CHINA SMILES AT INDIA, US

B.RAMAN

During the last one month or so, Chinese policy-makers have suffered two diplomatic set-backs-----one at the hands of India and the other at the hands of the US.

2. The diplomatic set-back at the hands of India relates to the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, which the Chinese claim as their territory and refer to as Southern Tibet.For over 10 weeks, the Chinese Communist Party controlled media and spokespersons of the Chinese Foreign Office have maintained a high-profile campaign against the visit. The purpose of the campaign was to exercise pressure on the Government of India not to allow His Holiness to go to Arunachal Pradesh. The Government of India has declined to intervene in the matter and maintained the position that as a Buddhist leader, His Holiness was free to go anywhere in India so long as he does not indulge in any activities of a political nature. While Beijing tried to project the visit as part of His Holiness' political machinations to split Tibet from China, New Delhi politely, but firmly stuck to its stand that the visit was purely a spiritual one in his capacity as a highly venetrated leader of the Buddhists.

3.Now that China's high-profile media and diplomatic campaign against the visit has failed to produce results, the question is what next. Will the visit have a negative impact on Sino-Indian relations? Will it add to Sino-Indian cross-border tensions? Will China further step up the diplomatic and media pressure on India as it sought to do against France and some other European Union countries last year to pre-empt a movement for the boycott of the Beijing Olympics?

4.It will take time for clear-cut answers to these questions to emerge, but there are already some indicators to show that Beijing is keen not to allow its set-back to affect its over-all relationship with India. After a long time, the Party-owned "People's Daily" has come out on November 4,2009, with an unsigned article on Sino-Indian relations, which is refreshingly positive. The text of the article is annexed.

5. After reviewing the over-all relations, the article says: " Generally speaking, Sino-Indian relations witnessed smooth development over the past decades, but some pending issues and unnecessary misunderstanding have plagued bilateral ties. It is of vital importance to combat various pressures and challenges through collaboration. Media from both countries should play a constructive role, creating a healthy environment to facilitate public opinion. China and India, the two neighbors with the world's largest population, are forging ahead towards peace and development, which is the common wish of both leaders and people."

6.The diplomatic set-back at the hands of the US related to the Chinese demand that the Barack Obama Administration should hand over to China six Uighur detenus in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre against whom no evidence warranting their prosecution on terrorism-related charges could be found. The Chinese contended that these Uiighurs belonged to the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan, which is an associate of Al Qaeda. The Obama Administration politely turned down the Chinese demand and sent the Uighurs away to the Pacific island nation of Palau. It has stuck to the policy of the Bush Administration of not handing over to China Uighur suspects detained in Afghanistan on suspicion of their involvement with Al Qaeda----- a suspicion which could not be ultimately proved. Human rights and Congressional circles in the US have been strongly opposed to these Uighurs being handed over to China lest they be executed by the Chinese as terrorists.

7. On November 6,2009, the Government-controlled Xinhua news agency disseminated a strongly-worded criticism of the US action in which the US was accused of connivance with the Uighur terrorists and of double standards in counter-terrorism, but this commentary seems to be a purely proforma expression of Chinese unhappiness over the US action, which will not affect Sino-American ties.

8. On the eve of the forthcoming visit of President Obama to China, to which both countries attach considerable importance, the Chinese media and Government spokesmen continue to highlight the positive in the bilateral relations without overplaying the negative. This is evident from an article on Sino-American relations carried by the "People's Daily" on November 2,2009. It has been written by Wang Xinjun, an associate researcher of war theory and strategy at China's Academy of Military Sciences.

9. This article, which is a review of the recent visit of Xu Caihou, Vice-Chairman of China's Central Military Commission, to the US, has expressed satisfaction over the developing military-military ties with the US and says:" In the post-cold war era, China has put an end to its ideological restrictions and striven to develop its cooperative ties with countries the world over on the basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit; China has earnestly learned from all advanced things from the U.S. with an open approach instead of following the beaten track of taking the nation as its "sworn foe". Objectively speaking, the achievements China has so far attained contain much sophisticated experience and technologies it has imported from the U.S. In face of the current world beset with crises, any single, individual force is inadequate to cope with crisis. China and the U.S. are important countries in the world, and have unshakable responsibilities for global peace and security. Both nations should deem it their own duty or responsibility for the promotion of permanent peace and security for humanity; both should discard the cold war mentality, act in line with new principles of equality, respect and cooperation, seek the common ground while reserving their differences, reduce suspicion, and increase the mutual confidence, so as to build up a Sino-U.S. strategic partnership in the 21st century and work together to meet stark challenges facing the humanity. This could bring happiness to their people and to the people around worldwide as well."

10. These articles relating to India and the US bring out the dual Chinese policy of tactical firmness and strategic flexibility. This consists of tactical assertion of what they look upon as China's core interests while not allowing such assertions to affect their strategic relationships with the two countries. (8-11-09)

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

ANNEXURE

China, India expected to forge common prosperity and development

"People's Daily" commentary of November 4, 2009

During the talks in the resort city of Hua Hin, Thailand, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh agreed that the two countries should forge a strategic partnership to maintain regional peace and stability, achieve the goal of common development and harmonious prosperity. On the disputed border issues, the two sides agreed to narrow the differences through dialogue on the political principles already reached, and jointly work out a solution that goes in line with the interests of both sides. The two sides also need to ensure peace and create a friendly environment in border areas, as well as enhance cooperation and bilateral ties in various aspects.

The consensus between Premier Wen and Indian PM Singh is just like a gentle breeze, clearing up all the suspicion and misunderstanding that have hindered bilateral relations over the past decades. Sino-Indian relations are steadily on the rise despite the ups and downs over the past decades. Leaders from both countries reached agreement that China and India would never regard each other as a threat, which served as a political foundation for the development of bilateral ties from strategic perspective.

Economic and trade cooperation between China and India witnessed robust growth, with bilateral trade volume standing at 51.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2008. India is among China's top ten largest trading partners, and China is India's largest trading partner. Two-way investment also experienced fast growth.

In military cooperation, the military from both countries conducted exchange visits and maintained regular communications, and signed memorandum of understanding on defense exchange and cooperation, putting forward the idea of regular, long-term and large-scale cooperation in terms of training, anti-terrorism as well as joint research-and-rescue operations.

The two Asian neighbors also expanded cooperation in the fields of social exchange, culture and education. In international affairs, China and India have made unrelenting efforts in tackling global economic downturn, climate change, energy security, food security, anti-piracy and anti-terrorism operations.

Generally speaking, Sino-Indian relations witnessed smooth development over the past decades, but some pending issues and unnecessary misunderstanding have plagued bilateral ties. It is of vital importance to combat various pressures and challenges through collaboration. Media from both countries should play a constructive role, creating a healthy environment to facilitate public opinion.

China and India, the two neighbors with the world's largest population, are forging ahead towards peace and development, which is the common wish of both leaders and people.

THE FORT HOOD INCIDENT IN THE US

B.RAMAN

The dilemma and the problems posed by the existence of pockets of qualms of conscience and divided loyalties in the Muslim communities of the non-Muslim world has been tragically illustrated by an incident in a US military base in Fort Hood, Texas, on November 6,2009.Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist of the US Army born to Palestinian migrants to the US from Jordan, suddenly went on a killing spree killing 13 soldiers with a handgun before he was injured and overpowered. He is presently under interrogation.

2.It has been reported that the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been sought in the investigation to rule out any terrorist conspiracy behind the incident. The indications till now are that it was the act of a lone Muslim with a mind troubled by conflicting loyalties to the US and Islam and angered by his own allegedly negative experiences as a Muslim in the US as well as in the Army and by the US involvement in the campaign against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is constantly and mischievously projected by Al Qaeda and its affiliates as a campaign against Islam. Media reports claim that over a period of time this officer, with a 20 year record of service in the Army, had been expressing ideas of solidarity with his fellow-religionists, who had taken to arms against the US. He had also come to notice for allegedly speaking with some understanding of what he saw as the compulsions which drove some Muslims to take to suicide terrorism.

3.This was not the first incident of its kind in the US Armed Forces since 9/11, but this was the most dramatic. There were two previous incidents, which were equally troubling, but less dramatic.Just before the US troops entered Iraq in March,2003, Sergeant Hasan Akbar of the US Army based in Kuwait threw hand-grenades and opened fire into a tent in which US military personnel were sleeping. Two officers were killed.There was another incident in which two soldiers were killed outside a recruitment centre in Little Rock, Arkansas.

4. The fact that such incidents have till now been few and far between show that the US military authorities are sensitive to the pressures that are likely to be faced by the Muslim soldiers of their Armed Forces arising from the propaganda that the US military is waging a campaign against Islam and not against Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other terrorist groups and that efforts are being made to remove wrong impressions of the campaign against terrorism in the minds of the Muslim soldiers, whose number in the US Armed Forces is estimated at around 3600.

5.The Fort Hood incident shows that despite this, troubled minds continue to exist among the Muslim soldiers. There has been an obvious failure of the human element in that despite past reports of the negative thinking and ideas of Major Hasan timely action was not taken to facilitate his exit from the Army in response to his reported desire to leave the Army.

6. Those opposed to the US role in Iraq and Afghanistan would use the Fort Hood incident as one more reason why the US should quit Iraq and Afghanistan. Isolated incidents such as this should not be allowed to influence policy decisions of strategic significance.

7. As of now, there is no evidence that a terrorist conspiracy might have been behind the incident. But it is likely that Al Qaeda and its affiliates would exploit it to spread disaffection and anger among the Muslim soldiers just as in the 1980s, the Afghan Mujahideen spread disaffection and anger among the Muslim soldiers from Chechnya, Dagestan and Central Asia serving in the Soviet Army. They went on duty to Afghanistan as convinced communists, but returned as born-again and wahabised Muslims. They constituted the initial core of the terrorist movements in Chechnya, Dagestan and the present-day Central Asian Republics. A similar possibility in the US has to be guarded against. ( 7-11-09 )

( 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 )

MUMBAI 26/11 : A DAY OF INFAMY

May like to see http://news.rediff.com/special/2009/nov/05/local-involvement-in-2611-needs-attention-says-b-raman.htm

26/11 : HEIGHTENED ALERT

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO.572

B.RAMAN

As the first anniversary of the 26/11 terrorist strike by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) in Mumbai approaches, there is a heightened alert by the secuity agencies to prevent any major terrorist strike coinciding with the anniversary by the LET itself or by other Pakistani and/or Indian organisations such as the Indian Mujahideen (IM) or the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) . The terrorists would be calculating that a successful strike around the anniversary would damage the credibility of the Indian State in the eyes of its own people and the international community and strengthen their support base.

2. While it is primarily the responsibility of the State's security agencies to thwart in time any fresh conspiracy by the terrorists, the public will have a useful role to play by sharing with the agencies any information or suspicious activity coming to its notice. The state agencies should create an awareness of the kind of role the public can play and as to how to convey any information or suspicions to the State agencies. Successful counter-terrorism depends on effective State-public co-operation.

3. We have not had any terrorist strike by the IM and SIMI for 14 months now and by the LET and other Pakistani organisations in the Indian territory outside Jammu & Kashmir for almost 12 months now. The credit for this should go to our intelligence and physical security agencies and the police. It is not that fresh conspiracies were not being hatched in Indian and Pakistani territories. They were, but these were thwarted by the success of the intelligence agencies and the police in identifying and neutralising the cells which might have played a role in the execution of these conspiracies.

4.The recent arrests of two persons resident in Chicago by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on a charge of trying to assist the LET and Ilyas Kashmiri, a former officer of Pakistan's Special Services Group (SSG), who has emerged as another Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), in carrying out a terrorist strike in Denmark and a repeat of 26/11 in India show that the conspiracies are not confined to the sub-continent. They extend to Europe and North America where there is a large diaspora of migrants from Pakistan and the rest of the Islamic world and some local converts to Islam, who are prepared to assist Al Qaeda, the LET and their associates in carrying out their plans.

5.Even in 2003, the LET had wanted to mount a terrorist strike in India by using recruits in the US, but its plans were detected and foiled in time by the FBI. India has reasons to be thankful to the US agencies for their alertness and for their co-operation in preventing fresh strikes. Strengthened, active and discreet Indo-US co-operation in counter-terrorism has been a significant post-26/11 feature. The US may be still reluctant to act against the Government of Pakistan for continuing to use terrorism against India, but it has given indications of its determination to help India in preventing a repeat of 26/11 in whatever way it can. The strong technical capability of the US agencies and the ground capability of the Indian agencies for human intelligence should help in the efforts to prevent a repeat of 26/11.

6.In counter-terrorism, it is important to avoid over-confidence and self-complacency. Any planning should factor into it the possibility that despite all the precautions and enhanced vigilance by the intelligence agencies, some terrorist conspiracies may still escape detection by the intelligence agencies. As the post 9/11 cliches goes, in counter-terrorism the agencies know what they know, but they don't know what they don't know.

7. While the agencies will be making every effort to reduce the zone of "what they don't know", it will not be possible to eliminate it altogethrer. That is where the importance of vulnerability perceptions and reviews comes in. Vulnerability perceptions help in denying success to the terrorists even if one doesn't detect in time terrorist conspiracies. Capacity-building, physical security and alertness play an important role in this. The foiled attacks on the Indian Parliament House in December,2001, and on Ahmedabad's Akshardam temple in September 2002 are good examples of how success can be denied to terrorists through effective physical security based on vulnerability perceptions.

8. Physical security reviews based on vulnerability perceptions have to be an on-going process. Vulnerability identification and follow-up action to plug gaps in physical security become a difficult exercise in India because of its large size and the hundreds of potentially soft targets available in our metro cities. Despite this, a constantly updated vulnerability map is a must to prevent a repeat of 26/11.

9.A continuous modus operandi (MO) review is as important as a vulnerability review. The terrorists oprerating in the Af-Pak region keep changing the MO to make their terrorist strikes more lethal and to take the security agencies by surprise. The MO used by them after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 is a mix of the old and the new----use of hand-held weapons and improvised explosive devices, commando-style attacks, simultaneous or orchestrated attacks of a complex nature on multiple targets, suicidal (fedayeen) and suicide attacks and so on. The training and re-training of our security agencies and police must enable them to meet the changing MO of the terrorists.

10. IEDs did not play as important a role in the 26/11 terrorist strikes as they did in the July,2006, terrorist attacks on Mumbai suburban trains.Of course, the IM and the SIMI relied largely on IEDs, but the Pakistani associates of Al Qaeda were using more and more complex commando-style attacks with hand-held weapons, the most spectacular of which were the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore earlier this year and the recent attack on the General Headquarters of the Pakistan Army at Rawalpindi. Some of the terrorist attacks in the Af-Pak region after the GHQ attack show that the terrorists are shifting once again to vehicular bombs involving large quantities of explosives. These attacks show the continuing availability of large quantities of explosives to the terrorists operating in the sub-continent.

11.While the Indian and US security agencies have a welcome record of increasing successes in detecting and neutralising terrorist cells before they can go into action, they have had little success in detecting and neutralising potential sources of supply of explosive material. This is a weak point in our counter-terrorism capability which needs the individual and joint attention of the Indian and US agencies.

12. Pre-conceived ideas and facile assumptions have no place in counter-terrorism such as the following---- the next attack may also come from the sea, the potential targets mentioned by terrorists under interrogation such as the National Defence College reportedly mentioned by the two Chicago suspects may be the real targets etc. Al Qaeda, the LET and their associates train their recruits and volunteers in ways of misleading the security agencies and the police when caught.

13.These are some of the points needing attention as we strengthen our alertness on the eve of the 26/11 anniversary. It is important for the Government to set in place a scenario-anticipation group to evaluate continuously the likely scenarios to improve our preparedness. ( 5-11-09)

( 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 )

MUMBAI 26/11: A DAY OF INFAMY

May like to see http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/nov/02/b-raman-takes-a-look-at-2611.htm

HILLARY CLINTON'S PLAIN-SPEAKING IN PAKISTAN

B.RAMAN

Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, needs to be complimented for her plain-speaking on Pakistani inaction againat Al Qaeda during the course of a public interaction in Lahore during her visit to Pakistan from October 28 to 30,2009.

2. She expressed in an unmistakable manner US skepticism over the Pakistani sincerity in hunting for the remnants of Al Qaeda which have taken shelter in Pakistani territory. In the past, US officials refrained from giving public expression to this skepticism lest it affect whatever co-operation Pakistan was extending to the US in the search for Al Qaeda remnants.

3.The publicly-expressed US exasperation with Pakistan has to be seen in the light of the fact that after the exit of Pervez Musharraf from office as the President last year, even the co-operation which Pakistan was extending to the US in its search for Al Qaeda leaders seems to have stopped. The Musharraf Government did help the US in the arrest of some important members of Al Qaeda such as Abu Zubaidah, Ramzi Binalshibh,Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Abu-Faraj al-Libi and others. Compared to that, since the present elected Government came to office last year, there has been hardly any capture of any notable remnant of Al Qaeda by the Pakistani Security Forces.

4.Of course, the Government of President Asif Ali Zardari has closed its eyes to the increasing strikes by US drones against terrorist hide-outs in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) while making pro forma protests over them in public, but these strikes are increasingly targeted against elements of the Pakistani Taliban, which pose a threat to the Pakistani Army. The Pakistani Army has reasons to be grateful to the US for these strikes which help it in its operations against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

5. While benefiting from the US action, the present Pakistani Government has failed to reciprocate by extending to the US even the limited co-operation against Al Qaeda that it was getting from the Musharraf Government. Expectations that the coming into office of an elected civilian Government would improve the co-operation against Al Qaeda have been belied so far.

6. The Government of President Barack Obama has been even more generous to the Islamabad Government than the previous Bush Administration in respect of civilian and military assistance, but such assistance has not motivated the Pakistani authorities to change their policy of inaction against Al Qaeda and collusion with the Afghan Taliban and the anti-India jihadi terrorist organisations such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET).

7. The Pakistani leaders-----political and military---- and large sections of its civil society think that by virtue of its strategic location Pakistan has a moral right to expect and receive such assistance from the US without any quid pro quo from its side. Unless this Pakistani impression that its strategic location and nuclear capability give it a hold over US policy-making is removed from their mind, the US is unlikely to make any progress against the Afghan Taliban and against Al Qaeda in Pakistan.The bloated impression in the minds of Pakistani leaders that Pakistan is indispensable to US interests in the region has to be removed.

8.Even if one understands the US reluctance under the previous Bush Administration as well as under the Obama Administration to take punitive action against Pakistan, one fails to understand the continuing US propensity to pamper Pakistan with more and more assistance in the fond hope that such pampering could finally make Pakistan act sincerely against Al Qaeda and other terrorists. Hillary Clinton's public expression of the US exasperation has not created any concerns in Pakistani policy-making circles because they are confident that the US will not ultimately act against Pakistan.

9.Plain-speaking alone will not do.The time has come for plain action which will carry the unmistakable message to the Pakistani leaders that it is not as indispensable as they seem to think it is. ( 1-11-09)

( 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 )

LET REVIVES 2003 PLAN TO USE US AS LAUNCHING PAD FOR TERRORISM IN INDIA

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.572

B.RAMAN

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the US has arrested and produced before a court in Chicago two local Muslim residents on a charge of conspiring with three others in Pakistan to carry out a Mumbai 26/11 style terrorist strike in Copenhagen and another strike in India.

2. The two arrested persons are David Coleman Headley ( aged 49 ) also known as Daood Gilani, an American citizen, who is a white convert to Islam, and Tahawar Hussain Rana (aged 48), a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin, who has been running an immigration services office in Chicago with branches in Toronto and New York. He has also been running a company which was supplying meat to Muslims.

3. Headley was arrested on October 3,2009, and produced before the court on October 11.His arrest was kept a secret with the permission of the court for eight days to facilitate further investigation. The FBI arrested him at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport as he was about to board a flight to Philadelphia for an onward trip to Denmark. According to the FBI, he was allegedly carrying a copy of a newspaper (not specified), a street guide for Copenhagen, a list of phone numbers and a computer memory stick with ten short video recordings of the offices of a Danish newspaper, which had published in 2005, a cartoon depicting the Holy Prophet, and the entrance to a military barracks in Copenhagen.

4.It was reported by the local media that Headley had "waived his rights" and made voluntary statements to the FBI about his connection to Pakistani terror groups.The authorities said the plot against the Danish newspaper, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, was referred to as the "Mickey Mouse Project" in communications between Headley and his contact in Pakistan. Headley had already traveled to Copenhagen in January and visited two different offices of the newspaper, the FBI said. Rana had allegedly reservations to fly to Copenhagen on Oct0ber 29. He was arrested on October 18 and produced before the court the next day

5.During his visit to Denmark in January last, Headley allegedly flew to Pakistan and met with his contact there, according to the FBI's affidavit filed with the court. The texts of the two affidavits filed by the FBI against the two arrested persons are available at http://abcnews.go.com/images/Blotter/Headley%20Complaint.pdf and http://abcnews.go.com/images/Blotter/Rana%20Complaint2.pdf .

6. The FBI authorities have identified the contact as Ilyas Kashmiri, a former Commando of the Special Services Group(SSG) of Pakistan, who gravitated to the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) of Pakistan and subsequently to the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). He was one of the suspects in Al Qaeda-inspired plots to kill Pervez Musharraf in December,2003, and other terrorist strikes.He was recently reported to have been killed in a US drone strike in South Waziristan in September, but this was subsequently reported to have been incorrect. He himself contacted some Pakistani journalists to prove that he was still alive. According to the FBI's affidavit, Headley was introduced to Ilyas Kashmiri by an individual referred to as Individual A during a visit to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in July-August 2008. A persual of the two FBI affidavits would indicate that Headley's subsequent communications with Ilyas Kashmiri were through this individual and not direct.

7.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.

8. Ilyas Kashmiri was among those arrested by the Pakistani authorities in January,2004, in connection with the investigation into the two unsuccessful 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.

9. 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."

10. 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).

11.According to the FBI affidavit, "in July and August 2009, Headley exchanged a series of e-mails with LeT Member A, including an exchange in which Headley asked if the Denmark project was on hold, and whether a visit to India that LeT Member A had asked him to undertake was for the purpose of surveilling targets for a new terrorist attack.These e-mails reflect that LeT Member A was placing a higher priority on using Headley to assist in planning a new attack in India than on completing the planned attack in Denmark."

12.Although the affidavit named Ilyas Kashmiri, it did not identify two other Pakistan-based members involved in the plot, referring to them merely as LeT member A and Individual A. It said the LeT member A “has substantial influence and responsibility within the organization” and his “identity is known to the government.”

13. It is not clear what the FBI affidavit meant by saying that the LET member's identity is known to the Government. Which Government---the Government of Pakistan? If so, what action has been taken by the FBI to have him picked up by the Pakistani authorities and handed over to the FBI for interrogation and further investigation? The FBI has been silent on this till now.

14. The idea of using the US territory as a launcing pad for terrorist attacks in India had figured in the plans of the LET in 2003.On June 27,2003, the FBI had charged seven men in the Washington area and an eighth in Philadelphia with stockpiling weapons and conspiring to wage "jihad" against India in support of a terrorist group in Kashmir. The FBI's charge-sheet against them described them as members of the LET. It also said that three others involved in the case were absconding and were believed to be in Saudi Arabia.

15. Although the FBI officials said that there was no evidence of a plot against the US, the members of the group had pledged support for pro-Muslim violence overseas, hoarded high-powered rifles and received military training in Pakistan. Nine of the 11 accused were American citizens, and three had served in the US armed forces for some time in the past. The charge-sheet said that seven members of the group had travelled to Pakistan in the last several years, and some received military training in small arms, machine guns, grenade launchers and other weaponry at a camp in northeast Pakistan connected to the LET.

16. The 41-count indictment charged the 11 accused with conspiracy, firearms violations and plotting against a friendly nation — namely, India. US officials connected with the investigation were quoted by the media as saying that there was no evidence that the accused were considering an attack within the United States or had ties to Al Qaeda.

17. However, the officials charged that the men conspired to help Muslims abroad in violent jihad not only in India, but also in Chechnya, the Philippines and other countries. The men, the indictment said, obtained AK-47s and other high-powered weaponry and practised small-unit military tactics in Virginia.

18. The indictment charged that the accused pledged their willingness to die as martyrs in support of the Muslim cause and gathered in private homes and at an Islamic center in suburban Washington to hear lectures "on the righteousness of jihad" in Kashmir, Chechnya and elsewhere. They also watched videotapes showing Muslim fighters engaged in jihad. They had also organised a function to celebrate the crashing of the space shuttle Columbia. One of the astronauts killed in the crash was of Indian origin. A message read out on the occasion had described the USA "as the greatest enemy of the Muslims."

19. According to the indictment, one of the accused Masoud Ahmed Khan, a Maryland resident, had a document titled "The Terrorist's Handbook," with instructions on how to manufacture and use explosives and chemicals as weapons, as well as a photograph of F.B.I. headquarters in Washington.

20. At least two of the 11 accused were described as of Pakistani origin. One of them, Mohammed Aatique, 30, was a work (H-1) visa holder while Khawja Mahmood Hasan, 27, was a naturalized US citizen born in Pakistan. But at least one more suspect, Masoud Ahmad Khan, 31, also had a Pakistani sounding name although his nationality was not disclosed. The other accused were Randall Todd Royer, 30; Ibrahim Ahmed al-Hamdi, a Yemeni national and non-resident alien; Yong Ki Kwon, 27, a naturalized US citizen born in Korea; Seifullah Chapman, 30; Hammad Abdur-Raheem, 35; Donald Thomas Surratt, 30; Caliph Basha Ibn Abdur-Raheem, 29, and Sabri Benkhala, 28. Chapman, Hasan and Benkhala were stated to be living in Saudi Arabia.

21.Earlier, on June 20, 2003 FBI officials had disclosed that they had arrested in April Iyman Faris, also known as Mohammad Rauf, originally a resident of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), who had migrated to the US in 1994 and was working as a truck driver in Ohio and charged him with having links with Al Qaeda and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, said to be Osama bin Laden's operations chief, who is believed to have co-ordinated the terrorist strikes of September 11, 2001, in the US. Khalid was arrested in the house of a women's wing leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) of Pakistan at Rawalpindi in March, 2003, by the Pakistani authorities and handed over to the FBI.

22. According to FBI officials, as quoted in the US media, Faris had visited Afghanistan and Pakistan a number of times between 2000 and 2002, met Osama bin Laden and worked with Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, in organising and financing jihad causes. After returning to the US from Pakistan in late 2002, officials said, he began examining the Brooklyn Bridge and discussing via coded messages with Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan ways of using blow torches to sever the suspension cables.

23. "The plotting continued through March, as Faris sent coded messages to operatives in Pakistan. One such message said that the "weather is too hot. "FBI officials were quoted as saying that meant that Faris feared the plot was unlikely to succeed---apparently because of security and the bridge's structure-- and should be postponed. He was arrested soon thereafter. Sources in Pakistan described Faris, aged 34, as a Punjabi ex-serviceman settled in POK, before he migrated to the US.

24. The above-mentioned details of LET activities in the US have been covered in my latest book titled "Mumbai--26/11 : A Day of Infamy" released for sale by the Lancer Publishers of New Delhi on October 26,2008 (www.lancerpublishers.com ).

25.The plans of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa , the parent organisation of the LET, to carry out terrorist strikes in foreign territory against those insulting the Holy Prophet came to notice from the following report carried by the Pakistani journal "Ausaf" in its issue dated September 18,2006:"Pakistan's Jamaat-ud-Dawa has issued a Fatwa asking the Muslim community to kill Pope Benedict for his blasphemous statement about Prophet Mohammad. The Jamaat-ud-Dawa has declared death to Pope Benedict and said that in today's world blasphemy of the Holy Koran and the Prophet has become a fashion. The leaders of the Jamaat were speaking at a Martyrs' Islamic Conference in Karachi. Prominent Jamaat leader Hafiz Saifullah Khalid said that in the present circumstances, jehad has become obligatory for each Muslim. Muslims are being declared terrorists and our battle for survival has already started. The Muslim world has rejected the Pope's apology and decided to continue protests and demonstrations in big cities. The Pope's apology is just a drama and no political leader has any power to pardon him. It is part of a crusade initiated by the US in the name of terrorism. Instead of accepting fake apologies, Muslims should realise Europe's enemity towards Islam and Muslim Ummah shou ld prepare itself to defend its faith. Jamaat-ud-Dawa leader Hafiz Abdur Rahman Makki said the West and Europe have started a campaign against the Holy Koran and the Prophet and have abused jehad. We should take appropriate steps to deal with the champions of crusade. It is time for Muslim leaders to open their eyes and understand that the West had never been a friend of the Muslims and will never be so."

26. A perusal of the FBI affidavits indicates the following: Headley was a self-motivated jihadi who volunteered his services for the LET and Ilyas Kashmiri. He seems to have come into contact with the jihadi world in Pakistan by frequenting an Internet chat group of "Abdelians" ---- meaning former cadets of the Punjab Government's military cadet college at Hasan Abdal, 40 kms to the north of Rawalpindi, set up in 1954 to prepare young boys aspiring to join the armed forces. He had established independent contacts with an LET operative and Ilyas Kashmiri. While the LET operative was interested in using him to prepare the ground for a terrorist strike in India, Ilyas Kashmiri was interested in using him for a terrorist strike in Denmark.He had visited Denmark at least once to study the ground conditions there, but there is no indication of his having visited India. The role of Rana seems to have been to provide Headley with a business cover for his travels to Denmark and Pakistan. The two had discussed the operational plans of Headley during a long drive together in the US.

27.Al Qaeda, the LET and their jihadi associates are like homing pigeons. Once they draw up a plan for a terrorist strike, they focus on carrying it out whatever be the difficulties. It came out during the investigation of the November, 2008, terrorist strike in Mumbai that the LET had originally planned to carry it out in September, but postponed it---presumably because security had been tightened up at the hotels which it was planning to attack. It attacked on November 26, when the security had become slack.Its plans for a terrorist strike in India from US territory in 2003 with the help of White and other converts to Islam holding US and other Western passports were foiled in time by the FBI, but it did not give up this idea and has once again tried to give it shape.Despite its failure for a second time, it will continue looking for another opportunity. (30-10-09)

( 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 )