B.RAMAN
( This is a paper, which I had prepared in June,2007, at the request of a very well-known US multinational company with a wide presence in East, South-East and South Asia. I have not made any changes except in my E-mail address, which I have changed since then )
One has to make a distinction between a radicalisation of Pakistan and a radicalisation of sections of the people of Pakistan. A radicalisation of Pakistan would mean its radicalisation as a State and as a nation as happened to Iran in 1979 and a control over its governance by a radical ideology, which is detrimental to peace and security not only in the region, but also in the world as a whole. A radicalisation of sections of the people of Pakistan would mean some sections of the people of the country coming under the influence of destabilising radical ideas and posing a threat initially to peace and security in Pakistan itself and subsequently in the region and the rest of the world.
2. In the short and medium terms, there is no danger of a radicalisation of Pakistan as a State and a nation. The Army plays an important role in the governance of Pakistan----either directly by taking over the reins of power or indirectly when a duly elected political leadership is in power by having a say in matters concerning national security. There has been an increase in the number of radical elements in the Army since the days of the late Gen.Zia-ul-Haq (1977-88). This could be attributed to his decision to treat the certificates issued by the madrasas (religious schools) as equivalent to those issued by non-religious schools for purposes of recruitment to the Armed Forces and other Government departments. This equivalence has continued till today and no Government---- under military or political leadership--- has had the courage to remove it. As a result, one finds an increasing number of students from the madrasas in the Armed Forces and other Government departments. They are more prone to be influenced by radical ideas than the products of non-religious institutions.
3.No authentic data is available of the number of such radical or radical-prone elements in the Armed Forces and other Government departments. According to reliable sources in the Pakistani Police, they constitute about 25 per cent of the total strength of the Armed Forces and other Government departments. Most of them are at the lower and middle levels. The presence of radical elements at the higher
command level is rare. However, exceptions are there----the most prominent of them being Gen.Zia himself, who was a devout Deobandi and Gen.Mohammed Aziz Khan, who retired two years ago. Gen.Aziz Khan belongs to the Sudan tribe of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and was considered a hard-core fundamentalist in his thinking and actions. After his retirement, there are no votaries of radical or fundamentalist ideologies at the level of Lt.Generals and Generals
4. The Pakistan Army has thus an increasing number of radical or radical-prone elements at the lower and middle levels, but it is not a radical institution in the religious sense. While the Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate, which consists largely of military officers, have no compunctions about using radical elements in the society for achieving their strategic objectives, they have ensured that their institutions do not get infected with radical ideas at the senior levels. During the war against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the ISI, in collaboration with the USA's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), used radical ideologies for motivating the Afghan, Pakistani and Arab volunteers to fight against the Soviet troops. At the same time, it saw to it that these ideas did not affect the Army as an institution. This was equally true in the case of the Air Force and the Navy too.
5. However, there has been a greater spread of radical extremism in the police forces of different provinces and in the para-military forces such as the Rangers and the Frontier Constabulary. According to the same sources in the Police, at least about one-third of these forces are estimated to be infected by extremist ideas. A similar percentage would apply in the case of the civilian bureaucrats in different Government departments at the Federal and provincial levels. The percentage would be more than one-third in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the Pashtun majority areas of Balochistan and the POK and less in Punjab
and Sindh. As a result, there is a greater empathy for religious extremism in the civilian bureaucracies and the police forces of these areas than in Punjab and Sindh and in the Baloch majority districts of Balochistan.
6.To analyse the spread of radicalism or extremism in the Pakistani society, it can be categorised in different ways. The first categorization would be between the descendants of converts from Hinduism to Islam and the descendants from the Muslim migrants from Central and West Asia, who were already Muslims when they came to the sub-continent. The Mohajirs of Sindh, who had migrated to Pakistan from India at the time of the partition in 1947, are largely the descendants of converts from Hinduism. They are the least radicalised section of the Pakistani society and have resisted the influence of the extremist organisations. The Pakistani President, Gen.Pervez Musharraf, who advocates a policy of enlightened moderation, is a Mohajir. So is Gen.Mirza Aslam Beg, who was the Chief of the Army Staff under the first tenure of Mrs. Benazir Bhutto as the Prime Minister (1988 to 90).
7. The second categorisation would be on an ethnic basis. The main ethnic groups in Pakistan are the Punjabis , the Pashtuns, the Sindhis, the Balochs, the Punjabi-speaking Kashmiris known as the Mirpuris because they come from a region in the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) called Mirpur and other Kashmiris speaking different non-Punjabi dialects. Of these, the Pashtuns, who are to be found on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, are the most radicalised. They are followed by the Mirpuris and the Punjabis of Punjab. The Sindhis and the Balochs----though they are descendants of the Muslim migrants from West Asia---- are the least radicalised. This is due to the fact that traditionally Marxism and other leftist ideologies have had an impact on their thinking. Leftist ideologies have also had an impact on the thinking of some sections of the Pashtuns, who have resisted the influence of extremism. They are essentially the followers of the late Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who was very close to Mahatma Gandhi and was popularly known as the Frontier Gandhi. One will find many of his followers in the Awami National Party (ANP) today.
8. The third categorisation would be on the basis of religious orthodoxy----as between the Deobandis and the Barelvis and the Sufis and the non-Sufis. The headquarters of the Deobandis and the Barelvis are in India where these two schools of religious orthodoxy have remained largely uninfected by extremism. The Deobandis of Pakistan are increasingly Wahabised, but not the Deobandis of India or even the Barelvis of Pakistan. The Barelvis in Pakistan as well as India are more tolerant than the Deobandis. The Barelvis of Pakistan have resisted the influence of Wahabism. The Pakistani census does not enumerate the population on the basis of their religious orthodoxy, but according to sources in the religious clerical community in Pakistan, there are more Barelvis than Deobandis in the Pakistani society---the number of Barelvis being the maximum in the province of Sindh. But more madrasas are controlled by the Deobandis than by the Barelvis, more mosques have been set up by the Deobandis than by the Barelvis and more political influence is wielded by the Deobandis than by the Barelvis because of the backing for the Pakistani Deobandis from the clerics and the ruling families of Saudi Arabia and the flow of Saudi money for them.
9. The Sufis are the most tolerant of the Muslim communities of not only Pakistan, but also of the entire sub-continent. Sufism interprets jihad in its true sense as an inner struggle to make oneself a better Muslim and not an external struggle against perceived adversaries of Islam. The Sufis believe that external struggles are the responsibility of the State and not of the religion. Religion and culture have an equally important role in the life of a Sufi. Devotional music plays an important role in their religious functions just as it does in the religious functions of other religions. Sufism is not an orthodoxy. It is a state of mind, which believes that religious thinking need not be illiberal thinking. Despite the efforts of Talibanised elements to eradicate the influence of Sufism, it still has a strong hold in Sindh and the Baloch majority areas of Balochistan. But it is on the retreat in the rest of Pakistan in the face of the onslaught by pro-Taliban elements.
10. The fourth categorization would be on a sectarian basis----between the Sunnis and the Shias. The Sunnis constitute about 80 per cent of Pakistan’s total estimated population of about 150 million. The Shias constitute about 17 per cent. The rest are mainly Hindus and Christians. The Shias are in a majority in the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) of Jammu and Kashmir, which are under Pakistani occupation since 1947, and in certain Pashtun pockets in the NWFP and the FATA. They are in a minority in the rest of Pakistan. Concerned over the likely negative impact of the Islamic Revolution in Iran on the minds of the Pakistani Shias, Gen.Zia encouraged the activities of extremist Sunni elements to counter any trend towards the radicalization of the Shias. This has led to frequent incidents of terrorism directed against the Shias. There has been a radical trend in the Shia community too, but Shia radicalism has essentially a domestic agenda----namely, to protect their interests in Pakistan. It has no external agenda.
11. The fifth and last categorization would be between tribals and non-tribals. The tribal areas near the Afghan border have traditionally been the most fundamentalist in their thinking and way of life. They have also been the most prone to the influence of Wahabism and the Taliban. For centuries, they have defied the attempts of any central Government to enforce its writ in their areas. It was so under the British. It has been so since Pakistan became independent in 1947. Successive Pakistani Governments ----whether led by the Army or the political parties---- have considered it prudent to leave the tribal areas untouched lest they provoke violent reactions from the local inhabitants. Pakistan’s ISI had always kept these tribals in the forefront of its external adventures---- whether against India in J&K as in 1948, 1965 and 1971, or against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s or against the Government of President Najibullah of Afghanistan in the early 1990s. The Taliban was born in these tribal areas on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The Neo Taliban, Al Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and some Chechen elements are sheltered and nourished there. Many of the jihadis from South-East Asia and the West are trained there.
12. There are three destabilizing influences in Pakistan---- the Wahabised Islamic extremism, the trans-Ummah pan-Islamism and the country-wide anti-Americanism. The Wahabised Islamic extremism calls for the transformation of Pakistan into an Islamic democracy ruled according to the Sharia and the will of Allah, as interpreted by the clerics. It says that in an Islamic democracy, Allah will be sovereign and not the people. The trans-Ummah pan-Islamism---- called International Islamism by me--- holds that the first loyalty of a Muslim should be to his religion and not to the State, that religious bonds are more important than cultural bonds, that Muslims do not recognize national frontiers and have a right and obligation to go to any country to wage a jihad in support of the local Muslims and that the Muslims have the religious right and obligation to acquire weapons of mass destruction in order to protect their religion, if necessary. The anti-Americanism projects the US as the source of all evils afflicting the Islamic as well as the non-Islamic world. The religious elements look upon the US as anti-Islam. The non-religious elements look upon it as anti-people. Both religious and non-religious elements condemn what they project as the US collusion with Israel not only on the Palestine issue, but also on other issues affecting the Islamic world.
13. While there is a wide convergence of anti-US views among all sections of the population-----whether religiously inclined or not so inclined, whether liberal or not so liberal, whether elitist or not so elitist---the liberal sections of the Pakistani society, who are still in a majority, if not in a predominant majority, do not subscribe to Wahabised Islamic extremism or trans-Ummah pan-Islamism. Pakistan has always been and continues to be a moderate society. In the last general elections held in 2002, the six fundamentalist parties, which contested the elections as a coalition, won only 11 per cent of the votes cast. The remaining 89 per cent was won by non-religious political parties----some supporting the military rule and others opposing it. However, the coalition of the fundamentalist parties won the majority of the seats in the radicalized Pashtun belt in the NWFP and emerged as the largest single formation in the Pashtun majority areas of Balochistan. As a result, the fundamentalist coalition was able to come to power on its own in the NWFP and as part of a coalition with non-religious parties supporting the Army in Balochistan.
14. The success of the fundamentalist coalition in the tribal areas and the marginalization of the non-religious parties in those areas was facilitated by a decision taken by Musharraf to make a university degree as a necessary qualification for contesting the election and to accord to the certificates issued by the madrasas the equivalence of a university degree for purposes of determining the eligibility for contesting the elections. Non-religious education has made the least progress in the Pashtun belt. As a result, madrasa education is more the rule than the exception in those areas. The fundamentalist parties benefited enormously from Musharraf’s decision and the non-religious parties found themselves at a disadvantage. If Musharraf had not introduced this requirement, the fundamentalist coalition might not have done as well as it did.
15. The religious landscape in Pakistan is dominated by two kinds of organizations-----the fundamentalist parties and the jihadi organizations. The fundamentalist parties have been in existence since Pakistan became independent in 1947 and have been contesting the elections though they are opposed to Western-style liberal democracy. Their total vote share has always been between five and eleven per cent. They reached the figure of 11 per cent in the 2002 elections, thanks to the machinations of the Musharraf Government, which wanted to marginalize the influence of the non-religious parties opposed to him such as the Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) of Mrs. Benazir Bhutto and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) of Mr.Nawaz Sharif. In his over-anxiety to cut Mrs.Bhutto and Mr.Nawaz down to size, Musharraf handed over the tribal areas on a platter to the fundamentalists and the jihadis, thereby ---- more unwittingly than consciously --- facilitating the resurgence of the Neo Taliban and Al Qaeda.
16. The jihadi organizations are so called because they misinterpret the concept of jihad and advocate its use against all perceived enemies of Islam----internal or external, non-Muslims or Muslims---- wherever they are found. Their call for jihad has a domestic as well as an external agenda. The domestic agenda is the setting up of an Islamic democracy in Pakistan ruled according to the Sharia and the will of Allah. The external agenda is to “liberate” all so-called traditional Muslim lands from the “occupation” of non-Muslims and to eliminate the influence of the US and the rest of the Western world from the Ummah.
17.The jihadi organizations were brought into existence in the 1980s by the ISI and the Saudi intelligence at the instance of the CIA for being used against the troops of the USSR and the pro-Soviet Afghan Government in Afghanistan. Their perceived success in bringing about the withdrawal of the Soviet troops and the collapse of the Najibullah Government has convinced them that the jihad as waged by them is a highly potent weapon, which could be used with equal effectiveness to bring about the withdrawal of the Western presence from the Ummah, to “liberate the traditional Muslim lands” and to transform Pakistan into an Islamic fundamentalist State. The Pakistani Army and the ISI, which were impressed by the motivation, determination and fighting skills displayed by the jihadi organizations in Afghanistan, transformed them, after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops, into a new strategic weapon for use against India to annex J&K and in Afghanistan to achieve a strategic depth.
18. The aggravation of the anti-US feelings in the Islamic world after Osama bin Laden, through Al Qaeda and the International Islamic Front (IIF), started a global jihad against “the Crusaders and the Jewish People” in 1998 has resulted in a dual control over the Pakistani jihadi organizations---- the control of the ISI, which has been trying to use them for its national agenda against India and in Afghanistan and that of bin Laden, who has been using them for his global agenda against “the Crusaders and the Jewish people”. The jihadi organizations are now fighting on three fronts with equal ferocity----against India as desired by the ISI, against the US and Israel as desired by Al Qaeda and against the Pakistani State itself as dictated by their domestic agenda of an Islamic State ruled according to the Sharia and the will of Allah. The growing Talibanisation of the tribal areas in the FATA and the NWFP and its spread outside the tribal areas is the outcome of their determined pursuit of their domestic agenda. The acts of jihadi terrorism in Spain and the UK, the thwarted acts of terrorism in the UK and the unearthing of numerous sleeper cells in the UK, the USA, Canada and other countries and the resurgence of the Neo Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan are the outcome of their equally determined pursuit of their international agenda. Members of the Pakistani diaspora in the Gulf and the Western countries have been playing an increasingly active role in facilitating the pursuit of their international agenda.
19.The international community’s concern over the prevailing and developing situation in Pakistan has been further deepened by the status of Pakistan as a nuclear weapon State. Musharraf has been repeatedly assuring the US and the rest of the international community that the security of its nuclear arsenal is strong and that there is no danger of its falling into the hands of the jihadi terrorists. To reassure the US of his determination to ensure its security, he has discreetly allowed US experts to play an active role in monitoring the security of the arsenal through its technical intelligence agencies as well as through ground monitors. Despite this, the concerns remain. This is due to various factors.
20. Firstly, it is admitted even in Pakistan that there has been an infiltration of extremist elements into every section of the Pakistani State apparatus---- the Armed Forces, the Police, the Para-military forces and the civilian bureaucracy. When that is so, it is inconceivable that there would not be a similar penetration of Pakistan’s nuclear establishment. In fact, over the years, Pakistani newspapers have been reporting about the participation of unnamed Pakistani nuclear scientists in the annual conventions of extremist organizations such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ).
21. Secondly, the fundamentalist and jihadi organizations are strong supporters of a military nuclear capability for the Ummah to counter the alleged nuclear capability of Israel. They project Pakistan’s atomic bomb not as a mere national asset, but as an Islamic asset. They describe it as an Islamic bomb, whose use should be available to the entire Ummah. They also support Pakistan sharing its nuclear technology with other Muslim countries. In their eyes, A.Q.Khan, the so-called father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb, committed no offence by sharing the nuclear technology with Iran and Libya because both are Muslim States or with North Korea as a quid pro quo for its sharing its missile technology with Pakistan. They look upon Pakistan’s sharing its nuclear technology and know-how with other Islamic States as an Islamic obligation and not as an illegal act of proliferation.
22. Thirdly, while serving scientists may be prepared to share the technology and know-how with other Muslim States, there has been no evidence of a similar willingness on their part to share them with Islamic non-State actors such as Al Qaeda. However, the dangers of such a sharing of know-how with the non-State actors were highlighted by the unearthing of evidence by the US intelligence after 9/11 that at least two retired Pakistani nuclear scientists ----Sultan Bashiruddin Chaudhury and Abdul Majid---were in touch with Osama bin Laden after their retirement and had even visited him at Kandahar. They were taken into custody and questioned. They admitted their contacts with bin Laden, but insisted that those were in connection with the work of a humanitarian relief organization, which they had founded after their retirement. Many retired Pakistani military and intelligence officers have been helping the Neo Taliban and the Pakistani jihadi organizations. The most well-known example is that of Lt.Gen.Hamid Gul, who was the Director-General of the ISI during Mrs.Benazir’s first tenure as the Prime Minister (1988-90). Are there retired nuclear scientists, who have been maintaining similar contacts with Al Qaeda and other jihadi organizations? That is a question, which has been haunting Western intelligence officers and security experts.
23. And, fourthly, there are still many troubling questions about L’Affaire A.Q.Khan. Was it a rogue operation as maintained by Musharraf or were others also involved----not only in the nuclear establishment, but also in the military high command? Musharraf’s continued refusal to hand him over to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at Vienna for interrogation has come in the way of the entire truth being found out.
FUTURE IMPLICATIONS
24. Against this background as discussed in Paras 1 to 23, what are the future implications for Pakistan and the international community as a whole?
SHORT-TERM ( next five years) IMPLICATION No.1: The Pashtun belt on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border would continue to be under the de facto control of Al Qaeda, the Neo Taliban and the Pakistani jihadi organizations with neither the Pakistani Army in Pakistani territory nor the US-led NATO forces in the adjoining Afghan territory being able to prevail over the terrorists in an enduring manner. The NATO forces will not be able to prevail in the Afghan territory unless and until the roots of the jihadi terrorism in the Pakistani territory are initially sterilized and ultimately destroyed. The Pakistani Army has so far not exhibited either a willingness or the capability to undertake this task. The lack of willingness arises from its perception that it will need its own jihadis for continued use against India and the Neo Taliban for retrieving the strategic ground lost by it in Afghanistan. Moreover, the Army fears that any strong action by it against the jihadis operating in the Pashtun belt could lead to a major confrontation between the Army and the tribals, who contribute a large number of soldiers to the Pakistan Army. Next to Punjab, the largest number of soldier-recruits to the Pakistan Army come from the NWFP and the FATA. Its incapability arises from the fact that ever since Pakistan was born in 1947, the FATA has remained in a state of isolation and utter neglect with no worthwhile development of its economy and infrastructure. It should be possible to root out the terrorist infrastructure in this area through operations mounted by the NATO forces from the Afghan territory, but neither the present military-dominated Government nor any future democratically elected civilian Government might be in a position to agree to this as this could aggravate anti-American feelings right across the political spectrum and the country as a whole and discredit the Government in power at Islamabad.
SHORT-TERM IMPLICATION NO.2: The likely spread of jihadi extremism of the Taliban kind from the tribal areas to the POK and to those areas of Pakistani Punjab bordering the Pashtun belt. There are indications of this having already started.
SHORT-TERM IMPLICATION NO.3: Continuing jihadi terrorism in J&K and other parts of the Indian territory. The terrorism in the Indian territory will ebb and flow depending on the effectiveness of the Indian security forces and counter-terrorism agencies in dealing with it. However, the activities of the jihadi terrorists in the Indian territory will be more sporadic than sustained----even in J&K. Occasional outbreaks of spectacular acts of terrorism will be followed by long spells of inactivity. In the first few years after terrorism broke out in J&K in 1989, it almost assumed the shape of a sustained insurgency. But, the political, counter-infiltration (building of border fences) and counter-terrorism measures taken by the Indian authorities have dented the capability of the terrorists to maintain a sustained wave of terrorist attacks. The total elimination of these sporadic acts would not be possible till the Pakistani State gives up its use of terrorism as a strategic weapon.
SHORT-TERM IMPLICATION NO.4: Continuing instability in Afghanistan with the danger of Afghanistan reverting back to the pre-9/11 position. Narcotics control measures and all measures to dry up the flow of funds to different terrorist groups will remain ineffective. The flow of funds from the international community to Afghanistan will not result in any significant economic development and in an improvement in the standard of living of the people. On the other hand, there would be a danger of some of these funds leaking into the coffers of the terrorists through their sympathizers in the Government. There has been a penetration of the newly-raised Afghan security forces and the civilian administration by the Neo Taliban.
SHORT-TERM IMPLICATION NO. 5: The phenomenon of angry individual Muslims in the Pakistani and other Muslim diaspora in the West taking to suicide terrorism and emulating Al Qaeda even if they do not agree with its objectives will continue. The strong measures taken by the Western Governments against their own Muslim population as well as Muslim visitors to their country will add to the feelings of alienation and anger in the Muslim diaspora. This will come in the way of their integration and aggravate the divide between the Muslims and non-Muslims. Instances of acts of reprisal terrorism against Western nationals and interests will continue to take place. A repeat of 9/11 in the US homeland cannot be ruled out however strong the physical security measures. The vicious cycle of More terrorism—More physical security and restrictive measures against Muslims---More alienation and Anger---More Terrorism will continue unbroken.
MEDIUM-TERM (five to ten years) IMPLICATION : Terrorists likely to succeed in their efforts to get WMD material and know-how from scientists sympathetic to them, thereby bringing nearer the dangers of an act of WMD terrorism.
25. How to win in the fight against jihadi terrorism? The fire of jihadi terrorism started in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region. It can be extinguished only through appropriate measures in the region from which it started-----particularly in Pakistan where the heart of the fire is located. A mix of immediate and long-term measures is required. The immediate measures would include pressurizing Pakistan to stop the use of terrorism as a strategic weapon, effectively put an end to the terrorist infrastructure created by the ISI and arrest and prosecute the leaders of the jihadi terrorist organizations. These measures would weaken the Pakistani jihadi organizations, but would not end Al Qaeda. It could be neutralized only by joint international action. The international community has not been successful presently because of a lack of co-operation from Pakistan. It must be made to co-operate through a carrot and stick policy. Another immediate measure required is a change in the present over-militarised counter-terrorism methods of the US, which are causing considerable collateral damage and driving more Muslims into the arms of Al Qaeda.
26. The long-term measures would include heavy investments in education in Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to make modern education available to the poorer sections of the society at an affordable price and reform of the madrasa system in order to make the madrasas serve the genuine religious and spiritual needs of the people without seeking to make jihadi terrorists out of them.The Western countries should seek to remove the feelings in the minds of their Muslim population that they are a targeted community. For this, there is a need for an improvement in the quality of the interactions of the intelligence and security agencies with the Muslims. How to be firm without seeming to be harsh and how to avoid creating feelings of humiliation in the minds of the Muslims under questioning? These are questions, which need attention----immediately as well as in the medium and long terms. Eradication of the roots of terrorism would be a long drawn-out process. It needs to be handled with patience and understanding of the feelings of the Muslims. The economic development of the tribal areas on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border also needs attention.
SITUATION IN INDIA
27. Those who have taken to jihadi terrorism constitute only a small percentage of the Muslim community of the world. There are about one billion Muslims in the world. Forty-five per cent of them live in the Indian sub-continent. About 15 per cent of the world’s Muslim community lives in India. One finds all the sects and different ideological currents represented in India--- Sunnis as well as Shias, Sufis as well as Wahabis, Barelvis as well as Deobandis, nationalists as well as pan-Islamists. Indian Muslims have many causes for anger----political grievances in Jammu and Kashmir, lack of economic progress in the Muslim community in the rest of India, the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in December, 1992, the periodic Hindu-Muslim riots in different parts of the country, the anti-Muslim incidents in Gujarat in February,2002, in the wake of the massacre of some Hindus traveling by train, the alleged prejudices of the Police and other security forces against the Muslims etc.
28. These causes for anger have led to the outbreak of three different kinds of jihadi terrorism in Indian territory. First, the jihadi terrorism of the indigenous kind in Jammu & Kashmir triggered off by political grievances and by perceptions of ethnic separateness. Second, the indigenous jihadi terrorism of the Al Ummah and Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) kind seen in other parts of India, which is unrelated to J&K and third, the pan-Islamic terrorism of an inspiration of an Al Qaeda kind brought into India by Pakistani jihadi organizations, which are members of the IIF. In recent years, one has been seeing the gravitation of small numbers of angry Indian Muslim youth towards these trans-border and trans-national pan-Islamic organizations, but their number is very small. The vast majority of the Indian Muslims have not let their anger drive them into the arms of Al Qaeda and the IIF. There are many reasons for this.
29. Firstly, the successful working of the Indian democracy and the modern Indian education system have created a growing reservoir of Muslim political and intellectual elite, which has not allowed extremely orthodox religious clerics to take over the leadership of the community and lead it astray. Secondly, an Indian Muslim--- aggrieved for whatever reason---- finds that he does not have to fight his battle alone. He is supported in his struggle for justice by many institutions of the State and the civil society such as the judiciary, the media, the non-governmental organizations and many individuals, Muslims as well as non-Muslims. The Indian judiciary has been much more vigilant in protecting the rights of the Muslims and in ensuring justice to them than the judiciaries of countries such as the US and the UK. One cannot find in India the kind of unbelievably stern sentences awarded by courts to Muslim suspects on the basis of circumstantial evidence alone as one finds in the UK and the US. The judicial principle of the benefit of doubt to the accused operates in India as vigorously in the case of accused Muslims as it does in the case of accused non-Muslims.
30. Thirdly, despite continuing poverty, unemployment and economic deprivation among large sections of Indian Muslims, the number of Indian Muslims, who have managed to make a shining name for themselves whether in politics, or in the corporate world or in the world of arts or in the scientific and academic world, is impressive. Their examples----visible to everyone---act as beacons of hope to the entire community. Where there are reasonable grounds for hope for the future, there is no desperation and the urge to take to violence remains under control.
31. And fourthly, for an Indian Muslim, his cultural bonds, which unite him to the rest of the Indians--- Muslims or non-Muslims--- are as important as his religious and sectarian bonds. Religion is not allowed to breed feelings of cultural incompatability.
32. The example thus far set by the Muslims of India needs to be emulated by the Muslims in the rest of the world if the campaign against international terrorism has to be effective.
33. The Indian counter-terrorist doctrine is based on the principle that the police has to be the weapon of first resort against terrorism and the Army only the weapon of last resort. The Army is used in J&K and the North-East where one faces the problem of cross-border terrorism. In the rest of the country, where there is no cross-border dimension, the police has the leadership role in counter-terrorism. This has served us well.
34. India has faced different kinds of terrorism and insurgencies---------of the ethnic kind in the tribal areas of the North-East where the tribals feel they are ethnically different from the people in other parts of India; of the ideological kind ( Naxalite or Maoist terrorism) in the tribal areas of Central and Eastern India due to perceived economic exploitation of the tribals by non-tribals; of the religious kind in Punjab and J&K; and of the pan-Islamic variety in different parts of India.
35. The ethnic, religious and pan-Islamic terrorist groups had received and continue to receive various kinds of assistance from the ISI such as training, arms and ammunition, funds and sanctuaries. The ethnic and ideological groups had also received similar assistance from the Chinese intelligence till 1979 when it was discontinued. Despite all this assistance, Indian counter-terrorism agencies had been able to deal with them satisfactorily and bring them under control. India has been facing some difficulty in dealing with pan-Islamic terrorism because of the involvement of a large number of Pakistani jihadi terrorists infiltrated into India.
36. Till the jihadi terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory is totally eradicated, jihadi terrorism as practised by pro-Al Qaeda organizations such as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) will continue----but sporadically and not in a sustained manner.
37. Though India has been facing terrorism of different kinds since its independence in 1947, targeted attacks by the terrorists on foreign nationals in Indian territory have been few and far between. Among the very few incidents that have taken place are the attacks on a group of Israeli tourists in Srinagar in 1991 by the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) in which one tourist was killed and the kidnapping of five Western tourists in J&K in 1995 by the HUM operating under the name of Al Faran. One of them managed to escape. The others could not be traced. There was also one incident of kidnapping of a Russian expert working for an oil company in Assam by the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA).
38. Among the targets of economic significance attacked over the years by different terrorist groups are oil storage tanks and pipelines by the ethnic terrorist groups in the North-East, the explosions targeting the Mumbai Stock Exchange, the Air India Office and a tourist hotel in Mumbai in March,1993, the explosions in a number of trains in North India in December,1993, the explosion in a crowded shopping area in New Delhi in October,2005, the explosions in suburban trains in Mumbai in July,2006, and the explosion in the Samjotha Express train from Delhi to Lahore in February,2007. All these were carried out by Pakistan-based or Pakistan-trained jihadi terrorist groups. There was also an involvement of the mafia group headed by Dawood Ibrahim in the Mumbai explosions of March,1993. There have also been instances of kidnapping of Indian officials of tea estates in Assam by the North-Eastern groups in order to extort money or to demand the release of detained suspects.
39. There has so far been no major attack by jihadi terrorist groups on foreign nationals and interests outside J&K. There was an attack outside the US Consulate in Kolkata in January,2002, but that was directed against the Indian security personnel guarding the Consulate. For the last two years, jihadi terrorists from Pakistan arrested by the Indian Police in different States have been saying that ISI-sponsored groups such as the LET have been planning attacks on targets such as the IT companies in places such as Bangalore in order to disrupt the IT industry, which has been a major source of foreign exchange earnings. However, no attack has so far materialized due to the vigilance of the security agencies.
40. Till the ground situation in Pakistan impoves and the Pakistani authorities put an effective end to the jihadi terrorist infrastructure, jihadi terrorism----of the indigenous as well as pan-Islamic kind--- will continue to take place at sporadic intervals, but it is unlikely to assume chronic proportions and unsettle political and economic stability
41. While pro-Al Qaeda jihadi organizations from Pakistan have been active in Indian territory, Al Qaeda, as an organization, has so far not mounted an act of terrorism in Indian territory. In his confessional statement before a military tribunal in the Guantanamo Bay earlier this year, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who had allegedly orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US homeland, had spoken of a plan of Al Qaeda to attack the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, which did not materialize. However, his confessional statement did not say when it was planned and why it could not be carried out.
42. Since the visit of President George Bush to India in March,2006, Al Qaeda has been paying a little more attention to India than in the past. In a message of April,2006, bin Laden projected the global jihad as directed against a joint anti-Islam conspiracy of the Crusaders, the Jewish People and the Hindus. There were anti-US demonstrations by Muslims in Mumbai, Lucknow and Hyderabad coinciding with Mr.Bush’s visit. It was reported that some of the demonstrators in Mumbai shouted pro-bin Laden slogans. There were anti-US demonstrations by Sunnis and Shias in different parts of J&K on June 14 and 15,2007. The demonstrators accused the US of driving a wedge between the Shias and the Sunnis and condemned its activities in Iraq. The demonstrations came a week after the circulation of a video message purported to have been issued by an organization calling itself Al Qaeda in India. The authenticity of the message has not so far been established. Nor is there any evidence to show that the demonstrations were a planned sequel to the dissemination of the message. As India’s relations with the US and Israel continue to improve, it is to be expected that Al Qaeda would look for opportunities to attack American and Israeli targets in Indian territory. The Indian counter-terrorism agencies are alert to this danger.
43. The indications till now are that Al Qaeda wants to acquire a WMD capability mainly for use against the US in the US homeland. Despite this, Indian counter-terrorism agencies have taken into consideration the possibility of a WMD attack in Indian territory too in their planning to thwart such attacks through preventive intelligence and enhanced physical security.
44. Despite terrorism and insurgencies, India continues to march forward. Its foreign exchange reserves have touched US $ 140 billion and continue to increase. Its economy has been registering annually a growth rate of seven per cent plus. It is a favourite destination for foreign institutional investors. Direct investment flows into the manufacturing sector have been increasing. It is already a major player in the IT sector and is moving towards a similar role in the automobile sector. The health of the economy is a testament to the failure of the terrorists to cause political or economic instability. (17-6-07)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
NEED FOR A CO-ORDINATED COUNTER-PIRACY STRATEGY
B.RAMAN
An important lesson from 2008 having a bearing on national, regional and global economic security is the need for a global co-ordinated counter-piracy strategy.
2. This need was highlighted by the dramatic surge in the activities of pirates of Somalian and Yemeni origin in the seas to the West ofIndia----particularly in the Gulf of Aden. It has been estimated that pirates ---predominantly from Somalia ---- carried out more than 112attacks in the key shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden, located between the south of Yemen and the north of Somalia, and the Indian Ocean east of Somalia during 2008. They had in their custody at the end of the year about 20 ships, including an Ukrainian ship called "Faina"carrying over 30 tanks to Kenya and a Saudi super-tanker called "Sirius Star" with crude oil worth about an estimated US $ 100 million. The pirates have since released the super-tanker and the ship with tanks after the alleged payment of ransom by the owners of the ships.The surge reportedly pushed up insurance costs and earned the Somali pirates tens of millions of dollars in ransom.
3. This surge was comparable to the dramatic surge in aircraft hijackings in the 1970s particularly after the Arab-Israeli war of 1967.Different non-State actors carried out the hijackings for different reasons---- some for political reasons such as demanding the release ofterrorists and other criminals in custody and some for mercenary economic motives such as demanding ransom payments by threatening tokill the passengers and the crew.
4. Apart from stepped up physical security at airports and on board aircraft, another step that contributed to effectively dealing with theproblem was a series of measures taken by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in Montreal and its member-countries to putdown hijacking. Among these measures was an agreement not to pay ransom or concede other demands of the hijackers and on the grantof mutual legal assistance for the arrest and prosecution of the hijackers.
5. There have been instances of non-compliance with such measures. Among such instances, one could cite the repeated refusal ofPakistan to hand over to India the Khalistani hijackers of the 1980s and India's succumbing to the pressure of the Pakistani terrorists whohijacked an aircraft of the Indian Airlines to Kandahar in December 1999, releasing three terrorists from custody and handing them over tothe hijackers in Kandahar. However, such instances of non-compliance have been rare.
6. While taking a strong line of not succumbing to the demands of the hijackers, many countries also raised special intervention forces tofree a hijacked plane from the custody of the hijackers even at the risk of some casualties among the passengers and the crew if they wereleft with no other way of terminating a hijack situation.
7. An agreement not to pay ransom to pirates under any conditions should be an important building block of any meaningful counter-piracystrategy. Instances of daring piracy by some Somalis increased during 2008 apparently because some of the shipping companies secretlypaid ransom to get their ships and crew released. This made piracy a very lucrative occupation for the Somalis and Yemenis. A firmdecision not to pay ransom is important not only for counter-piracy, but also for counter-terrorism. Since Somalia is an important base forthe activities of Al Qaeda and its associates, it would be reasonable to apprehend that some of this ransom money could be going into thecoffers of these jihadi terrorist organisations.
8. An agreement not to pay ransom has to be complimented by the raising of a special intervention force to get hijacked ships released.While there have been many instances of the pirates' attempts to hijack ships being thwarted by the intervention of naval ships onanti-piracy patrol, there has been practically no instance of any hijacked ship taken to a Somali port being freed from the custody of pirates.This would be possible only with the help of special intervention forces. The recent mandate for one year given to the UN member-countriesby the Securitry Council to intervene against piracy originating from Somalia through land or sea-based measures should enable suchspecial intervention forces to operate under an international legal cover. Who will raise such special intervention forces---by the oft-affectedcountries or by regional organisations or other multilateral bodies? These are questions which need to be decided and acted upon.
9.Strengthening physical security for ships is another important component of any counter-piracy strategy . Such physical security could bedivided into two categories---- ship security and sea or maritime security. The US and other Western countries have been repeatedly sayingthat ship security is the responsibility of the company owning the ships and that shipping companies should engage commercial securityguards to play a role similar to sky marshals on board aircraft. While it is correct that Governments have no role in providing security toprivate ships, they could help in strengthening security by laying down an anti-hijacking drill for ships which could be included in thesyllabus of the training institutions training commercial seamen.
10. After the hijacking of the Ukrainian ship in September ,2008, a number of countries, including India and China, has despatched some oftheir naval ships to the Gulf of Aden region to deter piracy and, if deterrence fails, to intervene in the high seas to thwart attempted hijackings. While these anti-piracy patrols are meant to escort commercial ships of their countries, if need be, as they transit through thepiracy-affected areas, and also to escort ships of other countries employing a large number of their nationals in their crew, they have nothesitated to go to the help of commercial ships of other countries too when they are attacked by pirates.
11. A Malaysian naval ship twice beat back pirates attempting to hijack a Chinese ship on December 18,2008, and an Indian ship on January1,2009. While in the case of the Indian ship the Malaysian naval personnel beat back the pirates before they could board the ship, in thecase of the Chinese ship, Malaysian intervenion forced the pirates to run away after they had boarded the ship.The number of suchsuccessful interventions has been on the rise and this could have a downward effect on instances of piracy in this area during 2009. Manyof these successful preventions or interventions were made possible by helicopter patrols or by the ready availability of copters to respondto distress messages. A study of some of these successful interventions also indicates that the sight of an approaching naval coptercreates greater fear in the minds of the pirates than the sight of a naval ship approaching them. For strengthening maritime security----eitherin high seas or in coastal waters---- there is a need for increasing helicopter patrols, which can detect suspicious vessels and movementsmore easily than a naval or coast guard ship.
12. While there are instances of prevention or thwarting of attempted hijackings of ships, there is no instance of a termination of ahijacking after a ship has been hijacked and taken to a Somali port. This is due to paucity of intelligence from Somalia and its ports wherethe ships are taken after hijacking. Successful termination depends on precise intelligence on the port where the ship has been taken andconditions on board and around the ship. No intelligence agency----not even the agencies of the US--- has the capability for the collection ofsuch intelligence from Somalia through land-based operations.
13.According to a Reuters' report of December 13,2008, Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, admitted during a regional securityconference in Bahrain that the US lacked the intelligence needed to pursue the fight against pirates to the Somali soil. The Reuters'despatch added: Quote With the level of information we have at the moment, we’re not in a position to do that kind of land-based operation,”Gates told a regional security conference in Bahrain. “Our first need is intelligence, (to know) who is behind it.” Referring to media reportsthat “two to three clans or extended families” were behind the pirate attacks on ships off the Somali coast, Gates said: “If we can identifywho those clans are then we can operate on land under the auspices of the United Nations and seek out ways to minimise collateraldamage.” Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, who commands the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and oversees a coalition of navies fighting piracyoff Somalia, also expressed concern about the difficulty in identifying the pirates. He said firms should use armed security guards muchmore to protect their vessels. Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, an expert for maritime security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, saidadding land operations to those at sea is crucial to an effective military response to pirate attacks. “The single most difficult problem theforces are facing is that they don’t ... have the jurisdiction to chase them into their natural habitat on land and to deal with them there,” saidRoy-Chaudhury. Unquote
14.So long as terrorism is not defeated in Somalia and political stability not restored there, the virtual impossibility of freeing a hijackedship will continue. So long as this continues, shipping companies will continue to pay ransom to get their ships released. So long as ransomamounts continue to flow into the hands of Somali pirates, the danger of part of these payments going into the coffers of Al Qaeda and itsassociates will continue. So long as the money flow continues, terrorism will continue. This is a vicious circle to which no answer has beenfound so far.
15. The only short-term solution till things improve in Somalia enabling land-based intelligence-collection and termination operations is ajoint campaign of attrition against the pirates by the naval patrols of different countries by luring the pirates into a trap and neutralisingthem. Who will take legal action to have the captured pirates prosecuted and jailed since there is no Government in Somalia capable ofdoing this? Unless there is a legal machinery to deal with the pirates after they are captured, they will manage to get back into circulationand indulge in more acts of piracy.
16. The stepped-up anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden area and the escorting of commercial ships transiting through the area is havingan effect on the piracy. But, this is only one important component of what should be a co-ordinated anti-piracy strategy. There are othercomponents which need attention. These have to be identified and follow-up action has to be taken. The Indian Navy should take theinitiative in organising a brain-storming session of officers of different navies participating in the anti-piracy patrols in order to lay thefoundation for such a co-ordinated strategy. The present efforts are piecemeal and ad hoc. They are more in the nature of fire-fightingmeasures than in the nature of a strategic response. (19-2-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For TopicalStudies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
An important lesson from 2008 having a bearing on national, regional and global economic security is the need for a global co-ordinated counter-piracy strategy.
2. This need was highlighted by the dramatic surge in the activities of pirates of Somalian and Yemeni origin in the seas to the West ofIndia----particularly in the Gulf of Aden. It has been estimated that pirates ---predominantly from Somalia ---- carried out more than 112attacks in the key shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden, located between the south of Yemen and the north of Somalia, and the Indian Ocean east of Somalia during 2008. They had in their custody at the end of the year about 20 ships, including an Ukrainian ship called "Faina"carrying over 30 tanks to Kenya and a Saudi super-tanker called "Sirius Star" with crude oil worth about an estimated US $ 100 million. The pirates have since released the super-tanker and the ship with tanks after the alleged payment of ransom by the owners of the ships.The surge reportedly pushed up insurance costs and earned the Somali pirates tens of millions of dollars in ransom.
3. This surge was comparable to the dramatic surge in aircraft hijackings in the 1970s particularly after the Arab-Israeli war of 1967.Different non-State actors carried out the hijackings for different reasons---- some for political reasons such as demanding the release ofterrorists and other criminals in custody and some for mercenary economic motives such as demanding ransom payments by threatening tokill the passengers and the crew.
4. Apart from stepped up physical security at airports and on board aircraft, another step that contributed to effectively dealing with theproblem was a series of measures taken by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in Montreal and its member-countries to putdown hijacking. Among these measures was an agreement not to pay ransom or concede other demands of the hijackers and on the grantof mutual legal assistance for the arrest and prosecution of the hijackers.
5. There have been instances of non-compliance with such measures. Among such instances, one could cite the repeated refusal ofPakistan to hand over to India the Khalistani hijackers of the 1980s and India's succumbing to the pressure of the Pakistani terrorists whohijacked an aircraft of the Indian Airlines to Kandahar in December 1999, releasing three terrorists from custody and handing them over tothe hijackers in Kandahar. However, such instances of non-compliance have been rare.
6. While taking a strong line of not succumbing to the demands of the hijackers, many countries also raised special intervention forces tofree a hijacked plane from the custody of the hijackers even at the risk of some casualties among the passengers and the crew if they wereleft with no other way of terminating a hijack situation.
7. An agreement not to pay ransom to pirates under any conditions should be an important building block of any meaningful counter-piracystrategy. Instances of daring piracy by some Somalis increased during 2008 apparently because some of the shipping companies secretlypaid ransom to get their ships and crew released. This made piracy a very lucrative occupation for the Somalis and Yemenis. A firmdecision not to pay ransom is important not only for counter-piracy, but also for counter-terrorism. Since Somalia is an important base forthe activities of Al Qaeda and its associates, it would be reasonable to apprehend that some of this ransom money could be going into thecoffers of these jihadi terrorist organisations.
8. An agreement not to pay ransom has to be complimented by the raising of a special intervention force to get hijacked ships released.While there have been many instances of the pirates' attempts to hijack ships being thwarted by the intervention of naval ships onanti-piracy patrol, there has been practically no instance of any hijacked ship taken to a Somali port being freed from the custody of pirates.This would be possible only with the help of special intervention forces. The recent mandate for one year given to the UN member-countriesby the Securitry Council to intervene against piracy originating from Somalia through land or sea-based measures should enable suchspecial intervention forces to operate under an international legal cover. Who will raise such special intervention forces---by the oft-affectedcountries or by regional organisations or other multilateral bodies? These are questions which need to be decided and acted upon.
9.Strengthening physical security for ships is another important component of any counter-piracy strategy . Such physical security could bedivided into two categories---- ship security and sea or maritime security. The US and other Western countries have been repeatedly sayingthat ship security is the responsibility of the company owning the ships and that shipping companies should engage commercial securityguards to play a role similar to sky marshals on board aircraft. While it is correct that Governments have no role in providing security toprivate ships, they could help in strengthening security by laying down an anti-hijacking drill for ships which could be included in thesyllabus of the training institutions training commercial seamen.
10. After the hijacking of the Ukrainian ship in September ,2008, a number of countries, including India and China, has despatched some oftheir naval ships to the Gulf of Aden region to deter piracy and, if deterrence fails, to intervene in the high seas to thwart attempted hijackings. While these anti-piracy patrols are meant to escort commercial ships of their countries, if need be, as they transit through thepiracy-affected areas, and also to escort ships of other countries employing a large number of their nationals in their crew, they have nothesitated to go to the help of commercial ships of other countries too when they are attacked by pirates.
11. A Malaysian naval ship twice beat back pirates attempting to hijack a Chinese ship on December 18,2008, and an Indian ship on January1,2009. While in the case of the Indian ship the Malaysian naval personnel beat back the pirates before they could board the ship, in thecase of the Chinese ship, Malaysian intervenion forced the pirates to run away after they had boarded the ship.The number of suchsuccessful interventions has been on the rise and this could have a downward effect on instances of piracy in this area during 2009. Manyof these successful preventions or interventions were made possible by helicopter patrols or by the ready availability of copters to respondto distress messages. A study of some of these successful interventions also indicates that the sight of an approaching naval coptercreates greater fear in the minds of the pirates than the sight of a naval ship approaching them. For strengthening maritime security----eitherin high seas or in coastal waters---- there is a need for increasing helicopter patrols, which can detect suspicious vessels and movementsmore easily than a naval or coast guard ship.
12. While there are instances of prevention or thwarting of attempted hijackings of ships, there is no instance of a termination of ahijacking after a ship has been hijacked and taken to a Somali port. This is due to paucity of intelligence from Somalia and its ports wherethe ships are taken after hijacking. Successful termination depends on precise intelligence on the port where the ship has been taken andconditions on board and around the ship. No intelligence agency----not even the agencies of the US--- has the capability for the collection ofsuch intelligence from Somalia through land-based operations.
13.According to a Reuters' report of December 13,2008, Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, admitted during a regional securityconference in Bahrain that the US lacked the intelligence needed to pursue the fight against pirates to the Somali soil. The Reuters'despatch added: Quote With the level of information we have at the moment, we’re not in a position to do that kind of land-based operation,”Gates told a regional security conference in Bahrain. “Our first need is intelligence, (to know) who is behind it.” Referring to media reportsthat “two to three clans or extended families” were behind the pirate attacks on ships off the Somali coast, Gates said: “If we can identifywho those clans are then we can operate on land under the auspices of the United Nations and seek out ways to minimise collateraldamage.” Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, who commands the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and oversees a coalition of navies fighting piracyoff Somalia, also expressed concern about the difficulty in identifying the pirates. He said firms should use armed security guards muchmore to protect their vessels. Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, an expert for maritime security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, saidadding land operations to those at sea is crucial to an effective military response to pirate attacks. “The single most difficult problem theforces are facing is that they don’t ... have the jurisdiction to chase them into their natural habitat on land and to deal with them there,” saidRoy-Chaudhury. Unquote
14.So long as terrorism is not defeated in Somalia and political stability not restored there, the virtual impossibility of freeing a hijackedship will continue. So long as this continues, shipping companies will continue to pay ransom to get their ships released. So long as ransomamounts continue to flow into the hands of Somali pirates, the danger of part of these payments going into the coffers of Al Qaeda and itsassociates will continue. So long as the money flow continues, terrorism will continue. This is a vicious circle to which no answer has beenfound so far.
15. The only short-term solution till things improve in Somalia enabling land-based intelligence-collection and termination operations is ajoint campaign of attrition against the pirates by the naval patrols of different countries by luring the pirates into a trap and neutralisingthem. Who will take legal action to have the captured pirates prosecuted and jailed since there is no Government in Somalia capable ofdoing this? Unless there is a legal machinery to deal with the pirates after they are captured, they will manage to get back into circulationand indulge in more acts of piracy.
16. The stepped-up anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden area and the escorting of commercial ships transiting through the area is havingan effect on the piracy. But, this is only one important component of what should be a co-ordinated anti-piracy strategy. There are othercomponents which need attention. These have to be identified and follow-up action has to be taken. The Indian Navy should take theinitiative in organising a brain-storming session of officers of different navies participating in the anti-piracy patrols in order to lay thefoundation for such a co-ordinated strategy. The present efforts are piecemeal and ad hoc. They are more in the nature of fire-fightingmeasures than in the nature of a strategic response. (19-2-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For TopicalStudies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Monday, February 16, 2009
SWAT: GROPING FOR PEACE
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.497
B.RAMAN
The Tehrik-e-Nifaz-a-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM---- the Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Laws), founded by Sufi Mohammad, aresident of the Malakand Division of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, came into existence in 1992 two years before thebirth of the Taliban of Afghanistan, headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar. Sufi Mohammad used to be a member of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI)before he left it and founded the TNSM to fight for the enforcement of the Islamic laws in the entire Malakand Division, of which Swat is apart.
2. Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister of Pakistan in her second term (1993-96) during the period when both these organisations cameinto existence. Whereas the Taliban was brought into existence by Pakistan's intelligence agencies to replace the different warringMujahideen groups of the 1980s vintage, they played little role in the birth of the TNSM. During Benazir's prime ministership, Sufi Mohammadorganised huge road blocades in the Malakand Division to demand the enforcement of the Islamic laws in the area. Benazir bought peace byaccepting all his demands except one. Sufi Mohammad wanted that the Islamic courts to be set up in the Malakand Division should betotally autonomous with the appellate courts in Peshawar, the capital of the NWFP, and Islamabad having no jurisdiction over them. She didnot accept this demand. Her acceptance of the other demands of the TNSM was not reversed by her successor Nawaz Sharif or by PervezMusharraf, who seized power in 1999.
3. There were allegations by Sufi Mohammad that even the demands accepted by Benazir were not properly implemented. Till 9/11, theTNSM remained essentially a religious fundamentalist organisation with close links to the Afghan Taliban, but with no pronounced anti-US oranti-Army feelings. The US military strikes in Afghanistan under Operation Enduring Freedom turned it into an anti-US and anti-Armyorganisation. Sufi Mohammad issued a fatwa calling upon his followers to go to Afghanistan to fight against the US troops along with theAfghan Taliban. A large number of his followers led personally by him crossed over into Afghanistan. Many of them were mowed down by USair strikes. The survivors, including Sufi Mohammad, fled back into the Pakistani territory.
4. Musharraf had Sufi Mohammad arrested and kept in preventive detention and banned the TNSM as a terrorist organisation on January15,2002. Maulana Fazlullah, a son-in-law of Sufi Mohammad, assumed the leadership of the TNSM and resumed the struggle for theimplementation of the promises made by Benazir and for abolishing the appellate jurisdiction of the courts in Peshawar and Islamabad overthe Islamic courts in the Malakand Division.
5. In the elections held towards the end of 2002, Musharraf had the polls manipulated in order to have the Awami National Party (ANP), aprogressive Pashtun party, which used to be led by Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, known as the Frontier Gandhi, and the Pakistan People's Party(PPP) of Benazir Bhutto defeated. A coalition of six religious fundamentalist parties known as the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) came topower in Peshawar after the elections.
6. The MMA Government closed its eyes to the activities of the TNSM and Fazlullah. From a purely religious organisation, the TNSM grewinto a qasi political organisation and expanded its agenda to include not only an autonomous Islamic criminal justice system, but also anIslamic system of education with girls barred from higher education and with a strict code of conduct for all Muslims. Its agenda becamelargely a carbon copy of the agenda of the Taliban of Afghanistan. It extended its full support to the Afghan Taliban leaders, who had takensanctuary in Balochistan, in their preparations to strike back at the Americans in Afghanistan.
7. As a result of the inaction of the MMA Government in Peshawar and the federal Government headed by Musharraf, the TNSM became thede facto ruling power of the Swat Valley. However, despite its periodic oral condemnation of what it saw as the pro-US policies of Musharraf,it avoided any confrontation with the Pakistani Army and the para-military forces such as the Frontier Corps (FC). By the beginning of 2007, ade facto diarchy came into existence in the Swat Valley---- with Maulana Fazlullah and his Mullas running the civil administration and thecriminal justice system and the army and the FC remaining in charge of internal security. The Army avoided stepping on the toes ofFazlullah.
8. This position of an uneasy co-existence between the Mulla rule of the TNSM and a limited administrative power still taking orders fromPeshawar and Islamabad changed after the Army commando raid in the Lal Masjid in Islamabad in July,2007, ordered by Musharraf. The LalMasjid had two madrasas---one for boys and the other for girls. The madrasa for boys was located outside the masjid campus and themadrasa for girls inside the campus. While the boys surrendered to the commandoes without much resistance, the girls egged on by theMullas of the Masjid resisted the commandoes ferociously. A large number of them were killed. Many of those killed came from tribalfamilies of the Swat Valley.
9. Angered by the alleged massacre of the girls by the commandoes, Fazlullah issued a fatwa calling for a jihad against the Army.Simultaneously, similar calls for a jihad against the Army were issued by different tribal leaders and Mullas of the Federally-AdministeredTribal Areas (FATA). Among those killed in the girls' madrasa of the Lal Masjid were also children of some of the tribal families of the FATA.All these tribal leaders and Mullas decided to form the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Mehsud tribe inSouth Waziristan, was designated the Amir of the TTP. The constituent units of the TTP in different areas selected their own Amirs to workunder the over-all co-ordination of Baitullah. The TNSM joined the TTP.Many in Pakistan believe that the assassination of Benazir atRawalpindi on December 27,2007, was carried out by the followers of Baitullah Mehsud in revenge for her alleged support to the commandoraid in the Lal Masjid.
10. The intense anger across the Pashtin tribal belt in the FATA and in the Swat Valley over the Lal Masjid incidents led to a wave of suicideterrorism not only in the tribal areas, but also in non-tribal areas, including Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Lahore. The suicide terrorism of theTNSM was directed not only against the security forces deployed in the Swat Valley, but also against the establishments and personnel ofthe Armed Forces and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the non-tribal areas of the country. Faced with this anger, Musharraf orderedthe Army and the Frontier Corps to go into action against the TNSM in the Swat Valley in October,2007. The military operations initiallysucceeded in pushing back the TNSM cadres from the areas controlled by them.
11. The TNSM followed the same tactics as the Taliban in Afghanistan. Faced with the might of the Pakistan Army and the FC, it avoided afrontal confrontation with them. On Fazlullah's orders, his followers dispersed and went back to their villages. After the electedGovernment led by the PPP came to power in Islamabad in March,2008, the TNSM re-grouped and staged a spectacular come-back, pushedthe army and Frontier Corps out of the areas recovered by them and re-established its control over nearly 80 per cent of the territory of Swat.
12. In the elections of February,2008, the constituent parties of the MMA did badly. The ANP and the PPP, which had been marginalised byMusharraf in 2002, recovered their lost position in the electoral map of the NWFP. The ANP, which emerged as the largest single party in theNWFP, formed a coalition Government in Peshawar along with the PPP and other like-minded groups. The ANP was, in turn, accommodatedby Asif Ali Zardari in the federal coalition at Islamabad led by the PPP.
13. Even though the ANP has joined the PPP-led coalition, its views on the so-called war against terrorism have more in common with theviews of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) of Nawaz Sharif than with those of Zardari. The ANP believes, like the PML does, that the surgein terrorism in the Pashtun tribal belt was mainly due to the pro-US policies of Musharraf and that there has to be political accommodationwith various units of the TTP in different tribal areas in order to restore the writ of the Government in the Swat Valley and the FATA. The ANPadvocates marking a distance from the US operations in Afghanistan and entering into a dialogue with elements in the TNSM and the TTPwith which, it feels, the Government can do business.
14. Zardari was hesitant to openly support the moves of the ANP lest there be any misunderstanding with the US, but did not rise anyobjections to the ANP entering into a dialogue not with Fazlullah, who had taken to arms against the Army, but with Sufi Mohammad, whohad been released from detention in April, 2008, even when Musharraf was still the President in the hope of using him to create a split in theTNSM and undermine the position of Fazlullah.Following intense negotiations with Sufi Mohammad lasting over several weeks, the ANP-ledGovernment in Peshawar, with a reported nod of approval from Zardari, has signed an agreement with him on February 16,2009, under whichit has conceded all the demands of the TNSM relating to an autonomous Islamic criminal justice system in the Malakand Division as a wholenot subject to the appellate jurisdiction of the courts in Peshawar and Islamabad. The Government is hoping that in return for its acceptingthe primacy of the Mullas of the TNSM in matters pertaining to criminal justice, Sufi Mohammad will be able to persuade Fazlullah and hisadvisers to stop confronting the security forces and withdraw into their masjids, thereby allowing the writ of the civil administration andthe army in all other matters to be re-established.
15.Fazlullah has announced a 10-day ceasefire and ordered the release of a Chinese engineer, who had been kidnapped by the TNSM lastyear, as goodwil gesture towards the Government. It has been reported that the release of the Chinese engineer followed the release by theGovernment of some TNSM activists, who had been arrested under the Anti-Terrorism Act. The release of the Chinese engineer came a fewdays before the planned departure of Zardari to China on February 20,2009, on an official visit.
16. Whether the temporary ceasefire becomes permanent and whether Fazlullah agrees to the re-establishment of the Government writ inthe Swat Valley would depend on the success of Sufi Mohammad in persuading Fazlullah to accept the agreement reached by him with theANP-led Government and call off the fighting.
17. As mentioned earlier, the TNSM, under Sufi Mohammad, had originally a single-point agenda of enforcing the Islamic criminal justicesystem. Under Fazlullah's leadership, it has acquired a multi-point agenda--- enforcing an autonomous criminal justice system in theMalakand Division of the NWFP as a whole, releasing all those arrested during the commando raid in the Lal Masjid, restoring the authority ofthe Mullas of the masjid, re-establishment of the madrasas of the masjid, action against those responsible for the alleged massacre in thegirls madrasa, recognition of the right of the Pashtuns of Pakistan to go to Afghanistan to help the Afghan Pashtuns in their fight against theUS-led coalition, the discontinuance of the US Predator (unamanned aircraft) strikes in the Pakistani territory and withdrawal of the Army from the Swat Valley making the Frontier Corps , which consists largely of Pashtuns, exclusively responsible for internal security.
18. Will Fazlullah give up the other demands in return for the Government accepting the demands relating to the Islamic criminal justice system? The likelihood of the restoration of peace in the Swat Valley with the Government once again in command and control will dependupon the answer to this question. (17-2-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For TopicalStudies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
The Tehrik-e-Nifaz-a-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM---- the Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Laws), founded by Sufi Mohammad, aresident of the Malakand Division of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, came into existence in 1992 two years before thebirth of the Taliban of Afghanistan, headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar. Sufi Mohammad used to be a member of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI)before he left it and founded the TNSM to fight for the enforcement of the Islamic laws in the entire Malakand Division, of which Swat is apart.
2. Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister of Pakistan in her second term (1993-96) during the period when both these organisations cameinto existence. Whereas the Taliban was brought into existence by Pakistan's intelligence agencies to replace the different warringMujahideen groups of the 1980s vintage, they played little role in the birth of the TNSM. During Benazir's prime ministership, Sufi Mohammadorganised huge road blocades in the Malakand Division to demand the enforcement of the Islamic laws in the area. Benazir bought peace byaccepting all his demands except one. Sufi Mohammad wanted that the Islamic courts to be set up in the Malakand Division should betotally autonomous with the appellate courts in Peshawar, the capital of the NWFP, and Islamabad having no jurisdiction over them. She didnot accept this demand. Her acceptance of the other demands of the TNSM was not reversed by her successor Nawaz Sharif or by PervezMusharraf, who seized power in 1999.
3. There were allegations by Sufi Mohammad that even the demands accepted by Benazir were not properly implemented. Till 9/11, theTNSM remained essentially a religious fundamentalist organisation with close links to the Afghan Taliban, but with no pronounced anti-US oranti-Army feelings. The US military strikes in Afghanistan under Operation Enduring Freedom turned it into an anti-US and anti-Armyorganisation. Sufi Mohammad issued a fatwa calling upon his followers to go to Afghanistan to fight against the US troops along with theAfghan Taliban. A large number of his followers led personally by him crossed over into Afghanistan. Many of them were mowed down by USair strikes. The survivors, including Sufi Mohammad, fled back into the Pakistani territory.
4. Musharraf had Sufi Mohammad arrested and kept in preventive detention and banned the TNSM as a terrorist organisation on January15,2002. Maulana Fazlullah, a son-in-law of Sufi Mohammad, assumed the leadership of the TNSM and resumed the struggle for theimplementation of the promises made by Benazir and for abolishing the appellate jurisdiction of the courts in Peshawar and Islamabad overthe Islamic courts in the Malakand Division.
5. In the elections held towards the end of 2002, Musharraf had the polls manipulated in order to have the Awami National Party (ANP), aprogressive Pashtun party, which used to be led by Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, known as the Frontier Gandhi, and the Pakistan People's Party(PPP) of Benazir Bhutto defeated. A coalition of six religious fundamentalist parties known as the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) came topower in Peshawar after the elections.
6. The MMA Government closed its eyes to the activities of the TNSM and Fazlullah. From a purely religious organisation, the TNSM grewinto a qasi political organisation and expanded its agenda to include not only an autonomous Islamic criminal justice system, but also anIslamic system of education with girls barred from higher education and with a strict code of conduct for all Muslims. Its agenda becamelargely a carbon copy of the agenda of the Taliban of Afghanistan. It extended its full support to the Afghan Taliban leaders, who had takensanctuary in Balochistan, in their preparations to strike back at the Americans in Afghanistan.
7. As a result of the inaction of the MMA Government in Peshawar and the federal Government headed by Musharraf, the TNSM became thede facto ruling power of the Swat Valley. However, despite its periodic oral condemnation of what it saw as the pro-US policies of Musharraf,it avoided any confrontation with the Pakistani Army and the para-military forces such as the Frontier Corps (FC). By the beginning of 2007, ade facto diarchy came into existence in the Swat Valley---- with Maulana Fazlullah and his Mullas running the civil administration and thecriminal justice system and the army and the FC remaining in charge of internal security. The Army avoided stepping on the toes ofFazlullah.
8. This position of an uneasy co-existence between the Mulla rule of the TNSM and a limited administrative power still taking orders fromPeshawar and Islamabad changed after the Army commando raid in the Lal Masjid in Islamabad in July,2007, ordered by Musharraf. The LalMasjid had two madrasas---one for boys and the other for girls. The madrasa for boys was located outside the masjid campus and themadrasa for girls inside the campus. While the boys surrendered to the commandoes without much resistance, the girls egged on by theMullas of the Masjid resisted the commandoes ferociously. A large number of them were killed. Many of those killed came from tribalfamilies of the Swat Valley.
9. Angered by the alleged massacre of the girls by the commandoes, Fazlullah issued a fatwa calling for a jihad against the Army.Simultaneously, similar calls for a jihad against the Army were issued by different tribal leaders and Mullas of the Federally-AdministeredTribal Areas (FATA). Among those killed in the girls' madrasa of the Lal Masjid were also children of some of the tribal families of the FATA.All these tribal leaders and Mullas decided to form the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Mehsud tribe inSouth Waziristan, was designated the Amir of the TTP. The constituent units of the TTP in different areas selected their own Amirs to workunder the over-all co-ordination of Baitullah. The TNSM joined the TTP.Many in Pakistan believe that the assassination of Benazir atRawalpindi on December 27,2007, was carried out by the followers of Baitullah Mehsud in revenge for her alleged support to the commandoraid in the Lal Masjid.
10. The intense anger across the Pashtin tribal belt in the FATA and in the Swat Valley over the Lal Masjid incidents led to a wave of suicideterrorism not only in the tribal areas, but also in non-tribal areas, including Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Lahore. The suicide terrorism of theTNSM was directed not only against the security forces deployed in the Swat Valley, but also against the establishments and personnel ofthe Armed Forces and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the non-tribal areas of the country. Faced with this anger, Musharraf orderedthe Army and the Frontier Corps to go into action against the TNSM in the Swat Valley in October,2007. The military operations initiallysucceeded in pushing back the TNSM cadres from the areas controlled by them.
11. The TNSM followed the same tactics as the Taliban in Afghanistan. Faced with the might of the Pakistan Army and the FC, it avoided afrontal confrontation with them. On Fazlullah's orders, his followers dispersed and went back to their villages. After the electedGovernment led by the PPP came to power in Islamabad in March,2008, the TNSM re-grouped and staged a spectacular come-back, pushedthe army and Frontier Corps out of the areas recovered by them and re-established its control over nearly 80 per cent of the territory of Swat.
12. In the elections of February,2008, the constituent parties of the MMA did badly. The ANP and the PPP, which had been marginalised byMusharraf in 2002, recovered their lost position in the electoral map of the NWFP. The ANP, which emerged as the largest single party in theNWFP, formed a coalition Government in Peshawar along with the PPP and other like-minded groups. The ANP was, in turn, accommodatedby Asif Ali Zardari in the federal coalition at Islamabad led by the PPP.
13. Even though the ANP has joined the PPP-led coalition, its views on the so-called war against terrorism have more in common with theviews of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) of Nawaz Sharif than with those of Zardari. The ANP believes, like the PML does, that the surgein terrorism in the Pashtun tribal belt was mainly due to the pro-US policies of Musharraf and that there has to be political accommodationwith various units of the TTP in different tribal areas in order to restore the writ of the Government in the Swat Valley and the FATA. The ANPadvocates marking a distance from the US operations in Afghanistan and entering into a dialogue with elements in the TNSM and the TTPwith which, it feels, the Government can do business.
14. Zardari was hesitant to openly support the moves of the ANP lest there be any misunderstanding with the US, but did not rise anyobjections to the ANP entering into a dialogue not with Fazlullah, who had taken to arms against the Army, but with Sufi Mohammad, whohad been released from detention in April, 2008, even when Musharraf was still the President in the hope of using him to create a split in theTNSM and undermine the position of Fazlullah.Following intense negotiations with Sufi Mohammad lasting over several weeks, the ANP-ledGovernment in Peshawar, with a reported nod of approval from Zardari, has signed an agreement with him on February 16,2009, under whichit has conceded all the demands of the TNSM relating to an autonomous Islamic criminal justice system in the Malakand Division as a wholenot subject to the appellate jurisdiction of the courts in Peshawar and Islamabad. The Government is hoping that in return for its acceptingthe primacy of the Mullas of the TNSM in matters pertaining to criminal justice, Sufi Mohammad will be able to persuade Fazlullah and hisadvisers to stop confronting the security forces and withdraw into their masjids, thereby allowing the writ of the civil administration andthe army in all other matters to be re-established.
15.Fazlullah has announced a 10-day ceasefire and ordered the release of a Chinese engineer, who had been kidnapped by the TNSM lastyear, as goodwil gesture towards the Government. It has been reported that the release of the Chinese engineer followed the release by theGovernment of some TNSM activists, who had been arrested under the Anti-Terrorism Act. The release of the Chinese engineer came a fewdays before the planned departure of Zardari to China on February 20,2009, on an official visit.
16. Whether the temporary ceasefire becomes permanent and whether Fazlullah agrees to the re-establishment of the Government writ inthe Swat Valley would depend on the success of Sufi Mohammad in persuading Fazlullah to accept the agreement reached by him with theANP-led Government and call off the fighting.
17. As mentioned earlier, the TNSM, under Sufi Mohammad, had originally a single-point agenda of enforcing the Islamic criminal justicesystem. Under Fazlullah's leadership, it has acquired a multi-point agenda--- enforcing an autonomous criminal justice system in theMalakand Division of the NWFP as a whole, releasing all those arrested during the commando raid in the Lal Masjid, restoring the authority ofthe Mullas of the masjid, re-establishment of the madrasas of the masjid, action against those responsible for the alleged massacre in thegirls madrasa, recognition of the right of the Pashtuns of Pakistan to go to Afghanistan to help the Afghan Pashtuns in their fight against theUS-led coalition, the discontinuance of the US Predator (unamanned aircraft) strikes in the Pakistani territory and withdrawal of the Army from the Swat Valley making the Frontier Corps , which consists largely of Pashtuns, exclusively responsible for internal security.
18. Will Fazlullah give up the other demands in return for the Government accepting the demands relating to the Islamic criminal justice system? The likelihood of the restoration of peace in the Swat Valley with the Government once again in command and control will dependupon the answer to this question. (17-2-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For TopicalStudies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Friday, February 13, 2009
PAKISTAN: WHAT I REPORTED IN AUGUST LAST & WHAT LA TIMES REPORTS TODAY
B.RAMAN
WHAT LOS ANGELES TIMES REPORTED ON FEB.13,2009
Feinstein comment on U.S. drones likely to embarrass Pakistan
The Predator planes that launch missile strikes against militants are based in Pakistan, the senator says.
That suggests a much deeperrelationship with the U.S. than Islamabad would like to admit.
By Greg Miller
February 13, 2009
Reporting from Washington — A senior U.S. lawmaker said Thursday that unmanned CIA Predator aircraft operating in Pakistan are flownfrom an air base in that country, a revelation likely to embarrass the Pakistani government and complicate its counter-terrorismcollaboration with the United States.
The disclosure by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, marked the first time a U.S. official hadpublicly commented on where the Predator aircraft patrolling Pakistan take off and land.
At a hearing, Feinstein expressed surprise over Pakistani opposition to the campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes againstIslamic extremist targets along Pakistan's northwestern border.
"As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base," she said.
The basing of the pilotless aircraft in Pakistan suggests a much deeper relationship with the United States on counter-terrorism mattersthan has been publicly acknowledged. Such an arrangement would be at odds with protests lodged by officials in Islamabad, the capital,and could inflame anti-American sentiment in the country.
The CIA declined to comment, but former U.S. intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of theinformation, confirmed that Feinstein's account was accurate.
WHAT I REPORTED IN AUGUST & SEPTEMBER LAST YEAR
"Even though the US does not rate highly Zardari's leadership qualities, it prefers him to Nawaz because of his willingness to maintainMusharraf's policy of co-operation with the US in its so-called war against terrorism in Afghanistan and his perceived amenability to pressureby the US because of its role in persuading Musharraf, when he was the President, to issue the NRO ( National Reconciliation Ordinance).The US is also hopeful that, unlike Nawaz, Zardari will avoid any humiliation of Musharraf and will let him continue to live in Pakistan withoutfearing any harassment by the Government. Well-informed PPP sources say that the entire scenario has been proceeding according to atacit understanding reached with US officials during the visit of Yousef Raza Gilani, the Prime Minister, and Rehman Malik, his Advisor onInternal Security, to Washington DC, in the last week of July, 2008. According to these sources, this understanding provided for: launching ofa special land-cum-air operation by the Pakistan military against Al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuaries in the Bajaur Agency, permission to beaccorded by the Gilani Government for continuing unmanned Predator strikes by the US intelligence agencies on terrorist hide-outs in theFederally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and US pressure on Musharraf to resign thus paving the way for the election of Zardari. Theobject of the entire exercise was to keep Nawaz out of power, marginalise him and keep up the present level of US-Pakistan co-operationagainst terrorism. ...... After 9/11, the US tried to project Musharraf as its frontline ally in the war against terrorism. He did co-operate, but notwhole-heartedly. It is now hoping that if elected as the President, Zardari will co-operate with it without reservations. Zardari is giving theimpression that he will. It is most likely that he will turn out to be as insincere as Musharraf. He will give the impression of co-operating whileavoiding it in effect. "
Extract from my article of August 27, 2008, titled "AFTER TRICKY MUSH, TRICKY ZARDARI" athttp://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers29/paper2824.html
"The same well-informed sources of the Pakistan People's Party cited in the above-mentioned article of August 27, 2008, say that it iscorrect that Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari had been kept in the picture by officials of the Bush administration, including President George Bush himself, about the new rules of engagement approved by Bush in July before the visit ofGilani to Washington DC. Under these new rules of engagement, the US has been allowed to step up aerial attacks on suspected terroristhide-outs in Pakistani territory by the Predator pilotless planes and undertake ground operations through special forces within a depth ofnot more than five kms if warranted by precise intelligence without informing the Pakistan Army beforehand. According to them, these rulesof engagement also lay down that ground operations would be undertaken in such a manner as not to involve an accidental confrontationwith the Pakistani security forces. As against three Predator strikes and no ground strike during the whole of last year when PervezMusharraf was the President and the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), there have already been 12 Predator strikes and one ground strikesince the Gilani Government came to office on March 18, 2008."
Extract from my article of September 13,2008 titled PAK-US SNAFU http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers29/paper2843.html
(13-2-2009)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For TopicalStudies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
WHAT LOS ANGELES TIMES REPORTED ON FEB.13,2009
Feinstein comment on U.S. drones likely to embarrass Pakistan
The Predator planes that launch missile strikes against militants are based in Pakistan, the senator says.
That suggests a much deeperrelationship with the U.S. than Islamabad would like to admit.
By Greg Miller
February 13, 2009
Reporting from Washington — A senior U.S. lawmaker said Thursday that unmanned CIA Predator aircraft operating in Pakistan are flownfrom an air base in that country, a revelation likely to embarrass the Pakistani government and complicate its counter-terrorismcollaboration with the United States.
The disclosure by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, marked the first time a U.S. official hadpublicly commented on where the Predator aircraft patrolling Pakistan take off and land.
At a hearing, Feinstein expressed surprise over Pakistani opposition to the campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes againstIslamic extremist targets along Pakistan's northwestern border.
"As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base," she said.
The basing of the pilotless aircraft in Pakistan suggests a much deeper relationship with the United States on counter-terrorism mattersthan has been publicly acknowledged. Such an arrangement would be at odds with protests lodged by officials in Islamabad, the capital,and could inflame anti-American sentiment in the country.
The CIA declined to comment, but former U.S. intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of theinformation, confirmed that Feinstein's account was accurate.
WHAT I REPORTED IN AUGUST & SEPTEMBER LAST YEAR
"Even though the US does not rate highly Zardari's leadership qualities, it prefers him to Nawaz because of his willingness to maintainMusharraf's policy of co-operation with the US in its so-called war against terrorism in Afghanistan and his perceived amenability to pressureby the US because of its role in persuading Musharraf, when he was the President, to issue the NRO ( National Reconciliation Ordinance).The US is also hopeful that, unlike Nawaz, Zardari will avoid any humiliation of Musharraf and will let him continue to live in Pakistan withoutfearing any harassment by the Government. Well-informed PPP sources say that the entire scenario has been proceeding according to atacit understanding reached with US officials during the visit of Yousef Raza Gilani, the Prime Minister, and Rehman Malik, his Advisor onInternal Security, to Washington DC, in the last week of July, 2008. According to these sources, this understanding provided for: launching ofa special land-cum-air operation by the Pakistan military against Al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuaries in the Bajaur Agency, permission to beaccorded by the Gilani Government for continuing unmanned Predator strikes by the US intelligence agencies on terrorist hide-outs in theFederally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and US pressure on Musharraf to resign thus paving the way for the election of Zardari. Theobject of the entire exercise was to keep Nawaz out of power, marginalise him and keep up the present level of US-Pakistan co-operationagainst terrorism. ...... After 9/11, the US tried to project Musharraf as its frontline ally in the war against terrorism. He did co-operate, but notwhole-heartedly. It is now hoping that if elected as the President, Zardari will co-operate with it without reservations. Zardari is giving theimpression that he will. It is most likely that he will turn out to be as insincere as Musharraf. He will give the impression of co-operating whileavoiding it in effect. "
Extract from my article of August 27, 2008, titled "AFTER TRICKY MUSH, TRICKY ZARDARI" athttp://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers29/paper2824.html
"The same well-informed sources of the Pakistan People's Party cited in the above-mentioned article of August 27, 2008, say that it iscorrect that Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari had been kept in the picture by officials of the Bush administration, including President George Bush himself, about the new rules of engagement approved by Bush in July before the visit ofGilani to Washington DC. Under these new rules of engagement, the US has been allowed to step up aerial attacks on suspected terroristhide-outs in Pakistani territory by the Predator pilotless planes and undertake ground operations through special forces within a depth ofnot more than five kms if warranted by precise intelligence without informing the Pakistan Army beforehand. According to them, these rulesof engagement also lay down that ground operations would be undertaken in such a manner as not to involve an accidental confrontationwith the Pakistani security forces. As against three Predator strikes and no ground strike during the whole of last year when PervezMusharraf was the President and the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), there have already been 12 Predator strikes and one ground strikesince the Gilani Government came to office on March 18, 2008."
Extract from my article of September 13,2008 titled PAK-US SNAFU http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers29/paper2843.html
(13-2-2009)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For TopicalStudies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Thursday, February 12, 2009
MUMBAI 26/11: ASSESSING PAKISTAN'S CHANGE OF STANCE
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.495
B.RAMAN
In the wake of the terrorist attack by 10 Pakistani members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008, India hasto use three yard-sticks to decide on the genuiness and adequacy of any Pakistani co-operation. These are:
Does its co-operation help in bringing to justice the operatives of the LET in Pakistan and any others, who were involved in the planning and execution of the terrorist strike?
Does its co-operation help in a better reconstruction and understanding of the terrorist strike in order to find out answers to some important questions such as why the terrorists targeted Israeli and other foreign nationals, for example? The answers to such questions will be available only with the master-minds of the LET in Pakistan. Ajmal Amir Kasab, the surviving Pakistani perpetrator, now in the custody of the Mumbai Police, may not be privy to the objectives of the LET.
Does the Pakistani co-operation help India in preventing any more terrorist strike mounted from Pakistani territory----by the LET, the other anti-India terrorist organisations and Al Qaeda by eradicating their terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory and destroying their capabilities?
2.There was some forward movement with regard to the first question on February 12,2009, when Rehman Malik, Pakistan's InternalSecurity Adviser, who is known to be closer to President Asif Ali Zardari than to Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani and who enjoys thestatus of a Cabinet Minister though not so designated, handed over to the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad the salient points of thePakistani investigation and action taken so far with a list of 30 questions for India to answer to enable them to take the investigation furtherforward. These salient points were revealed by him to the media at a special press conference held the same day. Annexed are the reportscarried by the "News" and the "Daily Times" of Pakistan on his disclosures at the press conference.
3.A careful study of the Pakistani media reports would show that Pakistan has been more forthcoming now than it was since 26/11 and hasbeen keen to demonstrate to the international community that in investigating the case "Pakistan means business" as Malik repeatedlyemphasised. One should not grudge conceding that there has definitely been a shift from a position of total denial of the involvement ofanyone in Pakistani territory to partial acceptance of the conclusion of Indian and Western investigators that the conspiracy for the terroristattack originated in Pakistani territory and that the key answers to various questions coming to the fore during the investigation are to befound in Pakistan, which only Pakistani investigators can do.
4. At the same time, there was an undisguised attempt by Malik to project the conspiracy as trans-national and not uni-national only inPakistan. He repeatedly said that only a part of the conspiracy took place in Pakistani territory. To underline the trans-national dimensionsof the conspiracy he referred to the role played by some members of the Pakistani diaspora in Spain and Italy and to Pakistan's suspicion ofa role by some elements in India as seen, according to him, from the fact that the perpetrators had used SIM cards procured in India.
5. Pakistan's attempt is to project the conspiracy as mounted by non-State elements of which the Pakistani intelligence agencies had noinkling till after the attack. There has been a reluctance on the part of Indian analysts to accept that all the recruitment, planning andtraining could have been carried out by the LET in Pakistani territory without the Pakistani intelligence agencies becoming aware of it.Malik has prepared the ground for meeting this argument if and when it acquires force by pointing out that if the intelligence agencies ofIndia, Italy and Spain had missed noticing the preparations being made in their territory, how can they blame the Pakistani agencies forsimilarly missing them.
6. There were two significant points in the press briefing of Malik. The first is the absence of any reference to Indian allegations that agroup of 32 potential perpetrators was trained by the LET initially in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and subsequently in Karachi before10 of them were finally selected and sent to Mumbai by sea. The second is his repeated use of the word "alleged" while refering to the roleof the LET operatives, who have been detained and against whom investigation has been launched in pursuance of the two First InformationReports (FIRs) registered by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). He did not use the word "alleged" while referring to those whoseinvolvement Pakistan claims to have unearthed.This would indicate a possible attempt by them to show their investigation against someLET opetratives as warranted by the Indian "allegations" against them and not by any evidence so far uncovered by the FIA. Thus, whileregistering two FIRs against the LET operatives named by India, they have kept open the possibility of giving a free chit to the LET after theinternational pressure and interest subside and releasing their operatives on the ground that the investigation did not bring out anycredible evidence against them.
7. This was exactly the same modus operandi (MO) which the Pakistanis had followed after the thwarted attack by a group of terroristsbelonging to the LET and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) on the Parliament House in New Delhi in December,2001. Musharraf banned theseorganisations on January 15,2002, arrested their leaders and ordered an enquiry into their activities. A few months later, the arrestedpersons were got released by courts on the ground that the investigation did not bring out any evidence of wrong doing against them.
8. While we are right in welcoming the changed Pakistani stance--- even if it be only a change in tactics--- as seen on February 12,2009, weshould avoid nursing illusions that the seeming change in the Pakistani stance marked a watershed in Pakistani attitude to anti-Indiaterrorism. We have to wait and see whether Pakistan really means business this time, or is it merely pretending to co-operate while notsincerely co-operating as it has always done in the past---- whether against anti-India terrorism or against the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan orwith regard to the investigation into the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, or the investigation into the proliferationactivities of A.Q.Khan or the investigation into the involvement of Rashid Rauf, a British citizen of Pakistani origin, in the conspiracy to blowup some US-bound planes in 2006.
9. Welcome the seeming change in its stance, but avoid over-assessing its significance and keep the pressure on Pakistan. That should beour operating principle.
10. Pakistan's new stance does not respond to the remaining two questions posed in Para one above. There are no indications at all that itis having second thoughts about the wisdom or inadvisability of continuing to use terrorism as a strategic weapon against India and that itmight now act against the anti-India terrorist infrastructure in its territory and the role of the ISI in keeping this terrorism sustained. Threatsof new terriorist attacks against Indian and foreign targets in Indian territory mounted from Pakistan remain as high as before.
11. There has been a debate as to why this sudden change of stance by Pakistan on February 12,2009. In this connection, the visit ofRichard Holbrooke, the US Special Representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, to Islamabad from February 9 to 11,2009, and the first telephone call of President Barack Obama to President Asif Ali Zardari on February 11 have been cited by many analysts. There are twoother elements, which also need to be noted. The first was the brutal beheading of a Polish engineer working in Pakistan by the PakistaniTaliban on February 6. There has been a wave of anger and revulsion against Pakistan in Poland ever since the Taliban announced hisbeheading. The anger in Poland against Pakistan is as intense as the anger in India after 26/11.The second is the Mumbai-style attacks onthe offices of the prison department and the Justice Ministry in Kabul by the Taliban on February 11 which has set off concerns that theMumbai attack is already having a copy-cat effect. These are likely to have increased the pressure on the Pakistan Government to showthat they really business in going after terrorism and they are not playing games with the international community.One has to wait and seewhat further action the Pakistani authorities take in the weeks to come. This is the time for keeping up the pressure on Pakistan. (13-2-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute Fior TopicalStrudies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE
By Mobarik A Virk ( "News of February 13,2009)
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday acknowledged for the first time that the Mumbai attacks were partly planned in Pakistan and that it hasarrested six suspects, including the “main operator”.
In its first detailed response to the dossier provided by India, Pakistan said criminal cases had been registered against nine suspects oncharges of “abetting, conspiracy and facilitation” of a terrorist act. However, it said more evidence is required from India, including DNAsamples of Ajmal Kasab, to establish his identity.
Addressing a press conference at the interior ministry, Interior Adviser Rehman Malik told the media FIR No: 01/009 had been lodged withthe Special Investigation Group (SIG) in the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) against nine suspects. The Pakistani investigators haveidentified Hammad Amin Sadiq as the alleged ‘mastermind’ of the whole conspiracy.
Malik said the cases against nine persons had been registered under the Anti-Terror Act (ATA) and the Cyber Crime Act and they would betried under these two sets of laws. He said six of the nine accused named in the FIR have already been arrested and being interrogated, twohave been identified but not arrested so far while investigations are still under way into the possible involvement of the ninth accused.
He identified those taken into custody as Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LT) commander who was arrested from Muzaffarabadsoon after the Indian government alleged that the LT was behind the Mumbai attacks, Javed Iqbal, who was arrested from Barcelona, Spain,Hammad Amin Sadiq, believed to be the main operator belonging to southern Punjab, Zarar Shah, Mohammad Ashfaq and Abu Hamza. Thename of the lone surviving terrorist now in the custody of India, Ajmal Kasab, is not included in the FIR.
He also said some of those arrested by the security agencies of Pakistan for possible involvement in the Mumbai attacks belong to the LT.Malik said Javed Iqbal, who was based in Barcelona, Spain, was the person who paid $200 for the ‘Internet Domain’ that was also used forcommunication and planning for the Mumbai attacks. “Having ascertained the involvement of Javed Iqbal, we somehow lured him intocoming to Pakistan and he was arrested on his arrival,” Malik said.
He also said the e-mail sent by ‘Deccan Mujahideen’ claiming responsibility for the Mumbai attacks was believed to be prepared and sent byZarar Shah, who was responsible for communication link in the whole operation.
The adviser disclosed that the money to fund these attacks was transferred from Pakistan and was received in Italy. This moneytransaction was made through a Pakistani bank. He also said after thorough investigations by the Pakistani security and intelligenceagencies it was learnt that these alleged terrorists operated from two bases — one inside Karachi and the other outside but not very faraway from Karachi.
He also disclosed that the people involved in the Mumbai attacks used three boats for travelling to Mumbai, one named ‘Al-Hussaini’ and theother ‘Al-Ghaus’. For communication, these culprits used ‘Call Phonic’ system and they also bought Indian cell phone SIMs forcommunication from inside India.
Malik said the findings have already been shared with the Indian government. The Indian high commissioner in Islamabad was called to theforeign office and the report was handed over to him officially.
“We also have forwarded a set of 30 questions for which we would need answers as early as possible to support and further theinvestigation process on our side. We have asked the Indian government to provide us the DNA samples of the lone surviving terrorist, AjmalKasab, to ascertain his nationality, as we don’t have any record of the individual with Nadra (National Database Registration Authority).”
“At the same time,” he said, “we would like to have the statement given by Ajmal Kasab to the Indian investigators, how this group ofterrorists managed to sneak past the Indian security and intelligence agencies guarding their coastal lines, and how these nine personsmanaged to travel in a small boat and reach the Indian coast”.
He also pointed out that the satellite phone connection that was used for communication during the Mumbai attack was registered in theMiddle East and not in Pakistan. He also said forensic reports of the arms and ammunition used in the attack have been sought from theIndian authorities.
The adviser on interior said to make a solid case against all these people who have been arrested or for whose arrest the Pakistaniauthorities are making all-out efforts, meaningful cooperation from India would be most important.
Agencies add: Malik said the breakthrough in the investigation had resulted from tracing the fishing vessel used by the militants, purchasesof equipment like life jackets and the engine for the rubber dinghy that militants came ashore in Mumbai.
He said only nine of the 10 gunmen came ashore in the dinghy, and the fishing boat they had used to sail from Karachi had refuelled on thecoast of India’s Gujarat state. The Pakistani official said one suspect was allegedly involved in the 2007 bomb attack on the SamjhautaExpress in India that killed 68 people as the train headed for Lahore, and India has been requested for more information. NEWS 13-2-09
Islamabad hands over Mumbai probe report to New Delhi
By Sajjad Malik/Tahir Niaz ( " Daily Times" of February 13,2009)
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has formally handed over the details of its investigation into the Mumbai terror attacks to India, the Foreign Officesaid on Thursday as Adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik admitted that the attacks were ‘partially planned’ in Pakistan.
“The Indian high commissioner was ... [on Thursday given] material pertaining to the Mumbai terror attacks probe by the FederalInvestigation Agency (FIA), by the foreign secretary,” said Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit.
Arrests: Meanwhile at a press conference, Rehman Malik announced ‘breakthrough’ arrests in the Mumbai probe, and admitted that theMumbai attacks were partially planned in Pakistan. He said some of the suspects were linked to Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LT). Rehman said acase was registered on Thursday under the Anti-Terrorism Act against eight suspects – including LT’s Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Hammad Aminand Zarar Shah – on charges of “abetting, directing, conspiring and facilitating a terrorist act”. Six of these suspects are in the custody ofintelligence agencies, and all will be tried under Pakistani law.
“Some funds for the attacks were transferred from Spain and Italy,” he said.
Karachi: Rehman said the suspects used three boats, all of which have been seized, to sail from Karachi to Mumbai between November 26and 28, 2008.
More information: Rehman, however, said these findings were not final and Pakistan needed more information from India. He said the Indianauthorities had been asked to answer 30 questions raised by the Pakistani investigators.
Other countries: The adviser said “the system of various other countries” was also used to plan the attacks. Rehman said two more menwere being held, and identified them only as Khan and Riaz. Other leads pointed to Europe and the US, and Malik said Pakistan would askthe FBI for help. DAILY TIMES 13-2-09
LT slams Islamabad for Mumbai charges
SRINAGAR: The banned Lashkar-e-Tayyaba angrily condemned Islamabad on Thursday for filing a case against some of the group’s topoperatives. Pakistan lodged a first information report against eight suspects, including the presumed mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi.“We strongly condemn the lodging of the FIR against LT,” Lashkar spokesman Abdullah Ghaznavi told AFP over the telephone. The case wasbrought to ‘win appreciation’ from India and the US and to “implement India’s agenda of suppressing the people’s struggle for freedom inKashmir”, said Ghaznavi. afp DAILY TIMES 13-2-09
Islamabad forex company involved
LAHORE: Interior Adviser Rehman Malik has claimed that a money exchange company in Islamabad was involved in transferring money to asuspect of the Mumbai attacks in Spain, said a private TV channel. The money was transferred through Paracha International Exchange’sEuro 2005 branch in Islamabad to Javed Iqbal in Barcelona. The branch was later found sealed. Representatives of other branches havedenied that such a transaction took place. But one of the two owners confirmed the transaction, and blamed his partner for it. daily timesmonitor DAILY TIMES 13-2-09
B.RAMAN
In the wake of the terrorist attack by 10 Pakistani members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008, India hasto use three yard-sticks to decide on the genuiness and adequacy of any Pakistani co-operation. These are:
Does its co-operation help in bringing to justice the operatives of the LET in Pakistan and any others, who were involved in the planning and execution of the terrorist strike?
Does its co-operation help in a better reconstruction and understanding of the terrorist strike in order to find out answers to some important questions such as why the terrorists targeted Israeli and other foreign nationals, for example? The answers to such questions will be available only with the master-minds of the LET in Pakistan. Ajmal Amir Kasab, the surviving Pakistani perpetrator, now in the custody of the Mumbai Police, may not be privy to the objectives of the LET.
Does the Pakistani co-operation help India in preventing any more terrorist strike mounted from Pakistani territory----by the LET, the other anti-India terrorist organisations and Al Qaeda by eradicating their terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory and destroying their capabilities?
2.There was some forward movement with regard to the first question on February 12,2009, when Rehman Malik, Pakistan's InternalSecurity Adviser, who is known to be closer to President Asif Ali Zardari than to Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani and who enjoys thestatus of a Cabinet Minister though not so designated, handed over to the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad the salient points of thePakistani investigation and action taken so far with a list of 30 questions for India to answer to enable them to take the investigation furtherforward. These salient points were revealed by him to the media at a special press conference held the same day. Annexed are the reportscarried by the "News" and the "Daily Times" of Pakistan on his disclosures at the press conference.
3.A careful study of the Pakistani media reports would show that Pakistan has been more forthcoming now than it was since 26/11 and hasbeen keen to demonstrate to the international community that in investigating the case "Pakistan means business" as Malik repeatedlyemphasised. One should not grudge conceding that there has definitely been a shift from a position of total denial of the involvement ofanyone in Pakistani territory to partial acceptance of the conclusion of Indian and Western investigators that the conspiracy for the terroristattack originated in Pakistani territory and that the key answers to various questions coming to the fore during the investigation are to befound in Pakistan, which only Pakistani investigators can do.
4. At the same time, there was an undisguised attempt by Malik to project the conspiracy as trans-national and not uni-national only inPakistan. He repeatedly said that only a part of the conspiracy took place in Pakistani territory. To underline the trans-national dimensionsof the conspiracy he referred to the role played by some members of the Pakistani diaspora in Spain and Italy and to Pakistan's suspicion ofa role by some elements in India as seen, according to him, from the fact that the perpetrators had used SIM cards procured in India.
5. Pakistan's attempt is to project the conspiracy as mounted by non-State elements of which the Pakistani intelligence agencies had noinkling till after the attack. There has been a reluctance on the part of Indian analysts to accept that all the recruitment, planning andtraining could have been carried out by the LET in Pakistani territory without the Pakistani intelligence agencies becoming aware of it.Malik has prepared the ground for meeting this argument if and when it acquires force by pointing out that if the intelligence agencies ofIndia, Italy and Spain had missed noticing the preparations being made in their territory, how can they blame the Pakistani agencies forsimilarly missing them.
6. There were two significant points in the press briefing of Malik. The first is the absence of any reference to Indian allegations that agroup of 32 potential perpetrators was trained by the LET initially in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and subsequently in Karachi before10 of them were finally selected and sent to Mumbai by sea. The second is his repeated use of the word "alleged" while refering to the roleof the LET operatives, who have been detained and against whom investigation has been launched in pursuance of the two First InformationReports (FIRs) registered by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). He did not use the word "alleged" while referring to those whoseinvolvement Pakistan claims to have unearthed.This would indicate a possible attempt by them to show their investigation against someLET opetratives as warranted by the Indian "allegations" against them and not by any evidence so far uncovered by the FIA. Thus, whileregistering two FIRs against the LET operatives named by India, they have kept open the possibility of giving a free chit to the LET after theinternational pressure and interest subside and releasing their operatives on the ground that the investigation did not bring out anycredible evidence against them.
7. This was exactly the same modus operandi (MO) which the Pakistanis had followed after the thwarted attack by a group of terroristsbelonging to the LET and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) on the Parliament House in New Delhi in December,2001. Musharraf banned theseorganisations on January 15,2002, arrested their leaders and ordered an enquiry into their activities. A few months later, the arrestedpersons were got released by courts on the ground that the investigation did not bring out any evidence of wrong doing against them.
8. While we are right in welcoming the changed Pakistani stance--- even if it be only a change in tactics--- as seen on February 12,2009, weshould avoid nursing illusions that the seeming change in the Pakistani stance marked a watershed in Pakistani attitude to anti-Indiaterrorism. We have to wait and see whether Pakistan really means business this time, or is it merely pretending to co-operate while notsincerely co-operating as it has always done in the past---- whether against anti-India terrorism or against the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan orwith regard to the investigation into the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, or the investigation into the proliferationactivities of A.Q.Khan or the investigation into the involvement of Rashid Rauf, a British citizen of Pakistani origin, in the conspiracy to blowup some US-bound planes in 2006.
9. Welcome the seeming change in its stance, but avoid over-assessing its significance and keep the pressure on Pakistan. That should beour operating principle.
10. Pakistan's new stance does not respond to the remaining two questions posed in Para one above. There are no indications at all that itis having second thoughts about the wisdom or inadvisability of continuing to use terrorism as a strategic weapon against India and that itmight now act against the anti-India terrorist infrastructure in its territory and the role of the ISI in keeping this terrorism sustained. Threatsof new terriorist attacks against Indian and foreign targets in Indian territory mounted from Pakistan remain as high as before.
11. There has been a debate as to why this sudden change of stance by Pakistan on February 12,2009. In this connection, the visit ofRichard Holbrooke, the US Special Representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, to Islamabad from February 9 to 11,2009, and the first telephone call of President Barack Obama to President Asif Ali Zardari on February 11 have been cited by many analysts. There are twoother elements, which also need to be noted. The first was the brutal beheading of a Polish engineer working in Pakistan by the PakistaniTaliban on February 6. There has been a wave of anger and revulsion against Pakistan in Poland ever since the Taliban announced hisbeheading. The anger in Poland against Pakistan is as intense as the anger in India after 26/11.The second is the Mumbai-style attacks onthe offices of the prison department and the Justice Ministry in Kabul by the Taliban on February 11 which has set off concerns that theMumbai attack is already having a copy-cat effect. These are likely to have increased the pressure on the Pakistan Government to showthat they really business in going after terrorism and they are not playing games with the international community.One has to wait and seewhat further action the Pakistani authorities take in the weeks to come. This is the time for keeping up the pressure on Pakistan. (13-2-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute Fior TopicalStrudies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE
By Mobarik A Virk ( "News of February 13,2009)
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday acknowledged for the first time that the Mumbai attacks were partly planned in Pakistan and that it hasarrested six suspects, including the “main operator”.
In its first detailed response to the dossier provided by India, Pakistan said criminal cases had been registered against nine suspects oncharges of “abetting, conspiracy and facilitation” of a terrorist act. However, it said more evidence is required from India, including DNAsamples of Ajmal Kasab, to establish his identity.
Addressing a press conference at the interior ministry, Interior Adviser Rehman Malik told the media FIR No: 01/009 had been lodged withthe Special Investigation Group (SIG) in the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) against nine suspects. The Pakistani investigators haveidentified Hammad Amin Sadiq as the alleged ‘mastermind’ of the whole conspiracy.
Malik said the cases against nine persons had been registered under the Anti-Terror Act (ATA) and the Cyber Crime Act and they would betried under these two sets of laws. He said six of the nine accused named in the FIR have already been arrested and being interrogated, twohave been identified but not arrested so far while investigations are still under way into the possible involvement of the ninth accused.
He identified those taken into custody as Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LT) commander who was arrested from Muzaffarabadsoon after the Indian government alleged that the LT was behind the Mumbai attacks, Javed Iqbal, who was arrested from Barcelona, Spain,Hammad Amin Sadiq, believed to be the main operator belonging to southern Punjab, Zarar Shah, Mohammad Ashfaq and Abu Hamza. Thename of the lone surviving terrorist now in the custody of India, Ajmal Kasab, is not included in the FIR.
He also said some of those arrested by the security agencies of Pakistan for possible involvement in the Mumbai attacks belong to the LT.Malik said Javed Iqbal, who was based in Barcelona, Spain, was the person who paid $200 for the ‘Internet Domain’ that was also used forcommunication and planning for the Mumbai attacks. “Having ascertained the involvement of Javed Iqbal, we somehow lured him intocoming to Pakistan and he was arrested on his arrival,” Malik said.
He also said the e-mail sent by ‘Deccan Mujahideen’ claiming responsibility for the Mumbai attacks was believed to be prepared and sent byZarar Shah, who was responsible for communication link in the whole operation.
The adviser disclosed that the money to fund these attacks was transferred from Pakistan and was received in Italy. This moneytransaction was made through a Pakistani bank. He also said after thorough investigations by the Pakistani security and intelligenceagencies it was learnt that these alleged terrorists operated from two bases — one inside Karachi and the other outside but not very faraway from Karachi.
He also disclosed that the people involved in the Mumbai attacks used three boats for travelling to Mumbai, one named ‘Al-Hussaini’ and theother ‘Al-Ghaus’. For communication, these culprits used ‘Call Phonic’ system and they also bought Indian cell phone SIMs forcommunication from inside India.
Malik said the findings have already been shared with the Indian government. The Indian high commissioner in Islamabad was called to theforeign office and the report was handed over to him officially.
“We also have forwarded a set of 30 questions for which we would need answers as early as possible to support and further theinvestigation process on our side. We have asked the Indian government to provide us the DNA samples of the lone surviving terrorist, AjmalKasab, to ascertain his nationality, as we don’t have any record of the individual with Nadra (National Database Registration Authority).”
“At the same time,” he said, “we would like to have the statement given by Ajmal Kasab to the Indian investigators, how this group ofterrorists managed to sneak past the Indian security and intelligence agencies guarding their coastal lines, and how these nine personsmanaged to travel in a small boat and reach the Indian coast”.
He also pointed out that the satellite phone connection that was used for communication during the Mumbai attack was registered in theMiddle East and not in Pakistan. He also said forensic reports of the arms and ammunition used in the attack have been sought from theIndian authorities.
The adviser on interior said to make a solid case against all these people who have been arrested or for whose arrest the Pakistaniauthorities are making all-out efforts, meaningful cooperation from India would be most important.
Agencies add: Malik said the breakthrough in the investigation had resulted from tracing the fishing vessel used by the militants, purchasesof equipment like life jackets and the engine for the rubber dinghy that militants came ashore in Mumbai.
He said only nine of the 10 gunmen came ashore in the dinghy, and the fishing boat they had used to sail from Karachi had refuelled on thecoast of India’s Gujarat state. The Pakistani official said one suspect was allegedly involved in the 2007 bomb attack on the SamjhautaExpress in India that killed 68 people as the train headed for Lahore, and India has been requested for more information. NEWS 13-2-09
Islamabad hands over Mumbai probe report to New Delhi
By Sajjad Malik/Tahir Niaz ( " Daily Times" of February 13,2009)
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has formally handed over the details of its investigation into the Mumbai terror attacks to India, the Foreign Officesaid on Thursday as Adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik admitted that the attacks were ‘partially planned’ in Pakistan.
“The Indian high commissioner was ... [on Thursday given] material pertaining to the Mumbai terror attacks probe by the FederalInvestigation Agency (FIA), by the foreign secretary,” said Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit.
Arrests: Meanwhile at a press conference, Rehman Malik announced ‘breakthrough’ arrests in the Mumbai probe, and admitted that theMumbai attacks were partially planned in Pakistan. He said some of the suspects were linked to Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LT). Rehman said acase was registered on Thursday under the Anti-Terrorism Act against eight suspects – including LT’s Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Hammad Aminand Zarar Shah – on charges of “abetting, directing, conspiring and facilitating a terrorist act”. Six of these suspects are in the custody ofintelligence agencies, and all will be tried under Pakistani law.
“Some funds for the attacks were transferred from Spain and Italy,” he said.
Karachi: Rehman said the suspects used three boats, all of which have been seized, to sail from Karachi to Mumbai between November 26and 28, 2008.
More information: Rehman, however, said these findings were not final and Pakistan needed more information from India. He said the Indianauthorities had been asked to answer 30 questions raised by the Pakistani investigators.
Other countries: The adviser said “the system of various other countries” was also used to plan the attacks. Rehman said two more menwere being held, and identified them only as Khan and Riaz. Other leads pointed to Europe and the US, and Malik said Pakistan would askthe FBI for help. DAILY TIMES 13-2-09
LT slams Islamabad for Mumbai charges
SRINAGAR: The banned Lashkar-e-Tayyaba angrily condemned Islamabad on Thursday for filing a case against some of the group’s topoperatives. Pakistan lodged a first information report against eight suspects, including the presumed mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi.“We strongly condemn the lodging of the FIR against LT,” Lashkar spokesman Abdullah Ghaznavi told AFP over the telephone. The case wasbrought to ‘win appreciation’ from India and the US and to “implement India’s agenda of suppressing the people’s struggle for freedom inKashmir”, said Ghaznavi. afp DAILY TIMES 13-2-09
Islamabad forex company involved
LAHORE: Interior Adviser Rehman Malik has claimed that a money exchange company in Islamabad was involved in transferring money to asuspect of the Mumbai attacks in Spain, said a private TV channel. The money was transferred through Paracha International Exchange’sEuro 2005 branch in Islamabad to Javed Iqbal in Barcelona. The branch was later found sealed. Representatives of other branches havedenied that such a transaction took place. But one of the two owners confirmed the transaction, and blamed his partner for it. daily timesmonitor DAILY TIMES 13-2-09
Sunday, February 8, 2009
INDIA'S SRI LANKA PROBLEM: KEEPING THE FINGERS CROSSED
B.RAMAN
( Written exclusively for the online journal of a US university at their request. Cannot be reproduced till they publish it—B.Raman, 9-2-09)
The success of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces in inflicting a series of defeats on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) since the middle of 2006 and in restoring the writ of the State over 95 per cent of the territory in the Tamil majority Eastern and Northern provinces, which was under the control of the LTTE, has been greeted in India with a mix of satisfaction and concern.
The satisfaction arises from the expected total defeat of the LTTE’s insurgent force, which had succeeded in virtually establishing a State within a State with its paraphernalia of an administrative structure and a so-called Army, Navy and Air Force. Its naval and air capabilities posed a threat not only to the national security of Sri Lanka, but also to the security of India and the region as a whole.
India’s concerns over the naval and air capabilities of the LTTE were magnified after the terrorist attack in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008, by a group of 10 sea-borne terrorists from Pakistan belonging to the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). The success of the LET terrorists in Mumbai brought to India’s mind the similar success of a group of sea-borne terrorists of the LTTE who clandestinely landed in India’s southern coast in 1991, found their way to Chennai and assassinated Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India, at the venue of an election meeting In May ,1991.
Whatever ambivalence might have been there in India’s policy-making circles over the advisability of openly supporting the counter-insurgency operations of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces was removed after the Mumbai terrorist attack. There was a realization that terrorism in any form by any group for any reason should not be tolerated and that double standards in dealing with terrorism would only play into the hands of the terrorists. When India was demanding that Pakistan should act strongly against terrorists operating from its territory, it could not have criticized the counter-insurgency operations of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces against the LTTE.
No tears have been shed in India over the defeat of the LTTE as an insurgent force. Even before the Mumbai terrorist attack, India had been quietly helping the Sri Lankan Armed Forces by supplying defensive equipment such as radars and by training Sri Lankan personnel in the use of this equipment. Indian intelligence, which has a long history of co-operation with its Sri Lankan counterpart since the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, stepped up this co-operation further since 2006 and willingly shared with the Sri Lankan authorities intelligence of value in dealing with the LTTE. The Sri Lankan Armed Forces should be the first to acknowledge that their success in severely damaging, if not destroying, the commercial shipping capability of the LTTE was to a considerable extent facilitated by precise intelligence from India. One of the reasons for the defeat of the LTTE was its inability to replenish its stocks of arms and ammunition through clandestine shipments from abroad. Intelligence supplied by India contributed significantly to disrupting these clandestine shipments.
Indian policy-makers have no reasons to regret such limited assistance provided by them. This assistance was in mutual interest. India, which has itself faced serious insurgent situations in its North-East and in Jammu & Kashmir and has dealt with them strongly and effectively, could not have viewed with equanimity the success of a dreaded insurgent-cum-terrorist force such as the LTTE in its neighbourhood. The LTTE is now a dying horse, but not yet a dead horse. Its final demise as an insurgent-cum-terrorist organization, when it comes about, should be a matter of satisfaction to all those opposed to terrorism.
India’s concerns are not over the impending demise of the LTTE. They are over what next. Many questions ought to be bothering the minds of Indian policy-makers. It has been India’s experience since its independence in 1947 that whenever any Government in Colombo felt itself strong enough not to need Indian assistance in any matter, it has shown a troubling insensitivity to India’s security concerns. One saw this before and after the Sino-Indian war of 1962. While pretending to take a neutral stand in the border dispute between India and China, it took a position which was perceived in India as more sympathetic to China than India. In the months preceding the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971, which facilitated the birth of Bangladesh, Indira Gandhi, in retaliation for the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane to Lahore by two Pakistan-instigated terrorists from J&K, banned all Pakistani flights to the then East Pakistan over Indian territory. Sri Lanka went to the help of Pakistan by allowing Pakistan Air Force planes carrying troops and equipment to East Pakistan to refuel at the Katunayake airport. A furious Indira Gandhi warned the Sri Lankan Government that she considered this an unfriendly act and threatened to retaliate against Sri Lanka. It was only after this that Sri Lanka stopped the refueling of the PAF planes. After the Indian nuclear test of 1974, India was concerned over a reported move of the US to set up a huge set-up of the Voice of America in Sri Lankan territory. Indian intelligence had told her that the US intelligence agency, which is responsible for technical intelligence, would have a presence in the VOA set-up to collect intelligence about India’s nuclear and space establishments in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. When the Sri Lankan Government repeatedly ignored Indian concerns on this subject, Indira Gandhi decided to teach it a lesson by extending political, moral and diplomatic support to the Sri Lankan Tamils.
In recent years, successive Sri Lankan Governments have been showing sensitivity to India’s security and strategic concerns because they had been rendered weak by the success of the LTTE in establishing its control over large parts of the Northern and Eastern Provinces. Now that they are on the verge of defeating the LTTE after re-establishing their writ over the Tamil areas, will they continue to show the same sensitivity in future or will they go back to their past reflexes of playing India against Pakistan and China, whenever it suited them. Even during its present counter-insurgency operations, the Sri Lankan Government has expanded its economic and military supply relations with Pakistan and China. This trend could pick up momentum after they succeed totally in their operations against the LTTE.
The other Indian concern arises from the emotional dimension of the problem. Tamils constitute the overwhelming majority of Tamil Nadu, the southern coastal province of India. Ethnically, linguistically and culturally, they are close to the Sri Lankan Tamils. The political aspirations of the Sri Lankan Tamils and their difficulties in the unitary state that Sri Lanka is have an echo in Tamil Nadu. India had never supported the LTTE’s objective of an independent Tamil State in the Northern and Eastern Provinces to be called Tamil Eelam, but it has strongly favoured since 1987 the transformation of Sri Lanka into a genuine federal State with a separate State for the Tamils with considerable political and economic powers similar to the powers enjoyed by the States in the Indian Federation.
Successive Sri Lankan Governments have repeatedly assured their own Tamils as well as India of their intention for the devolution of powers to the Tamil provinces and to grant the Tamils the same status as enjoyed by the majority Sinhalese community with no discrimination on ethnic grounds. Will the Government in Colombo honour this promise once it feels it has destroyed the LTTE once and for all. The LTTE was the strongest of the Tamil political movements. Other Tamil political organizations, which are presently collaborating with the Government against the LTTE, are weak with limited following. Presently, the Government is giving them importance as proof of its intention to treat the Tamils as equals of the Sinhalese in all respects. Will it continue to do so once it succeeds in defeating the LTTE?
Policy-makers in India also ought to be concerned over the already evident signs of the recrudescence of Sinhalese extremism and intolerance not only in the civil society, but even in the Government and the Armed Forces. The intemperate remarks of Lt.Gen.Sarath Fonseka,the army commander, highlighting the Sinhalese character of the State (though denied subsequently), the attacks on journalists, who criticize the military operations and the criticism of humanitarian relief organizations which highlight the plight of the Tamil civilians are disturbing indicators of the revival of Sinhalese extremism as the Armed Forces near their final victory over the LTTE. This does not bode well for the future.
India is keeping its fingers crossed as it awaits the final defeat of the LTTE.
(The writer served as an analyst in the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW), India’s external intelligence agency, from 1968 to 1994 and in the National Security Advisory Board of the Govt. of India from 2000 to end-2002. He is presently Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. He is the author of four books---- “Intelligence---Past, Present and Future” published in 2001, “ A Terrorist State as A Frontline Ally” published in 2001, “The Kaoboys of R&AW---Down Memory Lane” published in 2007 and “Terrorism--- Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” published in 2008. All the four have been published by the Lancer Publishers of Delhi---www.lancerpublishers.com . E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
( Written exclusively for the online journal of a US university at their request. Cannot be reproduced till they publish it—B.Raman, 9-2-09)
The success of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces in inflicting a series of defeats on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) since the middle of 2006 and in restoring the writ of the State over 95 per cent of the territory in the Tamil majority Eastern and Northern provinces, which was under the control of the LTTE, has been greeted in India with a mix of satisfaction and concern.
The satisfaction arises from the expected total defeat of the LTTE’s insurgent force, which had succeeded in virtually establishing a State within a State with its paraphernalia of an administrative structure and a so-called Army, Navy and Air Force. Its naval and air capabilities posed a threat not only to the national security of Sri Lanka, but also to the security of India and the region as a whole.
India’s concerns over the naval and air capabilities of the LTTE were magnified after the terrorist attack in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008, by a group of 10 sea-borne terrorists from Pakistan belonging to the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). The success of the LET terrorists in Mumbai brought to India’s mind the similar success of a group of sea-borne terrorists of the LTTE who clandestinely landed in India’s southern coast in 1991, found their way to Chennai and assassinated Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India, at the venue of an election meeting In May ,1991.
Whatever ambivalence might have been there in India’s policy-making circles over the advisability of openly supporting the counter-insurgency operations of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces was removed after the Mumbai terrorist attack. There was a realization that terrorism in any form by any group for any reason should not be tolerated and that double standards in dealing with terrorism would only play into the hands of the terrorists. When India was demanding that Pakistan should act strongly against terrorists operating from its territory, it could not have criticized the counter-insurgency operations of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces against the LTTE.
No tears have been shed in India over the defeat of the LTTE as an insurgent force. Even before the Mumbai terrorist attack, India had been quietly helping the Sri Lankan Armed Forces by supplying defensive equipment such as radars and by training Sri Lankan personnel in the use of this equipment. Indian intelligence, which has a long history of co-operation with its Sri Lankan counterpart since the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, stepped up this co-operation further since 2006 and willingly shared with the Sri Lankan authorities intelligence of value in dealing with the LTTE. The Sri Lankan Armed Forces should be the first to acknowledge that their success in severely damaging, if not destroying, the commercial shipping capability of the LTTE was to a considerable extent facilitated by precise intelligence from India. One of the reasons for the defeat of the LTTE was its inability to replenish its stocks of arms and ammunition through clandestine shipments from abroad. Intelligence supplied by India contributed significantly to disrupting these clandestine shipments.
Indian policy-makers have no reasons to regret such limited assistance provided by them. This assistance was in mutual interest. India, which has itself faced serious insurgent situations in its North-East and in Jammu & Kashmir and has dealt with them strongly and effectively, could not have viewed with equanimity the success of a dreaded insurgent-cum-terrorist force such as the LTTE in its neighbourhood. The LTTE is now a dying horse, but not yet a dead horse. Its final demise as an insurgent-cum-terrorist organization, when it comes about, should be a matter of satisfaction to all those opposed to terrorism.
India’s concerns are not over the impending demise of the LTTE. They are over what next. Many questions ought to be bothering the minds of Indian policy-makers. It has been India’s experience since its independence in 1947 that whenever any Government in Colombo felt itself strong enough not to need Indian assistance in any matter, it has shown a troubling insensitivity to India’s security concerns. One saw this before and after the Sino-Indian war of 1962. While pretending to take a neutral stand in the border dispute between India and China, it took a position which was perceived in India as more sympathetic to China than India. In the months preceding the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971, which facilitated the birth of Bangladesh, Indira Gandhi, in retaliation for the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane to Lahore by two Pakistan-instigated terrorists from J&K, banned all Pakistani flights to the then East Pakistan over Indian territory. Sri Lanka went to the help of Pakistan by allowing Pakistan Air Force planes carrying troops and equipment to East Pakistan to refuel at the Katunayake airport. A furious Indira Gandhi warned the Sri Lankan Government that she considered this an unfriendly act and threatened to retaliate against Sri Lanka. It was only after this that Sri Lanka stopped the refueling of the PAF planes. After the Indian nuclear test of 1974, India was concerned over a reported move of the US to set up a huge set-up of the Voice of America in Sri Lankan territory. Indian intelligence had told her that the US intelligence agency, which is responsible for technical intelligence, would have a presence in the VOA set-up to collect intelligence about India’s nuclear and space establishments in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. When the Sri Lankan Government repeatedly ignored Indian concerns on this subject, Indira Gandhi decided to teach it a lesson by extending political, moral and diplomatic support to the Sri Lankan Tamils.
In recent years, successive Sri Lankan Governments have been showing sensitivity to India’s security and strategic concerns because they had been rendered weak by the success of the LTTE in establishing its control over large parts of the Northern and Eastern Provinces. Now that they are on the verge of defeating the LTTE after re-establishing their writ over the Tamil areas, will they continue to show the same sensitivity in future or will they go back to their past reflexes of playing India against Pakistan and China, whenever it suited them. Even during its present counter-insurgency operations, the Sri Lankan Government has expanded its economic and military supply relations with Pakistan and China. This trend could pick up momentum after they succeed totally in their operations against the LTTE.
The other Indian concern arises from the emotional dimension of the problem. Tamils constitute the overwhelming majority of Tamil Nadu, the southern coastal province of India. Ethnically, linguistically and culturally, they are close to the Sri Lankan Tamils. The political aspirations of the Sri Lankan Tamils and their difficulties in the unitary state that Sri Lanka is have an echo in Tamil Nadu. India had never supported the LTTE’s objective of an independent Tamil State in the Northern and Eastern Provinces to be called Tamil Eelam, but it has strongly favoured since 1987 the transformation of Sri Lanka into a genuine federal State with a separate State for the Tamils with considerable political and economic powers similar to the powers enjoyed by the States in the Indian Federation.
Successive Sri Lankan Governments have repeatedly assured their own Tamils as well as India of their intention for the devolution of powers to the Tamil provinces and to grant the Tamils the same status as enjoyed by the majority Sinhalese community with no discrimination on ethnic grounds. Will the Government in Colombo honour this promise once it feels it has destroyed the LTTE once and for all. The LTTE was the strongest of the Tamil political movements. Other Tamil political organizations, which are presently collaborating with the Government against the LTTE, are weak with limited following. Presently, the Government is giving them importance as proof of its intention to treat the Tamils as equals of the Sinhalese in all respects. Will it continue to do so once it succeeds in defeating the LTTE?
Policy-makers in India also ought to be concerned over the already evident signs of the recrudescence of Sinhalese extremism and intolerance not only in the civil society, but even in the Government and the Armed Forces. The intemperate remarks of Lt.Gen.Sarath Fonseka,the army commander, highlighting the Sinhalese character of the State (though denied subsequently), the attacks on journalists, who criticize the military operations and the criticism of humanitarian relief organizations which highlight the plight of the Tamil civilians are disturbing indicators of the revival of Sinhalese extremism as the Armed Forces near their final victory over the LTTE. This does not bode well for the future.
India is keeping its fingers crossed as it awaits the final defeat of the LTTE.
(The writer served as an analyst in the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW), India’s external intelligence agency, from 1968 to 1994 and in the National Security Advisory Board of the Govt. of India from 2000 to end-2002. He is presently Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. He is the author of four books---- “Intelligence---Past, Present and Future” published in 2001, “ A Terrorist State as A Frontline Ally” published in 2001, “The Kaoboys of R&AW---Down Memory Lane” published in 2007 and “Terrorism--- Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” published in 2008. All the four have been published by the Lancer Publishers of Delhi---www.lancerpublishers.com . E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
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