B.RAMAN
Continuing inadequacies in airline security have once again been brought out in the incident relating to the unsuccessful attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, allegedly trained by Al Qaeda in one of its camps in Yemen, to blow up a flight of the North-West Airlines of the US from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25, 2009, as it was approaching to land at Detroit.
2. Subsequent details indicate that after spending some months as a student initially of engineering in London and then of business management in Dubai, Abdulmutallab, who as a youngster had made no secret of his sympathy, if not admiration, for the Taliban, had found his way to Yemen, which has become for more than a year now the motivating and training ground of Al Qaeda and the launching pad for Al Qaeda’s acts of terrorism in other countries of the world, including the US.
3. Links between Yemen and jihadi terrorism are more than two decades old. Yemenis constituted the largest single group of foreign mercenaries who fought against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s. There is greater admiration and loyalty for Osama bin Laden amongst the various tribes of Yemen than in any other Arab country. Bin Laden’s father was of Yemeni origin and had migrated to Saudi Arabia from Yemen. There was considerable focus on Yemen by the US security agencies after the attack by Al Qaeda on the US naval ship USS Cole in Aden in October,2000, which pre-dated the 9/11 attacks in the US homeland. The largest single group of terrorist suspects detained in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba consists of Yemenis or people of Yemeni origin. Some of the terrorists involved in anti-US terrorist incidents in Pakistan had Yemeni blood in them. Some of the conspirators involved in the brutal kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, in Karachi in 2002 were allegedly Yemeni-Balochs----born of mixed Yemeni and Baloch Pashtun parentage. Pakistani sources always claimed that Ramzi Yousef, a principal plotter in the explosion at the New York World Trade Centre in February 1993, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who allegedly orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, were trusted by bin Laden because they had Yemeni blood in them. Normally, he keeps non-Arabs out of Al Qaeda for security reasons. Ramzi Yousef and KSM were exceptions.
4. For these reasons, anyone with links with Yemen, which cannot be satisfactorily explained, has to be carefully screened. Abdulmutallab seems to have obtained his US visa from the US Embassy in London before he left London and proceeded to Yemen. The US Embassy cannot be blamed for issuing the visa since at the time he applied for the visa his links with Yemen were apparently not known.
5. The first person to sound a wake-up call about Abdulmutallab was his father, who is a reputed banker of Nigeria. He reportedly came to know of his son going to Yemen from Dubai and unsuccessfully tried to persuade him to go back to Dubai and resume his studies. When he did not succeed, he is reported to have shared his concerns over his son with the US Embassy in Nigeria and with the Nigerian authorities. The suspicions or concerns of the father were conveyed by the US Embassy to the appropriate authorities in Washington DC, who rightly included his name in a data base of about 550000 names of persons, who have come to adverse notice, but the evidence against whom was not strong enough to deny them a visa or to prevent them from flying to the US.
6. Presumably, US visa officers all over the world have access to this data base so that they could consult it while processing visa applications. Apparently, the US Embassy in London failed to notice and alert Washington that Abdulmutallab, whose name had been brought on this list on a complaint from his father, already held a valid US visa, which he had obtained before going to Yemen.
7. Had this fact been noticed, it might not have led to a cancellation of his visa and the denial of permission to him to visit the US. But it should have led to a close questioning of him at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam by the security authorities of the US and Holland. There was apparently no such questioning. As a result, the security authorities failed to find out that he was travelling to the US by a circuitous route which started in Yemen. It has been reported that he flew from Yemen to Ethiopia, then to Ghana, then to Lagos in Nigeria and from there to Schiphol to catch the flight to Detroit. The circuitous route taken by him should have sounded an alarm bell and led to his being subjected to special security checking at Schiphol, which should have included a detailed interview on his itinerary and on the purpose of his stay in Yemen and a physical search and a search by dogs more intensive than that to which other passengers are subjected.
8. An intriguing question is whether his passport contained the immigration stamp of Yemen, which might have raised eyebrows at Schiphol. If not, did he travel from Yemen to Ethiopia by a different passport to conceal the fact that his travel started from Yemen?
9.A more than normal intensive checking of selected individuals is an important component of physical security. From the details regarding the Nigerian emerging after the incident, it would appear at least in hindsight that his was a fit case for such intensive checking. Why this did not happen? That is one of the questions which needs to be addressed by the enquiries by the US administration as well as by the Congressional Homeland Security Committees ( 28-12-09)
( 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 )
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
AL QAEDA’S ATTEMPT TO BLOW UP PLANE OVER US
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.595
B.RAMAN
From additional details of the attempt on December 25,2009, by a Nigerian member of Al Qaeda to cause an explosion in a plane of the US North-West Airlines flying from Amsterdam to Detroit as it was approaching Detroit to land there, it is evident that it was not a lone wolf terrorist attempt by an angry individual Muslim to give vent to his anger against the US. It was an attempt by Al Qaeda’s command and control to cause a spectacular incident involving mass casualties in the US air space and possibly US territory in order to demonstrate to the US and the rest of the international community that Al Qaeda remains strong and active despite the leadership losses suffered by it in the Af-Pak region during 2009.
2. The target was the US homeland and the audience was the US public, whose confidence in the revamped counter-terrorism set-up of the US might have been shaken had the Nigerian whom Al Qaeda trained and used succeeded in causing an explosion. The credit for the fact that the aircraft and its passengers escaped what could have been a disaster should go to some passengers of the plane and its crew, who acted promptly and with bravery after the terrorist suspect had attempted to cause a detonation, which remained incomplete in the sense that it caused only a fire and not a full-blown explosion. They overpowered the suspect and put out the fire and the flight crew managed to land safely.
3. Since 9/11, Al Qaeda has repeatedly tried to carry out another major terrorist strike against the US in the US Homeland, and had infiltrated many groups and individuals from Pakistan and elsewhere into the US for this purpose. An alert Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) thwarted these attempts. It detected and neutralized the cells, which were seeking to act as the Trojan Horses of Al Qaeda in the US Homeland.
4. Al Qaeda also sought to attack the US by targeting US-bound flights in order to cause mass casualties if not on the ground, at least in the air. Its 2001 attempt to have a Miami-bound plane blown up through shoe-bomber Richard Reid, who had concealed the explosive in his shoes, failed under circumstances similar to those of Detroit due to malfunctioning of the device and the alertness and courage of the passengers and the crew, who intervened to prevent a disaster.
5. In 2006, it again tried to have a number of planes bound for the US from the UK blown up with the help of some persons mainly from the Pakistani diaspora in the UK who were instructed to carry material capable of being converted into explosives into the aircraft by concealing it in soft drink bottles and use it to cause explosions. The alertness of the British intelligence and security services thwarted this attempt while it was still in the planning stage. The would-be perpetrators were arrested and prosecuted before British courts. One of the would-be perpetrators, Rashid Rauf, a British citizen of Pakistani origin from Birmingham, who was based in Pakistan was used by Al Qaeda to orchestrate this conspiracy. He was related by marriage to Maulana Masood Azhar, the Amir of the Jaish-e-Mohammad.
6. He was arrested by the Pakistani authorities, who avoided handing him over to the British for interrogation and prosecution. He escaped from custody under mysterious circumstances and was ultimately reported to have been killed in a US drone strike in Waziristan.
7. Despite the failure of its previous two attempts to blow up US-bound planes with the help of suicide bombers, Al Qaeda has not relented in its determination to strike at the US in its homeland----- either on land or in its air space. This is the chilling message from the Detroit incident. The failure of the attempts involving Richard Reid and the latest Detroit incident on Christmas Day (December 25,2009) were due to circumstances beyond the control of Al Qaeda and not due to the effectiveness of the security measures at the Schiphol airport of Amsterdam or the alertness of the Western intelligence agencies.
8. What should be of concern to governmental and non-governmental security experts all over the world is the fact that Al Qaeda’s conspiracy almost succeeded in that the Nigerian trained by it in Yemen managed to evade the security screening at Schiphol airport and carry concealed on his body, reportedly in his underwear, a high-grade explosive and a syringe with a chemical trigger to detonate it. Even after 9/11, on air flights diabetic patients are allowed to carry syringes and insulin on the basis of a certificate issued by a doctor, but the airport security have no way of verifying the authenticity of the medical certificates carried by a passenger.
9.Citing US security sources, sections of the media, including the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), have identified the explosive material carried on board the aircraft by the suspect as containing PETN, also known as pentaerythritol, a high grade explosive. Did he carry it concealed in his underwear as reported by sections of the media or inside his anus as was reportedly done by an Al Qaeda terrorist trained in Yemen who tried to kill the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister in August this year? The device inside the anus of that terrorist was reportedly triggered off by a remote control device. Did the Nigerian use the syringe to trigger off his device?
10. Even at the time of the attempt to kill the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister, counter-terrorism experts had warned of the implications for airline security of the new method of concealment devised by Al Qaeda. The security set-up of the Saudi Deputy Minister totally failed to detect the presence of the explosive material inside the anus.
11 The Nigerian, chosen by Al Qaeda for its latest attempt, has been identified as 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, allegedly the son of a serving or retired banker of Nigeria, who has reportedly identified his son. It is reported that till 2008 he was studying engineering in a college of London and then disappeared from the UK. He seems to have come into contact with Al Qaeda during this period and undergone training in Yemen.
12.The suspect came from an affluent family of Northern Nigeria which since 2007 has been showing signs of becoming another recruiting ground for Al Qaeda.
13.The Reuters news agency disseminated the following report on May 10,2008: “Al Qaeda Islamist militants have renewed their threat to bomb targets in Nigeria, , a newspaper reported quoting the national police chief. The United States embassy in Nigeria said last September the country was at risk of "terrorist attack" and Osama bin Laden once named the world's eighth biggest oil exporter as ripe for jihad or Islamic holy war. "The al Qaeda network has threatened to send time bombs to Nigeria ... CPs (commissioners of police) of all the commands should be on the alert and ensure that these items (bombs) do not pass through their end," the Punch newspaper quoted Inspector General of Police Mike Okiro as saying. He gave no details of what the targets might be, but he told a group of senior officers that intelligence reports showed the threat was real. A number of suspected jihadists have been arrested by police and the State Security Services (SSS) in recent years, but the cases have dragged on in the courts and there have been no convictions. No conclusive evidence of al Qaeda's presence in Nigeria has been made public. Five Islamist militants with suspected links to al Qaeda are on trial in the capital Abuja for plotting attacks on government targets in Africa's most populous country. The men were arrested in November (2007) by the SSS in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria. Three of them have also been charged with training in Algeria with the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) between 2005 and August 2007.The GSPC renamed itself al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in January 2007. The charge sheet said the five militants, all in their early 30s, "did conspire to commit terrorist acts," and said three of them trained in Algeria "with intent to attack government facilities and cause insurrection in Nigeria". Another charge said the militants had an AK 47 rifle, ammunition, dynamite, fertiliser "and 11 explosive devices" which they planned to use to attack government facilities and installations in the southern cities of Lagos and Ibadan.”
14. The alleged infiltration of Al Qaeda into Northern Nigeria was preceded by the spread of the ideology of the Taliban in the local Muslim community. An Islamic fundamentalist movement which disseminated the ideas of the Taliban became active. It was referred to by the locals as the Boko Haram movement. Boko Haram means “Western education is sinful.” It strongly opposed Western education as anti-Islam. Its founder Mohammed Yusuf, who was reportedly Iran-educated, was alleged to have been killed by the security forces, but the movement started by him, which is also referred to as the Nigerian Taliban, has remained active.
15. Shortly after the world came to know of the Detroit incident, a non-Governmental organisation of Nigeria known as “Citizens For Nigeria”, which is believed to consist largely of representatives of the Nigerian Christian community, put out the following statement: “Today, we heard of a Nigerian, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, who said he was an agent for Al Qaeda and tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane as it was preparing to land in Detroit, Michigan, USA. The Citizens for Nigeria can predict that when Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab's identity is revealed, he will be known to come from the northern part of Nigeria that has always received state protection and patronage for religious persecution. In July, 2009, when the security forces in northern Nigeria battled the remnants of an Islamic sect loosely modelled on Afghanistan's Taliban movement, the world did not pay attention. In that particular incident, more than 180 people died. It was a local Nigerian news. Now that a Nigerian likely affiliated with Al Qaeda attacked an American airline, the world's attention will be fixed on Nigeria. To a majority of Nigerians, religious terrorism has a long history. To Christians, particularly those living in the northern part of Nigeria, terrrorism began long before Al Qaeda and 9/11. Northern Nigeria has always provided the breeding ground for intolerant Islamic fanaticism, the kind that gave life to Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab's ill-fated attack on the American soil. Nigerians have for years been killed in large numbers by Islamic fanatics with quiet but active support of the northern elite that have ruled Nigeria for most of her life.” (27-12-09)
(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
From additional details of the attempt on December 25,2009, by a Nigerian member of Al Qaeda to cause an explosion in a plane of the US North-West Airlines flying from Amsterdam to Detroit as it was approaching Detroit to land there, it is evident that it was not a lone wolf terrorist attempt by an angry individual Muslim to give vent to his anger against the US. It was an attempt by Al Qaeda’s command and control to cause a spectacular incident involving mass casualties in the US air space and possibly US territory in order to demonstrate to the US and the rest of the international community that Al Qaeda remains strong and active despite the leadership losses suffered by it in the Af-Pak region during 2009.
2. The target was the US homeland and the audience was the US public, whose confidence in the revamped counter-terrorism set-up of the US might have been shaken had the Nigerian whom Al Qaeda trained and used succeeded in causing an explosion. The credit for the fact that the aircraft and its passengers escaped what could have been a disaster should go to some passengers of the plane and its crew, who acted promptly and with bravery after the terrorist suspect had attempted to cause a detonation, which remained incomplete in the sense that it caused only a fire and not a full-blown explosion. They overpowered the suspect and put out the fire and the flight crew managed to land safely.
3. Since 9/11, Al Qaeda has repeatedly tried to carry out another major terrorist strike against the US in the US Homeland, and had infiltrated many groups and individuals from Pakistan and elsewhere into the US for this purpose. An alert Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) thwarted these attempts. It detected and neutralized the cells, which were seeking to act as the Trojan Horses of Al Qaeda in the US Homeland.
4. Al Qaeda also sought to attack the US by targeting US-bound flights in order to cause mass casualties if not on the ground, at least in the air. Its 2001 attempt to have a Miami-bound plane blown up through shoe-bomber Richard Reid, who had concealed the explosive in his shoes, failed under circumstances similar to those of Detroit due to malfunctioning of the device and the alertness and courage of the passengers and the crew, who intervened to prevent a disaster.
5. In 2006, it again tried to have a number of planes bound for the US from the UK blown up with the help of some persons mainly from the Pakistani diaspora in the UK who were instructed to carry material capable of being converted into explosives into the aircraft by concealing it in soft drink bottles and use it to cause explosions. The alertness of the British intelligence and security services thwarted this attempt while it was still in the planning stage. The would-be perpetrators were arrested and prosecuted before British courts. One of the would-be perpetrators, Rashid Rauf, a British citizen of Pakistani origin from Birmingham, who was based in Pakistan was used by Al Qaeda to orchestrate this conspiracy. He was related by marriage to Maulana Masood Azhar, the Amir of the Jaish-e-Mohammad.
6. He was arrested by the Pakistani authorities, who avoided handing him over to the British for interrogation and prosecution. He escaped from custody under mysterious circumstances and was ultimately reported to have been killed in a US drone strike in Waziristan.
7. Despite the failure of its previous two attempts to blow up US-bound planes with the help of suicide bombers, Al Qaeda has not relented in its determination to strike at the US in its homeland----- either on land or in its air space. This is the chilling message from the Detroit incident. The failure of the attempts involving Richard Reid and the latest Detroit incident on Christmas Day (December 25,2009) were due to circumstances beyond the control of Al Qaeda and not due to the effectiveness of the security measures at the Schiphol airport of Amsterdam or the alertness of the Western intelligence agencies.
8. What should be of concern to governmental and non-governmental security experts all over the world is the fact that Al Qaeda’s conspiracy almost succeeded in that the Nigerian trained by it in Yemen managed to evade the security screening at Schiphol airport and carry concealed on his body, reportedly in his underwear, a high-grade explosive and a syringe with a chemical trigger to detonate it. Even after 9/11, on air flights diabetic patients are allowed to carry syringes and insulin on the basis of a certificate issued by a doctor, but the airport security have no way of verifying the authenticity of the medical certificates carried by a passenger.
9.Citing US security sources, sections of the media, including the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), have identified the explosive material carried on board the aircraft by the suspect as containing PETN, also known as pentaerythritol, a high grade explosive. Did he carry it concealed in his underwear as reported by sections of the media or inside his anus as was reportedly done by an Al Qaeda terrorist trained in Yemen who tried to kill the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister in August this year? The device inside the anus of that terrorist was reportedly triggered off by a remote control device. Did the Nigerian use the syringe to trigger off his device?
10. Even at the time of the attempt to kill the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister, counter-terrorism experts had warned of the implications for airline security of the new method of concealment devised by Al Qaeda. The security set-up of the Saudi Deputy Minister totally failed to detect the presence of the explosive material inside the anus.
11 The Nigerian, chosen by Al Qaeda for its latest attempt, has been identified as 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, allegedly the son of a serving or retired banker of Nigeria, who has reportedly identified his son. It is reported that till 2008 he was studying engineering in a college of London and then disappeared from the UK. He seems to have come into contact with Al Qaeda during this period and undergone training in Yemen.
12.The suspect came from an affluent family of Northern Nigeria which since 2007 has been showing signs of becoming another recruiting ground for Al Qaeda.
13.The Reuters news agency disseminated the following report on May 10,2008: “Al Qaeda Islamist militants have renewed their threat to bomb targets in Nigeria, , a newspaper reported quoting the national police chief. The United States embassy in Nigeria said last September the country was at risk of "terrorist attack" and Osama bin Laden once named the world's eighth biggest oil exporter as ripe for jihad or Islamic holy war. "The al Qaeda network has threatened to send time bombs to Nigeria ... CPs (commissioners of police) of all the commands should be on the alert and ensure that these items (bombs) do not pass through their end," the Punch newspaper quoted Inspector General of Police Mike Okiro as saying. He gave no details of what the targets might be, but he told a group of senior officers that intelligence reports showed the threat was real. A number of suspected jihadists have been arrested by police and the State Security Services (SSS) in recent years, but the cases have dragged on in the courts and there have been no convictions. No conclusive evidence of al Qaeda's presence in Nigeria has been made public. Five Islamist militants with suspected links to al Qaeda are on trial in the capital Abuja for plotting attacks on government targets in Africa's most populous country. The men were arrested in November (2007) by the SSS in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria. Three of them have also been charged with training in Algeria with the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) between 2005 and August 2007.The GSPC renamed itself al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in January 2007. The charge sheet said the five militants, all in their early 30s, "did conspire to commit terrorist acts," and said three of them trained in Algeria "with intent to attack government facilities and cause insurrection in Nigeria". Another charge said the militants had an AK 47 rifle, ammunition, dynamite, fertiliser "and 11 explosive devices" which they planned to use to attack government facilities and installations in the southern cities of Lagos and Ibadan.”
14. The alleged infiltration of Al Qaeda into Northern Nigeria was preceded by the spread of the ideology of the Taliban in the local Muslim community. An Islamic fundamentalist movement which disseminated the ideas of the Taliban became active. It was referred to by the locals as the Boko Haram movement. Boko Haram means “Western education is sinful.” It strongly opposed Western education as anti-Islam. Its founder Mohammed Yusuf, who was reportedly Iran-educated, was alleged to have been killed by the security forces, but the movement started by him, which is also referred to as the Nigerian Taliban, has remained active.
15. Shortly after the world came to know of the Detroit incident, a non-Governmental organisation of Nigeria known as “Citizens For Nigeria”, which is believed to consist largely of representatives of the Nigerian Christian community, put out the following statement: “Today, we heard of a Nigerian, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, who said he was an agent for Al Qaeda and tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane as it was preparing to land in Detroit, Michigan, USA. The Citizens for Nigeria can predict that when Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab's identity is revealed, he will be known to come from the northern part of Nigeria that has always received state protection and patronage for religious persecution. In July, 2009, when the security forces in northern Nigeria battled the remnants of an Islamic sect loosely modelled on Afghanistan's Taliban movement, the world did not pay attention. In that particular incident, more than 180 people died. It was a local Nigerian news. Now that a Nigerian likely affiliated with Al Qaeda attacked an American airline, the world's attention will be fixed on Nigeria. To a majority of Nigerians, religious terrorism has a long history. To Christians, particularly those living in the northern part of Nigeria, terrrorism began long before Al Qaeda and 9/11. Northern Nigeria has always provided the breeding ground for intolerant Islamic fanaticism, the kind that gave life to Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab's ill-fated attack on the American soil. Nigerians have for years been killed in large numbers by Islamic fanatics with quiet but active support of the northern elite that have ruled Nigeria for most of her life.” (27-12-09)
(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, December 25, 2009
AL QAEDA ATTRIBUTED AVIATION TERRORISM ATTEMPT
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR----PAPER NO. 594
B.RAMAN
It is too early to assess definitively the failed attempt by a person of Nigerian origin to create an explosion on board a North-west Airlines flight (Airbus 330 with 278 passengers) from Amsterdam to Detroit as it was about to land in Detroit on Christmas Day on December 25,2009.
2.The attack seems to have failed due to the mal-functioning of what was intended by the suspect to be an explosive mixture and the prompt intervention of fellow-passengers, who managed to overpower the suspect after he had unsuccessfully tried to cause a detonation. While official sources in the US have characterised the incident as an attempted terrorist attack, the US Attorney-General has not yet done so.
3. A tentative assessment on the basis of available details would indicate that this could be an attempt by Al Qaeda to cause an explosion on board an aircraft by concealing a powder in the groin of a passenger posing as a diabetic patient and injecting a chemical trigger carried without being detected by the security inside an insulin injection tube.
4. Two serious breaches of security have come to notice: Failure to detect a person with a previous suspicious background as a terrorist despite the fact that his name figured in databases of terrorist suspects and failure to detect the concealment of a suspicious-looking powder in the groin of the suspect. The attempted use of medicines such as insulin for concealing chemical triggers, if corroborated, shows the continuing evolution of the modus operandi tried/used by the terrorists to escape detection.
5.The available details of the incident from open sources are given below:
(a). Identity of the suspect: A senior law enforcement source speaking to CBS News has identified the suspect as Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23. ABC News named the suspect as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, who was said to be an engineering student at the University College of London.
(b). His background: US media reported that the passenger told investigators he was affiliated with Al Qaeda. CNN and other broadcast channels said the man told investigators he had acquired the explosive device in Yemen, along with instructions as to when it should be used. Peter King, a Republican Party member of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, told Fox News that the suspect "definitely has terror connections". "My understanding is ... that he does have Al-Qaeda connections, certainly extremist terrorist connections, and his name popped up pretty quickly" in a search of intelligence databases. The CBS News reported that the suspect was on a U.S. government watch list of people with suspected terrorist ties. It said that a senior administration official declined to elaborate on how a man on a U.S. terrorist watch list was able to board the airline
( c ): Where did he get into the flight. At Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. According to “The Sun”,the man, who flew from Nigeria to Amsterdam and then Detroit, was taken into custody at the Detroit airport.
(d). What kind of explosive or incendiary device he carried and how did he conceal it?: According to the Associated Press, one of the U.S. intelligence officials said the explosive device was a mix of powder and liquid. It failed when the passenger tried to detonate it. It added that a law enforcement source said the explosives may have been strapped to the man's body but investigators weren't immediately certain, partly because of the struggle with other passengers. According to the Agence France Presse, the explosive, which was apparently carried onto the flight from its originating airport in Amsterdam, was originally believed to be a small firecracker, but a US official said the device was "more complicated than gunpowder firecracker" and caught fire as the man tried to set it off. According to a report on the ABC television network, the suspect told the authorities he had had explosive powder taped to his leg and used a syringe of chemicals to mix with the powder that was to cause explosion. Another US intelligence official quoted by AP said an explosive device had been used consisting of a "mix of powder and liquid". The CBS reported that the explosive material was apparently taped to the man's leg and lit the lower part of his body. He was immediately subdued and restrained and was later transported to a hospital unit. He reportedly told US investigators that he picked up the explosive material in Yemen and was instructed to set it off on board an airplane. Those claims could not immediately be verified. One law enforcement source said the man claimed to have been instructed by Al Qaeda to detonate the plane over U.S. soil. A high-ranking law enforcement official told CBS News that the suspect apparently used a syringe to inject a chemical into a powder located near his groin, a technique not seen in previous attempted attacks. It's possible, the source said, that this incident was a test of whether the materials could pass screening and how effective they might be at causing damage. (26-12-09)
( 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
It is too early to assess definitively the failed attempt by a person of Nigerian origin to create an explosion on board a North-west Airlines flight (Airbus 330 with 278 passengers) from Amsterdam to Detroit as it was about to land in Detroit on Christmas Day on December 25,2009.
2.The attack seems to have failed due to the mal-functioning of what was intended by the suspect to be an explosive mixture and the prompt intervention of fellow-passengers, who managed to overpower the suspect after he had unsuccessfully tried to cause a detonation. While official sources in the US have characterised the incident as an attempted terrorist attack, the US Attorney-General has not yet done so.
3. A tentative assessment on the basis of available details would indicate that this could be an attempt by Al Qaeda to cause an explosion on board an aircraft by concealing a powder in the groin of a passenger posing as a diabetic patient and injecting a chemical trigger carried without being detected by the security inside an insulin injection tube.
4. Two serious breaches of security have come to notice: Failure to detect a person with a previous suspicious background as a terrorist despite the fact that his name figured in databases of terrorist suspects and failure to detect the concealment of a suspicious-looking powder in the groin of the suspect. The attempted use of medicines such as insulin for concealing chemical triggers, if corroborated, shows the continuing evolution of the modus operandi tried/used by the terrorists to escape detection.
5.The available details of the incident from open sources are given below:
(a). Identity of the suspect: A senior law enforcement source speaking to CBS News has identified the suspect as Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23. ABC News named the suspect as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, who was said to be an engineering student at the University College of London.
(b). His background: US media reported that the passenger told investigators he was affiliated with Al Qaeda. CNN and other broadcast channels said the man told investigators he had acquired the explosive device in Yemen, along with instructions as to when it should be used. Peter King, a Republican Party member of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, told Fox News that the suspect "definitely has terror connections". "My understanding is ... that he does have Al-Qaeda connections, certainly extremist terrorist connections, and his name popped up pretty quickly" in a search of intelligence databases. The CBS News reported that the suspect was on a U.S. government watch list of people with suspected terrorist ties. It said that a senior administration official declined to elaborate on how a man on a U.S. terrorist watch list was able to board the airline
( c ): Where did he get into the flight. At Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. According to “The Sun”,the man, who flew from Nigeria to Amsterdam and then Detroit, was taken into custody at the Detroit airport.
(d). What kind of explosive or incendiary device he carried and how did he conceal it?: According to the Associated Press, one of the U.S. intelligence officials said the explosive device was a mix of powder and liquid. It failed when the passenger tried to detonate it. It added that a law enforcement source said the explosives may have been strapped to the man's body but investigators weren't immediately certain, partly because of the struggle with other passengers. According to the Agence France Presse, the explosive, which was apparently carried onto the flight from its originating airport in Amsterdam, was originally believed to be a small firecracker, but a US official said the device was "more complicated than gunpowder firecracker" and caught fire as the man tried to set it off. According to a report on the ABC television network, the suspect told the authorities he had had explosive powder taped to his leg and used a syringe of chemicals to mix with the powder that was to cause explosion. Another US intelligence official quoted by AP said an explosive device had been used consisting of a "mix of powder and liquid". The CBS reported that the explosive material was apparently taped to the man's leg and lit the lower part of his body. He was immediately subdued and restrained and was later transported to a hospital unit. He reportedly told US investigators that he picked up the explosive material in Yemen and was instructed to set it off on board an airplane. Those claims could not immediately be verified. One law enforcement source said the man claimed to have been instructed by Al Qaeda to detonate the plane over U.S. soil. A high-ranking law enforcement official told CBS News that the suspect apparently used a syringe to inject a chemical into a powder located near his groin, a technique not seen in previous attempted attacks. It's possible, the source said, that this incident was a test of whether the materials could pass screening and how effective they might be at causing damage. (26-12-09)
( 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 )
Thursday, December 24, 2009
CHINA'S COUSIN-COUSIN RELATIONS WITH MYANMAR
B.RAMAN
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping visited Myanmar on December 19 and 20,2009, during the course of a four-nation tour covering Japan, South Korea, Myanmar and Cambodia. He went to Cambodia from Myanmar. Xi, who undertook the visit at the invitation of Vice Senior-General Maung Aye, Vice-Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), called on SPDC Chairman Senior-General Than Shwe in Nay Pyi Taw.
2.Xi is believed to be in the run to succeed President Hu Jintao, when he completes his tenure. His visit to Myanmar was significant for three reasons.
3.Firstly, through the importance accorded to the visit, the Myanmar military junta sought to reassure Beijing that despite recent moves for increased contacts between the junta and the Obama administration, the junta continued to give priority to Myanmar’s relations with China. Improved relations with the US will not be at the expense of the relations with China. Xi as well as his Myanmar hosts described the relations between the two countries as “baobo relationship”, which has been interpreted by local analysts as cousin-cousin relationship. The next door cousin is more important than the distant US---that was the message of the Junta to the Obama Administration.
4.Secondly, China reiterated its determination to go ahead with the construction of the parallel oil and gas pipelines between the Arakan area of Myanmar and Yunnan despite opposition from the local residents and insecurity along the route of the pipelines. China has accorded greater priority to the Arakan-Yunnan pipeline than to the Gwadar-Xinjiang pipeline proposed by the Pakistan Government. The Chinese Government has greater confidence in the ability of the Myanmar Army to ensure the security of the parallel pipelines passing through Myanmar territory than in the ability of the Pakistan Government to ensure the security of any pipeline passing through Pakistani territory. Moreover, with the recent commissioning of the first stage of the pipeline connecting Xinjiang with the Central Asian Republics, the need for a Gwadar-Xinjiang pipeline is not that urgent. Whereas the Arakan-Yunnan pipelines will have the dual purpose of transporting oil brought by Chinese tankers from West Asia and Africa thereby reducing the present Chinese dependence on the Malacca Strait and transporting the gas procured locally in Arakan by Chinese companies, any pipeline from Gwadar will have to be exclusively for transporting oil/gas from West Asia. Pakistan does not have any oil or gas to sell to China.
5.Thirdly, the visit underlined the concerns of Beijing over the anti-Chinese riots in the Kokang area of the Shan State in August,2009, when thousands of Chinese traders, who had illegally settled down in the Kokang area, had to flee to Yunnan following attacks on them. The attacks on the “Chinese cousins” ---- and the action of the Myanmar Army in closing its eyes to these attacks----were a rude shock to Beijing.
6. In an editorial published on December 22,2009, the Government-owned “ New Light of Myanmar” said that Xi’s visit strengthened the mutual friendship and the bilateral cooperation between the two countries. It added: “The peoples of the two countries have mutual respect and deep friendship as they have been dealing with each other like brothers for a long time. With reciprocal goodwill visits by the leaders of the two nations, bilateral relations and cooperation are thriving.”
7.It was stated by official spokesmen that Xi discussed with Maung Aye matters relating to the further improvement of bilateral relations and cooperation in the agriculture, transport, energy, electricity and communications sectors. The two countries signed five agreements on the development of trade, economy, the transport infrastructure, technological cooperation and purchase of machinery; seven financial agreements, three agreements on hydroelectric power; and one agreement on the energy sector and the oil and natural gas pipelines.
8. Among the MoUs signed during the visit was an agreement to allow the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) exclusive rights to build and operate a Myanmar-China Crude Oil Pipeline. According to a press release issued by the CNPC on December 21, the agreement grants the CNPC rights relating to tax concessions, transport of crude oil through Myanmar, customs clearance and road operations.
9.The press release added: “The agreement also stipulates that the Myanmar Government shall ensure the company's ownership and exclusionary (exclusive?) right to the pipeline and guarantee the safety of the pipeline.”
10.The pipeline will be constructed and run by a subsidiary of the the CNPC called the South-East Asia Crude Oil Pipeline Ltd. Earlier in June, 2009, the CNPC and the Myanmar Government had signed an MOU, agreeing that the CNPC would be responsible for the design, construction, and operation of the pipeline.
11.The CNPC started building a crude oil port on October 31 as part of the 771-kilometre pipeline project, which will start from the Maday Island in the Arakan state on the western coast of Myanmar and run through the Arakan State, the Magway division, the Mandalay division and the Shan State, and will finally enter Ruili in China’s Yunnan Province. Some reports have estimated the length of the pipeline as 1100 kms. This probably includes its length from Ruili to Kunming too.
12.The natural gas pipeline is proposed to be extended from Ruili to Kunming and then to the Guizhou province and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, covering a total distance of 2806 kms.
13. Earlier, in March 2009, the two Governments had signed an agreement which provided for the construction of a parallel oil-gas pipelines starting from the Kyaukpru port in the Arakan State. The construction is scheduled to be completed by 2013. According to the March,2009, agreement, a gas collection terminal and a port for oil tankers will be constructed on the Maday Island.
14. The Chinese state-owned CNPC will hold a 50.9-percent share in partnership with the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) in the company which will construct and run the pipelines. The project is expected to yield $29 billion over 30 years to the Myanmar military junta. Initially, the gas to be transported by the gas pipeline will be bought from the Shwe Gas consortium, which has already struck gas in the blocks for exploration allotted to it by the Myanmar Government, but it hopes to supplement it with gas found by Chinese companies in the blocks allotted to them by the Myanmar Government.
15.The Daewoo International from South Korea, holds 51 percent of the shares in the Shwe Gas Consortium, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) of India 17 percent and the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL), 8.5 percent.
16. This will be the third oil/gas pipeline being developed by China---the other two being the oil and gas pipelines from the Central Asian Republics the first stage of which was recently commissioned by President Hu Jintao and the proposed Sino-Russian oil pipeline. Pakistan is interested in making the Chinese agree to the construction of a gas pipeline from Gwadar to Xinjiang. Talks in this regard between the two countries are still in the preliminary stage. Bejing has so far not shown much enthusiasm for this project due to the deteriorating security situation in Balochistan.
17. The importance of maintaining peace and stability in the areas near the Sino-Myanmar border was repeatedly emphasized by the leaders of the two countries during their interactions. The junta sought to reassure the visiting Chinese leader of its sincerity and determination in this regard. Beijing’s suspicion that despite the repeatedly professed friendship of the junta for China, Myanmar Army units were complicit in the attacks on the Chinese in the Kokang area remains strong.
18. According to a statement posted on the web site of the Chinese Foreign Ministry on December 21,2009, Than Shwe assured Xi that Myanmar will work with China to preserve peace and stability in the border areas. He reportedly added that he understood that China and Myanmar shared a long border and maintaining peace and stability on the border was extremely important to both the countries.
19. China’s State-owned Xinhua news agency reported that Xi said China wanted stability on the Sino-Myanmar border. He reportedly said: “China believes the Myanmar side would settle the relevant problems through peaceful ways such as dialogues and consultation so as to guarantee the stability in its border area with China.”
20. The Xinhua reported that Than Shwe assured Xi that his Government would continue to work with Beijing to ensure peace and development in the border areas. It would demonstrate good neighborly friendship and cooperation, he said.
21. Interestingly, the Myanmar-Government owned “The New Light of Myanmar” remained silent on these exchanges between Than Shwe and Xi. It merely said that the two leaders exchanged views on “matters to which two neighboring countries should pay serious attention.”
22. The August attacks on the illegal Chinese traders in the Kokang capital Laogai were triggered off by the refusal of anti-junta Kokang ethnic groups such as the United Wa State Army to disband themselves and join a border force formed by the Myanmar Army unless some of their conditions regarding the command and control of the proposed border force were met. The Myanmar Army seems to have suspected that these groups were being instigated by the illegal Chinese settlers from Yunnan living in the Kokang area not to accept the order of the Army. These dissident groups continue to defy the Army which has given them time till December 31,2009, to disband themselves and join the border force of the Army. It is not clear whether Xi pressed Than Shwe to withdraw this order and, if so, whether Than Shwe agreed to it. If the junta insists on enforcing its order after January 1, one could expect more violence. The fact that the Chinese are going ahead with the construction of the pipelines without worrying about the disturbed situation in the Shan State gives rise to the suspicion that some kind of an assurance might have been conveyed to Xi in this regard by Than Shwe. A possible face-saving for both will be to keep the order in force, but not to enforce it.
23. Lt-Gen Ai Husheng of the Chinese Chengdu Military Region that oversees Sino-Myanmar border security paid a six-day visit to Myanmar from December 5 to 10,2009, and met, among others, Maj-Gen Kyaw Phyoe, of the Triangle Region Command, Lt-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, Commander of Shan and Kayah states, and Maj-Gen Aung Than Tut, of the Northeastern Region Command. (25-12-09)
( 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 )
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping visited Myanmar on December 19 and 20,2009, during the course of a four-nation tour covering Japan, South Korea, Myanmar and Cambodia. He went to Cambodia from Myanmar. Xi, who undertook the visit at the invitation of Vice Senior-General Maung Aye, Vice-Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), called on SPDC Chairman Senior-General Than Shwe in Nay Pyi Taw.
2.Xi is believed to be in the run to succeed President Hu Jintao, when he completes his tenure. His visit to Myanmar was significant for three reasons.
3.Firstly, through the importance accorded to the visit, the Myanmar military junta sought to reassure Beijing that despite recent moves for increased contacts between the junta and the Obama administration, the junta continued to give priority to Myanmar’s relations with China. Improved relations with the US will not be at the expense of the relations with China. Xi as well as his Myanmar hosts described the relations between the two countries as “baobo relationship”, which has been interpreted by local analysts as cousin-cousin relationship. The next door cousin is more important than the distant US---that was the message of the Junta to the Obama Administration.
4.Secondly, China reiterated its determination to go ahead with the construction of the parallel oil and gas pipelines between the Arakan area of Myanmar and Yunnan despite opposition from the local residents and insecurity along the route of the pipelines. China has accorded greater priority to the Arakan-Yunnan pipeline than to the Gwadar-Xinjiang pipeline proposed by the Pakistan Government. The Chinese Government has greater confidence in the ability of the Myanmar Army to ensure the security of the parallel pipelines passing through Myanmar territory than in the ability of the Pakistan Government to ensure the security of any pipeline passing through Pakistani territory. Moreover, with the recent commissioning of the first stage of the pipeline connecting Xinjiang with the Central Asian Republics, the need for a Gwadar-Xinjiang pipeline is not that urgent. Whereas the Arakan-Yunnan pipelines will have the dual purpose of transporting oil brought by Chinese tankers from West Asia and Africa thereby reducing the present Chinese dependence on the Malacca Strait and transporting the gas procured locally in Arakan by Chinese companies, any pipeline from Gwadar will have to be exclusively for transporting oil/gas from West Asia. Pakistan does not have any oil or gas to sell to China.
5.Thirdly, the visit underlined the concerns of Beijing over the anti-Chinese riots in the Kokang area of the Shan State in August,2009, when thousands of Chinese traders, who had illegally settled down in the Kokang area, had to flee to Yunnan following attacks on them. The attacks on the “Chinese cousins” ---- and the action of the Myanmar Army in closing its eyes to these attacks----were a rude shock to Beijing.
6. In an editorial published on December 22,2009, the Government-owned “ New Light of Myanmar” said that Xi’s visit strengthened the mutual friendship and the bilateral cooperation between the two countries. It added: “The peoples of the two countries have mutual respect and deep friendship as they have been dealing with each other like brothers for a long time. With reciprocal goodwill visits by the leaders of the two nations, bilateral relations and cooperation are thriving.”
7.It was stated by official spokesmen that Xi discussed with Maung Aye matters relating to the further improvement of bilateral relations and cooperation in the agriculture, transport, energy, electricity and communications sectors. The two countries signed five agreements on the development of trade, economy, the transport infrastructure, technological cooperation and purchase of machinery; seven financial agreements, three agreements on hydroelectric power; and one agreement on the energy sector and the oil and natural gas pipelines.
8. Among the MoUs signed during the visit was an agreement to allow the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) exclusive rights to build and operate a Myanmar-China Crude Oil Pipeline. According to a press release issued by the CNPC on December 21, the agreement grants the CNPC rights relating to tax concessions, transport of crude oil through Myanmar, customs clearance and road operations.
9.The press release added: “The agreement also stipulates that the Myanmar Government shall ensure the company's ownership and exclusionary (exclusive?) right to the pipeline and guarantee the safety of the pipeline.”
10.The pipeline will be constructed and run by a subsidiary of the the CNPC called the South-East Asia Crude Oil Pipeline Ltd. Earlier in June, 2009, the CNPC and the Myanmar Government had signed an MOU, agreeing that the CNPC would be responsible for the design, construction, and operation of the pipeline.
11.The CNPC started building a crude oil port on October 31 as part of the 771-kilometre pipeline project, which will start from the Maday Island in the Arakan state on the western coast of Myanmar and run through the Arakan State, the Magway division, the Mandalay division and the Shan State, and will finally enter Ruili in China’s Yunnan Province. Some reports have estimated the length of the pipeline as 1100 kms. This probably includes its length from Ruili to Kunming too.
12.The natural gas pipeline is proposed to be extended from Ruili to Kunming and then to the Guizhou province and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, covering a total distance of 2806 kms.
13. Earlier, in March 2009, the two Governments had signed an agreement which provided for the construction of a parallel oil-gas pipelines starting from the Kyaukpru port in the Arakan State. The construction is scheduled to be completed by 2013. According to the March,2009, agreement, a gas collection terminal and a port for oil tankers will be constructed on the Maday Island.
14. The Chinese state-owned CNPC will hold a 50.9-percent share in partnership with the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) in the company which will construct and run the pipelines. The project is expected to yield $29 billion over 30 years to the Myanmar military junta. Initially, the gas to be transported by the gas pipeline will be bought from the Shwe Gas consortium, which has already struck gas in the blocks for exploration allotted to it by the Myanmar Government, but it hopes to supplement it with gas found by Chinese companies in the blocks allotted to them by the Myanmar Government.
15.The Daewoo International from South Korea, holds 51 percent of the shares in the Shwe Gas Consortium, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) of India 17 percent and the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL), 8.5 percent.
16. This will be the third oil/gas pipeline being developed by China---the other two being the oil and gas pipelines from the Central Asian Republics the first stage of which was recently commissioned by President Hu Jintao and the proposed Sino-Russian oil pipeline. Pakistan is interested in making the Chinese agree to the construction of a gas pipeline from Gwadar to Xinjiang. Talks in this regard between the two countries are still in the preliminary stage. Bejing has so far not shown much enthusiasm for this project due to the deteriorating security situation in Balochistan.
17. The importance of maintaining peace and stability in the areas near the Sino-Myanmar border was repeatedly emphasized by the leaders of the two countries during their interactions. The junta sought to reassure the visiting Chinese leader of its sincerity and determination in this regard. Beijing’s suspicion that despite the repeatedly professed friendship of the junta for China, Myanmar Army units were complicit in the attacks on the Chinese in the Kokang area remains strong.
18. According to a statement posted on the web site of the Chinese Foreign Ministry on December 21,2009, Than Shwe assured Xi that Myanmar will work with China to preserve peace and stability in the border areas. He reportedly added that he understood that China and Myanmar shared a long border and maintaining peace and stability on the border was extremely important to both the countries.
19. China’s State-owned Xinhua news agency reported that Xi said China wanted stability on the Sino-Myanmar border. He reportedly said: “China believes the Myanmar side would settle the relevant problems through peaceful ways such as dialogues and consultation so as to guarantee the stability in its border area with China.”
20. The Xinhua reported that Than Shwe assured Xi that his Government would continue to work with Beijing to ensure peace and development in the border areas. It would demonstrate good neighborly friendship and cooperation, he said.
21. Interestingly, the Myanmar-Government owned “The New Light of Myanmar” remained silent on these exchanges between Than Shwe and Xi. It merely said that the two leaders exchanged views on “matters to which two neighboring countries should pay serious attention.”
22. The August attacks on the illegal Chinese traders in the Kokang capital Laogai were triggered off by the refusal of anti-junta Kokang ethnic groups such as the United Wa State Army to disband themselves and join a border force formed by the Myanmar Army unless some of their conditions regarding the command and control of the proposed border force were met. The Myanmar Army seems to have suspected that these groups were being instigated by the illegal Chinese settlers from Yunnan living in the Kokang area not to accept the order of the Army. These dissident groups continue to defy the Army which has given them time till December 31,2009, to disband themselves and join the border force of the Army. It is not clear whether Xi pressed Than Shwe to withdraw this order and, if so, whether Than Shwe agreed to it. If the junta insists on enforcing its order after January 1, one could expect more violence. The fact that the Chinese are going ahead with the construction of the pipelines without worrying about the disturbed situation in the Shan State gives rise to the suspicion that some kind of an assurance might have been conveyed to Xi in this regard by Than Shwe. A possible face-saving for both will be to keep the order in force, but not to enforce it.
23. Lt-Gen Ai Husheng of the Chinese Chengdu Military Region that oversees Sino-Myanmar border security paid a six-day visit to Myanmar from December 5 to 10,2009, and met, among others, Maj-Gen Kyaw Phyoe, of the Triangle Region Command, Lt-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, Commander of Shan and Kayah states, and Maj-Gen Aung Than Tut, of the Northeastern Region Command. (25-12-09)
( 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 )
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
THE INTERNAL SECURITY CZAR
B.RAMAN
Delivering the 22nd Intelligence Bureau Centenary Endowment Lecture at New Delhi on December 23,2009, P.Chidambaram, the Minister for Home Affairs, who inter alia is responsible for dealing with indigenous as well as externally-sponsored threats to internal security, outlined a series of measures for revamping our internal security architecture. These measures, if implemented as outlined by him, would make the Home Minister the internal security Czar of the country.
2.The concerns nursed by Indira Gandhi and other senior members of her Cabinet such as Jagjivan Ram over the inadvisability of an over-powerful Home Ministry led to a series of actions by Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao to create a decentralised structure for internal security. Indira Gandhi used the criticism from the defence forces regarding the inadequate performance of the IB during the 1965 Indo-Pak war and the 1966 revolt in Mizoram to set in motion a series of measures to decentralise the architecture and strengthen the primacy of the Prime Minister in supervising and co-ordinating the functioning of different wings of this architecture through the mechanism of the Cabinet Secretariat headed by the Cabinet Secretary functioning directly under the Prime Minister.
3. Among the various decentralised wings, which came into being since 1968 and were placed under the Cabinet Secretariat were the newly-formed (in 1968) Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW), the Directorate-General of Security (DGS) and the Aviation Research Centre simultaneously removed from the control of the IB, and the newly-created National Security Guards (NSGs) and the Special Protection Group (SPG), which is responsible for the protection of the incumbent and past Prime Ministers and their families. Even before 1968, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) was under the over-all control of the Prime Minister who exercised his or her supervision over it through the Cabinet Secretary.
4. The tenure of the National Democratic Alliance Government under A.B.Vajpayee
(1998-2004) saw new additions to this architecture in the form of the revived post of National Security Adviser (NSA), the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) and the National Technical Research Organisation. The NSCS was made part of the Prime Minister’s office and placed directly under the NSA.
5. In pursuance of the recommendations made by the various Task Forces set up by the NDA Government for revamping the national security capabilities after the Kargil conflict of 1999, the NSA was entrusted with the over-all responsibility for operational supervision of national security management and intelligence co-ordination, with the Cabinet Secretary’s responsibility confined to administrative co-ordination and management. The fact that both the NSA and the CS functioned directly under the Prime Minister facilitated the two working in close co-ordination with each other and there were no conflicts of jurisdiction and responsibilities between the NSA and the CS.
6. The country’s national security architecture---whether relating to internal or external security--- cannot remain static. It has to constantly evolve in keeping with the evolving threats to national security. All past changes in the national security architecture since 1968 were preceded by a detailed study of the changes required and their discussion in the Cabinet Committee on Security as well as in public to the extent possible in order to evolve an administrative, political and national consensus on the proposed changes.
7. The leadership and initiative for policy decisions to introduce the changes came from the Prime Minister of the day, who also articulated the need for and the importance of the proposed changes. The latest changes proposed by Chidambaram were not preceded by a similar detailed examination. The role and views of the Prime Minister and other senior Ministers of the Cabinet in respect of the proposed changes remain obscure. These changes, if and when implemented, could lead to a strengthening of the role and the status of the Home Minister in respect of internal security management and a corresponding dilution of the role of the Prime Minister, his NSA, the PM’s Office and the Cabinet Secretariat. Is this desirable?
8. The three major changes proposed by the Home Minister relate to making the Home Ministry exclusively responsible for the professional management of internal security similar to the Department of Homeland Security in the US, the creation in the Home Ministry by 2010-end of a National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) similar to the NCTC of the US and the revamping of the immigration control apparatus whose inefficiency was exploited by David Coleman Headley alias Daood Gilani and Tahawwur Hussain Rana of the Chicago cell of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) for frequent clandestine visits to India to prepare the ground for the 26/11 terrorist strikes. These changes have been advocated by many security experts of the country, including this writer, since 2004 when the US homeland security architecture was revamped in pursuance of the recommendations of the National Commission which enquired into the failures that facilitated the 9/11 terrorist strikes and the discussions on its report in the Congress.
9. These changes are welcome, but the ideas behind them are not new. What is new is the political will shown by Chidambaram to accept the desirability of these changes and the need to introduce them. Chidambaram needs to be complimented for this.
10 However, what should be of concern is the manner in which he proposes to introduce these changes. After reading the reports on his address as published in the media, one cannot but nurse an apprehension that the manner in which he intends to implement them could result in an over-centralised and over-powerful Home Ministry with the role of the Minister in charge strengthened at the expense of that of the Prime Minister.
11. References have been made to the post-9/11 changes in the US, but attention has not been drawn to the fact that in introducing the changes in the US over-centralisation has been avoided. The NCTC in the US functions under the Director National Intelligence, who reports directly to the President and takes orders from him and not from the Secretary for Homeland Security. The independence of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as the leading investigation agency in terrorism-related cases has been maintained. The Secretary for Homeland Security has no control over it. The responsibilities of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency relating to counter-terrorism outside the homeland and covert operations against terrorists in foreign territory have been maintained. He reports to the Director National Intelligence, who, in turn, reports to the President and not to the Secretary for Homeland Security. The National Security Agency and other technical intelligence agencies, in the exercise of their functions relating to counter terrorism, continue to report to the Defence Secretary and the Director National Intelligence and not to the Secretary for Homeland Security.
12. While the Secretary For Homeland Security is the overlord of physical security measures and follow-up action on intelligence reports, his powers have not been expanded at the expense of other agencies of the Government, which play an important role in respect of counter-terrorism.
13. What Chidambaram seems to want is that all agencies of the Government of India, except the SPG, which have counter-terrorism capabilities, should function directly under the Home Minister and take orders from him. Is this desirable? Will it improve counter-terrorism?
14. Another worrisome aspect of Chidambaram’s address is that it makes no distinction between terrorism as a threat and terrorism as a phenomenon, between indigenous terrorism by our nationals and externally-sponsored terrorism by foreign nationals, between operational and political management of terrorism and between the use of hard and soft power in dealing with terrorism. It tends to treat all terrorists as one and the same though he does talk of a nuanced approach.
15. While the changes proposed by Chidambaram in the internal security set-up should be welcomed, the questions as to how to implement them, how to avoid over-centralisation and how to ensure that while strengthening the counter-terrorism capabilities of the intelligence agencies, we do not weaken their capabilities relating to China and Pakistan should be examined by a group consisting of the Finance, Home, Defence and External Affairs Ministers and its recommendations discussed in the Parliament. ( 24-12-09)
( 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 I
( Extracts from my article of December 1,2008, titled “After Mumbai: Points For Action” available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers30/paper2949.html )
POINT 17: Set up a National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) under the National Security Adviser (NSA) to ensure joint operational action in all terrorism-related matters. It can be patterned after a similar institution set up in the US under Director, National Intelligence after 9/11. The National Commission set up by the US Congress to enquire into the 9/11 terrorist strikes had expressed the view that better co-ordination among the various agencies will not be enough and that what was required was a joint action command similar to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Armed Forces. Its tasks should be to monitor intelligence collection by various agencies, avoid duplication of efforts and resources, integrate the intelligence flowing from different agencies and foreign agencies, analyse and assess the integrated intelligence and monitor follow-up action by the Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other concerned agencies. Every agency is equally and jointly involved and responsible for the entire counter-terrorism process starting from collection to action on the intelligence collected. If such a system had existed, post-Mumbai complaints such as those of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) that the advisories issued by them on the possibility of a sea-borne attack by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) on Mumbai were not acted upon by the Mumbai Police would not have arisen because the IB and the R&AW would have been as responsible for follow-up action as the Mumbai Police.
POINT 18: The practice of the privileged direct access to the Prime Minister by the chiefs of the IB and the R&AW, which came into force under Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, should be vigorously enforced. This privileged direct access is utilised by the intelligence chiefs to bring their concerns over national security and over inaction by the agencies responsible for follow-up on their reports to the personal notice of the Prime Minister and seek his intervention. If the intelligence chiefs had brought to the notice of the Prime Minister the alleged inaction of the Mumbai Police on their reports, he might have intervened and issued the required political directive to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra.
POINT 19: Either create a separate Ministry of Internal Security or strengthen the role of the existing Department of Internal Security in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and make it responsible for dealing with internal security operationally under the over-all supervision of the Minister for Home Affairs.
ANNEXURE II
(Extracts from Chidambaram’s address as reported by “The Hindu” online on December 23,2009)
Proposing a "bold, thorough and radical restructuring" of the security architecture at the national level, Union Minister P. Chidambaram on Wednesday suggested bifurcation of the Home Ministry, saying subjects not directly related to internal security should be dealt with by a separate Ministry or should be brought under a separate department in the Home Ministry itself and dealt with by a Minister independently.
"The Home Minister should devote the whole of his/her time and energy to matters relating to security," Mr. Chidambaram said. In his view, given the imperatives and the challenges of the times, a division of the current functions of the Ministry of Home Affairs "is unavoidable".
In order to counter, prevent, contain and also respond to a terrorist attack should one take place, India must set up the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) by the end of 2010, he said while delivering the 22nd Intelligence Bureau Centenary Endowment lecture here.
In his 40-minute address, he touched upon the situation post 26/11 terror strikes, the state of India’s police and outlined the tasks that lay ahead to ward off crisis like the hijack of IC-814 or another catastrophe like Mumbai terror attacks.
Referring to the proposed NCTC, Mr. Chidambaram said: "Such an organisation does not exist today and it has to be created from the scratch. I am told that the United States was able to do it within 36 months of September 11, 2001. India cannot afford to wait for 36 months. India must decide now to go forward and India must succeed in setting up the NCTC by the end of 2010."
He said that the NCTC must have a broad mandate to deal with all kinds of terrorist violence directed against the country and the people.
"While the nature of the response to different kinds of terror would indeed be different and nuanced, NCTC's mandate should be to respond to violence unleashed by any group – be it an insurgent group in the North East or the CPI (Maoist) in the heartland of India or any group of religious fanatics anywhere in India acting on their own or in concert with terrorists outside India."
He said: "NCTC would, therefore, have to perform functions relating to intelligence, investigation and operations. All intelligence agencies would therefore have to be represented in the NCTC. But I am clear in my mind that, without 'operations', NCTC and the security architecture that is needed will be incomplete. It is the proposed 'operations' wing of the NCTC that will give an edge - now absent - to our plans to counter terrorism."
Turning to the functions of the MHA, Mr. Chidambaram said the Ministry now performed a number of functions that have no direct relation to internal security which include a division dealing with freedom fighters though it does not have even a desk for dealing exclusively with forensic science.
"There are other divisions or desks that deal with Centre-State relations, State Legislation, Human Rights, Union Territories, Disaster Management, Census etc. These are undoubtedly important functions and deserve close attention. However, internal security is an equally, if not more, important function that deserves the highest attention," he said.
Venturing after a year in office to outline the new architecture for India’s security, Mr. Chidambaram identified two enemies of change. "The first is 'routine'. Routine is the enemy of innovation. Because we are immersed in routine tasks, we neglect the need for change and innovation. The second enemy is 'complacency'," he told top police and intelligence officials that included National Security Advisor M. K. Narayanan, Home Secretary G.K. Pillai, Director IB Rajiv Mathur and others.
Striking a note of caution, Mr. Chidambaram said there was no time to be lost in making a thorough and radical departure from the present structure. "If, as a nation, we must defend ourselves in the present day and prepare for the future, it is imperative that we put in place a new architecture for India’s security," he said.
He also announced commencement of two more projects early next year: business porcess re-engineering of the Foreigners Division at a cost of Rs. 20 crore and the more ambitious Mission Mode Project on Immigration, Visa and Foreigners' Registration and Tracking with the objective of creating a secure and integrated service delivery framework for facilitating legitimate travellers and strengthening security.
Mr. Chidambaram said that the positioning of Research and Analysis Wing, Aviation Research centre and the CBI would have to be re-examined and a way would have to be found to place them under the oversight of NCTC to the extent that they deal with terrorism.
The Home Minister said the new organisation could be led by a police officer or a military officer who must be one who has impeccable professional credentials and the capacity to oversee intelligence, investigation and operations.
While the head of the NCTC will be the single person accountable to the country on all matters relating to internal security, the organisation would be at the command and control of Ministry of Home Affairs, he said.
Delivering the 22nd Intelligence Bureau Centenary Endowment Lecture at New Delhi on December 23,2009, P.Chidambaram, the Minister for Home Affairs, who inter alia is responsible for dealing with indigenous as well as externally-sponsored threats to internal security, outlined a series of measures for revamping our internal security architecture. These measures, if implemented as outlined by him, would make the Home Minister the internal security Czar of the country.
2.The concerns nursed by Indira Gandhi and other senior members of her Cabinet such as Jagjivan Ram over the inadvisability of an over-powerful Home Ministry led to a series of actions by Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao to create a decentralised structure for internal security. Indira Gandhi used the criticism from the defence forces regarding the inadequate performance of the IB during the 1965 Indo-Pak war and the 1966 revolt in Mizoram to set in motion a series of measures to decentralise the architecture and strengthen the primacy of the Prime Minister in supervising and co-ordinating the functioning of different wings of this architecture through the mechanism of the Cabinet Secretariat headed by the Cabinet Secretary functioning directly under the Prime Minister.
3. Among the various decentralised wings, which came into being since 1968 and were placed under the Cabinet Secretariat were the newly-formed (in 1968) Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW), the Directorate-General of Security (DGS) and the Aviation Research Centre simultaneously removed from the control of the IB, and the newly-created National Security Guards (NSGs) and the Special Protection Group (SPG), which is responsible for the protection of the incumbent and past Prime Ministers and their families. Even before 1968, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) was under the over-all control of the Prime Minister who exercised his or her supervision over it through the Cabinet Secretary.
4. The tenure of the National Democratic Alliance Government under A.B.Vajpayee
(1998-2004) saw new additions to this architecture in the form of the revived post of National Security Adviser (NSA), the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) and the National Technical Research Organisation. The NSCS was made part of the Prime Minister’s office and placed directly under the NSA.
5. In pursuance of the recommendations made by the various Task Forces set up by the NDA Government for revamping the national security capabilities after the Kargil conflict of 1999, the NSA was entrusted with the over-all responsibility for operational supervision of national security management and intelligence co-ordination, with the Cabinet Secretary’s responsibility confined to administrative co-ordination and management. The fact that both the NSA and the CS functioned directly under the Prime Minister facilitated the two working in close co-ordination with each other and there were no conflicts of jurisdiction and responsibilities between the NSA and the CS.
6. The country’s national security architecture---whether relating to internal or external security--- cannot remain static. It has to constantly evolve in keeping with the evolving threats to national security. All past changes in the national security architecture since 1968 were preceded by a detailed study of the changes required and their discussion in the Cabinet Committee on Security as well as in public to the extent possible in order to evolve an administrative, political and national consensus on the proposed changes.
7. The leadership and initiative for policy decisions to introduce the changes came from the Prime Minister of the day, who also articulated the need for and the importance of the proposed changes. The latest changes proposed by Chidambaram were not preceded by a similar detailed examination. The role and views of the Prime Minister and other senior Ministers of the Cabinet in respect of the proposed changes remain obscure. These changes, if and when implemented, could lead to a strengthening of the role and the status of the Home Minister in respect of internal security management and a corresponding dilution of the role of the Prime Minister, his NSA, the PM’s Office and the Cabinet Secretariat. Is this desirable?
8. The three major changes proposed by the Home Minister relate to making the Home Ministry exclusively responsible for the professional management of internal security similar to the Department of Homeland Security in the US, the creation in the Home Ministry by 2010-end of a National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) similar to the NCTC of the US and the revamping of the immigration control apparatus whose inefficiency was exploited by David Coleman Headley alias Daood Gilani and Tahawwur Hussain Rana of the Chicago cell of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) for frequent clandestine visits to India to prepare the ground for the 26/11 terrorist strikes. These changes have been advocated by many security experts of the country, including this writer, since 2004 when the US homeland security architecture was revamped in pursuance of the recommendations of the National Commission which enquired into the failures that facilitated the 9/11 terrorist strikes and the discussions on its report in the Congress.
9. These changes are welcome, but the ideas behind them are not new. What is new is the political will shown by Chidambaram to accept the desirability of these changes and the need to introduce them. Chidambaram needs to be complimented for this.
10 However, what should be of concern is the manner in which he proposes to introduce these changes. After reading the reports on his address as published in the media, one cannot but nurse an apprehension that the manner in which he intends to implement them could result in an over-centralised and over-powerful Home Ministry with the role of the Minister in charge strengthened at the expense of that of the Prime Minister.
11. References have been made to the post-9/11 changes in the US, but attention has not been drawn to the fact that in introducing the changes in the US over-centralisation has been avoided. The NCTC in the US functions under the Director National Intelligence, who reports directly to the President and takes orders from him and not from the Secretary for Homeland Security. The independence of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as the leading investigation agency in terrorism-related cases has been maintained. The Secretary for Homeland Security has no control over it. The responsibilities of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency relating to counter-terrorism outside the homeland and covert operations against terrorists in foreign territory have been maintained. He reports to the Director National Intelligence, who, in turn, reports to the President and not to the Secretary for Homeland Security. The National Security Agency and other technical intelligence agencies, in the exercise of their functions relating to counter terrorism, continue to report to the Defence Secretary and the Director National Intelligence and not to the Secretary for Homeland Security.
12. While the Secretary For Homeland Security is the overlord of physical security measures and follow-up action on intelligence reports, his powers have not been expanded at the expense of other agencies of the Government, which play an important role in respect of counter-terrorism.
13. What Chidambaram seems to want is that all agencies of the Government of India, except the SPG, which have counter-terrorism capabilities, should function directly under the Home Minister and take orders from him. Is this desirable? Will it improve counter-terrorism?
14. Another worrisome aspect of Chidambaram’s address is that it makes no distinction between terrorism as a threat and terrorism as a phenomenon, between indigenous terrorism by our nationals and externally-sponsored terrorism by foreign nationals, between operational and political management of terrorism and between the use of hard and soft power in dealing with terrorism. It tends to treat all terrorists as one and the same though he does talk of a nuanced approach.
15. While the changes proposed by Chidambaram in the internal security set-up should be welcomed, the questions as to how to implement them, how to avoid over-centralisation and how to ensure that while strengthening the counter-terrorism capabilities of the intelligence agencies, we do not weaken their capabilities relating to China and Pakistan should be examined by a group consisting of the Finance, Home, Defence and External Affairs Ministers and its recommendations discussed in the Parliament. ( 24-12-09)
( 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 I
( Extracts from my article of December 1,2008, titled “After Mumbai: Points For Action” available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers30/paper2949.html )
POINT 17: Set up a National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) under the National Security Adviser (NSA) to ensure joint operational action in all terrorism-related matters. It can be patterned after a similar institution set up in the US under Director, National Intelligence after 9/11. The National Commission set up by the US Congress to enquire into the 9/11 terrorist strikes had expressed the view that better co-ordination among the various agencies will not be enough and that what was required was a joint action command similar to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Armed Forces. Its tasks should be to monitor intelligence collection by various agencies, avoid duplication of efforts and resources, integrate the intelligence flowing from different agencies and foreign agencies, analyse and assess the integrated intelligence and monitor follow-up action by the Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other concerned agencies. Every agency is equally and jointly involved and responsible for the entire counter-terrorism process starting from collection to action on the intelligence collected. If such a system had existed, post-Mumbai complaints such as those of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) that the advisories issued by them on the possibility of a sea-borne attack by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) on Mumbai were not acted upon by the Mumbai Police would not have arisen because the IB and the R&AW would have been as responsible for follow-up action as the Mumbai Police.
POINT 18: The practice of the privileged direct access to the Prime Minister by the chiefs of the IB and the R&AW, which came into force under Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, should be vigorously enforced. This privileged direct access is utilised by the intelligence chiefs to bring their concerns over national security and over inaction by the agencies responsible for follow-up on their reports to the personal notice of the Prime Minister and seek his intervention. If the intelligence chiefs had brought to the notice of the Prime Minister the alleged inaction of the Mumbai Police on their reports, he might have intervened and issued the required political directive to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra.
POINT 19: Either create a separate Ministry of Internal Security or strengthen the role of the existing Department of Internal Security in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and make it responsible for dealing with internal security operationally under the over-all supervision of the Minister for Home Affairs.
ANNEXURE II
(Extracts from Chidambaram’s address as reported by “The Hindu” online on December 23,2009)
Proposing a "bold, thorough and radical restructuring" of the security architecture at the national level, Union Minister P. Chidambaram on Wednesday suggested bifurcation of the Home Ministry, saying subjects not directly related to internal security should be dealt with by a separate Ministry or should be brought under a separate department in the Home Ministry itself and dealt with by a Minister independently.
"The Home Minister should devote the whole of his/her time and energy to matters relating to security," Mr. Chidambaram said. In his view, given the imperatives and the challenges of the times, a division of the current functions of the Ministry of Home Affairs "is unavoidable".
In order to counter, prevent, contain and also respond to a terrorist attack should one take place, India must set up the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) by the end of 2010, he said while delivering the 22nd Intelligence Bureau Centenary Endowment lecture here.
In his 40-minute address, he touched upon the situation post 26/11 terror strikes, the state of India’s police and outlined the tasks that lay ahead to ward off crisis like the hijack of IC-814 or another catastrophe like Mumbai terror attacks.
Referring to the proposed NCTC, Mr. Chidambaram said: "Such an organisation does not exist today and it has to be created from the scratch. I am told that the United States was able to do it within 36 months of September 11, 2001. India cannot afford to wait for 36 months. India must decide now to go forward and India must succeed in setting up the NCTC by the end of 2010."
He said that the NCTC must have a broad mandate to deal with all kinds of terrorist violence directed against the country and the people.
"While the nature of the response to different kinds of terror would indeed be different and nuanced, NCTC's mandate should be to respond to violence unleashed by any group – be it an insurgent group in the North East or the CPI (Maoist) in the heartland of India or any group of religious fanatics anywhere in India acting on their own or in concert with terrorists outside India."
He said: "NCTC would, therefore, have to perform functions relating to intelligence, investigation and operations. All intelligence agencies would therefore have to be represented in the NCTC. But I am clear in my mind that, without 'operations', NCTC and the security architecture that is needed will be incomplete. It is the proposed 'operations' wing of the NCTC that will give an edge - now absent - to our plans to counter terrorism."
Turning to the functions of the MHA, Mr. Chidambaram said the Ministry now performed a number of functions that have no direct relation to internal security which include a division dealing with freedom fighters though it does not have even a desk for dealing exclusively with forensic science.
"There are other divisions or desks that deal with Centre-State relations, State Legislation, Human Rights, Union Territories, Disaster Management, Census etc. These are undoubtedly important functions and deserve close attention. However, internal security is an equally, if not more, important function that deserves the highest attention," he said.
Venturing after a year in office to outline the new architecture for India’s security, Mr. Chidambaram identified two enemies of change. "The first is 'routine'. Routine is the enemy of innovation. Because we are immersed in routine tasks, we neglect the need for change and innovation. The second enemy is 'complacency'," he told top police and intelligence officials that included National Security Advisor M. K. Narayanan, Home Secretary G.K. Pillai, Director IB Rajiv Mathur and others.
Striking a note of caution, Mr. Chidambaram said there was no time to be lost in making a thorough and radical departure from the present structure. "If, as a nation, we must defend ourselves in the present day and prepare for the future, it is imperative that we put in place a new architecture for India’s security," he said.
He also announced commencement of two more projects early next year: business porcess re-engineering of the Foreigners Division at a cost of Rs. 20 crore and the more ambitious Mission Mode Project on Immigration, Visa and Foreigners' Registration and Tracking with the objective of creating a secure and integrated service delivery framework for facilitating legitimate travellers and strengthening security.
Mr. Chidambaram said that the positioning of Research and Analysis Wing, Aviation Research centre and the CBI would have to be re-examined and a way would have to be found to place them under the oversight of NCTC to the extent that they deal with terrorism.
The Home Minister said the new organisation could be led by a police officer or a military officer who must be one who has impeccable professional credentials and the capacity to oversee intelligence, investigation and operations.
While the head of the NCTC will be the single person accountable to the country on all matters relating to internal security, the organisation would be at the command and control of Ministry of Home Affairs, he said.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
NEED TO FOCUS MORE ON RANA
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO. 593
B.RAMAN
David Coleman Headley originally known as Daood Gilani and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, members of the Chicago cell of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), operated in concert from Chicago. They were in personal, telephonic and E-mail contact with each other. They even took a drive in a car together on September 7,2009, when they discussed their future operational plans in India and Denmark at the instance of the LET and the 313 Brigade headed by Ilyas Kashmiri .The LET had four future targets in India----the Somnath temple, the National Defence College in New Delhi, and the film world and the Shiv Sena office in Mumbai. The 313 Brigade's target was the Copenhagen office of the Danish newspaper, which published some cartoons of Prophet Mohammad in 2005.
2. Headley undertook his two visits to Denmark and five pre-26/11 visits to India posing as a representative of an immigration consultancy service, which Rana ran from Chicago. He had kept Rana informed of his posing as the representative of the consultancy service and asked him, after a visit to Denmark, to corroborate the statements made by him to his interlocutors in Denmark regarding his links with Rana's service. The fact that Rana agrred to this shows his concurrence to Headley using the cover of being a representative of his service for his operational visits to Denmark and India to collect pre-attack information. Rana booked the air tickets for Headley for his two visits to Denmark.
3. There is so far no information or evidence to indicate that Headley and Rana travelled to India together or were in India at the same time and were in touch with each other during their stay in India. According to Indian media reports, during a visit to Kerala, Rana had published an advertisement in a local newspaper offering the services of his company for intending Indian applicants for a US visa. Neither Headley nor Rana would seem to have indicated in any way that the immigration consultancy service in Chicago for which they claimed to be working was one and the same.
4.According to the FBI's first affidavit against Rana,on or about September 25, 2009, Rana spoke by telephone with the Consul General at the Pakistani Consulate-General in Chicago in an effort to obtain a 5-year visa for Headley to travel to Pakistan. It was clear from email traffic unrelated to terrorist plotting that the Consul- General knew Rana and Headley personally as all three attended the same high school. However, the Consul General knew Headley as Gilani. He was not aware that Gilani, his old schoolmate, had become Headley since February,2006.In seeking a visa for Headley, Rana stated that he wished to obtain the visa for a white American named Headley who did not have any Pakistani background at all. When the Consul-General suggested that Rana send this white American to the consulate, Rana explained that he had sent his friend elsewhere to take care of some unspecified business so that someone else would visit the consulate. The FBI told the court in the affidavit that "It is clear from the foregoing conversation that Rana was attempting to deceive the Consul- General into granting a visa for Headley without the Consul- General knowing for whom the visa would be issued. "
5. One does not know whether the Consul-General agreed to this intriguing request of Rana. Even if he had done so, he would have noticed from the photograph in the passport of Headley that he was the same as Gilani-----unless Headley had changed his physical appearance when he took the new passport . Did Headley look different from Gilani?
6.The sister of Rahul Bhatt, the film actor, whom Headley had befriended in Mumbai, had said in an interview that the Headley whom he knew was different from the Headley whose picture was being shown on the TV. Rahul had been quoted as saying that the Headley whom he knew sported a pigtail.
7.According to the second report against Rana filed by the FBI in the court, he was in India in the third week of November, 2008. He flew from Mumbai to Dubai on a flight of the Emirates Airlines on November 21,2008. He flew from Dubai to China by the same Airlines on November , 24,2008, and from there returned to Chicago via Seoul on November 26,2008, by the Asiana Airlines.
8. There is no reason to believe that Headley was in India during this period. The last of his five pre-26/11 visits to India was in July,2008. It is not clear when did Rana arrive in India in November,2008, which places he visited and whom he met.It is also not clear which city he visited in China, what was the purpose of his visit to China and why his visit to China was so short.
9. Rana had admitted to the FBI that during his vist to Dubai from November 21 to 24, 2008, he met Maj. (retd) Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Pasha who was in touch with Ilyas Kashmiri on behalf of Headley and that he came to know from Pasha about the impending terrorist attacks by the LET in Mumbai. Rana has sought to convey an impression that his visit (or visits?) to India had nothing to do with the 26/11 attacks and that he came to know of the planned attacks only from Pasha in Dubai a few days before the attacks.
10.At the same time, it is clear from the papers filed by the FBI in the court that Rana personally knew both the handling officers of Headley in Pakistan---- Maj (retd) Abdur Rehman of the 313 Brigade and an unidentified office-bearer of the LET. It is also clear that Rana was fully aware at least on September 7,2009, if not earlier, of the LET's plans for future attacks on four targets in India.
12. Both Headley and Rana are equally important for the the Indian and US investigators to reconstruct the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai, to identify the entire network set up by them in India and the US and neutralise the members of the network still remaining undetected and to unearth the future plans of the LET and the 313 Brigade. The National Investigation Agency of India and the FBI should set up a joint team of senior officers to monitor the investigation being made in the two countries and get a complete picture of the conspiracy.
13. While one can understand the reluctance of the FBI to give access to Indian investigators to Headley , who is an American national and an informant of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), they should have no such hesitation in the case of Rana, who is a Canadian national and against whom there is no suspicion of his working for any US agency. We should, therefore, press our request for access to Rana.
14. The official and media focus in India and the US has been mostly on Headley.The required attention is not being given to investigating the role of Rana. The NIA should get from the FBI authentic pictures of Headley as Headley and as Gilani and of Rana, disseminate them widely through the print and electronic media and request those who had met and interacted with them under whatever name to contact the NIA.( 23-12-09)
( 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
David Coleman Headley originally known as Daood Gilani and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, members of the Chicago cell of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), operated in concert from Chicago. They were in personal, telephonic and E-mail contact with each other. They even took a drive in a car together on September 7,2009, when they discussed their future operational plans in India and Denmark at the instance of the LET and the 313 Brigade headed by Ilyas Kashmiri .The LET had four future targets in India----the Somnath temple, the National Defence College in New Delhi, and the film world and the Shiv Sena office in Mumbai. The 313 Brigade's target was the Copenhagen office of the Danish newspaper, which published some cartoons of Prophet Mohammad in 2005.
2. Headley undertook his two visits to Denmark and five pre-26/11 visits to India posing as a representative of an immigration consultancy service, which Rana ran from Chicago. He had kept Rana informed of his posing as the representative of the consultancy service and asked him, after a visit to Denmark, to corroborate the statements made by him to his interlocutors in Denmark regarding his links with Rana's service. The fact that Rana agrred to this shows his concurrence to Headley using the cover of being a representative of his service for his operational visits to Denmark and India to collect pre-attack information. Rana booked the air tickets for Headley for his two visits to Denmark.
3. There is so far no information or evidence to indicate that Headley and Rana travelled to India together or were in India at the same time and were in touch with each other during their stay in India. According to Indian media reports, during a visit to Kerala, Rana had published an advertisement in a local newspaper offering the services of his company for intending Indian applicants for a US visa. Neither Headley nor Rana would seem to have indicated in any way that the immigration consultancy service in Chicago for which they claimed to be working was one and the same.
4.According to the FBI's first affidavit against Rana,on or about September 25, 2009, Rana spoke by telephone with the Consul General at the Pakistani Consulate-General in Chicago in an effort to obtain a 5-year visa for Headley to travel to Pakistan. It was clear from email traffic unrelated to terrorist plotting that the Consul- General knew Rana and Headley personally as all three attended the same high school. However, the Consul General knew Headley as Gilani. He was not aware that Gilani, his old schoolmate, had become Headley since February,2006.In seeking a visa for Headley, Rana stated that he wished to obtain the visa for a white American named Headley who did not have any Pakistani background at all. When the Consul-General suggested that Rana send this white American to the consulate, Rana explained that he had sent his friend elsewhere to take care of some unspecified business so that someone else would visit the consulate. The FBI told the court in the affidavit that "It is clear from the foregoing conversation that Rana was attempting to deceive the Consul- General into granting a visa for Headley without the Consul- General knowing for whom the visa would be issued. "
5. One does not know whether the Consul-General agreed to this intriguing request of Rana. Even if he had done so, he would have noticed from the photograph in the passport of Headley that he was the same as Gilani-----unless Headley had changed his physical appearance when he took the new passport . Did Headley look different from Gilani?
6.The sister of Rahul Bhatt, the film actor, whom Headley had befriended in Mumbai, had said in an interview that the Headley whom he knew was different from the Headley whose picture was being shown on the TV. Rahul had been quoted as saying that the Headley whom he knew sported a pigtail.
7.According to the second report against Rana filed by the FBI in the court, he was in India in the third week of November, 2008. He flew from Mumbai to Dubai on a flight of the Emirates Airlines on November 21,2008. He flew from Dubai to China by the same Airlines on November , 24,2008, and from there returned to Chicago via Seoul on November 26,2008, by the Asiana Airlines.
8. There is no reason to believe that Headley was in India during this period. The last of his five pre-26/11 visits to India was in July,2008. It is not clear when did Rana arrive in India in November,2008, which places he visited and whom he met.It is also not clear which city he visited in China, what was the purpose of his visit to China and why his visit to China was so short.
9. Rana had admitted to the FBI that during his vist to Dubai from November 21 to 24, 2008, he met Maj. (retd) Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Pasha who was in touch with Ilyas Kashmiri on behalf of Headley and that he came to know from Pasha about the impending terrorist attacks by the LET in Mumbai. Rana has sought to convey an impression that his visit (or visits?) to India had nothing to do with the 26/11 attacks and that he came to know of the planned attacks only from Pasha in Dubai a few days before the attacks.
10.At the same time, it is clear from the papers filed by the FBI in the court that Rana personally knew both the handling officers of Headley in Pakistan---- Maj (retd) Abdur Rehman of the 313 Brigade and an unidentified office-bearer of the LET. It is also clear that Rana was fully aware at least on September 7,2009, if not earlier, of the LET's plans for future attacks on four targets in India.
12. Both Headley and Rana are equally important for the the Indian and US investigators to reconstruct the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai, to identify the entire network set up by them in India and the US and neutralise the members of the network still remaining undetected and to unearth the future plans of the LET and the 313 Brigade. The National Investigation Agency of India and the FBI should set up a joint team of senior officers to monitor the investigation being made in the two countries and get a complete picture of the conspiracy.
13. While one can understand the reluctance of the FBI to give access to Indian investigators to Headley , who is an American national and an informant of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), they should have no such hesitation in the case of Rana, who is a Canadian national and against whom there is no suspicion of his working for any US agency. We should, therefore, press our request for access to Rana.
14. The official and media focus in India and the US has been mostly on Headley.The required attention is not being given to investigating the role of Rana. The NIA should get from the FBI authentic pictures of Headley as Headley and as Gilani and of Rana, disseminate them widely through the print and electronic media and request those who had met and interacted with them under whatever name to contact the NIA.( 23-12-09)
( 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 )
Sunday, December 20, 2009
HEADLEY'S CASE: IMPACT ON INDO-US INTELLIGENCE CO-OPERATION
B.RAMAN
Periodic misunderstandings and mutual bitterness in the relations between co-operating intelligence agencies are part of the game of intelligence.
2.The CIA's penetration of the Chennai office of the Research & Analysis Wing in the 1980s to collect intelligence about India's role in Sri Lanka, its penetration of the Intelligence Bureau in the 1990s to collect intelligence about its counter-intelligence set-up,its post-2001 penetration of the R&AW through Maj.Rabinder Singh, who was helped by the CIA to flee to the US to avoid being arrested and interrogated by the Indian counter-intelligence, and its post-2004 penetration of the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) through the mechanism of the Indo-US Cyber Security Forum created feelings of bad blood and bitterness in the relations between the intelligence communities of the two countries, but this did not last long. The intelligence communities of the two countries realised the importance of not allowing such instances of perceived betrayal of confidence to affect their long-term relationship, which has served the two countries well in the past and which would be necessary in the future if they have to strengthen their strategic relationship.
3. A permanent itch for penetration is ingrained in an intelligence professional. He or she keeps looking out all the time for opportunities for penetration. It is immaterial whether the set-up to be penetrated is that of a friend or a foe. The important question is whether the penetration would produce valuable intelligence and whether the resulting intelligence is of such value as to warrant risk-taking to the extent of temporary misunderstandings with the country whose set-up is penetrated.
4. Past instances of misunderstandings and unhappiness in counter-terrorism co-operation between the intelligence communities of India and the US date from the days of Khalistani terrorism in Punjab, the Mumbai blasts of March,1993 and the outbreak of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir in 1989. The Indian intelligence community always felt and continues to feel that in matters relating to the complicity of the State of Pakistan in acts of terrorism in India, the co-operation of the US intelligence left much to be desired. This position shows no signs of changing even after the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai in which for the first time Pakistan-sponsored terrorists killed not only 141 Indian nationals, but also 25 foreigners---six of them US nationals and six others Jewish either with Israeli nationality or with dual Israeli-US nationality.
5. Despite this, there has been a qualitative change in the Indo-US co-operation in counter-terrorism since 9/11. This change has been particularly noticeable in four matters. Firstly, the US has recognised that some of the terrorist organisations operating in India such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) are largely, if not wholly, Pakistani organisations and not Kashmiri organisations as claimed by Pakistan. Secondly, examples of advance sharing of preventive intelligence are increasing. An example was the reported alerts from the US intelligence in September,2008, about the plans of the LET for a sea-borne attack on some hotels in Mumbai. Thirdly, there is a greater readiness on the part of the US to place its forensic resources at the disposal of the Indian investigators to facillitate their investigation into acts of terrorism. This was clearly seen after the 26/11 attacks. Fourthly, there is a greater willingness on the part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to assist the Indian investigators in the prosecution of the terrorists. Before 26/11, the FBI was reluctant to allow its experts to testify before Indian courts. After 26/11, it allowed its experts to testify in Indian courts through video-conferencing.
6. At a time when the co-operation was developing in a positive and mutually beneficial direction, some suspicion has crept in the relations between the intelligence communities of the two countries following the discovery of the Chicago cell of the LET consisting of David Coleman Headley alias Daood Gilani and Tahawwur Hussain Rana and their arrest by the FBI. Even if it is true----one will never be able to find that out definitively--- that Headley was a penetration agent of the US intelligence to monitor the activities of the LET, the Indian intelligence should have no grouse against its US counterpart on that account. Since the US agencies fear that any future terrorist attack in the US homeland would originate either from Pakistan or from the Pakistani diaspora abroad, their efforts to penetrate organisations in Pakistan or of Pakistani origin in order to collect preventive intelligence not only about terrorists but also their links with the narcotics world are understandable. Placed in a similar situation, that is what the Indian intelligence would be doing.
7. After 9/11, there has been considerable criticism of intelligence agencies all over the world---including in India and the US---for their inadequacies in the field of human intelligence (HUMINT).The only effective way of improving the collection of HUMINT is through more and better penetration operations.
8. In the case of the Headley operation, there have been failures on the part of the intelligence communities of both the countries. In the US, the failure is one of effective supervision. It was an operation which has created an embarrassment for the US because the US agencies failed to factor into their tradecraft the danger of the LET playing Headley back on the US and using him for its operations in India and the West.
9. One would find it difficult to accept that the US agencies were aware of the entire conspiracy relating to 26/11 through Headley, but shared the information only selectively with the Indian intelligence. The allegation that has been made in India is that the US intelligence shared with India only those portions of the intelligence which would not have endangered their penetration operation and refrained from sharing those portions which could have endangered it. Theoretically, this is possible, but really not. The US agencies would have been anxious to protect the lives of their nationals and those of Israel and NATO countries. They would not have consciously sacrificed their lives in order to safeguard their links with Headley. Due to the poor control exercised by the US handling officers over Headley, he was more loyal to the LET than to the US agency handling him and was not telling everything to his US handling officers.
10. In the case of the Indian agencies and the Ministry of External Affairs, the failures have been relating to the apparently inefficient scrutiny of his visa application by the Indian Consulate-General in Chicago and the failure of the Indian intelligence and investigative agencies and the airport immigration to suspect even once his bona fides. According to the FBI, after each of his five visits to India, Headley went to Pakistan to hand over to the LET the video-recordings made by him in India. It is amazing that none of the Indian officials noticed his frequent toing and froing between India and Pakistan and questioned him on that.
11. There are only three ways of explaining this.
Either, the Indian immigration at the airport was negligent in the scrutiny of his passport;
or he was using two passports----his old pre-2006 passport as Gilani for his travels to Pakistan and his new passport as Headley for his travels to India;
Or, the ISI was helping the LET by allowing him to enter and exit from Pakistan without any entry in his passport.
12. The present misunderstanding between the intelligence professionals of the two countries has arisen from the alleged reluctance of the FBI to give independent access to Headley to Indian investigators for interrogation and from the feeling right or wrong that that the FBI has not been as forthcoming as it ought to have been and has not shared with the indian investigators all the information that needed to be shared.
13. Continued breast-beating by the Indian professionals about the perceived reluctance of the FBI to co-operate fully is not going to help matters. There are two aspects to the L-affaire Headley. The first relates to the reconstruction of the 26/11 attacks. The second relates to the prevention of future attacks.
14. Indian and US professionals must remember that Headley may be only the tip of the LET iceberg in the US as well as India.It is in the common interest of the two countries to identify his network of contacts and sleeper cells, if any, in the two countries. It is significant and worrying that neither the FBI in the US nor the Central Investigation Agency in India has so far been able to identify and arrest any other contact of Headley in their respective countries except Rana of Chicago. This gives rise to a strong suspicion that while he has been taliking freely to the FBI about the past, he has not been forthcoming about the future and about the identities of LET cells in the US and India, which could organise future attacks.
15. This is an area where the intelligence professionals of the two countries can and ought to co-operate despite the Indian unhappiness about the past. The Indian unhappiness about the past is legitimate and understandable, but this should not be allowed to come in the way of joint efforts to prevent future attacks. ( 21-12-09)
( 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)
Periodic misunderstandings and mutual bitterness in the relations between co-operating intelligence agencies are part of the game of intelligence.
2.The CIA's penetration of the Chennai office of the Research & Analysis Wing in the 1980s to collect intelligence about India's role in Sri Lanka, its penetration of the Intelligence Bureau in the 1990s to collect intelligence about its counter-intelligence set-up,its post-2001 penetration of the R&AW through Maj.Rabinder Singh, who was helped by the CIA to flee to the US to avoid being arrested and interrogated by the Indian counter-intelligence, and its post-2004 penetration of the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) through the mechanism of the Indo-US Cyber Security Forum created feelings of bad blood and bitterness in the relations between the intelligence communities of the two countries, but this did not last long. The intelligence communities of the two countries realised the importance of not allowing such instances of perceived betrayal of confidence to affect their long-term relationship, which has served the two countries well in the past and which would be necessary in the future if they have to strengthen their strategic relationship.
3. A permanent itch for penetration is ingrained in an intelligence professional. He or she keeps looking out all the time for opportunities for penetration. It is immaterial whether the set-up to be penetrated is that of a friend or a foe. The important question is whether the penetration would produce valuable intelligence and whether the resulting intelligence is of such value as to warrant risk-taking to the extent of temporary misunderstandings with the country whose set-up is penetrated.
4. Past instances of misunderstandings and unhappiness in counter-terrorism co-operation between the intelligence communities of India and the US date from the days of Khalistani terrorism in Punjab, the Mumbai blasts of March,1993 and the outbreak of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir in 1989. The Indian intelligence community always felt and continues to feel that in matters relating to the complicity of the State of Pakistan in acts of terrorism in India, the co-operation of the US intelligence left much to be desired. This position shows no signs of changing even after the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai in which for the first time Pakistan-sponsored terrorists killed not only 141 Indian nationals, but also 25 foreigners---six of them US nationals and six others Jewish either with Israeli nationality or with dual Israeli-US nationality.
5. Despite this, there has been a qualitative change in the Indo-US co-operation in counter-terrorism since 9/11. This change has been particularly noticeable in four matters. Firstly, the US has recognised that some of the terrorist organisations operating in India such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) are largely, if not wholly, Pakistani organisations and not Kashmiri organisations as claimed by Pakistan. Secondly, examples of advance sharing of preventive intelligence are increasing. An example was the reported alerts from the US intelligence in September,2008, about the plans of the LET for a sea-borne attack on some hotels in Mumbai. Thirdly, there is a greater readiness on the part of the US to place its forensic resources at the disposal of the Indian investigators to facillitate their investigation into acts of terrorism. This was clearly seen after the 26/11 attacks. Fourthly, there is a greater willingness on the part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to assist the Indian investigators in the prosecution of the terrorists. Before 26/11, the FBI was reluctant to allow its experts to testify before Indian courts. After 26/11, it allowed its experts to testify in Indian courts through video-conferencing.
6. At a time when the co-operation was developing in a positive and mutually beneficial direction, some suspicion has crept in the relations between the intelligence communities of the two countries following the discovery of the Chicago cell of the LET consisting of David Coleman Headley alias Daood Gilani and Tahawwur Hussain Rana and their arrest by the FBI. Even if it is true----one will never be able to find that out definitively--- that Headley was a penetration agent of the US intelligence to monitor the activities of the LET, the Indian intelligence should have no grouse against its US counterpart on that account. Since the US agencies fear that any future terrorist attack in the US homeland would originate either from Pakistan or from the Pakistani diaspora abroad, their efforts to penetrate organisations in Pakistan or of Pakistani origin in order to collect preventive intelligence not only about terrorists but also their links with the narcotics world are understandable. Placed in a similar situation, that is what the Indian intelligence would be doing.
7. After 9/11, there has been considerable criticism of intelligence agencies all over the world---including in India and the US---for their inadequacies in the field of human intelligence (HUMINT).The only effective way of improving the collection of HUMINT is through more and better penetration operations.
8. In the case of the Headley operation, there have been failures on the part of the intelligence communities of both the countries. In the US, the failure is one of effective supervision. It was an operation which has created an embarrassment for the US because the US agencies failed to factor into their tradecraft the danger of the LET playing Headley back on the US and using him for its operations in India and the West.
9. One would find it difficult to accept that the US agencies were aware of the entire conspiracy relating to 26/11 through Headley, but shared the information only selectively with the Indian intelligence. The allegation that has been made in India is that the US intelligence shared with India only those portions of the intelligence which would not have endangered their penetration operation and refrained from sharing those portions which could have endangered it. Theoretically, this is possible, but really not. The US agencies would have been anxious to protect the lives of their nationals and those of Israel and NATO countries. They would not have consciously sacrificed their lives in order to safeguard their links with Headley. Due to the poor control exercised by the US handling officers over Headley, he was more loyal to the LET than to the US agency handling him and was not telling everything to his US handling officers.
10. In the case of the Indian agencies and the Ministry of External Affairs, the failures have been relating to the apparently inefficient scrutiny of his visa application by the Indian Consulate-General in Chicago and the failure of the Indian intelligence and investigative agencies and the airport immigration to suspect even once his bona fides. According to the FBI, after each of his five visits to India, Headley went to Pakistan to hand over to the LET the video-recordings made by him in India. It is amazing that none of the Indian officials noticed his frequent toing and froing between India and Pakistan and questioned him on that.
11. There are only three ways of explaining this.
Either, the Indian immigration at the airport was negligent in the scrutiny of his passport;
or he was using two passports----his old pre-2006 passport as Gilani for his travels to Pakistan and his new passport as Headley for his travels to India;
Or, the ISI was helping the LET by allowing him to enter and exit from Pakistan without any entry in his passport.
12. The present misunderstanding between the intelligence professionals of the two countries has arisen from the alleged reluctance of the FBI to give independent access to Headley to Indian investigators for interrogation and from the feeling right or wrong that that the FBI has not been as forthcoming as it ought to have been and has not shared with the indian investigators all the information that needed to be shared.
13. Continued breast-beating by the Indian professionals about the perceived reluctance of the FBI to co-operate fully is not going to help matters. There are two aspects to the L-affaire Headley. The first relates to the reconstruction of the 26/11 attacks. The second relates to the prevention of future attacks.
14. Indian and US professionals must remember that Headley may be only the tip of the LET iceberg in the US as well as India.It is in the common interest of the two countries to identify his network of contacts and sleeper cells, if any, in the two countries. It is significant and worrying that neither the FBI in the US nor the Central Investigation Agency in India has so far been able to identify and arrest any other contact of Headley in their respective countries except Rana of Chicago. This gives rise to a strong suspicion that while he has been taliking freely to the FBI about the past, he has not been forthcoming about the future and about the identities of LET cells in the US and India, which could organise future attacks.
15. This is an area where the intelligence professionals of the two countries can and ought to co-operate despite the Indian unhappiness about the past. The Indian unhappiness about the past is legitimate and understandable, but this should not be allowed to come in the way of joint efforts to prevent future attacks. ( 21-12-09)
( 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)
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