foreign policy, he feels more comfortable speaking on economic issues rather than on national security.

4.The country has been passing through unusually difficult times marked by growing disenchantment of different sections of the population with the seeming drift in policy-making and implementation, with the lack of sincerity and seriousness in dealing with corruption and with the lack of a robust leadership in steering the ship of State.

5. The events of the last one year were crying out for indications---however remote--- that the Prime Minister is aware of the seriousness of the situation confronting the country, that he has noticed the mood of desperation of the people and that he has been trying hard to find answers to the hopes and expectations of the people. Such indicators are sadly missing from the address. It is an “as usual” address which would totally disappoint the people and beie their hopes and expectations.

6. It is an address full of generalities and lacking in specifics in matters relating to national security and governance. The three most worrying internal security issues the nation has been facing are terrorism, insurgency and communal violence. Insurgency and communal violence have been touched upon in a general way in the context of the recent outbreak of violence in Assam and the continuing Naxal activities.  There is also a passing reference to the improvement in the ground situation in Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East. In terms of policy response, the address is silent except a reference or two to the action taken by the Government for the economic development of the affected areas.

7. There is no message of solidarity with the police and para-military forces fighting valiantly against insurgencies of various kinds. There is no reference to the actions that  the Government intends taking to improve our counter-insurgency capabilities. The address is silent on how the Government intends moving forward in respect of the report of the special interlocutors on J&K.

8.Surprisingly, there is no reference to terrorism anywhere in the address as if terrorism as a threat has disappeared. There is no homage to the memories of those----civilians and security forces---who died at the hands of the terrorists--- and no reference to the contempt and indifference with which Pakistan continues to ignore repeated Indian requests for action against the Pakistan-based conspirators of the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai.

9. Even his passing reference to the recent explosions in Pune seem to have been carefully sanitised in order to avoid evoking in the minds of the people images of continuing terrorism. His  reference to the recent Pune incidents says: “The incidents which occurred in Pune in the beginning of this month point to the need for much more work to be done in the area of national security. We will continue to do this work with sincerity in the future also.”

10. The exercise to strengthen our counter-terrorism capabilities has come to a screeching halt due to differences between the Centre and some States on the creation of the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC). One would have expected a strong message of co-operation with the States in dealing with internal security in general and terrorism in particular. Such a message has been missing.

11. Even his references to the Armed Forces are lack-lustre. The usual tribute to the sacrifices made by the Armed Forces is there. So too a reiteration of the Government’s determination to modernise the Armed Forces and cater to their welfare. As in the case of internal security, in the case of external security too, there are no indications of likely policy responses. The Government knows best how to deal with national security and will take the required measures. The people should leave it to the Government and the Prime Minister without asking questions and without expecting details. That seems to be his attitude.

12. Last year, the Prime Minister took an excellent initiative in appointing a blue ribbon Special Task Force headed by Shri Naresh Chandra, former Cabinet Secretary, former Ambassador to the US and present Convenor of the National Security Advisory Board, to make a comprehensive review of our national security mechanism and come up with concrete recommendations for modernising our national security architecture.

13. Its report was submitted to the Prime Minister on May 24 last. It is now under vetting by the Ministries and Departments concerned before releasing to the public salient points of the report and taking up the accepted recommendations for implementation.

14. This is an important exercise in our efforts to modernise our national security machinery. It would have been unfair to expect the Prime Minister to discuss the salient points of the report in his Independence Day message, but a reference to this significant exercise and how the Government intends carrying it forward would have reassured the people that national security has been receiving adequate attention from the Prime Minister. But the Prime Minister chose to keep quiet.

15. His casual reference to public concerns over corruption and what the Government intends doing about it shows an unfortunate absence of a sense of gravity over the feelings of desperation and anger of the common man on this issue. One cannot imagine a more indifferent and insensitive approach. All that the Prime Minister said was: “The Lok Sabha has cleared the Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill. We hope that all political parties will help us in passing this Bill in the Rajya Sabha. A number of other Bills have also been presented before the Parliament. The Cabinet has cleared a Public Procurement Bill. We will continue our efforts to bring more transparency and accountability in the work of public servants and to reduce corruption. But we will also take care that these measures do not result in a situation in which the morale of public functionaries taking decisions in public interest gets affected because of baseless allegations and unnecessary litigation.”

16. I had stated this often in the past. I repeat it again on the basis of my limited experience in public service. It is important for a public servant from the Prime Minister downwards to maintain continuous communication with the people through various conventional and modern means of communication available. The Prime Minister has to jump out of the well in which like a frog he has got stuck and interact vigorously  with the media and the people through the various means available. The media and the people have a right to ask him tough questions and expect honest answers. By continuing to take shelter behind the Great Wall of his well, he cannot win the confidence of the people and remove the prevailing mood of desperation and anger.

17.In response to my past articles on the Prime Minister’s style of leadership ---or the lack of it--- I was in receipt of innumerable comments from my loyal readers saying: “ You are wasting your time and energy in your old age and in your state of poor health raising such issues with the Prime Minister. Nothing is going to have an impact on him.”

18. What they say may be true, but I refuse to give up. I am writing one more time hoping  that least this time I can make the frog jump out of the well and show some vigour and activity.

19. Annexed are the relevant paras from his address which have been discussed above. ( 15-8-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate, Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )

ANNEXURE

EXTRACTS FROM THE PM’S INDEPENDENCE DAY ADDRESS

“The incidents of violence which occurred in Assam recently are very unfortunate. I know that these incidents have resulted in the disruption of the lives of a large number of people. We fully sympathize with those families which have been affected by the violence. We are doing everything possible to provide relief to them. I also promise to you that our Government will make every effort to understand the reasons behind the violence and work hard with the State Governments to ensure that such incidents are not repeated in any part of the country.

“We have achieved success in many areas of internal security. In Jammu and Kashmir, people participated in large numbers in the Panchayat elections. There has been a reduction in violence in the North Eastern States and we are engaged in dialogue with many groups there so that they can join the mainstream of development. We have initiated new schemes of development in areas affected by naxal violence to ensure that the grievances of the people residing there, especially our brothers and sisters belonging to Scheduled Tribes, can be removed and their lot can be improved. However, we need to be constantly vigilant as far as internal security is concerned.

“Communal harmony has to be maintained at all costs. Naxalism is still a serious problem. The incidents which occurred in Pune in the beginning of this month point to the need for much more work to be done in the area of national security. We will continue to do this work with sincerity in the future also.

“We have seen a lot of discussion in the recent months about the role of our armed forces and their preparedness. I would like to emphasise here that our armed forces and paramilitary forces have defended the security of our country both during war and peace with valour and honour. Our soldiers have made the biggest of sacrifices, whenever needed. Today I would like to reassure our countrymen that our armed forces and paramilitary forces are prepared to face any challenge. The Government will continue to work for modernizing these forces and providing them with the necessary technology and equipment. Today, I would like to thank our security forces, who are guarding our frontiers bravely, from the bottom of my heart. We will continue to make efforts for their welfare.

“Our Government has set up a committee to examine issues relating to pay and pension of armed forces personnel. This committee will also look into matters concerning pension of retired men and officers and family pension being paid to their families. We will take prompt action on the recommendations of the committee, once they are received.

“Our commitment to make the work of the Government and administration transparent and accountable stands. On the last Independence Day, I promised you that we would take many steps for this purpose. I am happy to state that during the last 1 year we have achieved good progress in this area. The Lok Sabha has cleared the Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill. We hope that all political parties will help us in passing this Bill in the Rajya Sabha. A number of other Bills have also been presented before the Parliament. The Cabinet has cleared a Public Procurement Bill. We will continue our efforts to bring more transparency and accountability in the work of public servants and to reduce corruption. But we will also take care that these measures do not result in a situation in which the morale of public functionaries taking decisions in public interest gets affected because of baseless allegations and unnecessary litigation.”