INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.634
B.RAMAN
The plea bargain entered into by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with David Coleman Headley of the Chicago cell of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) in order to persuade him to plead guilty to all the charges against him relating to the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist strikes and a planned strike against the Danish newspaper which published cartoons of the Holy Prophet in 2005 summarises the information which had earlier figured in the initial affidavits and the subsequent indictment filed by the FBI in a Chicago court. In addition, it contains some new information which had not figured in the earlier documents. This new information is discussed in this paper.
2. FIVE TRAINING COURSES:Headley attended the following training courses of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) in Pakistan: (a).February 2002:a three-week ideological course on the merits of waging a jihad. (b). August 2002: a three-week course in the use of weapons and grenades and other skills. (c). April 2003:a three-month course in close combat tactics, use of weapons and grenades, and survival skills. (d).August 2003: a three-week course in counter-surveillance.(e). December 2003--a three- month course in combat and tactical training.
3. In late 2005, Headley entered into a conspiracy with four members of the LET identified only as A,B,C and D "to deliver, place, discharge and detonate explosives and other lethal devices in, into and against places of public use, state and government facilities, public transportation systems, and infrastructure facilities in India with the intent to cause death and serious bodily injury, and with the intent to cause extensive destruction of such places and facilities which such destruction would likely result in major economic loss." The plea bargain adds:"In or around late 2005, Headley met with LET members A, B and D, and received instructions to travel to India to conduct surveillance of various locations in India, including places of public use, and state and government facilities. "
4. The above wording indicates that this was a conspiracy probably unrelated to Mumbai 26/11 and involved the planting of explosives in public places and infrastructure of economic importance. The plea bargain makes a distinction between a "Conspiracy to Bomb Places of Public Use in India " and a "Conspiracy to Murder and Maim in India." The second conspiracy relates to 26/11. What is the first conspiracy about? Does it refer to the series of explosions in India in 2005 and 2006, including the explosion in New Delhi in October 2005 and the suburban train explosions in Mumbai in July 2006? Did Headley play any role in those explosions? However, it is evident from the plea bargain that his visits to India started after the suburban train explosions. He was not in India on behalf of the LET before September 2006.
4. FIRST VISIT TO INDIA:In or around September 2006, Headley made his first visit to India. " During this trip, defendant conducted extensive videosurveillance of various locations in India, including, but not limited to, the Taj Mahal Hotel.After this trip, defendant met in Pakistan with various co-conspirators, including but not limited to members of Lashkar e Tayyiba, provided them with the video recordings he had made and discussed with the co-conspirators the video and the surveillance he had conducted. Further, defendant received instructions to return to Mumbai and perform additional surveillance."
5. Thus, the planning for 26/11 would seem to have started around September 2006. In describing his five visits to India before 26/11, the plea bargain repeats every time that on his return to Pakistan from India Headley met "with various co-conspirators, including but not limited to members of Lashkar eTayyiba." This indicates that according to Headley, the conspiracy involved not only the LET, but also others. Who are those others? State actors such as serving and retired army and intelligence officers? The plea bargain is silent on this point.However, the references in the plea bargain to his discussions in Pakistan after his visit to Copenhagen do not refer to his meetings with prople other than LET members, Ilyas Kashmiri and his associate (Pasha). This gives rise to a possible inference that while State actors were involved in the conspiracy against India, they were not in the conspiracy against Denmark.
6. SECOND VISIT TO INDIA: "In or around February 2007, defendant returned to Mumbai and conducted video surveillance of various locations, including, but not limited to, extensive video of the second floor of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, India. After this trip, defendant again met in Pakistan with various co-conspirators, including but not limited to members of Lashkar eTayyiba, provided them with the video recordings he had made and discussed with the co-conspirators the video and the surveillance he had conducted."
7.There are two significant points relating to his first and second visits in the plea bargain. While talking of his first visit, the plea bargain says he " conducted extensive videosurveilance of various locations in India " including but not limited to the Taj Mahal Hotel." In its reference to his second visit, the plea bargain refers only to Mumbai and says: "He conducted videosurveillance of various locations including but not limited to extensive video of the second floor of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai."
8. During his first visit in September 2006, he travelled to a number of places in India, including Mumbai. What are those places? During his second visit, he travelled only to Mumbai. During his first visit, he took video pictures of the Taj Mahal Hotel in general. During his second visit, he was asked to take video pictures of the second floor of the Taj Mahal Hotel. Why?
9.THIRD VISIT TO INDIA: "In or around September 2007, defendant returned to Mumbai and conducted additional surveillance, as instructed. After returning to Pakistan, defendant again met with various co-conspirators, including but not limited to members of Lashkar e Tayyiba,provided them with the video recordings he had made and discussed with the co-conspirators the video and the surveillance he had conducted."
10.In or about March 2008, he met with the co-conspirators in Pakistan and discussed potential landing sites in Mumbai for a team of attackers that would arrive by sea. "Following this discussion, defendant was ordered to return to Mumbai to perform additional surveillance and locate possible landing sites."
11. Between September 2006 and March 2008, the conspiracy focussed on possible attacks on targets in Mumbai, including the Taj Mahal Hotel. The first talk with the LET and others of the attacks being mounted from the sea took place in March 2008. Did the idea of a sea-borne attack come from Headley? The plea bargain is silent.
12.FOURTH VISIT TO INDIA: In or around April 2008, Headley returned to Mumbai "with a global positioning system(“GPS”) device and performed the surveillance,including taking boat trips in and around the Mumbai harbor and entering locations in the GPS device. After returning to Pakistan, defendant again met with various co-conspirators,and, among other things, advised them of his recommendations as to potential landing sites.During these meetings, defendant learned that attack plans were being delayed, in part, to wait for when the sea was calmer."
13. The fourth visit was devoted to the collection of data to facilitate a sea-borne attack. It may be recalled that sections of the Indian media had reported that according to Kasab, the only Pakistani terrorist caught alive, who is now facing trial before a Mumbai court, the attack was originally planned for September,2008, but was postponed due to reasons not known to him.
14. FIFTH VISIT: In or around July 2008, Headley returned to Mumbai and conducted extensive video surveillance of various targets, including but not limited to the Taj Mahal Hotel, the Oberoi Hotel, the Chabad House, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station, the Leopold Café, as well as potential landing sites for the team of attackers. "After this trip, defendant again met several times in Pakistan with various co-conspirators, including but not limited to members of Lashkar e Tayyiba, provided them with the video recordings he had made and discussed with the co-conspirators the video and the surveillance he had conducted."
15. Thus, between March 2008, when the decision to attack by sea was taken, and July 2008, when Headley made his fifth and last pre-26/11 visit to Mumbai, a decision was taken by the co-conspirators to expand the list of targets to include----in addition to the Taj Mahal Hotel--- the Leopald Cafe, the Oberoi Hotel, the Narriman House and the railway terminus.
16. On his return from his fifth visit to India,in addition to other meetings, Headley met with Lashkar Member A on several occasions and at several locations. "Lashkar Member A advised defendant of a number of details concerning the planned attacks, including that a team of attackers was being trained in a variety of combat skills, the team would be traveling to Mumbai by sea and using the landing site recommended by the defendant, the team would be fighting to the death and would not attempt to escape following the attacks.The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station would be one target of the attacks, and the team would be using a GPS device and remain in telephonic contact with Lashkar Member A during the attacks."
17. The plea bargain refers specifically to four LET handlers of Headley, who are merely identified as A,B,C and D. Of these, LET member A seems to be the most important. He informed Headley in a personal one-to-one meeting after his fifth visit to Mumbai of the details of the planned attack. He also said it would be a suicidal attack and that the attackers would remain in contact with A during the attacks. Headley had several meetings at different locations with A. During a November meeting held in Karachi, A sought Headley's help in mounting an attack in Copenhagen. Headley's last contact with A was in March 2009 when A informed him that the LET was withdrawing from the Copenhagen conspiracy due to the post-26/11 pressure on it. The plea bargain does not say whether the March 2009 contact was personal or over telephone or by E-mail. Is LET member A Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi, who is believed to have orchestrated the conspiracy? The plea bargain is silent. The plea bargain refers to a personal meeting of Headley with A in Pakistan in January 2009. According to Pakistani media, by that time Lakhvi was already in jail after having been arrested by the Pakistani authorities for his involvement in 26/11. If the presumption that Lakhvi is A is correct, where did Headley meet him? In jail? The plea bargain is silent.
18.VISIT TO INDIA AFTER 26/11: Headley traveled to India in or about March 2009 to conduct additional surveillance.Among other locations, he conducted surveillance of the National Defense College in Delhi, India, and of Chabad Houses in several cities in India.
19. COPENHAGEN CONSPIRACY: "In or about early November 2008, defendant met with Lashkar Member A in Karachi,Pakistan, and was instructed to travel to Denmark to conduct surveillance of the Copenhagen and Aarhus offices of the Danish newspaper Morganevisen Jyllands-Posten (the “Jyllands-Posten”), in preparation for an attack on the newspaper in retaliation for its publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohamed. Following this meeting, defendant informed co-defendant ABDUR REHMAN HASHIM SYED (“Pasha”) of his assignment. Pasha stated to defendant words to the effect that if Lashkar did not go through with the attack, Pasha knew someone who would. Although not identified by name at the time, defendant later learned this individual to be co-defendant ILYAS KASHMIRI. Pasha previously had stated to defendant that he had been working with KASHMIRI and that KASHMIRI was in direct contact with a senior leader for Al Qaeda.In or around December 2008, defendant met with Lashkar Member A and again discussed an attack on the Jyllands-Posten facility. More specifically, defendant and Lashkar Member A discussed the scope of the attack. When defendant suggested that the focus be on those responsible, referring to killing the editor and cartoonist, Lashkar Member A stated that “all Danes are responsible.”
20."In or around late January 2009, defendant met separately with Lashkar Member A and Pasha in Pakistan concerning the planned attack on the newspaper and provided each with videos of his surveillance. At about the same time, Pasha provided to defendant a video produced by the media wing of Al Qaeda in or around August 2008. The video claimed credit for the June 2008 attack on the Danish embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, and called for further attacks against Danish interests to avenge the publication of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed. In or around February 2009, defendant and Pasha met with co-defendant KASHMIRI in the Waziristan region of Pakistan. Defendant discussed with KASHMIRI and Pasha the video surveillance that defendant had taken in Copenhagen and ways in which to carry out the attack. KASHMIRI told the defendant that he (KASHMIRI) could provide manpower for the operation and that the participation of Lashkar was not necessary. After this meeting,in or around March 2009, Lashkar Member A advised defendant that Lashkar put the plans to attack the Jyllands-Posten on hold due to pressure on Lashkar resulting from the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai."
21.In or around May 2009, Headley and Pasha again met with KASHMIRI in Waziristan. KASHMIRI told the defendant that he had met with an European contact who could provide the defendant with money, weapons and manpower for the attack on the newspaper. KASHMIRI directed the defendant to meet with this European contact, and relate KASHMIRI’s instructions that this should be a suicide attack and that the attackers should prepare martyrdom videos beforehand. Among other details, KASHMIRI stated that the attackers should behead captives and throw their heads out of the newspaper building in order to heighten the response from Danish authorities. KASHMIRI stated that the “elders,”who defendant understood to be Al Qaeda leadership, wanted the attack to happen as soon as possible.
22.It is clear from the plea bargain that the initial ideas for the Copenhagen attack came from the LET in November 2008, but Ilyas Kashmiri took over the project in March 2009 after the LET came under pressure for its involvement in the 26/11 attacks.
23. The operative part of the plea bargain rules out his extradition to India or Pakistan or Denmark for trial in connection with the 12 charges relating to Mumbai and Copenhagen to which he has pleaded guilty. Since he has pleaded guilty to two conspiracies relating to India----26/11 and pre-26/11--- he cannot be extradited to India in respect of any offence committed by him on or before 26/11. An extradition request is theoretically possible if Indian investigators find evidence of his involvement in a crime in India after 26/11. We should see whether we can seek his extradition in connection with the Pune explosion of February 13,2010, since he had played a role in the collection of operational information from Pune. The Pune blast is not covered by the plea bargain.
24. The plea bargain indicates that Headley has had a criminal record in the US since 1989. In or about 1988, he was convicted in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York of conspiracy to import heroin into the United States and sentenced on January 5, 1989, to four years’ imprisonment. On March 27, 1995, he was found to have violated the terms of his supervised release,and was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. On July 18, 1997, he was convicted of conspiracy to import and possess heroin with the intent to distribute it and sentenced on November 7, 1997, to eighteen months’ imprisonment.
25.As part of the plea bargain, Headley has voluntarily given up his right to a formal trial with production of evidence and cross-examination of witnesses.He has also given up his right to appeal against any sentence imposed by the court on the basis of his guilty pleas. He has made two formal commitments of co-operation with the FBI. The first commitment relates to judicial proceedings of US authorities. The second to judicial proceedings of foreignh countries. His commitment relating to foreign countries reads as follows: "Defendant further agrees that, when directed by the United States Attorney’s Office, he will fully and truthfully testify in any foreign judicial proceedings held in the United States by way of deposition, videoconferencing or letters rogatory." He has not made a formal commitment of letting himself be interrogated by a foreign country. He has only made a commitment of subjecting himself to any foreign judicial proceedings if held in the US. That is, he has agreed to give testimony in any foreign judicial proceeding held in US territory. This judicial proceeding could be by either India or Pakistan or Denmark. It would be useful for India to check with Denmark what they intend doing about this.
26. While one of the major charges against Headley relates to the murder of six American nationals during the Mumbai terrorist strike, the plea bargain has avoided touching upon questions such as who took the decision to kill foreign nationals, including Americans, and what was the role of the Pakistani State agencies in taking this decision.
27. The plea bargain becomes valid only when accepted by the court. The court has the discretion to reject the plea bargain and order a formal trial with or without jury. This poses the interesting question: Can the relatives of any of those kiiled by the terrorists appeal to the court not to accept the plea bargain, but to go ahead with the trial in order to find out the full truth behind what happened in Mumbai . The wives of the brave police officers killed by the terrorists should mobilise the relatives of all those----Indians and foreigners--- killed by the terrorists and send a joint appeal to the court to reject the plea bargain and to hold a trial in order to find out the truth. Will somebody pass this on to the relatives of those killed?( 21-3-2010)
( 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 )
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
HEADLEY: FROM OBAMA WITH LOVE
B.RAMAN
All Governments indulge in spin. One should not, therefore, blame the Government of Dr.Manmohan Singh for indulging in spin in the case of David Coleman Headley, of the Chicago cell of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), and for trying to mislead the hapless Indian public with the help of obliging journalists that the plea bargain entered into by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with Headley was not a setback, but a great triumph for Indian diplomacy.
2. We might not have succeeded in getting him extradited in the Mumbai 26/11 case, says bravely Home Secretary G.K.Pillai, but the option of getting him extradited in other cases is still open. What other cases?
3. We will keep trying, says Home Minister P.Chidambaram. And, in the meanwhile, more Indians will keep dying at the hands of the terrorists.
4. "Four Reasons Why India is Smiling" says "The Times of India" of diminishing credibility. Why India is smiling according to the whiz kids of the TOI? For the first time LET's links with Al Qaeda being underscored in a US Court. Oh really? The first time a clandestine cell of the LET was detected in the US was in 2003 when George Bush was the President. The FBI arrested a number of American nationals of Pakistani, Saudi and other origin and charged them with waging war against India from US territory.
5. What is the second reason for India's smile visible only to the TOI and not to many of us? "The threat of execution will hang over him." Oh really? Under the US law once the FBI renounces its right to demand death penalty in a case it cannot go back on its commitment whatever be the new evidence.
6. What is the third reason for the smile? India can interrogate Headley even if he is not extradited. Another gem from the TOI. Interrogation is done in your custody. Otherwise, it is meaningless. Yes, under the plea bargain Indian investigators can question him in FBI's custody. The FBI officer will decide the relevance of the questions.
7. The fourth reason for India's smile so visible to the TOI? India's case against the LET has become stronger.So what? Will India be able to get Pro.Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed, the Amir of the LET, arrested and prosecuted by Pakistan? Will India be able to see that Pakistan dismantles the LET infrastructure in Pakistani territory? Will India be able to prevent another 26/11? Then of what use India's case against the LET becoming stronger?
8. The "Hindu". the other daily of no credibility, has come out with its own gem. Says N.Ram, the precious son of the Tamil soil and our own unique contribution to the world of Indian journalism: " Barring death penalty enthusiasts, no one has any reason to bemoan the Plea Agreement".
9.Oh,oh.oh,oh Mr.Ram. It has got nothing to do with death penalty. It has got everything to do with Pakistan's continued use of the LET to kill hundreds of innocent Indians. Our investigation into 26/11 runs on two parallel tracks----- the responsibility of the LET, which the Pakistanis project as a non-State actor with which the State of Pakistan has nothing to do and the responsibility of the State of Pakistan. What the US has sought to achieve through the choreographed plea bargain is that while India will be able to highlight the responsibility of the LET, it will not be able to establish the responsibility of the State of Pakistan. The Obama Administration wants the world to perceive 26/11 as the crime of a non-state actor as claimed by Pakistan and not the crime of the State of Pakistan. That is the real issue here.
10.What did Headley know according to the FBI's own court affidavits?
He knew Ilyas Kashmiri of the 313 Brigade, who is close to Osama bin Laden and who recently threatened to attack the IPL cricket matches and the Commonwealth Games. Headley had met him in North Waziristan in the beginning of 2009.
He knew many office-bearers of the LET whose identities the FBI has not revealed.
He knew many serving and retired officers of the Pakistan Army.
11. What he must be knowing?
The identities of the many contacts he made in India during his repeated visits.
The identities of the sleeper cells of the LET, which have not yet come to the notice of the Indian investigators. If the FBI had allowed us to question Headley in time, we might have been able to prevent the Pune blast of February 13 if it had been planned by the LET or its Indian associates.
12. The FBI had seen to it that we will not be able to find out all this by independently interrogating Headley. It is a great tragedy and speaks eloquently of the decay of our sense of national self-respect that instead of having the spine to stand up to the US and protest loud and clear over the FBI's shutting out access to Headley, we are indulging in more spins to project what has happened as a triumph for Indo-US cooperation over which we should smile and not cry.
13. The Obama Administration has been repeatedly kicking us in the back.It did so in respect of Afghanistan. It has done so in respect of Headley. Instead of having the courage and intellectual honesty to admit to our people that we have been let down nastily by the US, we are indulging in more spins to project the kicks as, in fact, boquets from Obama with love.
14.Dear Dr.Manmohan Singh, Dear Shri Chidambaram, Dear Shri Pillai, Dear Shri Ram, Dear whiz-kids of ToI : Some weeks ago Mulla Baradar, supposedly No.2 in the Afghan Taliban, was arrested by the ISI in Karachi.He is in the ISI's custody. The US and Afghan intelligence wanted independent access to him for interrogation. The ISI refused and told them he could be questioned in the ISI's custody. The US insisted on independent access and warned Pakistan of the likely consequences if it did not agree to it. This week's reports say that Pakistan has been forced to allow independent access to the Americans.
15. That is the way a self-respecting nation protects its interests and nationals. For the US, independent interrogation of Baradar was necessary to hold those responsible for American deaths in the past accountable and to prevent more deaths in future. It insisted on it and had its way.
16. India is not the US. The clout which it has over Pakistan we do not have anywhere in the world. At least we could have had the courage to protest---- loudly and openly--- instead of projecting every stab in the back by Obama as a kiss in the back.
17. Annexed is an article titled "PM in the US: The Spin and the Fizzle" written by me on November 30,2009.
18. The spin continues. The more the spins, the more will be the fizzles.( 19-3-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
ANNEXURE
PM in US: The Spin & The Fizzle ( http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3525.html )
By B. Raman
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The Washington pudding served by President Barack Obama to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the latter's visit to the US from November 23 to 26, 2009, is yet to be tasted, but if one is objective in analysing the outcome of the visit, one will have to concede that the spins put out by one of the PM's advisers from the PM's plane through obliging journalists before he landed in Washington DC have remained what they were----spins and nothing more.
2. Two of the pre-summit spins put out from the plane related to India's right to reprocess used nuclear fuel from US-supplied power stations and co-operation in counter-terrorism. The Indian public was given the impression that the agreement on the re-processing modalities had almost been finalised and would be a flagship outcome of the visit.
3. Hardly had the PM landed in Washington DC when Nirupama Rao, the Foreign Secretary, had to unspin the spin put out from the aircraft. She told the journalists that while there was progress in the negotiations, an agreement was still away and may not be the outcome of the visit. We have now been told during a post-summit spin session on board the plane while the PM and his party were returning to New Delhi that barring one or two issues, the agreement has almost been clinched. It might not have been possible to initial it during the PM's stay in Washington DC, so what? It is a question of a wait of another seven to 10 days. So we are told now.
4. Another pre-summit spin from the PM's aircraft was that a memorandum of understanding on future counter-terrorism co-operation between the two countries would be another important outcome. It was made out that the lightning visit of Leon Panetta, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, to New Delhi before the Prime Minister took off for Washington was an indicator of the importance attached by Obama to this subject.
5. What the spin-masters did not tell the Indian public was that the CIA chief had actually flown to Islamabad due to concerns over the growing isolation of President Asif Ali Zardari and had stopped over in India by the way.
6. Some New Delhi-based analysts, who always go lyrical on Indo-US relations, have extensively quoted from the Manmohan Singh-Obama joint statement to claim that the so-called joint counter-terrorism initiative mentioned in the statement was, in fact, the flagship outcome of the visit. In post-summit spin sessions on board the returning aircraft, one of the PM's advisers put out for all who might believe him that Obama himself was personally monitoring the FBI investigation into the activities of the Chicago cell ( David Coleman Headley--- Tahawuur Hussain Rana) of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and that on his instructions a high-level team of the FBI headed by its chief would be flying to India to share with us all the information collected by the FBI during the investigation.
7. What the Indian public was not told was that the programme for the New Delhi visit of the FBI chief was fixed long before the PM's visit to Washington DC and that in the US the President has no powers to monitor the FBI's investigation process which is independent. Indian Prime Ministers may as a matter of habit monitor the investigations of the CBI, but the US President can't monitor the FBI 's investigations.
8. Embarrassed by the statement of the US National Security Adviser, Gen. James Jones, when the PM was still abroad that the Indian investigators may not be able to join in the interrogation of Headley and Rana due to legal difficulties, the spin-masters told us that this was because the two suspects had not yet been indicted before a court. We were told that once they were indicted, our investigators would be able to interrogate them.
9. What we were not told was that once a suspect is indicted, he is transferred to judicial custody and no more interrogation is possible without a special court order. US courts are often hesitant to permit foreign investigators to interrogate suspects facing trial before them. That is what Gen. Jones meant when he talked of legal difficulties.
10. The so-called counter-terrorism initiative, which has been projected as path-breaking, is thin in substance and thinner in new ideas. Two ideas of considerable originality and significance were born out of Indo-US counter-terrorism co-operation initiatives under the Bill Clinton and George Bush Administrations. The idea of a Joint Working Group on Counter-terrorism came out of the meeting between Jaswant Singh, the then Foreign Minister, and Strobe Talbot, the then US Deputy Secretary of State, at London in January 2000 in the wake of the Kandahar hijacking. Now this has become a model for a similar mechanism with many other countries.
11. The Indo-US Cyber Security Forum was born post-9/11 during counter-terrorism interactions between security officials of the Bush and Atal Behari Vajpayee Governments. Compared to those ideas, not a single new idea has come out of the much-hyped summit between Manmohan Singh and Obama.
12. And yet we are asked to hail the so-called counter-terrorism initiative. We should gladly do so if someone could explain to us what this initiative is about. Yes, there has been an improvement in what is called mutual legal assistance between India and the US after the 26/11 terrorist strike in Mumbai. For the first time since counter-terrorism co-operation between the two countries started in the 1980s the FBI allowed its officers not only to share their forensic findings with their Indian counterparts, but also to help the Mumbai Police in its prosecution by allowing FBI officers to testify before the trial court through video-conferencing. In the past while the FBI had shared its findings with us, it had refused to allow its officers to testify before an Indian court.
13. There has been a welcome change in that attitude because of the enormity of the offence and the death of six US nationals at the hands of the terrorists. There was an improvement in intelligence-sharing under the Bush Administration. In December, 2008, Indian media carried reports about two timely warnings regarding the 26/11 strikes received by the Indian agencies from their US counterparts in September,2008. The US agencies were also of considerable assistance in the collection of technical intelligence during the terrorist strike which forced the Government of Pakistan to arrest some of the conspirators based in Pakistan and initiate action, however unsatisfactory, against them. All this was done between November 26, 2008, and January 20, 2009, when Bush was still the President.
14. One understands that under the Bush Adminisatration, the US agencies were helpful in collecting intelligence about the Pakistani involvement in the explosion outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul in July, 2008, and sharing it with their Indian counterparts. They did it automatically on their own without the need for our PM having to take it up with Bush.
15. What has been our experience since Obama took over on January 20, 2009? One has not heard of any active US role in helping us in the investigation of the recent second explosion outside our Embassy in Kabul. Even though the FBI has reportedly already shared a lot of intelligence with our agencies in the Headley-Rana case, one has the impression that there has been some foot-dragging by the US authorities in respect of sharing with the Indian agencies information which could help them in identifying serving or retired Pakistani military and intelligence officials with whom Headley and Rana were in touch.
16. If we are given permission to interrogate them, our investigators will query them on the identities of the Pakistani officials. The officials of the Obama Administration are uncomfortable over the prospect of this.
17. There is an apparent strip-tease going on about Headley. There are wheels within wheels in the Headley case. Before he gravitated to the world of jihadi terrorism, he was in the world of narcotics smuggling. He was reportedly arrested once by US officials responsible for narcotics control.
18. Instead of being dealt with severely as one does normally with narcotics offenders, he seems to have been treated somewhat leniently. Did the narcotics control agency of the US recruit him as its agent in return for the lenient sentence? Was the FBI aware of this? We are all assuming that he was able to lead a high-profile life in India because of financial assistance from the LET and the Pakistani intelligence. Were payments from the US narcotics control agency also helping him lead a comfortable life in India and rub shoulders with film personalities and other high-flyers?
19. Will we get complete answers to these questions from the FBI ? The Obama Administration's counter-terrorism co-operation with India reminds one of the policy pursued by the Clinton Administration. Help India in preventing and investigating an act of terrorism originating from Pakistan, but avoid helping India in any matter which might prove detrimental to the State of Pakistan.
20. We ought to be more balanced in our assessment of US policies which have an impact on our core interests and more articulate in expressing our concerns and misgivings. Our relationship with the US is important, but that does not mean that we let ourselves be overawed into silence.
(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)
All Governments indulge in spin. One should not, therefore, blame the Government of Dr.Manmohan Singh for indulging in spin in the case of David Coleman Headley, of the Chicago cell of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), and for trying to mislead the hapless Indian public with the help of obliging journalists that the plea bargain entered into by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with Headley was not a setback, but a great triumph for Indian diplomacy.
2. We might not have succeeded in getting him extradited in the Mumbai 26/11 case, says bravely Home Secretary G.K.Pillai, but the option of getting him extradited in other cases is still open. What other cases?
3. We will keep trying, says Home Minister P.Chidambaram. And, in the meanwhile, more Indians will keep dying at the hands of the terrorists.
4. "Four Reasons Why India is Smiling" says "The Times of India" of diminishing credibility. Why India is smiling according to the whiz kids of the TOI? For the first time LET's links with Al Qaeda being underscored in a US Court. Oh really? The first time a clandestine cell of the LET was detected in the US was in 2003 when George Bush was the President. The FBI arrested a number of American nationals of Pakistani, Saudi and other origin and charged them with waging war against India from US territory.
5. What is the second reason for India's smile visible only to the TOI and not to many of us? "The threat of execution will hang over him." Oh really? Under the US law once the FBI renounces its right to demand death penalty in a case it cannot go back on its commitment whatever be the new evidence.
6. What is the third reason for the smile? India can interrogate Headley even if he is not extradited. Another gem from the TOI. Interrogation is done in your custody. Otherwise, it is meaningless. Yes, under the plea bargain Indian investigators can question him in FBI's custody. The FBI officer will decide the relevance of the questions.
7. The fourth reason for India's smile so visible to the TOI? India's case against the LET has become stronger.So what? Will India be able to get Pro.Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed, the Amir of the LET, arrested and prosecuted by Pakistan? Will India be able to see that Pakistan dismantles the LET infrastructure in Pakistani territory? Will India be able to prevent another 26/11? Then of what use India's case against the LET becoming stronger?
8. The "Hindu". the other daily of no credibility, has come out with its own gem. Says N.Ram, the precious son of the Tamil soil and our own unique contribution to the world of Indian journalism: " Barring death penalty enthusiasts, no one has any reason to bemoan the Plea Agreement".
9.Oh,oh.oh,oh Mr.Ram. It has got nothing to do with death penalty. It has got everything to do with Pakistan's continued use of the LET to kill hundreds of innocent Indians. Our investigation into 26/11 runs on two parallel tracks----- the responsibility of the LET, which the Pakistanis project as a non-State actor with which the State of Pakistan has nothing to do and the responsibility of the State of Pakistan. What the US has sought to achieve through the choreographed plea bargain is that while India will be able to highlight the responsibility of the LET, it will not be able to establish the responsibility of the State of Pakistan. The Obama Administration wants the world to perceive 26/11 as the crime of a non-state actor as claimed by Pakistan and not the crime of the State of Pakistan. That is the real issue here.
10.What did Headley know according to the FBI's own court affidavits?
He knew Ilyas Kashmiri of the 313 Brigade, who is close to Osama bin Laden and who recently threatened to attack the IPL cricket matches and the Commonwealth Games. Headley had met him in North Waziristan in the beginning of 2009.
He knew many office-bearers of the LET whose identities the FBI has not revealed.
He knew many serving and retired officers of the Pakistan Army.
11. What he must be knowing?
The identities of the many contacts he made in India during his repeated visits.
The identities of the sleeper cells of the LET, which have not yet come to the notice of the Indian investigators. If the FBI had allowed us to question Headley in time, we might have been able to prevent the Pune blast of February 13 if it had been planned by the LET or its Indian associates.
12. The FBI had seen to it that we will not be able to find out all this by independently interrogating Headley. It is a great tragedy and speaks eloquently of the decay of our sense of national self-respect that instead of having the spine to stand up to the US and protest loud and clear over the FBI's shutting out access to Headley, we are indulging in more spins to project what has happened as a triumph for Indo-US cooperation over which we should smile and not cry.
13. The Obama Administration has been repeatedly kicking us in the back.It did so in respect of Afghanistan. It has done so in respect of Headley. Instead of having the courage and intellectual honesty to admit to our people that we have been let down nastily by the US, we are indulging in more spins to project the kicks as, in fact, boquets from Obama with love.
14.Dear Dr.Manmohan Singh, Dear Shri Chidambaram, Dear Shri Pillai, Dear Shri Ram, Dear whiz-kids of ToI : Some weeks ago Mulla Baradar, supposedly No.2 in the Afghan Taliban, was arrested by the ISI in Karachi.He is in the ISI's custody. The US and Afghan intelligence wanted independent access to him for interrogation. The ISI refused and told them he could be questioned in the ISI's custody. The US insisted on independent access and warned Pakistan of the likely consequences if it did not agree to it. This week's reports say that Pakistan has been forced to allow independent access to the Americans.
15. That is the way a self-respecting nation protects its interests and nationals. For the US, independent interrogation of Baradar was necessary to hold those responsible for American deaths in the past accountable and to prevent more deaths in future. It insisted on it and had its way.
16. India is not the US. The clout which it has over Pakistan we do not have anywhere in the world. At least we could have had the courage to protest---- loudly and openly--- instead of projecting every stab in the back by Obama as a kiss in the back.
17. Annexed is an article titled "PM in the US: The Spin and the Fizzle" written by me on November 30,2009.
18. The spin continues. The more the spins, the more will be the fizzles.( 19-3-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
ANNEXURE
PM in US: The Spin & The Fizzle ( http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3525.html )
By B. Raman
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The Washington pudding served by President Barack Obama to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the latter's visit to the US from November 23 to 26, 2009, is yet to be tasted, but if one is objective in analysing the outcome of the visit, one will have to concede that the spins put out by one of the PM's advisers from the PM's plane through obliging journalists before he landed in Washington DC have remained what they were----spins and nothing more.
2. Two of the pre-summit spins put out from the plane related to India's right to reprocess used nuclear fuel from US-supplied power stations and co-operation in counter-terrorism. The Indian public was given the impression that the agreement on the re-processing modalities had almost been finalised and would be a flagship outcome of the visit.
3. Hardly had the PM landed in Washington DC when Nirupama Rao, the Foreign Secretary, had to unspin the spin put out from the aircraft. She told the journalists that while there was progress in the negotiations, an agreement was still away and may not be the outcome of the visit. We have now been told during a post-summit spin session on board the plane while the PM and his party were returning to New Delhi that barring one or two issues, the agreement has almost been clinched. It might not have been possible to initial it during the PM's stay in Washington DC, so what? It is a question of a wait of another seven to 10 days. So we are told now.
4. Another pre-summit spin from the PM's aircraft was that a memorandum of understanding on future counter-terrorism co-operation between the two countries would be another important outcome. It was made out that the lightning visit of Leon Panetta, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, to New Delhi before the Prime Minister took off for Washington was an indicator of the importance attached by Obama to this subject.
5. What the spin-masters did not tell the Indian public was that the CIA chief had actually flown to Islamabad due to concerns over the growing isolation of President Asif Ali Zardari and had stopped over in India by the way.
6. Some New Delhi-based analysts, who always go lyrical on Indo-US relations, have extensively quoted from the Manmohan Singh-Obama joint statement to claim that the so-called joint counter-terrorism initiative mentioned in the statement was, in fact, the flagship outcome of the visit. In post-summit spin sessions on board the returning aircraft, one of the PM's advisers put out for all who might believe him that Obama himself was personally monitoring the FBI investigation into the activities of the Chicago cell ( David Coleman Headley--- Tahawuur Hussain Rana) of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and that on his instructions a high-level team of the FBI headed by its chief would be flying to India to share with us all the information collected by the FBI during the investigation.
7. What the Indian public was not told was that the programme for the New Delhi visit of the FBI chief was fixed long before the PM's visit to Washington DC and that in the US the President has no powers to monitor the FBI's investigation process which is independent. Indian Prime Ministers may as a matter of habit monitor the investigations of the CBI, but the US President can't monitor the FBI 's investigations.
8. Embarrassed by the statement of the US National Security Adviser, Gen. James Jones, when the PM was still abroad that the Indian investigators may not be able to join in the interrogation of Headley and Rana due to legal difficulties, the spin-masters told us that this was because the two suspects had not yet been indicted before a court. We were told that once they were indicted, our investigators would be able to interrogate them.
9. What we were not told was that once a suspect is indicted, he is transferred to judicial custody and no more interrogation is possible without a special court order. US courts are often hesitant to permit foreign investigators to interrogate suspects facing trial before them. That is what Gen. Jones meant when he talked of legal difficulties.
10. The so-called counter-terrorism initiative, which has been projected as path-breaking, is thin in substance and thinner in new ideas. Two ideas of considerable originality and significance were born out of Indo-US counter-terrorism co-operation initiatives under the Bill Clinton and George Bush Administrations. The idea of a Joint Working Group on Counter-terrorism came out of the meeting between Jaswant Singh, the then Foreign Minister, and Strobe Talbot, the then US Deputy Secretary of State, at London in January 2000 in the wake of the Kandahar hijacking. Now this has become a model for a similar mechanism with many other countries.
11. The Indo-US Cyber Security Forum was born post-9/11 during counter-terrorism interactions between security officials of the Bush and Atal Behari Vajpayee Governments. Compared to those ideas, not a single new idea has come out of the much-hyped summit between Manmohan Singh and Obama.
12. And yet we are asked to hail the so-called counter-terrorism initiative. We should gladly do so if someone could explain to us what this initiative is about. Yes, there has been an improvement in what is called mutual legal assistance between India and the US after the 26/11 terrorist strike in Mumbai. For the first time since counter-terrorism co-operation between the two countries started in the 1980s the FBI allowed its officers not only to share their forensic findings with their Indian counterparts, but also to help the Mumbai Police in its prosecution by allowing FBI officers to testify before the trial court through video-conferencing. In the past while the FBI had shared its findings with us, it had refused to allow its officers to testify before an Indian court.
13. There has been a welcome change in that attitude because of the enormity of the offence and the death of six US nationals at the hands of the terrorists. There was an improvement in intelligence-sharing under the Bush Administration. In December, 2008, Indian media carried reports about two timely warnings regarding the 26/11 strikes received by the Indian agencies from their US counterparts in September,2008. The US agencies were also of considerable assistance in the collection of technical intelligence during the terrorist strike which forced the Government of Pakistan to arrest some of the conspirators based in Pakistan and initiate action, however unsatisfactory, against them. All this was done between November 26, 2008, and January 20, 2009, when Bush was still the President.
14. One understands that under the Bush Adminisatration, the US agencies were helpful in collecting intelligence about the Pakistani involvement in the explosion outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul in July, 2008, and sharing it with their Indian counterparts. They did it automatically on their own without the need for our PM having to take it up with Bush.
15. What has been our experience since Obama took over on January 20, 2009? One has not heard of any active US role in helping us in the investigation of the recent second explosion outside our Embassy in Kabul. Even though the FBI has reportedly already shared a lot of intelligence with our agencies in the Headley-Rana case, one has the impression that there has been some foot-dragging by the US authorities in respect of sharing with the Indian agencies information which could help them in identifying serving or retired Pakistani military and intelligence officials with whom Headley and Rana were in touch.
16. If we are given permission to interrogate them, our investigators will query them on the identities of the Pakistani officials. The officials of the Obama Administration are uncomfortable over the prospect of this.
17. There is an apparent strip-tease going on about Headley. There are wheels within wheels in the Headley case. Before he gravitated to the world of jihadi terrorism, he was in the world of narcotics smuggling. He was reportedly arrested once by US officials responsible for narcotics control.
18. Instead of being dealt with severely as one does normally with narcotics offenders, he seems to have been treated somewhat leniently. Did the narcotics control agency of the US recruit him as its agent in return for the lenient sentence? Was the FBI aware of this? We are all assuming that he was able to lead a high-profile life in India because of financial assistance from the LET and the Pakistani intelligence. Were payments from the US narcotics control agency also helping him lead a comfortable life in India and rub shoulders with film personalities and other high-flyers?
19. Will we get complete answers to these questions from the FBI ? The Obama Administration's counter-terrorism co-operation with India reminds one of the policy pursued by the Clinton Administration. Help India in preventing and investigating an act of terrorism originating from Pakistan, but avoid helping India in any matter which might prove detrimental to the State of Pakistan.
20. We ought to be more balanced in our assessment of US policies which have an impact on our core interests and more articulate in expressing our concerns and misgivings. Our relationship with the US is important, but that does not mean that we let ourselves be overawed into silence.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
Thursday, March 18, 2010
HEADLEY--C'EST FINI. NOW FOCUS ON RANA
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--- PAPER NO. 633
B.RAMAN
Now that David Coleman Headley of the ChIcago cell of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) has pleaded guilty to the charges against him regarding the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist strikes and the planned attempt to attack the offices of a Danish paper, which published cartoons of Prophet Mohammad in 2005, as part of a plea bargain with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), it is settled that he will not be extradited to India and that India will not be allowed to interrogate to him.
2.As a result of the plea bargain, India no longer has any locus standi in the eyes of the US law in the case. All one can hope for is that the FBI will continue to share with India whatever additional information it gets from him till he is sentenced and starts his penalty. Till then, the FBI can continue interrogating him. One can reasonably expect that the FBI will share with India whatever additional details they get from him so long as those details do not implicate Pakistan. The FBI's first priority is to have the LET held accountable for the Mumbai strikes due to its emergence as a global jihadi organisation on par with Al Qaeda. Its second priority is to see that Pakistan is not held accountable and to conceal from India any information which links the State of Pakistan with Headley.
3. What next? What are the options before India? It has been a shrewd move on the part of the Home Ministry of the Government of India to have sought access to the former wife of Headley. According to media reports, she had also visited India----sometimes with him, sometimes separately. The information at her disposal will be relevant to the case. It is doubtful whether the FBI will respond positively to the request of the Govt. of India because of a fear that she might talk to the Indian interrogators about the role of Pakistan in the terrorist attack and the links of Headley with the Inter-Services I(ntelligence (ISI). If the FBI assists us to have access to his wife, it could help in diluting some of the doubts in the minds of large sections of the India public about its bona fides in the case. If the FBI drags its feet, one's suspicions regarding the FBI's attempt to protect the Pakistani State from the legal consequences of 26/11 will be strengthened.
4. There is one other important option available to India--- that is, to seek access to Tahawwur Hussain Rana, the co-conspirator against whom a separate case has been filed. He is equally knowledgeable about the 26/11 terrorist strikes.Whereas Headley was not in India immediately before the strikes, Rana was. According to the second report against Rana filed by the FBI in the court, he was in India in the third week of November, 2008. He flew from Mumbai to Dubai on a flight of the Emirates Airlines on November 21, 2008. He flew from Dubai to China by the same Airlines on November, 24, 2008, and from there returned to Chicago via Seoul on November 26, 2008, by the Asiana Airlines. Rana had admitted to the FBI that during his visit to Dubai from November 21 to 24, 2008, he met Maj. (retd) Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Pasha who was in touch with Ilyas Kashmiri on behalf of Headley and that he came to know from Pasha about the impending terrorist attacks by the LET in Mumbai. It is clear from the papers filed by the FBI in the court that Rana personally knew Maj (retd) Abdur Rehman of the 313 Brigade and an unidentified office-bearer of the LET. It is also clear that Rana was fully aware at least on September 7, 2009, if not earlier, of the LET's plans for future attacks on four targets in India. The FBI has produced in court extracts from a clandestinely recorded conversation between Headley and Rana in a car regarding future attacks in India.
5.The interrogation of Rana by the Indian investigators is thus as important as the interrogation of Headley. Whereas Headley has no relatives in India, Rana reportedly has relatives in India through his wife's family. If India can have independent access to him, it can request his Indian relatives to persuade him to talk to us. Normally, certain constraints which operated in the case of Headley should not operate in the case of Rana. Firstly, Headley is an Americam citizen whereas Rana is a Canadian citizen resident in Chicago. Secondly, at least since 1998, Headley was an agent of the US, but there has been no information to indicate any links between Rana and the US intelligence. Fears of likely exposure of his links with the US intelligence should not operate.
6. India should now press the FBI for independent access to Rana. The FBI may respond in one of the following ways:
Agree to the access. This will restore the damaged Indian confidence in the bona fides of the FBI; or
Drag its feet by claiming that since an indictment has already been filed against him, a foreign investigation agency cannot be allowed to question him independently ;or
Ask the Canadian intelligence to object to the Indian request.
7. Whatever be the ultimate response of the FBI to our request to have access to Rana, our public and leaders will know to what extent the Obama Administration is sincere in its professed desire to co-operate with India in counter-terrorism. One notices the Obama Administration following exactly the same stance as the Bill Clinton Administration did after the serial explosions in Mumbai in March 1993--- namely, extend forensic co-operation to India and share intelligence about the perpetrators, but at the same time protect the State of Pakistan from the legal consequences of its involvement in terrorism in India.
8. Compare the feet-dragging by the Obama Administration with the refreshing attitude of the George Bush Administration after the terrorist attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul in July 2008. It was reported that the Bush Administration took the initiative in sharing with India whatever intelligence it was able to gather about the role of the State of Pakistan in the attack. (19-3-2010)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
Now that David Coleman Headley of the ChIcago cell of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) has pleaded guilty to the charges against him regarding the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist strikes and the planned attempt to attack the offices of a Danish paper, which published cartoons of Prophet Mohammad in 2005, as part of a plea bargain with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), it is settled that he will not be extradited to India and that India will not be allowed to interrogate to him.
2.As a result of the plea bargain, India no longer has any locus standi in the eyes of the US law in the case. All one can hope for is that the FBI will continue to share with India whatever additional information it gets from him till he is sentenced and starts his penalty. Till then, the FBI can continue interrogating him. One can reasonably expect that the FBI will share with India whatever additional details they get from him so long as those details do not implicate Pakistan. The FBI's first priority is to have the LET held accountable for the Mumbai strikes due to its emergence as a global jihadi organisation on par with Al Qaeda. Its second priority is to see that Pakistan is not held accountable and to conceal from India any information which links the State of Pakistan with Headley.
3. What next? What are the options before India? It has been a shrewd move on the part of the Home Ministry of the Government of India to have sought access to the former wife of Headley. According to media reports, she had also visited India----sometimes with him, sometimes separately. The information at her disposal will be relevant to the case. It is doubtful whether the FBI will respond positively to the request of the Govt. of India because of a fear that she might talk to the Indian interrogators about the role of Pakistan in the terrorist attack and the links of Headley with the Inter-Services I(ntelligence (ISI). If the FBI assists us to have access to his wife, it could help in diluting some of the doubts in the minds of large sections of the India public about its bona fides in the case. If the FBI drags its feet, one's suspicions regarding the FBI's attempt to protect the Pakistani State from the legal consequences of 26/11 will be strengthened.
4. There is one other important option available to India--- that is, to seek access to Tahawwur Hussain Rana, the co-conspirator against whom a separate case has been filed. He is equally knowledgeable about the 26/11 terrorist strikes.Whereas Headley was not in India immediately before the strikes, Rana was. According to the second report against Rana filed by the FBI in the court, he was in India in the third week of November, 2008. He flew from Mumbai to Dubai on a flight of the Emirates Airlines on November 21, 2008. He flew from Dubai to China by the same Airlines on November, 24, 2008, and from there returned to Chicago via Seoul on November 26, 2008, by the Asiana Airlines. Rana had admitted to the FBI that during his visit to Dubai from November 21 to 24, 2008, he met Maj. (retd) Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Pasha who was in touch with Ilyas Kashmiri on behalf of Headley and that he came to know from Pasha about the impending terrorist attacks by the LET in Mumbai. It is clear from the papers filed by the FBI in the court that Rana personally knew Maj (retd) Abdur Rehman of the 313 Brigade and an unidentified office-bearer of the LET. It is also clear that Rana was fully aware at least on September 7, 2009, if not earlier, of the LET's plans for future attacks on four targets in India. The FBI has produced in court extracts from a clandestinely recorded conversation between Headley and Rana in a car regarding future attacks in India.
5.The interrogation of Rana by the Indian investigators is thus as important as the interrogation of Headley. Whereas Headley has no relatives in India, Rana reportedly has relatives in India through his wife's family. If India can have independent access to him, it can request his Indian relatives to persuade him to talk to us. Normally, certain constraints which operated in the case of Headley should not operate in the case of Rana. Firstly, Headley is an Americam citizen whereas Rana is a Canadian citizen resident in Chicago. Secondly, at least since 1998, Headley was an agent of the US, but there has been no information to indicate any links between Rana and the US intelligence. Fears of likely exposure of his links with the US intelligence should not operate.
6. India should now press the FBI for independent access to Rana. The FBI may respond in one of the following ways:
Agree to the access. This will restore the damaged Indian confidence in the bona fides of the FBI; or
Drag its feet by claiming that since an indictment has already been filed against him, a foreign investigation agency cannot be allowed to question him independently ;or
Ask the Canadian intelligence to object to the Indian request.
7. Whatever be the ultimate response of the FBI to our request to have access to Rana, our public and leaders will know to what extent the Obama Administration is sincere in its professed desire to co-operate with India in counter-terrorism. One notices the Obama Administration following exactly the same stance as the Bill Clinton Administration did after the serial explosions in Mumbai in March 1993--- namely, extend forensic co-operation to India and share intelligence about the perpetrators, but at the same time protect the State of Pakistan from the legal consequences of its involvement in terrorism in India.
8. Compare the feet-dragging by the Obama Administration with the refreshing attitude of the George Bush Administration after the terrorist attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul in July 2008. It was reported that the Bush Administration took the initiative in sharing with India whatever intelligence it was able to gather about the role of the State of Pakistan in the attack. (19-3-2010)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
HEADLEY & 26/11: US PLAYS DIRTY ON INDIA
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.632
B.RAMAN
Ever since the case of David Coleman Headley broke out in October,2009, I have been repeatedly pointing out the following in my articles and TV interviews:
Headley was a quadruple agent, who was working for the USA's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba ( LET).
The FBI has already reached a plea bargain with him in order to avoid any formal production of evidence against him in the court which might result in details regarding his links with the US intelligence coming out.
The FBI would not extradite him to India and woulde not allow the Indian agencies to have access to him in order to prevent the Indian agencies from questioning him about his links with the US intelligence on the one side and with the Pakistani intelligence on the other.
2. Extracts from two articles on this subject written by me on December 12 and 16,2009, are annexed. What I have been writing and what I have been saying for the last five months has proved correct. The media has reported on the morning of March 18,2010, that Headley was going to plead guilty to some charges as part of a plea bargain process entered into by him with the FBI. What does it mean? Firstly, there will be no formal introduction of the evidence against him and no cross-examination. Secondly, the relatives of the 166 innocent persons killed in the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist strikes cannot seek the permission of the court to be represented by a lawyer to question him on the details of his involvement in the 26/11 terrorist strikes. Thirdly, the details of his links with the US intelligence community will be covered up. Fourthly, the two Pakistani nationals living in Pakistan----Ilyas Kashmiri of the 313 Brigade, who had threatened terrorist strikes in India during the major sports events of this year, and Maj. (retd) Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Pasha of the Pakistan Army, who have been cited as co-accused in the FBI case against Headley because of their role as his handling officers, will escape prosecution.
3. Unless one is naive beyond redemption, it was clear from the beginning that the Obama Administration and its FBI were trying frantically to prevent the truth regarding Headley from coming out. I wrote on December 12,2009: "Senior officials of the White House and the FBI have been taking close and unusual interest in the investigation and prosecution. The Director of the FBI himself was reported to have visited Chicago before Headley was produced before the court. Many in India have analysed this as indicative of the close interest taken by President Obama in counter-terrorism co-operation with India. A more plausible explanation is that this is indicative of the concerns in the White House and the FBI that if the prosecution is not properly handled, the case could result in a bombshell if it emerges that one of the active conspirators of 26/11 was an agent of a US agency. This could lead to suits for heavy damages against the US Government from the relatives of the Americans, Israelis and other foreigners killed."
4. Headley will be protected. The FBI will be protected. The US administration will be protected. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) will be protected. The Pakistani Government and its Army will be protected.
5. Only we poor Indians will remain unprotected because the Govt. of India headed by Dr.Manmohan Singh cannot protect us.
6. What naivete, Mr.Prime Minister! What naivete!( 18-3-2010)
( 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 I
( Extracts from my article of December 12,2009, titled "FBI Avoiding Focus on Headley’s Links With Narcotics Control Agency" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3545.html )
Sections of the US media have pointed out that the fact that the report filed against him by the FBI in the court on December 7 was called a Criminal Information Report and not an indictment indicates that the FBI has already reached a plea bargain deal with him under which as a quid pro quo for his admitting some charges when the trial formally commences next month, the FBI will not press other charges against him. His admitting some charges and the FBI dropping other charges will obviate the need for an elaborate trial with the introduction of detailed evidence.
This would prevent any deliberate or inadvertent disclosure by him of his work in the Af-Pak region for the DEA, which works in close co-operation with its Pakistani counterpart. The two have many joint operations.
It is very likely that the US will not allow his independent interrogation by Indian investigators and that it will not agree to his extradition to India as that might result in the Indian authorities coming to know not only of his contacts with Pakistani agencies, but also with the DEA.
Senior officials of the White House and the FBI have been taking close and unusual interest in the investigation and prosecution. The Director of the FBI himself was reported to have visited Chicago before Headley was produced before the court. Many in India have analysed this as indicative of the close interest taken by President Obama in counter-terrorism co-operation with India. A more plausible explanation is that this is indicative of the concerns in the White House and the FBI that if the prosecution is not properly handled, the case could result in a bombshell if it emerges that one of the active conspirators of 26/11 was an agent of a US agency. This could lead to suits for heavy damages against the US Government from the relatives of the Americans, Israelis and other foreigners killed.
ANNEXURE II
( Extracts from my article of December 16,2009, titled " "Headley: A Quadruple Agent" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3552.html )
By studying these extracts submitted by the FBI along with other FBI documents submitted by the FBI to the court and US media reports about Headley’s links with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),one can make the following assessment:
a. Headley was not a double agent, but a quadruple agent. He initially started working for the DEA around 1998. Even if one presumes that initially the FBI and the CIA were not aware of this, they should have become aware of this by 2004 when the National Counter-Terrorism Centre with a common charter and a common data-base was set up by the Bush Administration under the newly-created post of Director National Intelligence (DNI).
b. He started working for the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) sometime in 2005. It is not clear whether he joined the LET at his own instance or at the instance of the FBI or the CIA or both in order to penetrate it. He was already visiting Pakistan at the instance of the DEA since 1998. Since 2006, he started visiting India too. The DEA and the FBI would have been aware of his visits since every time a conscious agent of an agency travels abroad his passport is scrutinized by the controlling agency on his return. This is a security precaution followed by all intelligence agencies.
c. He started working for the 313 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri towards the end of 2008 and agreed to visit Copenhagen to collect operational information for a possible terrorist attack. This was probably not at the instance of the FBI, which came to know accidentally of Headley volunteering himself to undertake a task in Copenhagen while monitoring the chat room of the old students of the Army Cadet School at Hasan Abdal. Both Headley and Rana studied in the school. The FBI put Headley under electronic surveillance after obtaining orders of a relevant court.
d. While doing the electronic surveillance to monitor his involvement in the Northern or Copenhagen or Micky Mouse project for the 313 Brigade, the FBI came across a series of E-mail intercepts in July and August, 2009, which showed that Headley had helped the LET in preparing itself for the 26/11 terrorist strikes and had agreed to help the LET in carrying out another terrorist strike in India for which he was to visit India. The FBI started monitoring the meetings and conversations of Headley and Rana and recorded their conversation of September 7, 2009, in a car which clearly indicated their involvement in the 26/11 terrorist strike.
e. The communications between Headley and his LET handler intercepted by the FBI in July and August also indicated that he was planning to visit India in October to prepare the ground for another terrorist strike. The FBI had two options---either allow him to go to India, alert the Indian intelligence and keep him under surveillance or arrest him before he left for Pakistan and India. If he had been allowed to go to India, watched there and arrested by the Indian intelligence, his past contacts with the US agencies and his role in 26/11 would have come to the notice of the Indian authorities. There is no evidence so far to show that till July 2009 the FBI was aware of his active role in 26/11. They were probably only aware of his frequent visits to Pakistan and India on behalf of the DEA operations. The FBI arrested him when he was about to leave for Pakistan and India on October 3.
B.RAMAN
Ever since the case of David Coleman Headley broke out in October,2009, I have been repeatedly pointing out the following in my articles and TV interviews:
Headley was a quadruple agent, who was working for the USA's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba ( LET).
The FBI has already reached a plea bargain with him in order to avoid any formal production of evidence against him in the court which might result in details regarding his links with the US intelligence coming out.
The FBI would not extradite him to India and woulde not allow the Indian agencies to have access to him in order to prevent the Indian agencies from questioning him about his links with the US intelligence on the one side and with the Pakistani intelligence on the other.
2. Extracts from two articles on this subject written by me on December 12 and 16,2009, are annexed. What I have been writing and what I have been saying for the last five months has proved correct. The media has reported on the morning of March 18,2010, that Headley was going to plead guilty to some charges as part of a plea bargain process entered into by him with the FBI. What does it mean? Firstly, there will be no formal introduction of the evidence against him and no cross-examination. Secondly, the relatives of the 166 innocent persons killed in the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist strikes cannot seek the permission of the court to be represented by a lawyer to question him on the details of his involvement in the 26/11 terrorist strikes. Thirdly, the details of his links with the US intelligence community will be covered up. Fourthly, the two Pakistani nationals living in Pakistan----Ilyas Kashmiri of the 313 Brigade, who had threatened terrorist strikes in India during the major sports events of this year, and Maj. (retd) Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Pasha of the Pakistan Army, who have been cited as co-accused in the FBI case against Headley because of their role as his handling officers, will escape prosecution.
3. Unless one is naive beyond redemption, it was clear from the beginning that the Obama Administration and its FBI were trying frantically to prevent the truth regarding Headley from coming out. I wrote on December 12,2009: "Senior officials of the White House and the FBI have been taking close and unusual interest in the investigation and prosecution. The Director of the FBI himself was reported to have visited Chicago before Headley was produced before the court. Many in India have analysed this as indicative of the close interest taken by President Obama in counter-terrorism co-operation with India. A more plausible explanation is that this is indicative of the concerns in the White House and the FBI that if the prosecution is not properly handled, the case could result in a bombshell if it emerges that one of the active conspirators of 26/11 was an agent of a US agency. This could lead to suits for heavy damages against the US Government from the relatives of the Americans, Israelis and other foreigners killed."
4. Headley will be protected. The FBI will be protected. The US administration will be protected. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) will be protected. The Pakistani Government and its Army will be protected.
5. Only we poor Indians will remain unprotected because the Govt. of India headed by Dr.Manmohan Singh cannot protect us.
6. What naivete, Mr.Prime Minister! What naivete!( 18-3-2010)
( 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 I
( Extracts from my article of December 12,2009, titled "FBI Avoiding Focus on Headley’s Links With Narcotics Control Agency" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3545.html )
Sections of the US media have pointed out that the fact that the report filed against him by the FBI in the court on December 7 was called a Criminal Information Report and not an indictment indicates that the FBI has already reached a plea bargain deal with him under which as a quid pro quo for his admitting some charges when the trial formally commences next month, the FBI will not press other charges against him. His admitting some charges and the FBI dropping other charges will obviate the need for an elaborate trial with the introduction of detailed evidence.
This would prevent any deliberate or inadvertent disclosure by him of his work in the Af-Pak region for the DEA, which works in close co-operation with its Pakistani counterpart. The two have many joint operations.
It is very likely that the US will not allow his independent interrogation by Indian investigators and that it will not agree to his extradition to India as that might result in the Indian authorities coming to know not only of his contacts with Pakistani agencies, but also with the DEA.
Senior officials of the White House and the FBI have been taking close and unusual interest in the investigation and prosecution. The Director of the FBI himself was reported to have visited Chicago before Headley was produced before the court. Many in India have analysed this as indicative of the close interest taken by President Obama in counter-terrorism co-operation with India. A more plausible explanation is that this is indicative of the concerns in the White House and the FBI that if the prosecution is not properly handled, the case could result in a bombshell if it emerges that one of the active conspirators of 26/11 was an agent of a US agency. This could lead to suits for heavy damages against the US Government from the relatives of the Americans, Israelis and other foreigners killed.
ANNEXURE II
( Extracts from my article of December 16,2009, titled " "Headley: A Quadruple Agent" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3552.html )
By studying these extracts submitted by the FBI along with other FBI documents submitted by the FBI to the court and US media reports about Headley’s links with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),one can make the following assessment:
a. Headley was not a double agent, but a quadruple agent. He initially started working for the DEA around 1998. Even if one presumes that initially the FBI and the CIA were not aware of this, they should have become aware of this by 2004 when the National Counter-Terrorism Centre with a common charter and a common data-base was set up by the Bush Administration under the newly-created post of Director National Intelligence (DNI).
b. He started working for the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) sometime in 2005. It is not clear whether he joined the LET at his own instance or at the instance of the FBI or the CIA or both in order to penetrate it. He was already visiting Pakistan at the instance of the DEA since 1998. Since 2006, he started visiting India too. The DEA and the FBI would have been aware of his visits since every time a conscious agent of an agency travels abroad his passport is scrutinized by the controlling agency on his return. This is a security precaution followed by all intelligence agencies.
c. He started working for the 313 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri towards the end of 2008 and agreed to visit Copenhagen to collect operational information for a possible terrorist attack. This was probably not at the instance of the FBI, which came to know accidentally of Headley volunteering himself to undertake a task in Copenhagen while monitoring the chat room of the old students of the Army Cadet School at Hasan Abdal. Both Headley and Rana studied in the school. The FBI put Headley under electronic surveillance after obtaining orders of a relevant court.
d. While doing the electronic surveillance to monitor his involvement in the Northern or Copenhagen or Micky Mouse project for the 313 Brigade, the FBI came across a series of E-mail intercepts in July and August, 2009, which showed that Headley had helped the LET in preparing itself for the 26/11 terrorist strikes and had agreed to help the LET in carrying out another terrorist strike in India for which he was to visit India. The FBI started monitoring the meetings and conversations of Headley and Rana and recorded their conversation of September 7, 2009, in a car which clearly indicated their involvement in the 26/11 terrorist strike.
e. The communications between Headley and his LET handler intercepted by the FBI in July and August also indicated that he was planning to visit India in October to prepare the ground for another terrorist strike. The FBI had two options---either allow him to go to India, alert the Indian intelligence and keep him under surveillance or arrest him before he left for Pakistan and India. If he had been allowed to go to India, watched there and arrested by the Indian intelligence, his past contacts with the US agencies and his role in 26/11 would have come to the notice of the Indian authorities. There is no evidence so far to show that till July 2009 the FBI was aware of his active role in 26/11. They were probably only aware of his frequent visits to Pakistan and India on behalf of the DEA operations. The FBI arrested him when he was about to leave for Pakistan and India on October 3.
Monday, March 15, 2010
CONTINUING US SOFTNESS TOWARDS THE ISI
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO. 631
B.RAMAN
According to counter-terrorism data for 2009 disseminated by Amir Mir, the Pakistani journalist, through his column in the "News" of March 13,2010, 28 personnel of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) were killed by terrorists belonging to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its Punjabi associates through suicide bombers during 2009. A study of the frequent targeted attacks on the ISI would indicate that all these attacks had taken place in the non-tribal areas----mainly in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Peshawar.
2. The targeted attacks on Pakistani Army officers by suicide bombers, which caused 102 fatalities during 2009, could be attributed to the Taliban anger over the commando raid in the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July 2007, in which a large number of Pashtun students, many of them girls, were killed, the subsequent military operations against the TTP and the intensification of the Drone ( pilotless plane) strikes by the US. Even though the Pakistani authorities have been criticising these strikes in public and projecting themselves as helpless in making the US stop them, the TTP and others in Pakistan believe that these strikes have the secret support of the Pakistan Army.
3. Apart from playing the usual role in the collection of intelligence before and during the Lal Masjid raid, the ISI did not play any noticeable role in the commando raid. There are no indicators of Talibani anger against the ISI for its role in the raid. Available intelligence indicates that the Talibani anger against the ISI is mainly because of what the TTP perceives as the ISI's co-operation with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in its counter-terrorism operations.
4.This co-operation is in the following forms:
Logistic support for the Drone strikes, which are largely operated by the CIA.
Collection of human intelligence for targeting. There has been a steady improvement in the quality and accuracy of the human intelligence available to the CIA and the US military forces deployed in Afghan territory. This improvement could not have been possible through the CIA's efforts alone. The TTP and its Punjabi associates suspect an increasing presence of the CIA in Pakistani territory for joint intelligence collection operations with the ISI.
5. The intensified US intelligence activity relating to Pakistan has resulted in an an increasing flow of intelligence not only about the TTP, but also about the Punjabi Taliban organisations, including the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). A perusal of the documents filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in a Chicago court against David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana of the Chicago cell of the LET gives an idea of the wealth of intelligence which the FBI has been able to collect regarding their links in Pakistan, including with at least one Army officer.
6. The increasing concerns in the US over the Al Qaeda-like growth of the LET and the threat posed by it not only to India, but also to the security of US nationals and to US interests are the result of the flow of intelligence to the US about the LET from its own sources. While India has reasons to be gratified by the new focus on the LET as equally dangerous as Al Qaeda, it has reasons to be dissatisfied over the continuing reluctance in US policy-making circles to act firmly against the ISI for its use of the LET against India.
7. If the LET has become as dangerous as Al Qaeda as was stated by some US experts before a Congressional hearing last week, it follows that the ISI, the LET's sponsor, has become as dangerous as Al Qaeda. The ISI-LET nexus has become an important factor in the persisting global jihadi threat. What should be of concern is that the global jihadi threat remains as high as before 9/11 with the LET making up for any loss in capabilities suffered by Al Qaeda.
8. This threat will remain high unless the ISI is made to act against the LET. This conclusion has not come out clearly in the Congressional hearing. While the US experts who testified in the Congressional hearing have not hesitated to call a spade a spade while drawing attention to the links between the ISI and the LET, they have not been forthright in calling for action against the ISI.
9. While the FBI has done a thorough job of the investigation into the activities of the Chicago cell of the LET from its side, it has not exercised sufficient pressure on the Pakistani agencies for thoroughly investigating the activities of the Pakistan-based handling officers of Headley and Rana. The FBI has done a lot to satisfy India that it has investigated the activities of the Chicago cell and its role in the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist strike thoroughly and shared the resulting information with the Indian agencies. At the same time, it has not done all that it should have in order to bring to book the Pakistan-based handling officers. Not even a case has been registered in Pakistan against them.
10. The co-operation of the ISI with the CIA in its operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban and the fact that the ISI has paid a heavy price for this co-operation have stood in the way of the US exercising pressure on Pakistan to act against the LET as firmly as it has against the TTP. The soft approach of the US towards the ISI with regard to its use of the LET against India continues. Unless India remonstrates strongly against this soft attitude, the Pakistani collusion with the LET will continue. ( 15-3-10)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
According to counter-terrorism data for 2009 disseminated by Amir Mir, the Pakistani journalist, through his column in the "News" of March 13,2010, 28 personnel of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) were killed by terrorists belonging to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its Punjabi associates through suicide bombers during 2009. A study of the frequent targeted attacks on the ISI would indicate that all these attacks had taken place in the non-tribal areas----mainly in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Peshawar.
2. The targeted attacks on Pakistani Army officers by suicide bombers, which caused 102 fatalities during 2009, could be attributed to the Taliban anger over the commando raid in the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July 2007, in which a large number of Pashtun students, many of them girls, were killed, the subsequent military operations against the TTP and the intensification of the Drone ( pilotless plane) strikes by the US. Even though the Pakistani authorities have been criticising these strikes in public and projecting themselves as helpless in making the US stop them, the TTP and others in Pakistan believe that these strikes have the secret support of the Pakistan Army.
3. Apart from playing the usual role in the collection of intelligence before and during the Lal Masjid raid, the ISI did not play any noticeable role in the commando raid. There are no indicators of Talibani anger against the ISI for its role in the raid. Available intelligence indicates that the Talibani anger against the ISI is mainly because of what the TTP perceives as the ISI's co-operation with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in its counter-terrorism operations.
4.This co-operation is in the following forms:
Logistic support for the Drone strikes, which are largely operated by the CIA.
Collection of human intelligence for targeting. There has been a steady improvement in the quality and accuracy of the human intelligence available to the CIA and the US military forces deployed in Afghan territory. This improvement could not have been possible through the CIA's efforts alone. The TTP and its Punjabi associates suspect an increasing presence of the CIA in Pakistani territory for joint intelligence collection operations with the ISI.
5. The intensified US intelligence activity relating to Pakistan has resulted in an an increasing flow of intelligence not only about the TTP, but also about the Punjabi Taliban organisations, including the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). A perusal of the documents filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in a Chicago court against David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana of the Chicago cell of the LET gives an idea of the wealth of intelligence which the FBI has been able to collect regarding their links in Pakistan, including with at least one Army officer.
6. The increasing concerns in the US over the Al Qaeda-like growth of the LET and the threat posed by it not only to India, but also to the security of US nationals and to US interests are the result of the flow of intelligence to the US about the LET from its own sources. While India has reasons to be gratified by the new focus on the LET as equally dangerous as Al Qaeda, it has reasons to be dissatisfied over the continuing reluctance in US policy-making circles to act firmly against the ISI for its use of the LET against India.
7. If the LET has become as dangerous as Al Qaeda as was stated by some US experts before a Congressional hearing last week, it follows that the ISI, the LET's sponsor, has become as dangerous as Al Qaeda. The ISI-LET nexus has become an important factor in the persisting global jihadi threat. What should be of concern is that the global jihadi threat remains as high as before 9/11 with the LET making up for any loss in capabilities suffered by Al Qaeda.
8. This threat will remain high unless the ISI is made to act against the LET. This conclusion has not come out clearly in the Congressional hearing. While the US experts who testified in the Congressional hearing have not hesitated to call a spade a spade while drawing attention to the links between the ISI and the LET, they have not been forthright in calling for action against the ISI.
9. While the FBI has done a thorough job of the investigation into the activities of the Chicago cell of the LET from its side, it has not exercised sufficient pressure on the Pakistani agencies for thoroughly investigating the activities of the Pakistan-based handling officers of Headley and Rana. The FBI has done a lot to satisfy India that it has investigated the activities of the Chicago cell and its role in the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist strike thoroughly and shared the resulting information with the Indian agencies. At the same time, it has not done all that it should have in order to bring to book the Pakistan-based handling officers. Not even a case has been registered in Pakistan against them.
10. The co-operation of the ISI with the CIA in its operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban and the fact that the ISI has paid a heavy price for this co-operation have stood in the way of the US exercising pressure on Pakistan to act against the LET as firmly as it has against the TTP. The soft approach of the US towards the ISI with regard to its use of the LET against India continues. Unless India remonstrates strongly against this soft attitude, the Pakistani collusion with the LET will continue. ( 15-3-10)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Saturday, March 13, 2010
PAKISTAN: THE MESSAGE OF THE MINGORA BLAST
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.630
B.RAMAN
Seventeen persons---- including two policemen and one soldier of the Pakistan Army--- were killed in a suicide attack at a checkpoint jointly manned by police and military personnel at Mingora, the principal town (capital) of the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) on March 13,2010.
2. Subsequently, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack and has warned that similar attacks would be launched if US Drone strikes continued in Waziristan. The suicide bomber was reported to have reached the scene of attack in a cycle rickshaw.
3.Such incidents illustrate the difficulty in eliminating terrorism even if the Army succeeds in establishing territorial control. During the last one year, the Pakistan Army and the para-military Frontier Corps have re-established territorial control over the disturbed Malakand Division of the NWFP, of which Swat is a part, and the South Waziristan and the Bajaur Agencies of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Despite this, acts of suicide and other terrorism continue to take place in the Pashtun belt with regular frequency.
4.Suicide terrorism can be eliminated only by weakening the motivating power of terrorist organisations and their leaders. The Drone strikes are necessary for sustained decapitation of the terrorist organisations, but they add to the flow of volunteers for suicide terrorism due to the anger caused by the strikes. The present high level of suicide terrorism---- about 95 since the beginning of 2009, an average of seven per month---- will continue so long as the Drone strikes continue at their present high level, but that is not an argument for reviewing the present policy of intensified Drone strikes---as argued by some US analysts.
5. The Drone strikes must be kept up till the terrorist leadership is decimated beyond replacement and the terrorist organisations are weakened beyond repair. If the Drone strikes are discontinued or reduced, the resulting pause would be exploited by the leadership of these organisations to re-build themselves as the Afghan Taliban did in 2004 and 2005. The present high level of suicide and other terrorism is a price which Pakistan and the US should be prepared to pay tactically for a strategic victory over terrorism. The present high level of terrorism could continue in the Pashtun belt at least for another 18 months if not longer. Better territorial control would not mean better control over terrorism as a phenomenon.
6. A battle against a disrupting phenomenon such as terrorism---suicide or otherwise--- takes a long time to succeed. We had ourselves seen this in our Punjab at the height of Khalistani terrorism. It flared up after the military operation in the Golden Temple of Amritsar in June 1984. It took us another 11 years to bring it under control even though the Khalistanis did not indulge in suicide terrorism and did not have access to the kind of weapons and explosive devices to which the jihadi terrorists of today are having access. (14-3-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
Seventeen persons---- including two policemen and one soldier of the Pakistan Army--- were killed in a suicide attack at a checkpoint jointly manned by police and military personnel at Mingora, the principal town (capital) of the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) on March 13,2010.
2. Subsequently, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack and has warned that similar attacks would be launched if US Drone strikes continued in Waziristan. The suicide bomber was reported to have reached the scene of attack in a cycle rickshaw.
3.Such incidents illustrate the difficulty in eliminating terrorism even if the Army succeeds in establishing territorial control. During the last one year, the Pakistan Army and the para-military Frontier Corps have re-established territorial control over the disturbed Malakand Division of the NWFP, of which Swat is a part, and the South Waziristan and the Bajaur Agencies of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Despite this, acts of suicide and other terrorism continue to take place in the Pashtun belt with regular frequency.
4.Suicide terrorism can be eliminated only by weakening the motivating power of terrorist organisations and their leaders. The Drone strikes are necessary for sustained decapitation of the terrorist organisations, but they add to the flow of volunteers for suicide terrorism due to the anger caused by the strikes. The present high level of suicide terrorism---- about 95 since the beginning of 2009, an average of seven per month---- will continue so long as the Drone strikes continue at their present high level, but that is not an argument for reviewing the present policy of intensified Drone strikes---as argued by some US analysts.
5. The Drone strikes must be kept up till the terrorist leadership is decimated beyond replacement and the terrorist organisations are weakened beyond repair. If the Drone strikes are discontinued or reduced, the resulting pause would be exploited by the leadership of these organisations to re-build themselves as the Afghan Taliban did in 2004 and 2005. The present high level of suicide and other terrorism is a price which Pakistan and the US should be prepared to pay tactically for a strategic victory over terrorism. The present high level of terrorism could continue in the Pashtun belt at least for another 18 months if not longer. Better territorial control would not mean better control over terrorism as a phenomenon.
6. A battle against a disrupting phenomenon such as terrorism---suicide or otherwise--- takes a long time to succeed. We had ourselves seen this in our Punjab at the height of Khalistani terrorism. It flared up after the military operation in the Golden Temple of Amritsar in June 1984. It took us another 11 years to bring it under control even though the Khalistanis did not indulge in suicide terrorism and did not have access to the kind of weapons and explosive devices to which the jihadi terrorists of today are having access. (14-3-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Friday, March 12, 2010
ANTI-ARMY ANGER REMAINS STRONG IN PAKISTAN
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--- PAPER NO. 629
B.RAMAN
The two suicide attacks against army vehicles in the Cantonment area of Lahore on March 12,2010, which caused 45 fatalities, nine of them of military personnel, were followed by six low-intensity blasts in non-military areas which did not cause any fatalities. The Pashtun Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its Punjabi associate the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) are reported to have claimed responsibility for the two suicide blasts. No responsibility has been claimed for the subsequent low-intensity blasts.
2. The suicide blasts highlight the continuing capability of the TTP to operate in non-tribal areas with the help of its Punjabi associates despite the losses suffered by it in the Pashtun belt in recent weeks due to the effective missile strikes by US Drones (pilotless planes) against TTP hide-outs in North and South Waziristan.
3. The selection of the targets by the TTP and the LEJ for their three major strikes this week in Lahore reflects their continuing anger against the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), which is the police agency for counter-terrorism coming under the Ministry of the Interior, the police of Punjab, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Army. This anger, which came to the fore after the Army's commando raid in the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July 2007, has been kept alive by the USA's Drone strikes and by the Pakistani military operations in the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and in South Waziristan and the Bajaur Agency of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). These military operations are seen by the TTP and its Punjabi associates as undertaken under US pressure. The anti-US and the anti-Army anger are fanning each other.
4. The focus of the retaliatory attacks have been in the NWFP and the FATA, from where many of the Pashtun recruits of the Frontier Corps,
a para-military unit officered by the Army, come, and in Punjab from where the Punjabi soldiers of the Army come. By keeping up the attacks in Lahore and other places in Punjab, including Rawalpindi, and in the Pashtun belt, the TTP and its Punjabi associates are trying to create a divide between the Punjabi officer class and their Punjabi and Pashtun soldiers and thereby weaken their loyalty to the officers.
5. There have already been indications of some dilution of discipline and loyalty among the Pashtuns of the FC, but there are as yet no indications of a similar dilution among the Punjabi soldiers of the Army. The military leadership would be worried that if the jihadis keep up the pressure it could over a period of time have a negative impact on the Punjabi soldiers and this could affect the Army's capability against India.
6. The Army's concern is how to keep up the seeming co-operation with the US against Al Qaeda and the Taliban without letting it weaken its capability against India. It cannot discontinue its co-operation with the US which has kept the Pakistani economy afloat. The Pakistani State badly needs the cash flow from the US.By expanding their operations in Punjab, the TTP and its Punjabi associates are seeking to convey a message to the military leadership that its continued support to the US operations in the FATA and Afghanistan could weaken the loyalty of its Punjabi and Pashtun soldiers and dilute its capability against India.
7. The TTP, despite the availability of a large number of Pashtun suicide bombers, would not be effective in Punjab without the co-operation of Punjabi terrorist organisations, which provide local sanctuaries, logistics and recruits. There are principally five Punjabi terrorist organisations---the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the anti- Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ). Of these, the LET has not been affected by the anti-Army anger. It continues to maintain its loyalty to the Army. It follows a dual policy of co-operating with Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban against the US and with the Pakistan Army against India. For reasons not clear, the HUM has not been very active in recent months.
8. The HUJI, the JEM and the LEJ have been whole-heartedly co-operating with the TTP in its anti-Army operations. Whereas the LET pays equal attention to the jihad against the US and India, the HUJI, the JEM, the LEJ and the TTP are for the moment paying greater attention to their jihad against the US and the Pakistani Army than to their jihad against India. They prefer to leave the responsibility for the jihad against India to the LET.
9. According to Amir Mir, the well-known Pakistani journalist who writes for the "News" (March 13,2010), 1,217 persons were killed in 80 suicide bomber attacks during 2009. This was the higest figure of fatalities in a year since the Lal Masjid raid. Of the 1,217 fatalities, 863 were of civilians and the remaining 354 belonged to the security and law-enforcement agencies. Of them, 137 belonged to the police, 102 were Army officers and Jawans, 51 were FC personnel, 28 were staff members of the Inter-Services Intelligence, 22 belonged to the Khasadar Force, 12 belonged to the Pakistan Rangers and two others were employees of the Pakistan Navy. On an average, 72 civilians and 30 security and law-enforcement agencies’ personnel lost their lives every month in 2009 due to suicide bombings.
10. According to him, there has been a steep rise in fatalities due to suicide bombings between January 1 and March 12 this year as compared to the corresponding period of last year. There have been 321 fatalities in 15 suicide bombings till March 12 this year as against only 105 during the corresponding period last year.
11. He writes: "Authorities investigating the unending spate of suicide bombings are of the view most of these attacks have been carried out by the Punjabi Taliban belonging to four sectarian-cum-Jihadi groups which are working in tandem with the Pashtun-dominated Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. They believe several South Punjab-based members of the banned Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, who had taken part in the Afghan war, have now tied up with the TTP to carry out suicide attacks across Pakistan, especially targeting key military installations. South Punjab has grabbed the attention of Pakistani authorities over the past few months because of the involvement of the Taliban in a spate of Fidayeen-style suicide bombings, including the one targeting the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi on October 10, 2009."
12. What would be the impact of these attacks and the resulting fatalities on the morale of the Punjabi soldiers? It is likely that many of the civilians killed were the relatives of soldiers. The Army could come to the conclusion that the only way it could maintain the morale of its Punjabi soldiers is by intensifying its proxy war against India while pretending to co-operate with the US against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.One of the tempting options for the Army will be to wean the HUJI and the JEM away from the TTP by persuading them to join with the LET against India. If it succeeds, it could reduce the pressure on the Army.
13. The increase in anti- Pakistan Army terrorism in Punjab has to be closely monitored by India in order to assess its impact on Pakistan's proxy war against India. ( 13-3-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
The two suicide attacks against army vehicles in the Cantonment area of Lahore on March 12,2010, which caused 45 fatalities, nine of them of military personnel, were followed by six low-intensity blasts in non-military areas which did not cause any fatalities. The Pashtun Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its Punjabi associate the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) are reported to have claimed responsibility for the two suicide blasts. No responsibility has been claimed for the subsequent low-intensity blasts.
2. The suicide blasts highlight the continuing capability of the TTP to operate in non-tribal areas with the help of its Punjabi associates despite the losses suffered by it in the Pashtun belt in recent weeks due to the effective missile strikes by US Drones (pilotless planes) against TTP hide-outs in North and South Waziristan.
3. The selection of the targets by the TTP and the LEJ for their three major strikes this week in Lahore reflects their continuing anger against the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), which is the police agency for counter-terrorism coming under the Ministry of the Interior, the police of Punjab, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Army. This anger, which came to the fore after the Army's commando raid in the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July 2007, has been kept alive by the USA's Drone strikes and by the Pakistani military operations in the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and in South Waziristan and the Bajaur Agency of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). These military operations are seen by the TTP and its Punjabi associates as undertaken under US pressure. The anti-US and the anti-Army anger are fanning each other.
4. The focus of the retaliatory attacks have been in the NWFP and the FATA, from where many of the Pashtun recruits of the Frontier Corps,
a para-military unit officered by the Army, come, and in Punjab from where the Punjabi soldiers of the Army come. By keeping up the attacks in Lahore and other places in Punjab, including Rawalpindi, and in the Pashtun belt, the TTP and its Punjabi associates are trying to create a divide between the Punjabi officer class and their Punjabi and Pashtun soldiers and thereby weaken their loyalty to the officers.
5. There have already been indications of some dilution of discipline and loyalty among the Pashtuns of the FC, but there are as yet no indications of a similar dilution among the Punjabi soldiers of the Army. The military leadership would be worried that if the jihadis keep up the pressure it could over a period of time have a negative impact on the Punjabi soldiers and this could affect the Army's capability against India.
6. The Army's concern is how to keep up the seeming co-operation with the US against Al Qaeda and the Taliban without letting it weaken its capability against India. It cannot discontinue its co-operation with the US which has kept the Pakistani economy afloat. The Pakistani State badly needs the cash flow from the US.By expanding their operations in Punjab, the TTP and its Punjabi associates are seeking to convey a message to the military leadership that its continued support to the US operations in the FATA and Afghanistan could weaken the loyalty of its Punjabi and Pashtun soldiers and dilute its capability against India.
7. The TTP, despite the availability of a large number of Pashtun suicide bombers, would not be effective in Punjab without the co-operation of Punjabi terrorist organisations, which provide local sanctuaries, logistics and recruits. There are principally five Punjabi terrorist organisations---the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the anti- Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ). Of these, the LET has not been affected by the anti-Army anger. It continues to maintain its loyalty to the Army. It follows a dual policy of co-operating with Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban against the US and with the Pakistan Army against India. For reasons not clear, the HUM has not been very active in recent months.
8. The HUJI, the JEM and the LEJ have been whole-heartedly co-operating with the TTP in its anti-Army operations. Whereas the LET pays equal attention to the jihad against the US and India, the HUJI, the JEM, the LEJ and the TTP are for the moment paying greater attention to their jihad against the US and the Pakistani Army than to their jihad against India. They prefer to leave the responsibility for the jihad against India to the LET.
9. According to Amir Mir, the well-known Pakistani journalist who writes for the "News" (March 13,2010), 1,217 persons were killed in 80 suicide bomber attacks during 2009. This was the higest figure of fatalities in a year since the Lal Masjid raid. Of the 1,217 fatalities, 863 were of civilians and the remaining 354 belonged to the security and law-enforcement agencies. Of them, 137 belonged to the police, 102 were Army officers and Jawans, 51 were FC personnel, 28 were staff members of the Inter-Services Intelligence, 22 belonged to the Khasadar Force, 12 belonged to the Pakistan Rangers and two others were employees of the Pakistan Navy. On an average, 72 civilians and 30 security and law-enforcement agencies’ personnel lost their lives every month in 2009 due to suicide bombings.
10. According to him, there has been a steep rise in fatalities due to suicide bombings between January 1 and March 12 this year as compared to the corresponding period of last year. There have been 321 fatalities in 15 suicide bombings till March 12 this year as against only 105 during the corresponding period last year.
11. He writes: "Authorities investigating the unending spate of suicide bombings are of the view most of these attacks have been carried out by the Punjabi Taliban belonging to four sectarian-cum-Jihadi groups which are working in tandem with the Pashtun-dominated Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. They believe several South Punjab-based members of the banned Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, who had taken part in the Afghan war, have now tied up with the TTP to carry out suicide attacks across Pakistan, especially targeting key military installations. South Punjab has grabbed the attention of Pakistani authorities over the past few months because of the involvement of the Taliban in a spate of Fidayeen-style suicide bombings, including the one targeting the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi on October 10, 2009."
12. What would be the impact of these attacks and the resulting fatalities on the morale of the Punjabi soldiers? It is likely that many of the civilians killed were the relatives of soldiers. The Army could come to the conclusion that the only way it could maintain the morale of its Punjabi soldiers is by intensifying its proxy war against India while pretending to co-operate with the US against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.One of the tempting options for the Army will be to wean the HUJI and the JEM away from the TTP by persuading them to join with the LET against India. If it succeeds, it could reduce the pressure on the Army.
13. The increase in anti- Pakistan Army terrorism in Punjab has to be closely monitored by India in order to assess its impact on Pakistan's proxy war against India. ( 13-3-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)