B.RAMAN
The Aga Khan Foundation has over the years undertaken many rural development projects in the NA. Whatever little development has been there is mainly due to the Aga Khan Foundation. Even though the Islamic fundamentalist parties from time to time mounted a campaign against successive Aga Khans and their workers in the NA by projecting them as Western agents and anti-Islam, the Government of Pakistan saw to it that there was no interference with the Foundation's work because of its excellent international image.
2. The only major development project taken up by the Government was the construction of the Karakoram Highway with Chinese assistance to facilitate the overland movement to China of the exports from Punjab. The benefit of these exports largely went to the peopleof Punjab. It was completed in 1978.
3. The Karakoram Highway was also used for the movement to Pakistan of Chinese nuclear and military equipment such as the M-9 and M-11 missiles, equipment for the Chashma nuclear power station constructed by the Chinese etc. The two countries avoided transporting such sensitive equipment by sea to avoid detection by the US. Some of the missiles supplied by North Korea to Pakistan after Benazir Bhutto's secret visit to Pyongyang in 1993 also came by the overland route via China and then the Karakoram Highway. Some of the missiles for Iran from China and North Korea were also transported by the same route.
4. On March 9,1995, Pakistan, China, Kazakhstan and Kyrghystan signed at Islamabad a Transit Trade Agreement to facilitate trade between Pakistan and the Central Asian republics (CARs) via China. Under a separate agreement between Pakistan and China, it was decided to upgrade the Karakoram Highway to facilitate this trade with the CARs, with Pakistan meeting the expenditure on its side and China on its side. While work on the Pakistan side involving an investment of US $ 85 million started after the signing of the agreement, China dragged its feet on upgrading the Highway in its territory because of its concerns over the increasing use of the Highway by the
Uighur extremist elements for getting arms, ammunition and explosives from Pakistan and by Pakistani narcotics smugglers for smuggling heroin to China.
5.Writing in the "Herald" (December,1995), the monthly journal of the "Dawn" group of publications, Ahmed Rashid, the well-known Pakistani expert on Afghanistan and the CARs, said: " Beijing's reluctance stems from the fact that the proposed road would run across Xinjiang and the Chinese fear that the route would increase the traffic in fundamentalism. After an abortive Islamist uprising in the town of Baren in 1992 in which 22 people were killed, China closed its road links with Pakistan for several months. In the second week of November,1995, Ibrahim Rouzi, Director of Xinjiang's Religious Affairs Bureau, ordered a Government probe into the mushrooming of unauthorised mosques and Quranic schools in the region, which, he said, were often opened from funds from abroad. "We must firmly oppose religious activities which run counter to the Socialist system, divide the motherland and incite fanaticism by disseminating speeches in mosques about a religious war," he added."
6.Ahmed Rashid further reported in the same article that six Islamic militants (Uighurs) from Xinjiang, who were undergoing training at the Islamabad Islamic University, attended a convention of the Jamaat-e-Islami at Lahore.
7. The "International Herald Tribune" reported on May 28,1996, that following a resurgence of pro-independence terrorist activity in Xinjiang, the local authorities had tightened border security and issued the following instructions: " We must greatly increase control on frontier crossings, put more soldiers on duty, strengthen inspection of goods crossing the border and seriously stop weapons, splittists and reactionary phamplhlets entering China."
8.The "Far Eastern Economic Review" of Hong Kong reported as follows in its issue of June 13,1996: " Beijing has ordered the re-deployment of several army units in the troubled Muslim region of Xinjiang as a result of increased separatist activities in the border areas. A Chinese scholar told a seminar in Hong Kong that he had been delayed for six hours while travelling in the region in May because of a massive shift of troops in the Aksu District. The official media have confirmed the assassination by separatists of one Muslim cleric and several polcemen in the regional capital Urumqi in late February. The movement of troops from military sub-districts in the region is believed to be the largest since a separatist insurrection took place in the Western border county of Akto in April,1990"
9.Another reason for China's concerns over the threats to its internal security from the Karakoram Highway was the increasing use of the Highway by narcotics smugglers for smuggling heroin from Afghanistan into China via Pakistan. As in the FATA, in the NA too, large sections of the local people, because of the extreme poverty, started taking to narcotics smuggling as a means of livelihood.
10. Quoting a Chinese diplomat in Islamabad, the Urdu language daily "Nawai Waqt" of Pakistan reported as follows on June 4,1996: " China has deported hundreds of Pakistanis, who had illegally entered Xinjiang for hunting eagles. These Pakistanis did not possess any valid documents to enter the Chinese territory. He also disclosed that dozens of people, allegedly involved in the smuggling of drugs, were
arrested by Chinese guards and one of them has been sentenced to death in Beijing. Several Pakistani drug smugglers are still languishing in Chinese jails."
11. It added: " The diplomat termed as incorrect a report about denial of visas to Pakistani tourists wishing to visit China. He said that following the arrest of about 450 Pakistanis in October,1995, in Xinjiang for illegal activities, Beijing has decided not to issue visas to any individual tourist. However, tourist groups are not being denied visas if they are sponsored by Pakistani or Chinese tourism institutions.Moreover, no trader or industrialist of Pakistan will be refused a visa. Asked whether the arrested Pakistanis were indulging in unhealthy political activities in Xinjiang, he declined to comment."
12. After seizing power in October 1999, Pervez Musharraf took up with the Chinese authorities the importance of the early implementation of the project for the upgradation of the Karakoram Highway. The Chinese took up the work on their side according to a mutually agreed revised schedule and have reportedly completed it ahead of schedule. The upgradation work on the Pakistan side has been much behind
schedule.
13. In the winter of 1998-99, Musharraf used the NA as the launching pad for the infiltration of the Pakistani Army into the Kargil area of India's J&K. Pakistani troops, assisted by Mehsuds and Wazirs from Waziristan trained by Al Qaeda, occupied the Kargil heights during the height of winter with the objective of disrupting traffic between Srinagar and Kargil and starving the Indian troops deployed in the Siachen sector of J&K. After the explosions outside the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam by Al Qaeda in August 1998, the Nawaz Sharif Government came under considerable pressure from the US either to act against Al Qaeda sanctuaries in Afghan territory or to let the US do it. Musharraf sold to Nawaz the idea that some of the inmates of Al Qaeda camps in the Afghan territory could be shifted to the NA for helping the Pakistan Army in its operations in J&K.
14. Nawaz agreed to it under the impression that the operations planned by Musharraf on the Kargil heights would only involve the tribals trained by Al Qaeda and not the Pakistan Army. In May,1999, a military conflict broke out between the Indian and Pakistani armies when the Indian Army took action to eject the Pakistani Army invaders from the Indian territory on the Kargil heights. The Indian Army killed or
captured regular soldiers of the Pakistan Army, many of them belonging to its Light Infantry Regiments raised in the NA. Through a back channel mechamism, the Government of India confronted Nawaz with conclusive evidence of the involvement of the Pakistani Army in the illegal occupation of the Indian territory, which triggered off the conflict.
15. Nawaz was taken by surprise because the clearance given by him to Musharraf was for shifting some of the inmates of Al Qaeda camps in Afghan territory to the NA for use against India and not for using the Pakistan Army for occupying Indian territory. The anger of Nawaz with Musharraf for using the Pakistan Army for occupying Indian territory set in motion the train of events which ultimately led to his overthrow and arrest by Musharraf in October,1999.
16. During the height of the Kargil fighting, the British High Commission in New Delhi used to organise daily briefings on the fighting for the benefit of some of the British journalists, who had assembled in New Delhi to cover the conflict. One of the British journalists who was covering the conflict from New Delhi was Julian West. In a despatch from New Delhi, which was carried by the "Electronic Telegraph" (May 30,1999) Julian West reported as follows:
(a). "A group of British Islamic fundamentalists are reported to be among the insurgents …According to Western intelligence sources, six Britons are reported to have recently received training in mountain techniques and high-altitude warfare."
(b)."The British Muslims are among a number of Islamic guerillas being trained in remote valleys near Skardu, in Pakistani Kashmir, just north of the LOC from Kargil…. Their instructor reportedly claimed that he was being paid Pound Sterling 30 a day---probably by Pakistan's military intelligence agency ISI."
( c ).The preparation of a mixed force of Afghan, Kashmiri, Pakistani and even British Muslim guerillas, trained to fight at high altitudes,reinforces India's contention that the current conflict was well planned. It also further confirms long-standing reports that Pakistan employs a loose network of international terrorists as well as Pakistani army regulars and Kashmiri militants-- not only for operations in Afghanistan,but also for intrusions into Indian Kashmir.
(d). "Western intelligence has long believed that various Muslim dissident groups in Britain are front organisations for Islamic extremism,funded by an international network of wealthy Muslims and often sponsored by Pakistani and Arab intelligence agencies."
(e)."Although the Indian army claims that these are Pakistani army regulars in disguise, Western intelligence believes that many are Afghan,Pakistani and even international Muslim militants backed by Pakistan's ISI.. Principal amongst these is Al Badr, a terrorist group linked to
Osama bin Laden…."
(f). An intelligence source, who believes about 3,000 to 5,000 militants are currently being trained in various camps run by Pakistani intelligence in Pakistan and possibly in Afghanistan, said: "This current operation (in Kargil) has all the hallmarks of the ISI."
(g). "The operation almost certainly has the backing of the ISI and could not have been launched without the knowledge of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif."
17.Apart from Al Badr of bin Laden mentioned by Western intelligence sources, other organisations which have claimed responsibility for the occupation of the ridges in the Kargil-Dras sector were:
(a). The Lashkar-e-Toiba. "The Times" of UK correspondent in Islamabad (May 31, 1999) quoted Abdullah Muntazir of the Lashkar as saying as follows: " We have Muslim volunteers from all over the world coming to join the jihad….A large number of our fighters have come from the Afghan province of Nuristan. " The correspondent also reported that at least four other Pakistan-backed militant groups were recruiting people to fight in Kashmir.
(b). The United Jihad Council of Muzzafarabad , which claimed to be a united front of 14 unnamed organisations. It is headed by Syed Salahuddin belonging to one faction of the Hizbul Mujahideen. The Hizbul Mujahideen works in close concert with the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Jammat-e-Islami of Pakistan and the Hizb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Heckmatyar of Afghanistan.Since the US declared the HUM as an
international terrorist organisation in October, 1997, its volunteers operating in Kashmir use the cover of the Hizbul Mujahideen. (20-9-09)
To be continued
( 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 )
Saturday, September 19, 2009
NO HEROES IN THE NUCLEAR FIZZLE DEBATE--ANOTHER INTERESTING FEED-BACK FROM A READER OF MY ARTICLE ON K.SANTHANAM'S ALLEGATION OF A NUCLEAR FIZZLE
There are a number of issues that need to be taken note of and that seem to be lost in what is increasingly a war of personalities between scientists:
(1) Dr. Santhanam has claimed that the TN test achieved a yield of between 23-27 kilotons.
(2) If that statement is taken to be accurate - and let us assume that it is - that yield is substantially higher than that claimed by analysts in the West who using data and assumptions that were at times questionable suggested a much lower yield.
(3) Dr Santhanam in his op-ed piece claimed the deployment of 25 kiloton warheads on a wide scale.
(4) Subsequently he has said that India's deterrent consists only of 15 kiloton weapons - some consistency would be appreciated in this regard.
(5) What nobody has explained is why India has built missiles - with Santhanam himself in DRDO - with payloads of between 700 and 1500kg ?
(6) The other issue that has not been tackled is that of the primary stage of the TN device which has not been disputed as being a boosted-fission device and which, if Santhanam's figures are correct would have had to have a yield and produced a yield of between 15 and 17 kilotons.
(7) Taking Dr. Santhanam's words as being accurate some conclusions can immediately be drawn:
(a) India's weapons teams were not convinced of the TN test and did not weaponize any thermonuclear weapons
(b) India's deployed nuclear weapons weigh between 700kg and 1500kg - based on the Agni payloads
(c) Both fission and boosted-fission types that were tested worked.
(8) Admiral Suresh Mehta's words were very guarded:
"As far as we are concerned, scientists have given us a certain capability which is enough to provide requisite deterrence...the deterrent is tried and tested"
(9) No 15 kiloton or 25 kiloton fission or boosted fission device weighs 700-1500kg. At most the figures for those types will range between 170kg and 300kg with Indian design technology.
(10) Nobody - either critics or supporters - have considered the possibility of the scalability of either the fission or boosted-fission weapons/devices tested. This aspect of Indian weapons research in the last decade is what needs to be examined if one is to assess the Indian nuclear deterrent.
(11) The French MR31 120kiloton warhead used on their SSBS-S2 IRBM was a pure fission warhead weighed 700kg using about 25kg of weapons-grade plutonium (which is a considerable amount). The successor warhead, the MR41 was a boosted-fission warhead for the MSBS M1 and M2 SLBMs and had a yield of 500 kilotons and weighed 700kg.
To what yield are India's fission and/or boosted-fission designs scalable ?
Do the large payloads of the Agni series lead to the inexorable conclusion that large fission or boosted-fission weapons are the ones deployed ?
Without an analysis of this question, everybody who is attempting to tell the world they know what India's deterrent consists of is merely whistling in the wind - adding nothing but noise to a debate that has seen Dr. Santhanam being described as a nuclear scientist (when he is not) and Dr. Kalam being told to shut up because he is not a nuclear scientist and which has seen the POK-1 1974 test team turn on the 1998 team without remembering that the yield of their test in 1974 was also hotly disputed.
There are no heroes in this drama. What India needs to do is ignore the rhetoric and analyse whether its fission and boosted-fission capability can reliably deliver warheads in the 50-100 kiloton class to the armed forces with confidence.
(1) Dr. Santhanam has claimed that the TN test achieved a yield of between 23-27 kilotons.
(2) If that statement is taken to be accurate - and let us assume that it is - that yield is substantially higher than that claimed by analysts in the West who using data and assumptions that were at times questionable suggested a much lower yield.
(3) Dr Santhanam in his op-ed piece claimed the deployment of 25 kiloton warheads on a wide scale.
(4) Subsequently he has said that India's deterrent consists only of 15 kiloton weapons - some consistency would be appreciated in this regard.
(5) What nobody has explained is why India has built missiles - with Santhanam himself in DRDO - with payloads of between 700 and 1500kg ?
(6) The other issue that has not been tackled is that of the primary stage of the TN device which has not been disputed as being a boosted-fission device and which, if Santhanam's figures are correct would have had to have a yield and produced a yield of between 15 and 17 kilotons.
(7) Taking Dr. Santhanam's words as being accurate some conclusions can immediately be drawn:
(a) India's weapons teams were not convinced of the TN test and did not weaponize any thermonuclear weapons
(b) India's deployed nuclear weapons weigh between 700kg and 1500kg - based on the Agni payloads
(c) Both fission and boosted-fission types that were tested worked.
(8) Admiral Suresh Mehta's words were very guarded:
"As far as we are concerned, scientists have given us a certain capability which is enough to provide requisite deterrence...the deterrent is tried and tested"
(9) No 15 kiloton or 25 kiloton fission or boosted fission device weighs 700-1500kg. At most the figures for those types will range between 170kg and 300kg with Indian design technology.
(10) Nobody - either critics or supporters - have considered the possibility of the scalability of either the fission or boosted-fission weapons/devices tested. This aspect of Indian weapons research in the last decade is what needs to be examined if one is to assess the Indian nuclear deterrent.
(11) The French MR31 120kiloton warhead used on their SSBS-S2 IRBM was a pure fission warhead weighed 700kg using about 25kg of weapons-grade plutonium (which is a considerable amount). The successor warhead, the MR41 was a boosted-fission warhead for the MSBS M1 and M2 SLBMs and had a yield of 500 kilotons and weighed 700kg.
To what yield are India's fission and/or boosted-fission designs scalable ?
Do the large payloads of the Agni series lead to the inexorable conclusion that large fission or boosted-fission weapons are the ones deployed ?
Without an analysis of this question, everybody who is attempting to tell the world they know what India's deterrent consists of is merely whistling in the wind - adding nothing but noise to a debate that has seen Dr. Santhanam being described as a nuclear scientist (when he is not) and Dr. Kalam being told to shut up because he is not a nuclear scientist and which has seen the POK-1 1974 test team turn on the 1998 team without remembering that the yield of their test in 1974 was also hotly disputed.
There are no heroes in this drama. What India needs to do is ignore the rhetoric and analyse whether its fission and boosted-fission capability can reliably deliver warheads in the 50-100 kiloton class to the armed forces with confidence.
THE JIHADI WAR OF ATTRITION
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.557
B.RAMAN
In his latest message addressed to the Americam people, which was disseminated by pro-Al Qaeda web sites immediately after the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, Osama bin Laden has warned of a long war of attrition against the US. The final objective of the war would be not just the withdrawal of the US-led forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, but a withdrawal of US support to Israel and the establishment of an independent State of Palestine with East Jerusalem in which the sacred Al Aqsa mosque is located as its capital.
2. He has cited the pro-Israel policies of successive US administrations as the principal cause for the 9/11 terrorist strikes and warned that the war thus launched would continue till the US gives up its pro-Israel policies and gives satisfaction to the Palestinians. His message is remarkably free of expressions such as jihad against the crusaders, recovery of legitimate Muslim territories etc. Just as President Barack Obama has reduced the objective of the military campaign in Afghanistan to one of preventing any more 9/11s in the US homeland mounted
from the Af-Pak region, bin Laden has reduced the objective of Al Qaeda and his International Islamic Front to one of helping the Palestinians achieve an independent State and recover East Jerusalem from the control of Israel.
3. The war for such a purpose will be fought wherever possible and wherever opportunities for actions exist. It will not be confined only to
the West Asian region. For him, not only the US, but any State, which supports Israel, could be a legitimate target of attacks---against its
nationals and interests and against Israeli nationals in its territory.
4. It is in the light of this interpretation of his message that one has to assess India's vulnerabilities and the threats that India could face. As a country perceived by Al Qaeda and its associates in the Af-Pak region as close to Israel, India would continue to be vulnerable to terrorist strikes by Al Qaeda and its Pakistani associates as well as by our own jihadi groups, which share the perceptions of Al Qaeda. Their attacks against Indian nationals and interests or against Israeli and other pro-Israel foreign nationals in Indian territory would have two components--- a reprisal component and an attrition component.
5. Al Qaeda and sub-continental jihadi organisations have been looking for opportunities to target Israelis in Indian territory since 1991. The Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) targeted a group of young Israeli tourists in Srinagar in 1991. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who reportedly orchestrated the 9/11 strikes in the US, is reported to have told the US authorities during his interrogation that Al Qaeda wanted to target an Israeli diplomatic mission in India. For the last three or four years, there have been periodic reports of Indian and Pakistani
organisations wanting to target Israeli tourists in Goa. And we had the targeted attack by Pakistani members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) on a Jewish cultural-cum-religious centre at the Narriman House in Mumbai and its Jewish inmates in November last year. The brutality exhibited by them towards the Jewish inmates was unparalleled in the history of jihadi terrorism in the Indian territory outside J&K. Other LET terrorists also targeted other foreigners in two hotels---many of them from countries involved in the operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
6. Not only the LET terrorists, but also their associates in other jihadi organisations in Pakistan and India must have been gratified by the ease with which the LET commandoes from Pakistan managed to hoodwink the Indian security agencies, hold them at bay for nearly 60 hours and receive the kind of prolonged global live publcity the like of which no other terrorist strike has achieved in recent years.
7. Just as we allegedly covered up our nuclear failure in 1998, we have covered up our counter-terrorism failures of November,2008.It has been an inadequately investigated terrorist conspiracy. Our euphoria over catching one terrorist alive has clouded our vision.Our over-focus on his version of the conspiracy has come in the way of our probing into other angles not possibly revealed by the captured terrorist or not within his knowledge. Every clued-up terrorist organisation strictly follows the principle of restrictive security. Every participant in a terrorist operation does not know all the details relating to that operation. That is where the importance of a satisfactory reconstruction of a terrorist operation arises. Without a satisfactory reconstruction, our ability to prevent similar strikes in future would be reduced. One is not certain there has been such a reconstruction. This would have been noticed by the terrorists too just as it has been noticed by the intelligence agencies of other countries.
8. The inadequate manner in which we have handled the sequel to Mumbai-26/11 is likely to have given cause for hope to the LET and other organisations that they can again successfully launch a major strike in Indian territory----even in Mumbai. It is also likely to have given cause for concern to the intelligence agencies of other countries about our ability to thwart a repeat of 26/11 by the LET or other organisations.
9. It is this concern which is reflected in the precautionary advisories issued by the counter-terrorism authorities of the US and Israel to their citizens planning to travel to India either for business or on holiday in the coming festive weeks when some important Hindu festivals and Christmas could provide an opportunity for fresh attacks on soft targets.
10. Damaging our growing economy and shaking the confidence of foreign businessmen about the security of life and property in India have been important objectives of the sub-continental jihadi organisations. The forthcoming Commonwealth Games in India next year could provide an opportunity to the terrorists to damage India's reputation in the eyes of the world by disrupting the preparations for the Games
through terrorist attacks against the proposed venues for the Games as they are getting ready. A drill for effective physical security in connection with the Games has to be in position right from now. (19-9-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
In his latest message addressed to the Americam people, which was disseminated by pro-Al Qaeda web sites immediately after the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, Osama bin Laden has warned of a long war of attrition against the US. The final objective of the war would be not just the withdrawal of the US-led forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, but a withdrawal of US support to Israel and the establishment of an independent State of Palestine with East Jerusalem in which the sacred Al Aqsa mosque is located as its capital.
2. He has cited the pro-Israel policies of successive US administrations as the principal cause for the 9/11 terrorist strikes and warned that the war thus launched would continue till the US gives up its pro-Israel policies and gives satisfaction to the Palestinians. His message is remarkably free of expressions such as jihad against the crusaders, recovery of legitimate Muslim territories etc. Just as President Barack Obama has reduced the objective of the military campaign in Afghanistan to one of preventing any more 9/11s in the US homeland mounted
from the Af-Pak region, bin Laden has reduced the objective of Al Qaeda and his International Islamic Front to one of helping the Palestinians achieve an independent State and recover East Jerusalem from the control of Israel.
3. The war for such a purpose will be fought wherever possible and wherever opportunities for actions exist. It will not be confined only to
the West Asian region. For him, not only the US, but any State, which supports Israel, could be a legitimate target of attacks---against its
nationals and interests and against Israeli nationals in its territory.
4. It is in the light of this interpretation of his message that one has to assess India's vulnerabilities and the threats that India could face. As a country perceived by Al Qaeda and its associates in the Af-Pak region as close to Israel, India would continue to be vulnerable to terrorist strikes by Al Qaeda and its Pakistani associates as well as by our own jihadi groups, which share the perceptions of Al Qaeda. Their attacks against Indian nationals and interests or against Israeli and other pro-Israel foreign nationals in Indian territory would have two components--- a reprisal component and an attrition component.
5. Al Qaeda and sub-continental jihadi organisations have been looking for opportunities to target Israelis in Indian territory since 1991. The Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) targeted a group of young Israeli tourists in Srinagar in 1991. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who reportedly orchestrated the 9/11 strikes in the US, is reported to have told the US authorities during his interrogation that Al Qaeda wanted to target an Israeli diplomatic mission in India. For the last three or four years, there have been periodic reports of Indian and Pakistani
organisations wanting to target Israeli tourists in Goa. And we had the targeted attack by Pakistani members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) on a Jewish cultural-cum-religious centre at the Narriman House in Mumbai and its Jewish inmates in November last year. The brutality exhibited by them towards the Jewish inmates was unparalleled in the history of jihadi terrorism in the Indian territory outside J&K. Other LET terrorists also targeted other foreigners in two hotels---many of them from countries involved in the operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
6. Not only the LET terrorists, but also their associates in other jihadi organisations in Pakistan and India must have been gratified by the ease with which the LET commandoes from Pakistan managed to hoodwink the Indian security agencies, hold them at bay for nearly 60 hours and receive the kind of prolonged global live publcity the like of which no other terrorist strike has achieved in recent years.
7. Just as we allegedly covered up our nuclear failure in 1998, we have covered up our counter-terrorism failures of November,2008.It has been an inadequately investigated terrorist conspiracy. Our euphoria over catching one terrorist alive has clouded our vision.Our over-focus on his version of the conspiracy has come in the way of our probing into other angles not possibly revealed by the captured terrorist or not within his knowledge. Every clued-up terrorist organisation strictly follows the principle of restrictive security. Every participant in a terrorist operation does not know all the details relating to that operation. That is where the importance of a satisfactory reconstruction of a terrorist operation arises. Without a satisfactory reconstruction, our ability to prevent similar strikes in future would be reduced. One is not certain there has been such a reconstruction. This would have been noticed by the terrorists too just as it has been noticed by the intelligence agencies of other countries.
8. The inadequate manner in which we have handled the sequel to Mumbai-26/11 is likely to have given cause for hope to the LET and other organisations that they can again successfully launch a major strike in Indian territory----even in Mumbai. It is also likely to have given cause for concern to the intelligence agencies of other countries about our ability to thwart a repeat of 26/11 by the LET or other organisations.
9. It is this concern which is reflected in the precautionary advisories issued by the counter-terrorism authorities of the US and Israel to their citizens planning to travel to India either for business or on holiday in the coming festive weeks when some important Hindu festivals and Christmas could provide an opportunity for fresh attacks on soft targets.
10. Damaging our growing economy and shaking the confidence of foreign businessmen about the security of life and property in India have been important objectives of the sub-continental jihadi organisations. The forthcoming Commonwealth Games in India next year could provide an opportunity to the terrorists to damage India's reputation in the eyes of the world by disrupting the preparations for the Games
through terrorist attacks against the proposed venues for the Games as they are getting ready. A drill for effective physical security in connection with the Games has to be in position right from now. (19-9-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Friday, September 18, 2009
MORE ON THE ALLEGED NUCLEAR FIZZLE
B.RAMAN
I have been in receipt of the following comments by E-mail from a knowledgeable reader of my article on K.Santhanam:
"One of the most authoritiative books that have been published recently about the history and evolution of nuclear weapons is "The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and its Proliferation" (Zenith Press, 2009) by Thomas C. Reed, a former nuclear weapons designer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Special Assistant to President Reagan for National Security Policy, and Danny B. Stillman, a physicist-cum-technical intelligence specialist of Los Alamos, New Mexico.
"In the chapter entitled "The Fakirs: India, Pakistan and North Korea" - a somewhat uncharitable title, if one may say so - the authors have, inter alia, dwelt extensively on the Pokhran tests of May 1998 and reached the conclusion that, notwithstanding the claims made by the Indian scientific community at that time, "Shakti-I," the fission-based primary, two-stage thermonuclear "controlled yield," was probably a failure. According to the authors, "the primary went low - 4KT. The secondary did not light." At the same time, they noted that "Given the Indian interest in thermonuclear technology and the status arising from such weapons, given her activities in the production of lithium and tritium as well as uranium enrichment, and given the continuing Indian need for parity with China, it is reasonable to expect and assume that India will test again at the next politically opportune time."
I have been in receipt of the following comments by E-mail from a knowledgeable reader of my article on K.Santhanam:
"One of the most authoritiative books that have been published recently about the history and evolution of nuclear weapons is "The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and its Proliferation" (Zenith Press, 2009) by Thomas C. Reed, a former nuclear weapons designer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Special Assistant to President Reagan for National Security Policy, and Danny B. Stillman, a physicist-cum-technical intelligence specialist of Los Alamos, New Mexico.
"In the chapter entitled "The Fakirs: India, Pakistan and North Korea" - a somewhat uncharitable title, if one may say so - the authors have, inter alia, dwelt extensively on the Pokhran tests of May 1998 and reached the conclusion that, notwithstanding the claims made by the Indian scientific community at that time, "Shakti-I," the fission-based primary, two-stage thermonuclear "controlled yield," was probably a failure. According to the authors, "the primary went low - 4KT. The secondary did not light." At the same time, they noted that "Given the Indian interest in thermonuclear technology and the status arising from such weapons, given her activities in the production of lithium and tritium as well as uranium enrichment, and given the continuing Indian need for parity with China, it is reasonable to expect and assume that India will test again at the next politically opportune time."
THE ALLEGED NUCLEAR FIZZLE
B.RAMAN
K.Santhanam was one of the Kaoboys of the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW). R.N.Kao, the founding father of the R&AW, had very high regard for his professional qualities. He was a delightful person to get along with---a Tamil to his finger tips with a very keen sense of humour, sometimes bordering on unsettling sarcasm.
2.Kao took him into the R&AW shortly after it was formed on deputation from the Atomic Energy Commission. He was one of the small group of scientists and technical personnel in the newly-created Science & Technology ( S&T) division of the R&AW and he ultimately rose to be its head. When Kao joined Mrs.Indira Gandhi as her Senior Adviser after she returned to power in 1980, he persuaded the R&AW to place the
services of Santhanam at his disposal as his S&T adviser. After the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31,1984, Kao resigned from the post of Senior Adviser and his small set-up was wound up. Santhanam gravitated to the Ministry of Defence to assist Dr.V.Arunachalam and spent the rest of his career in the set-up of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
3. Even though he never returned to the intelligence profession, he maintained close contacts with his former colleagues in the R&AW and retained his close personal friendship with many of them.
4.In its 50 years of history,one of the success stories of the R&AW was its ability to closely monitor the work of the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission.Santhanam was the first to discover the plans of Pakistan to set up a plutonium reprocessing plant in the 1970s with the help of the French and the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant with stolen and smuggled equipment and technologies from different parts of the world. If one day a book is written on the success of the R&AW's S & T Division , Santhanam would be an important hero of the narrative from the first to the last page. There were other heroes too.
5. Santhanam had a phenomenal memory for facts and figures, a remarkable capability for analysis and the knack of arriving at conclusions, which often proved to be correct.Some of the Tamil officers in the R&AW used to call him "vazha-vazha kozha-kozha" Santhanam meaning "slippery" Santhanam because of his way of talking which could be sometimes incomprehensible and unnecessarily mysterious. The more charitable friends of his attributed his way of talking to his highly-developed security consciousness. There was never a leak from his Division so long as he was the chief.
6. If there is one criticism which could be levelled against him it is that he never built up the institutional memory of his Division. Everything was stored in his memory. He hardly maintained any detailed notes of what he did and how he did it. Th result was that his successors had difficulty in stepping into his shoes when he moved out of the organisation.
7.Santhanam has never been a loose-mouthed or attention-grabbing individual. His recent statement that the nuclear fusion test of 1998 was a fizzle has,therefore, caused considerable confusion and consternation
8.There are some puzzling aspects of his recent statements and the article which he had contributed to "The Hindu" of September 17,2009, on this subject. It is evident that he felt that the test was a fizzle right from 1998. It was not a conclusion reached by him recently after studying some new data, which were not available in 1998.
9. That being so, why did he keep quiet for so long? He has been quoted in some sections of the media as saying that he decided to go public now after 11 years because he apprehended a US attempt to force India to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. His hint is that India needed to carry out more tests to master the fusion weapon. He should be knowing that after India signed the civil nuclear
co-operation agreement with the US and subsequently agreed to the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency of Vienna, the question of its carrying out any more tests just does not arise in view of the commitments, which it has already made not to carry out any more tests.
10. One would have appreciated his action if he had made this disclosure before India signed the agreement with the US. He did not do so. He refrained from joining the other critics of the Indian agreement with the US and the subsequent developments. He thereby gave the impression that he had nothing against the agreemrent with the US.
11. There is another aspect, which is even more puzzling. The first National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) set up by the Atal Behari Vajpayee Government in 1999 a few months after the nuclear tests was given the task of proposing a draft nuclear doctrine. It was headed by K.Subramanian, the strategic analyst. Santhanam evidently did not caution this NSAB that the fusion test was a fizzle. As a result, it reportedly prepared the draft doctrine under the belief that it was a success.
12. One can understand his not doing so because at that time he was still serving in the DRDO under Dr.Abdul Kalam and it might have been embarrassing for him to go over the head of Kalam and sound a warning bell before the NSAB. Santhanam retired in 2001 and was appointed the Director of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi, in place of Air Commodore Jasjit Singh. In that capacity, he
replaced Jasjit Singh as a member of the third NSAB in 2002. According to sections of the media, it reportedly suggested some amendments to the recommendations made by the first Board. Despite being a member of this NSAB, Santhanam does not appear to have shared with it his conclusion that the test was a fizzle. As a result, whatever recommendation was made by the third NSAB, of which Santhanam was a
member, was also reportedly based on the belief that the test was a success.
13. To say now that the test was a fizzle and that he knew it all along has caused a lot of concern in the minds of our public. This could unwittingly encourage adventurism by India's adversaries. ( 17-9-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
K.Santhanam was one of the Kaoboys of the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW). R.N.Kao, the founding father of the R&AW, had very high regard for his professional qualities. He was a delightful person to get along with---a Tamil to his finger tips with a very keen sense of humour, sometimes bordering on unsettling sarcasm.
2.Kao took him into the R&AW shortly after it was formed on deputation from the Atomic Energy Commission. He was one of the small group of scientists and technical personnel in the newly-created Science & Technology ( S&T) division of the R&AW and he ultimately rose to be its head. When Kao joined Mrs.Indira Gandhi as her Senior Adviser after she returned to power in 1980, he persuaded the R&AW to place the
services of Santhanam at his disposal as his S&T adviser. After the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31,1984, Kao resigned from the post of Senior Adviser and his small set-up was wound up. Santhanam gravitated to the Ministry of Defence to assist Dr.V.Arunachalam and spent the rest of his career in the set-up of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
3. Even though he never returned to the intelligence profession, he maintained close contacts with his former colleagues in the R&AW and retained his close personal friendship with many of them.
4.In its 50 years of history,one of the success stories of the R&AW was its ability to closely monitor the work of the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission.Santhanam was the first to discover the plans of Pakistan to set up a plutonium reprocessing plant in the 1970s with the help of the French and the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant with stolen and smuggled equipment and technologies from different parts of the world. If one day a book is written on the success of the R&AW's S & T Division , Santhanam would be an important hero of the narrative from the first to the last page. There were other heroes too.
5. Santhanam had a phenomenal memory for facts and figures, a remarkable capability for analysis and the knack of arriving at conclusions, which often proved to be correct.Some of the Tamil officers in the R&AW used to call him "vazha-vazha kozha-kozha" Santhanam meaning "slippery" Santhanam because of his way of talking which could be sometimes incomprehensible and unnecessarily mysterious. The more charitable friends of his attributed his way of talking to his highly-developed security consciousness. There was never a leak from his Division so long as he was the chief.
6. If there is one criticism which could be levelled against him it is that he never built up the institutional memory of his Division. Everything was stored in his memory. He hardly maintained any detailed notes of what he did and how he did it. Th result was that his successors had difficulty in stepping into his shoes when he moved out of the organisation.
7.Santhanam has never been a loose-mouthed or attention-grabbing individual. His recent statement that the nuclear fusion test of 1998 was a fizzle has,therefore, caused considerable confusion and consternation
8.There are some puzzling aspects of his recent statements and the article which he had contributed to "The Hindu" of September 17,2009, on this subject. It is evident that he felt that the test was a fizzle right from 1998. It was not a conclusion reached by him recently after studying some new data, which were not available in 1998.
9. That being so, why did he keep quiet for so long? He has been quoted in some sections of the media as saying that he decided to go public now after 11 years because he apprehended a US attempt to force India to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. His hint is that India needed to carry out more tests to master the fusion weapon. He should be knowing that after India signed the civil nuclear
co-operation agreement with the US and subsequently agreed to the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency of Vienna, the question of its carrying out any more tests just does not arise in view of the commitments, which it has already made not to carry out any more tests.
10. One would have appreciated his action if he had made this disclosure before India signed the agreement with the US. He did not do so. He refrained from joining the other critics of the Indian agreement with the US and the subsequent developments. He thereby gave the impression that he had nothing against the agreemrent with the US.
11. There is another aspect, which is even more puzzling. The first National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) set up by the Atal Behari Vajpayee Government in 1999 a few months after the nuclear tests was given the task of proposing a draft nuclear doctrine. It was headed by K.Subramanian, the strategic analyst. Santhanam evidently did not caution this NSAB that the fusion test was a fizzle. As a result, it reportedly prepared the draft doctrine under the belief that it was a success.
12. One can understand his not doing so because at that time he was still serving in the DRDO under Dr.Abdul Kalam and it might have been embarrassing for him to go over the head of Kalam and sound a warning bell before the NSAB. Santhanam retired in 2001 and was appointed the Director of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi, in place of Air Commodore Jasjit Singh. In that capacity, he
replaced Jasjit Singh as a member of the third NSAB in 2002. According to sections of the media, it reportedly suggested some amendments to the recommendations made by the first Board. Despite being a member of this NSAB, Santhanam does not appear to have shared with it his conclusion that the test was a fizzle. As a result, whatever recommendation was made by the third NSAB, of which Santhanam was a
member, was also reportedly based on the belief that the test was a success.
13. To say now that the test was a fizzle and that he knew it all along has caused a lot of concern in the minds of our public. This could unwittingly encourage adventurism by India's adversaries. ( 17-9-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
US DRONE STRIKES KILL HUJI, IJU LEADERS?
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.556
B.RAMAN
In a despatch dated September 17,2009,from Washington, the Agence France Press (AFP) has reported as follows:"One drone attack Monday ( September 14,2009) is believed to have killed the leader of the Islamic Jihad Union, Najmiddin Kamolitdinovich Jalolov, an Uzbek native implicated in terrorist plots and attacks in Germany and Uzbekistan. Officials said they are almost certain he was killed, though a DNA test hasn't yet been performed. A drone attack on Sept. 7 appeared to have killed another prominent Islamic militant, Ilyas Kashmiri, who had been briefly detained in Pakistan for alleged involvement in a 2003 assassination attempt against then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. There is less certainty about his death, however." Both the Drone strikes are reported to have taken place in North Waziristan in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan (FATA). Further details are not yet available.
2. In the past there were conflicting versions of the organisational affiliation of Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri. While some reports described him as the Amir of the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) branch of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), other reports described him as the head of a splinter group of the HUJI of Pakistan headed by its Amir Qari Saifullah Akhtar, which had split from it and was operating
independently in Jammu & Kashmir of India from sanctuaries in the POK.
3. Ilyas Kashmiri was among those arrested by the Pakistani authorities in January,2004, in connection with the investigation into the twounsuccessful attempts to assassinate Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December,2003. While some of the others arrested, including some junior Air Force officers, were prosecuted and convicted, Ilyas Kashmiri himself was released for want of evidence of his involvement. It was claimed by sections of the Pakistani media at that time that Ilyas was released on the intervention of Syed Salauddin, the Amir of the Hizbul Mujahideen and the head of the United Jihad Council for Kashmir, who reportedly managed to convince the Police that Ilyas had nothing to do with the two attempts to kill Musharraf.
4. Ilyas was subsequently reported to have closed down the camp of his set-up in the POK and shifted to North Waziristan from where he was operating in the non-tribal belt of Pakistan. In a despatch of May 24,2009, Amir Mir, the well-informed Pakistani journalist, who writes for the "News" and other papers said: "Commander Ilyas Kashmiri was recently named in a charge sheet filed by the Islamabad police in the November 2008 gruesome murder of Major General (retd) Amir Faisal Alvi, the former General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the elite Special Services Group (SSG). The 12-page charge sheet submitted by the Rawalpindi police in an anti-terrorism court on May 12, 2009 stated that the former SSG commanding officer was killed to avenge the role he had played in the fight against Taliban linked militants in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The charge-sheet prepared by the Koral police station states that those involved and already arrested in the murder included Major (retd) Haroon Rasheed, a resident of Azad Kashmir; Mohammad Nawaz Khan of Peshawar and Ashfaq Ahmed of Okara. The charge sheet says the murder of Major General Amir Faisal Alvi was carried out on the instructions of Commander Ilyas Kashmiri who had
provided funds and weapons.The charge sheet pointed out that Ilyas Kashmiri had already been named by the intelligence agencies for involvement in the October 2008 kidnapping for ransom of Satish Anand, a Karachi-based renowned film producer and distributor and the real uncle of Juhi Chawla, a well known Bollywood actress. After Satish Anand was recovered in the last week of April 2009 and the kidnappers arrested, it transpired during interrogations that one of them - Major Haroon Rasheed alias Abu Khattab – was a former Pakistani Army officer and involved in the murder of General Alvi. According to the murder charge sheet, the three accused – Haroon, Ashfaq and Nawaz followed Alvi when he left his residence in Bharia Town in Rawalpindi for his private office in Islamabad and killed him and his driver
near the PWD Colony. Once considered close to General Pervez Musharraf, Amir Faisal Alvi was the first General Officer Commanding of the elite Special Services Group, and had also commanded the elite Group as a Brigadier. The first Pakistani Major General to have captained the Armed Forces Skydiving Team (AFST) as a GOC, Faisal Alvi was forcibly retired from the Army on disciplinary grounds ‘for conduct
unbecoming’ by then Army Chief General Musharraf in August 2005."
5. Ilyas Kashmiri reportedly had his own training camp in the Razmak area of North (?) Waziristan and was collaborating with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
6.The name of Jalolov, 37 years old, had figured in 2007 as a suspected ring leader of a plot to attack several targets in Germany, and in 2006 as a suspected ring leader of plots targeting hotels catering to Western visitors in Central Asia. None of these attacks materialised,though. U.S. officials alleged he was an organizer of the 2004 terrorist attacks in Uzbekistan that killed at least 47 people. In this connection, reference is invited to my article of September 6,2007, titled "Global Jihad: Uzbeks To The Fore" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/common/uploaded_files/paper2360.html . The article is annexed for easy reference
7.Human intelligence of good quality from Pakistan's tribal belt continues to flow to the US intelligence agencies despite action taken by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to identify and execute suspected agents of the US who have been feeding intelligence to the US forces. Such executions, confined mostly to members of the Pashtun community, have not come in the way of successful strikes by the
CIA-operated Drone (pilotless) planes on targets in the two Waziristans.
8. The success rate of the Drone strikes has gone up after Punjabi jihadis belonging to the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) moved to the Pashtun belt from their traditional sanctuaries in Pakistan's Punjab province and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir to help Al Qaeda, the TTP, the Afghan Taliban, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad
Union (IJU), a splinter group from the IMU, in their operations in Pakistani and Afghan territories. This would indicate that the US intelligence has had better luck in penetrating Punjabi jihadi organisations than in penetrating Pashtun organisations, Al Qaeda and its associates.
9. Rashid Rauf, a Mirpuri from the UK, who was wanted by the British authorities in connection with their investigation of a plot to blow up a number of US-bound planes, was reported to have been killed in a Drone strike last year. He was related by marriage to Maulana Masood Azhar, the Amir of the JEM, and was associated with the JEM, which has been operating in the Swat Valley along with the
Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM). (18-9-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE
Global Jihad: Uzbeks To The Fore - International Terrorism Monitor---Paper No. 273 of 6-9-07
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/common/uploaded_files/paper2360.html
By B. Raman
After the Arabs and the Pakistanis, the Uzbeks have come to the forefront of Al Qaeda-inspired global jihad.
2. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan ( IMU) led by Tahir Yuldeshev now co-ordinates the training of volunteers from different jihadi terrorist organisations of Pakistan as well as from other countries of the world. Till last year, its training infrastructure was located in South Waziristan, but after clashes with some sections of the local tribals, it has shifted its infrastructure to North Waziristan. It enjoys the support of the Mehsud sub-tribe of the Pashtuns led by Baitullah Mehsud and of the former students of the two madrasas run by the Lal Masjid of Islamabad. Reliable police and tribal sources in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan say that many, if not most, of the acts of suicide terrorism and attacks on the Pakistani Armed Forces since the Pakistan Army's commando action in the Lal Masjid between July 10 and 13, 2007, including the killing of three Chinese nationals in Peshawar, were carried out by angry tribals motivated and trained by the
IMU. The IMU consists of Uzbeks recruited from Uzbekistan as well as Afghanistan and has a small number of Chechens, Uighurs and Tajiks in its ranks. Till now, the IMU's acts of terrorism have been confined to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. It has not come to notice for any jihadi activities in other countries.
3. A second Uzbek group operating from North Waziristan, which calls itself the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) or the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG), came into being in Pakistani territory post 9/11 as a result of a split in the IMU following the US military strikes in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It describes Osama bin Laden, Mulla Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Neo Taliban, and Maulana Samiul Haq, the Amir of a faction of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema Islam Pakistan, as its mentors. It focusses on training volunteers from the Western countries as well as from Uzbekistan.
4. It came to notice for the first time in April 2004 when it claimed responsibility for a series of suicide bombings around Tashkent and Bukharo in Uzbekistan which killed 47 people. The attacks targeted local government offices, as well as a crowded market. On July 30, 2004, it carried out simultaneous bombing attacks on the US Embassy, the Israeli Embassy, and the office of the Uzbek Prosecutor General,
killing at least two people and wounding many others.
5. A statement purported to have been disseminated by it said: A group of young Muslims executed martyrdom operations that put fear in the apostate government and its infidel allies, the Americans and Jews. The mujahidin belonging to Islamic Jihad Group attacked both the American and Israeli embassies as well as the court building where the trials of a large number of the brothers from the Group had begun.These martyrdom operations that the group is executing will not stop, God willing. It is for the purpose of repelling the injustice of the apostate government and supporting the jihad of our Muslim brothers in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, the Hijaz, and in other Muslim countries ruled by infidels and apostates.
6. On May 26, 2005, the US State Department issued the following statement: "The Department of State on May 25 announced the designation of the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG) as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224. This designation blocks all property, and interests in property, of the organization that are in the United States, or come within the United States, or the control of U. S. persons. The Secretary of State took this action in consultation with the Attorney General, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Department of Homeland Security. The Islamic Jihad Group, active in Central Asia, broke away from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization that is listed by the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee. On July 30, 2004,the Islamic Jihad Group conducted coordinated bombing attacks in Tashkent against the U.S. and Israeli Embassies, and the office of the Uzbek Prosecutor General, killing at least two people and wounding nine. The Islamic Jihad Group claimed responsibility for these attacks and indicated that future attacks are planned. The Islamic Jihad Group continues to target Americans and U.S. facilities overseas and is a dangerous threat to U.S. interests. After an explosion at a safehouse in Bukharo, Uzbekistan, IJG suicide bombers attacked a popular bazaar and other locations in Tashkent in March and April 2004, resulting in the deaths of more than a dozen police officers and innocent bystanders and dozens of injuries. The attackers in the March and April 2004 attacks, some of whom were female suicide bombers, targeted the local government offices of the Uzbekistani and Bukharo police, killing approximately 47 people, including 33 terrorists. These attacks marked the first use of female suicide bombers in Central Asia. Those arrested in connection with the attacks in Bukharo have testified to the close ties between the IJG leaders and Usama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. Kazakhstani authorities have declared that IJG members were taught by al-Qaida instructors to handle explosives and to organize intelligence work and subversive activities. Kazakhstan has arrested several IJG members and put them on trial."
7. In October, 2005, the British Government declared it as a terrorist organisation despite strong opposition from human rights groups, which alleged that the Uzbek Government was projecting political dissidents opposed to it as pro-Al Qaeda terrorists.
8.The IJG, which was formed in 2002 to oppose the co-operation extended by the Government of Islam Karimov to the US in its operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, projects the US and Israel as the main enemies of Islam and all Muslim countries co-operating with the US as apostates, which need to be opposed. The stated political objective of the IMU is to rid the Central Asian Republics (CAR) and the Xinjiang region of China of the lingering influence of Communism and make them part of an Islamic Caliphate. The IJG, which also has the over-all objective of a global Islamic Caliphate, projects itself as a global jihadi organisation and not a basically Uzbek organisation. It says that since Islam does not recognise nationalities or ethnicities, any Muslim can become its member irrespective of where he or she lives. Since it describes the US and Israel as its principal enemies, it welcomes volunteers from countries where the US and Israel have a large presence.
9. In an interview on May 31, 2007, Ebu Yahya Muhammed Fatih, who describes himself as the Commander of the Islamic Jihad Union, stated as follows:
"After the fall of the Afganistan Islamic Administration,we who shared the same opinions came together and decided to organize groups which will conduct jihad operations against the infidel constitution of cruel Karimov in Uzbekistan. The sole aim of all the emigrant-mujahedeen brothers was to find war-like solutions against the infidel constitution of cruel Karimov. For this aim our Union was established in 2002.
"Our Union's aim is, under the flag of justice and Islam Dominancy, to save our Mslim brothers who have been suffering from the cruelty of pre-Soviet period and Uzbekistan, and to take them out of the swamp of cruelty an infidelity, as well as to help other Mslim brothers all around the world as per God and his Prophet's orders.
"Members of our Union are not members of a specific tribe or a nation. As there is no nationalism and tribalism in Islam, our Union is formed of the believers from all over the world and multi-national emigrants travelling to praise the religion.
"Today we proceed according to our targeted goals with all our means. Muslim youth in the republics of former Soviet Union who found the path of Allah and are ready to fight for their religion have been trained in various fields in the training facilities of the Union. One of the armed forces of the Union is active in Afghanistan. Besides, we have been in contact and also been working on our common targets together with Caucasian mujahedeens. We have also been working together on plans and aims against the infidel regime of Uzbekistan which is one of our major targets."
10. In April, 2007, the US Embassy in Berlin announced that it was strengthening security at US facilities in Germany in response to what it described as an increased threat of terrorism. Mr. August Hanning, a former head of Germanys foreign intelligence agency known as the Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND), who is now Deputy Interior Minister, said in an interview that 14 German Islamists had gone to Pakistan for training. He also said that in recent months the Pakistani authorities had detained at least seven German Islamists who could have been involved in planning attacks.
11. On September 5, 2007, German Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms announced the arrest of three persons and the recovery from them of 700 kilos of chemicals capable of being converted into explosives. German media reports said that they were planning attacks against a US military base in Ramstein and the Frankfurt airport. Two of the arrested persons have been described as white converts to Islam, both
German nationals, and the third as of Turkish origin. The Federal Prosecutor named the three persons aged 22,28 and 29 as belonging to the German cell of the Islamic Jihad Union. It has been reported that seven more members of the cell are still at large.
B.RAMAN
In a despatch dated September 17,2009,from Washington, the Agence France Press (AFP) has reported as follows:"One drone attack Monday ( September 14,2009) is believed to have killed the leader of the Islamic Jihad Union, Najmiddin Kamolitdinovich Jalolov, an Uzbek native implicated in terrorist plots and attacks in Germany and Uzbekistan. Officials said they are almost certain he was killed, though a DNA test hasn't yet been performed. A drone attack on Sept. 7 appeared to have killed another prominent Islamic militant, Ilyas Kashmiri, who had been briefly detained in Pakistan for alleged involvement in a 2003 assassination attempt against then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. There is less certainty about his death, however." Both the Drone strikes are reported to have taken place in North Waziristan in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan (FATA). Further details are not yet available.
2. In the past there were conflicting versions of the organisational affiliation of Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri. While some reports described him as the Amir of the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) branch of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), other reports described him as the head of a splinter group of the HUJI of Pakistan headed by its Amir Qari Saifullah Akhtar, which had split from it and was operating
independently in Jammu & Kashmir of India from sanctuaries in the POK.
3. Ilyas Kashmiri was among those arrested by the Pakistani authorities in January,2004, in connection with the investigation into the twounsuccessful attempts to assassinate Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December,2003. While some of the others arrested, including some junior Air Force officers, were prosecuted and convicted, Ilyas Kashmiri himself was released for want of evidence of his involvement. It was claimed by sections of the Pakistani media at that time that Ilyas was released on the intervention of Syed Salauddin, the Amir of the Hizbul Mujahideen and the head of the United Jihad Council for Kashmir, who reportedly managed to convince the Police that Ilyas had nothing to do with the two attempts to kill Musharraf.
4. Ilyas was subsequently reported to have closed down the camp of his set-up in the POK and shifted to North Waziristan from where he was operating in the non-tribal belt of Pakistan. In a despatch of May 24,2009, Amir Mir, the well-informed Pakistani journalist, who writes for the "News" and other papers said: "Commander Ilyas Kashmiri was recently named in a charge sheet filed by the Islamabad police in the November 2008 gruesome murder of Major General (retd) Amir Faisal Alvi, the former General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the elite Special Services Group (SSG). The 12-page charge sheet submitted by the Rawalpindi police in an anti-terrorism court on May 12, 2009 stated that the former SSG commanding officer was killed to avenge the role he had played in the fight against Taliban linked militants in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The charge-sheet prepared by the Koral police station states that those involved and already arrested in the murder included Major (retd) Haroon Rasheed, a resident of Azad Kashmir; Mohammad Nawaz Khan of Peshawar and Ashfaq Ahmed of Okara. The charge sheet says the murder of Major General Amir Faisal Alvi was carried out on the instructions of Commander Ilyas Kashmiri who had
provided funds and weapons.The charge sheet pointed out that Ilyas Kashmiri had already been named by the intelligence agencies for involvement in the October 2008 kidnapping for ransom of Satish Anand, a Karachi-based renowned film producer and distributor and the real uncle of Juhi Chawla, a well known Bollywood actress. After Satish Anand was recovered in the last week of April 2009 and the kidnappers arrested, it transpired during interrogations that one of them - Major Haroon Rasheed alias Abu Khattab – was a former Pakistani Army officer and involved in the murder of General Alvi. According to the murder charge sheet, the three accused – Haroon, Ashfaq and Nawaz followed Alvi when he left his residence in Bharia Town in Rawalpindi for his private office in Islamabad and killed him and his driver
near the PWD Colony. Once considered close to General Pervez Musharraf, Amir Faisal Alvi was the first General Officer Commanding of the elite Special Services Group, and had also commanded the elite Group as a Brigadier. The first Pakistani Major General to have captained the Armed Forces Skydiving Team (AFST) as a GOC, Faisal Alvi was forcibly retired from the Army on disciplinary grounds ‘for conduct
unbecoming’ by then Army Chief General Musharraf in August 2005."
5. Ilyas Kashmiri reportedly had his own training camp in the Razmak area of North (?) Waziristan and was collaborating with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
6.The name of Jalolov, 37 years old, had figured in 2007 as a suspected ring leader of a plot to attack several targets in Germany, and in 2006 as a suspected ring leader of plots targeting hotels catering to Western visitors in Central Asia. None of these attacks materialised,though. U.S. officials alleged he was an organizer of the 2004 terrorist attacks in Uzbekistan that killed at least 47 people. In this connection, reference is invited to my article of September 6,2007, titled "Global Jihad: Uzbeks To The Fore" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/common/uploaded_files/paper2360.html . The article is annexed for easy reference
7.Human intelligence of good quality from Pakistan's tribal belt continues to flow to the US intelligence agencies despite action taken by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to identify and execute suspected agents of the US who have been feeding intelligence to the US forces. Such executions, confined mostly to members of the Pashtun community, have not come in the way of successful strikes by the
CIA-operated Drone (pilotless) planes on targets in the two Waziristans.
8. The success rate of the Drone strikes has gone up after Punjabi jihadis belonging to the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) moved to the Pashtun belt from their traditional sanctuaries in Pakistan's Punjab province and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir to help Al Qaeda, the TTP, the Afghan Taliban, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad
Union (IJU), a splinter group from the IMU, in their operations in Pakistani and Afghan territories. This would indicate that the US intelligence has had better luck in penetrating Punjabi jihadi organisations than in penetrating Pashtun organisations, Al Qaeda and its associates.
9. Rashid Rauf, a Mirpuri from the UK, who was wanted by the British authorities in connection with their investigation of a plot to blow up a number of US-bound planes, was reported to have been killed in a Drone strike last year. He was related by marriage to Maulana Masood Azhar, the Amir of the JEM, and was associated with the JEM, which has been operating in the Swat Valley along with the
Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM). (18-9-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE
Global Jihad: Uzbeks To The Fore - International Terrorism Monitor---Paper No. 273 of 6-9-07
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/common/uploaded_files/paper2360.html
By B. Raman
After the Arabs and the Pakistanis, the Uzbeks have come to the forefront of Al Qaeda-inspired global jihad.
2. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan ( IMU) led by Tahir Yuldeshev now co-ordinates the training of volunteers from different jihadi terrorist organisations of Pakistan as well as from other countries of the world. Till last year, its training infrastructure was located in South Waziristan, but after clashes with some sections of the local tribals, it has shifted its infrastructure to North Waziristan. It enjoys the support of the Mehsud sub-tribe of the Pashtuns led by Baitullah Mehsud and of the former students of the two madrasas run by the Lal Masjid of Islamabad. Reliable police and tribal sources in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan say that many, if not most, of the acts of suicide terrorism and attacks on the Pakistani Armed Forces since the Pakistan Army's commando action in the Lal Masjid between July 10 and 13, 2007, including the killing of three Chinese nationals in Peshawar, were carried out by angry tribals motivated and trained by the
IMU. The IMU consists of Uzbeks recruited from Uzbekistan as well as Afghanistan and has a small number of Chechens, Uighurs and Tajiks in its ranks. Till now, the IMU's acts of terrorism have been confined to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. It has not come to notice for any jihadi activities in other countries.
3. A second Uzbek group operating from North Waziristan, which calls itself the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) or the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG), came into being in Pakistani territory post 9/11 as a result of a split in the IMU following the US military strikes in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It describes Osama bin Laden, Mulla Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Neo Taliban, and Maulana Samiul Haq, the Amir of a faction of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema Islam Pakistan, as its mentors. It focusses on training volunteers from the Western countries as well as from Uzbekistan.
4. It came to notice for the first time in April 2004 when it claimed responsibility for a series of suicide bombings around Tashkent and Bukharo in Uzbekistan which killed 47 people. The attacks targeted local government offices, as well as a crowded market. On July 30, 2004, it carried out simultaneous bombing attacks on the US Embassy, the Israeli Embassy, and the office of the Uzbek Prosecutor General,
killing at least two people and wounding many others.
5. A statement purported to have been disseminated by it said: A group of young Muslims executed martyrdom operations that put fear in the apostate government and its infidel allies, the Americans and Jews. The mujahidin belonging to Islamic Jihad Group attacked both the American and Israeli embassies as well as the court building where the trials of a large number of the brothers from the Group had begun.These martyrdom operations that the group is executing will not stop, God willing. It is for the purpose of repelling the injustice of the apostate government and supporting the jihad of our Muslim brothers in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, the Hijaz, and in other Muslim countries ruled by infidels and apostates.
6. On May 26, 2005, the US State Department issued the following statement: "The Department of State on May 25 announced the designation of the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG) as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224. This designation blocks all property, and interests in property, of the organization that are in the United States, or come within the United States, or the control of U. S. persons. The Secretary of State took this action in consultation with the Attorney General, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Department of Homeland Security. The Islamic Jihad Group, active in Central Asia, broke away from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization that is listed by the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee. On July 30, 2004,the Islamic Jihad Group conducted coordinated bombing attacks in Tashkent against the U.S. and Israeli Embassies, and the office of the Uzbek Prosecutor General, killing at least two people and wounding nine. The Islamic Jihad Group claimed responsibility for these attacks and indicated that future attacks are planned. The Islamic Jihad Group continues to target Americans and U.S. facilities overseas and is a dangerous threat to U.S. interests. After an explosion at a safehouse in Bukharo, Uzbekistan, IJG suicide bombers attacked a popular bazaar and other locations in Tashkent in March and April 2004, resulting in the deaths of more than a dozen police officers and innocent bystanders and dozens of injuries. The attackers in the March and April 2004 attacks, some of whom were female suicide bombers, targeted the local government offices of the Uzbekistani and Bukharo police, killing approximately 47 people, including 33 terrorists. These attacks marked the first use of female suicide bombers in Central Asia. Those arrested in connection with the attacks in Bukharo have testified to the close ties between the IJG leaders and Usama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. Kazakhstani authorities have declared that IJG members were taught by al-Qaida instructors to handle explosives and to organize intelligence work and subversive activities. Kazakhstan has arrested several IJG members and put them on trial."
7. In October, 2005, the British Government declared it as a terrorist organisation despite strong opposition from human rights groups, which alleged that the Uzbek Government was projecting political dissidents opposed to it as pro-Al Qaeda terrorists.
8.The IJG, which was formed in 2002 to oppose the co-operation extended by the Government of Islam Karimov to the US in its operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, projects the US and Israel as the main enemies of Islam and all Muslim countries co-operating with the US as apostates, which need to be opposed. The stated political objective of the IMU is to rid the Central Asian Republics (CAR) and the Xinjiang region of China of the lingering influence of Communism and make them part of an Islamic Caliphate. The IJG, which also has the over-all objective of a global Islamic Caliphate, projects itself as a global jihadi organisation and not a basically Uzbek organisation. It says that since Islam does not recognise nationalities or ethnicities, any Muslim can become its member irrespective of where he or she lives. Since it describes the US and Israel as its principal enemies, it welcomes volunteers from countries where the US and Israel have a large presence.
9. In an interview on May 31, 2007, Ebu Yahya Muhammed Fatih, who describes himself as the Commander of the Islamic Jihad Union, stated as follows:
"After the fall of the Afganistan Islamic Administration,we who shared the same opinions came together and decided to organize groups which will conduct jihad operations against the infidel constitution of cruel Karimov in Uzbekistan. The sole aim of all the emigrant-mujahedeen brothers was to find war-like solutions against the infidel constitution of cruel Karimov. For this aim our Union was established in 2002.
"Our Union's aim is, under the flag of justice and Islam Dominancy, to save our Mslim brothers who have been suffering from the cruelty of pre-Soviet period and Uzbekistan, and to take them out of the swamp of cruelty an infidelity, as well as to help other Mslim brothers all around the world as per God and his Prophet's orders.
"Members of our Union are not members of a specific tribe or a nation. As there is no nationalism and tribalism in Islam, our Union is formed of the believers from all over the world and multi-national emigrants travelling to praise the religion.
"Today we proceed according to our targeted goals with all our means. Muslim youth in the republics of former Soviet Union who found the path of Allah and are ready to fight for their religion have been trained in various fields in the training facilities of the Union. One of the armed forces of the Union is active in Afghanistan. Besides, we have been in contact and also been working on our common targets together with Caucasian mujahedeens. We have also been working together on plans and aims against the infidel regime of Uzbekistan which is one of our major targets."
10. In April, 2007, the US Embassy in Berlin announced that it was strengthening security at US facilities in Germany in response to what it described as an increased threat of terrorism. Mr. August Hanning, a former head of Germanys foreign intelligence agency known as the Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND), who is now Deputy Interior Minister, said in an interview that 14 German Islamists had gone to Pakistan for training. He also said that in recent months the Pakistani authorities had detained at least seven German Islamists who could have been involved in planning attacks.
11. On September 5, 2007, German Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms announced the arrest of three persons and the recovery from them of 700 kilos of chemicals capable of being converted into explosives. German media reports said that they were planning attacks against a US military base in Ramstein and the Frankfurt airport. Two of the arrested persons have been described as white converts to Islam, both
German nationals, and the third as of Turkish origin. The Federal Prosecutor named the three persons aged 22,28 and 29 as belonging to the German cell of the Islamic Jihad Union. It has been reported that seven more members of the cell are still at large.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
GILGIT-BALTISTAN: THE AQ KHAN PROLIFERATION HIGHWAY---PART V
B.RAMAN
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan carried out a special study of the situation in the NA in 1993. The results of this study were published in its monthly newsletter for January,1994. The study said inter alia:
"The Government of Pakistan governs the NA through the Kashmir and Northern Areas Division (KANA). Authority behind KANA has remained vague. The executive head is the Chief Commissioner appointed by KANA and only answerable to it. The place is totally under bureaucratic rule. There is no industry in NA."
" The Judicial Commissioner does not have any writ jurisdiction, and, as the people of the NA do not have any fundamental rights, the Judicial Commissioner does not have any jurisdiction to enforce them."
"The Judicial Commissioner has no say in the appointments and transfers of subordinate court judges, which are done by the KANA Division."
" The people of the NA have no say in what laws should govern them. The KANA Division exercises the powers of the provincial Government for the NA and by notification extends laws of Pakistan and such amendments as it thinks fit to the NA. Entrusting such absolute legislative powers to a Government functionary is not without its share of hardships."
"By a notification, Order 39 of the Civil Procedure Code was amended taking away the powers of the civil courts to grant temporary injunctions against the Government, thus making most of the cases against the Government meaningless. By another notification, the Speedy Trials Courts Act,1992, was made applicable to the NA, with the amendment that in appeal from the trial court, any differences of opinion between the two Judges of the Appellate Court will be settled by the Chairman of the court. Such arbitrary application of law is particularly unfair because not only do the people have no forum to protest against or amed these laws, but also because the courts have no writ jurisdiction nor the people any fundamental rights. Thus, such laws cannot be tested for their legality and reasonableness for violation of fundamental rights."
"The Northern Areas Council is headed by the Minister of KANA and meets whenever called by the Minister. The members cannot convene a meeting. The orders require that a meeting of the Council should be called every two and a half months, but, in practice, the Minister at times does not convene one for months. The Council, in any case, has no power. It cannot form a government, cannot legislate and has no say in the administration. It cannot suggest development schemes. The main function of the Councillors, as a cynic said, is receiving dignitaries from Pakistan."
" The police in the NA has no prosecution or crime branch nor a forensic laboratory. No newspaper is published within the NA. There are a few local language weeklies and monthlies, but they are printed elsewhere."
" The Sunni and Shia communities in Gilgit had lived harmoniously for centuries. It is not easy to say when the trouble started, but it reached its climax in the killings of 1988. Some people suspect that the administration started it up after the political upheaval in Pakistan of 1970 and 1971 to take the minds of the people off political issues. It has even given rise to the occasional rumour that the Government itself pays the ulema to start the clashes. With very low literacy, extreme poverty and no organised political activity, it is not surprising that the ulema had acquired such a strong hold over the people. No judicial enquiry has been held into the clashes of 1992 and no compensation paid to the heirs of the persons killed or for properties damaged."
2. In its summing-up, the study stated as follows:
The people of the NA have no say in who governs them.
The democratic rights of the people have been tied to a cause.
A Pakistani civil servant legislates for the NA and influences all the executive and judicial acts.
Sometimes arbitrary laws are applied, while important ones are not extended, according to convenience.
The NA Council, the highest elective body in the NA, has no legislative powers at all.
The Judicial Commissioner and the subordinate courts are not free.
The people have no fundamental rights whatsoever.
Executive acts, however arbitrary, cannot be judicially reviewed.
The Election Commissioner is not independent and is vulnerable to pressures.
The administration has failed to control sectarian clashes due to mismanagement and acquiescence to pressures. (17-9-09)
To be continued
( 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 )
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan carried out a special study of the situation in the NA in 1993. The results of this study were published in its monthly newsletter for January,1994. The study said inter alia:
"The Government of Pakistan governs the NA through the Kashmir and Northern Areas Division (KANA). Authority behind KANA has remained vague. The executive head is the Chief Commissioner appointed by KANA and only answerable to it. The place is totally under bureaucratic rule. There is no industry in NA."
" The Judicial Commissioner does not have any writ jurisdiction, and, as the people of the NA do not have any fundamental rights, the Judicial Commissioner does not have any jurisdiction to enforce them."
"The Judicial Commissioner has no say in the appointments and transfers of subordinate court judges, which are done by the KANA Division."
" The people of the NA have no say in what laws should govern them. The KANA Division exercises the powers of the provincial Government for the NA and by notification extends laws of Pakistan and such amendments as it thinks fit to the NA. Entrusting such absolute legislative powers to a Government functionary is not without its share of hardships."
"By a notification, Order 39 of the Civil Procedure Code was amended taking away the powers of the civil courts to grant temporary injunctions against the Government, thus making most of the cases against the Government meaningless. By another notification, the Speedy Trials Courts Act,1992, was made applicable to the NA, with the amendment that in appeal from the trial court, any differences of opinion between the two Judges of the Appellate Court will be settled by the Chairman of the court. Such arbitrary application of law is particularly unfair because not only do the people have no forum to protest against or amed these laws, but also because the courts have no writ jurisdiction nor the people any fundamental rights. Thus, such laws cannot be tested for their legality and reasonableness for violation of fundamental rights."
"The Northern Areas Council is headed by the Minister of KANA and meets whenever called by the Minister. The members cannot convene a meeting. The orders require that a meeting of the Council should be called every two and a half months, but, in practice, the Minister at times does not convene one for months. The Council, in any case, has no power. It cannot form a government, cannot legislate and has no say in the administration. It cannot suggest development schemes. The main function of the Councillors, as a cynic said, is receiving dignitaries from Pakistan."
" The police in the NA has no prosecution or crime branch nor a forensic laboratory. No newspaper is published within the NA. There are a few local language weeklies and monthlies, but they are printed elsewhere."
" The Sunni and Shia communities in Gilgit had lived harmoniously for centuries. It is not easy to say when the trouble started, but it reached its climax in the killings of 1988. Some people suspect that the administration started it up after the political upheaval in Pakistan of 1970 and 1971 to take the minds of the people off political issues. It has even given rise to the occasional rumour that the Government itself pays the ulema to start the clashes. With very low literacy, extreme poverty and no organised political activity, it is not surprising that the ulema had acquired such a strong hold over the people. No judicial enquiry has been held into the clashes of 1992 and no compensation paid to the heirs of the persons killed or for properties damaged."
2. In its summing-up, the study stated as follows:
The people of the NA have no say in who governs them.
The democratic rights of the people have been tied to a cause.
A Pakistani civil servant legislates for the NA and influences all the executive and judicial acts.
Sometimes arbitrary laws are applied, while important ones are not extended, according to convenience.
The NA Council, the highest elective body in the NA, has no legislative powers at all.
The Judicial Commissioner and the subordinate courts are not free.
The people have no fundamental rights whatsoever.
Executive acts, however arbitrary, cannot be judicially reviewed.
The Election Commissioner is not independent and is vulnerable to pressures.
The administration has failed to control sectarian clashes due to mismanagement and acquiescence to pressures. (17-9-09)
To be continued
( 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 )
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