INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.589
B.RAMAN
Reports of volunteers from the Muslim community in the West secretly traveling to Pakistan to join the on-going jihad in the Af-Pak region are not infrequent. The British citizens/residents of Pakistani origin, who carried out the suicide attacks in London in July 2005, belonged to one such group from the UK, which had traveled to Pakistan, got trained by Al Qaeda or pro-Al Qaeda elements, returned to the UK and carried out the suicide attacks. The British intelligence failed to question them after they returned from Pakistan or even to keep them under watch. It became aware of the details of their visits to Pakistan only after they had carried out the suicide attacks.
2. The Intelligence and Security Committee of the British Prime Minister, which enquired into the explosions, said, inter alia, in its report submitted to the local Parliament in May,2006, as follows: " We remain concerned that across the whole of the counter-terrorism community, the development of the home-grown threat and the radicalisation of British citizens were not fully understood or applied to strategic thinking. A common and better level of understanding of these things among all those closely involved in identifying and countering the threat against the UK, whether that be the Security Service or the police or other parts of Government, is critical in order to be able to counter the threat effectively and prevent attacks. Lessons that have been learned about the potential diversity of those who can become radicalised and the extent to which they can become radicalised ---including to the point of suicide--- must be taken into account as new initiatives are taken forward."
3. There have also been instances of members of the local Muslim community in Germany and Denmark going to the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan to join the on-going jihad of the two Talibans of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Adam Gadahn, an American convert to Islam, who is in charge of As Sahab, the publicity wing of Al Qaeda , which produces and disseminates the recorded messages of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, is another example of this Af-Pak-bound jihadis.
4. Till a few years ago, the majority of foreign Muslims studying in the Pakistani madrasas used to come from Asia and Africa, but a recent trend has been for Muslim families in the US and West Europe to send their children, including girls, to Pakistan for a short attachment to the madrasas in order to make them true Muslims. Since many of these madrasas maintain close links with jihadi organizations such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) these students come under their influence and are brain-washed before they return home.
5. The jihad of the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s attracted nearly about 6000 foreign volunteers, almost all of them from the Arab countries and some from other parts of Asia. But, there was hardly any from the West.
6. The Al Qaeda-supported jihad of the two Talibans in the Af-Pak region has not been attracting many Arabs and volunteers from South-East Asia. The Arabs, who are with Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban today in the Af-Pak region, are the remnants of the past volunteers. There has not been much of a fresh flow. However, the jihad of the two Talibans has started attracting young Muslims from the communities in the West, who want to express their Islamic solidarity with their co-religionists in the Af-Pak region by either fighting with them shoulder to shoulder or through other means such as placing their technical expertise in Information Technology and other modern innovations at the disposal of the jihadis.
7. It is still a small trickle from the West. It is estimated that the number of young Muslims from the West, who have come to Pakistan either for studying in the madrasas or for assisting the Talibans and Al Qaeda, must be around a hundred. As these jihadis go back to their countries from the Af-Pak region, they are likely to carry with them the radical jihadi virus to their communities back home. Their activities in Pakistan and after they return home would, therefore, need close watch.
8. The five young Muslim residents from the Virginia area of the US---- two of them of Pakistani origin and the remaining three of Egyptian, Ethiopian and Eritrean origin---- who were arrested by the Pakistani police at Sargodha on December 9,2009, in response to an alert from the USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seem to have been self-motivated by a desire to assist the Talibans. Reports from Pakistan indicate that they were self-motivated volunteers and not externally-induced recruits. They had traveled to Pakistan on their own towards the end of November and allegedly contacted the JEM as well as the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the political wing of the LET. Since they were located and arrested within a few days of their arrival, they could not have undergone any training.
9.The prompt action to trace and round them up became possible because one of the Pakistani origin volunteers had left a recorded message back home indicating the purpose of their travel to Pakistan. His family alerted a local Muslim community group. The FBI would seem to have come to know of their sudden disappearance from their homes in the US and alerted the Pakistani authorities to look for them.
10. The claims made by the Sargodha Police after their arrest that they seemed to be having links with Al Qaeda and had offered their services for committing acts of terrorism in Pakistan have not been corroborated. All that has been established so far is that since August they were in touch with acquaintances in Pakistan through the Internet in order to prepare themselves for the visit to Pakistan to join the jihad in the FATA area. It has been alleged that the house in which they were found and arrested belonged to a member of the JEM and that the father (Khalid Farooq) of one of the Pakistani origin persons by name Umar Farooq is also being questioned by the Police in order to ascertain whether he had any role in their travel to Pakistan. Khalid Farooq reportedly runs a computer business in the US and Pakistan and spends part of the year in the US and part in Pakistan. The arrested persons are between 19 and 25 years of age.
11. While there is so far no evidence to show that they belonged to any jihadi organization, the five arrested persons seem to have had a common social background in the US which brought them together and induced them to plan together. This needs to be looked into carefully. (11-12-09)
( 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 10, 2009
HEADLEY & MUMBAI 26/11---WHAT NEXT? : Q & A
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO. 588
B.RAMAN
Q: US officials have been quoted in the media as saying that the further action against David Coleman Headley of Chicago, who was allegedly involved in the conspiracy of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) relating to the Mumbai—26/11 terrorist strike, has to be “negotiated”. What do they mean by that?
A: There will be two kinds of “negotiations” ---between Headley and the FBI prosecutors and between Indian and US authorities. The objective of the “negotiations” with Headley will be to persuade him to admit before the court some of the charges leveled against him as a quid pro quo for the FBI not prosecuting him on the other charges which might be dropped. The advantage to him will be that the FBI could assure him that it will not press for a death penalty against him if he admitted some of the charges. Quid pro quo in criminal cases in order to expedite the trial is often followed in the US. The “negotiations” with the Indian authorities will be to decide where he will be prosecuted. He has committed offences against Indian and US laws. He cannot be prosecuted on the basis of the same facts or admissions in both the countries. That could attract the legal ban relating to double jeopardy.
Q: What are the chances of the US agreeing during the “negotiations” to his being prosecuted only in India and not in the US? That would not attract double jeopardy.
A: I am not hopeful that the US would agree to it. If they did, they will have to transfer Headley to Indian custody for interrogation and prosecution. Pakistan would oppose it. The US State Department would be afraid that if he is interrogated in Indian custody, he might make to Indian interrogators admissions or statements, which could be detrimental to the State of Pakistan. The US has always tried to protect the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment from possible adverse consequences of their involvement in terrorism in India. There is no reason to believe that they have changed that policy.
Q: What are the chances of India getting him extradited?
A: If the terrorist attack had not resulted in the death of US nationals, the US would have found it difficult to reject or avoid an Indian request for his extradition. Because of the death of the six US nationals, the US might have no other option but to prosecute him before a US court. The question of extradition would arise only after the case in the US has ended. If India intends prosecuting him for the same offence and on the basis of the same set of facts as in the US court, laws relating to double jeopardy could prevent his extradition. To make out a plausible case for his extradition, the Govt. of India has to show that he has to be prosecuted for certain other offences different from the offences for which he was prosecuted in the US--- like , for example, the death of Indian civilians and security forces officers as a result of the conspiracy or the death of Jewish persons and other foreign nationals.
Q: Will the FBI allow Indian investigators to interrogate him in the US if it is not prepared to transfer him to Indian custody?
A: I am again doubtful because of the expected US keenness to protect Pakistan from possible adverse consequences. The best they might do is to ask the Indian investigators to give them a set of questions which the FBI investigators will pose to Headley and communicate his replies to their Indian counterparts.
Q: Has India reasons to be satisfied with the co-operation extended by the FBI so far?
A: The FBI has been very helpful in certain matters. It seems to have shared with India many of the admissions made by Headley during the interrogation. One piece of material evidence which would be of tremendous interest to the Indian investigators is the voice recordings of Headley’s telephone conversations with his handlers in Pakistan identified in the original affidavit as Individual A and LET member A. Individual A has since been identified by the FBI on the basis of Headley’s admissions as retired Major Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Pasha. The FBI does not seem to know as yet who exactly is he. Amir Mir, the Pakistani journalist, has reported in the “News” of December 9,2009, that the FBI is trying to find out whether he could be identical with a nephew of Qari Saifullah Akhtar of the HUJI, who has a similar name. The FBI has not yet named the LET member A. One possibility is that he is one of the LET conspirators presently in custody in Pakistan and facing trial in a case filed before an anti-terrorism court in connection with the Mumbai 26/11 conspiracy. If it turns out to be so, it will show that the Pakistani authorities have allowed those ostensibly in jail to continue to remain in touch with Headley in order to plan another terrorist strike in India. I am doubtful whether the US would want India to find this out. It will definitely pressure Pakistan to stop this, but would not share this information with India. If the US shares the voice recordings with the Indian investigators, they would be able to compare them with the recordings of the voices of the Pakistani masterminds, who were directing the 26/11 terrorists and see whether any of the voices are identical. I am not sure whether the US would share the voice recordings. If it doesn’t, that would show that the co-operation is even now not whole-hearted despite the improvement and that the keenness to protect the Pakistani State from adverse consequences still influences US decisions vis-à-vis counter-terrorism co-operation with India.. (10-12-09)
(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
Q: US officials have been quoted in the media as saying that the further action against David Coleman Headley of Chicago, who was allegedly involved in the conspiracy of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) relating to the Mumbai—26/11 terrorist strike, has to be “negotiated”. What do they mean by that?
A: There will be two kinds of “negotiations” ---between Headley and the FBI prosecutors and between Indian and US authorities. The objective of the “negotiations” with Headley will be to persuade him to admit before the court some of the charges leveled against him as a quid pro quo for the FBI not prosecuting him on the other charges which might be dropped. The advantage to him will be that the FBI could assure him that it will not press for a death penalty against him if he admitted some of the charges. Quid pro quo in criminal cases in order to expedite the trial is often followed in the US. The “negotiations” with the Indian authorities will be to decide where he will be prosecuted. He has committed offences against Indian and US laws. He cannot be prosecuted on the basis of the same facts or admissions in both the countries. That could attract the legal ban relating to double jeopardy.
Q: What are the chances of the US agreeing during the “negotiations” to his being prosecuted only in India and not in the US? That would not attract double jeopardy.
A: I am not hopeful that the US would agree to it. If they did, they will have to transfer Headley to Indian custody for interrogation and prosecution. Pakistan would oppose it. The US State Department would be afraid that if he is interrogated in Indian custody, he might make to Indian interrogators admissions or statements, which could be detrimental to the State of Pakistan. The US has always tried to protect the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment from possible adverse consequences of their involvement in terrorism in India. There is no reason to believe that they have changed that policy.
Q: What are the chances of India getting him extradited?
A: If the terrorist attack had not resulted in the death of US nationals, the US would have found it difficult to reject or avoid an Indian request for his extradition. Because of the death of the six US nationals, the US might have no other option but to prosecute him before a US court. The question of extradition would arise only after the case in the US has ended. If India intends prosecuting him for the same offence and on the basis of the same set of facts as in the US court, laws relating to double jeopardy could prevent his extradition. To make out a plausible case for his extradition, the Govt. of India has to show that he has to be prosecuted for certain other offences different from the offences for which he was prosecuted in the US--- like , for example, the death of Indian civilians and security forces officers as a result of the conspiracy or the death of Jewish persons and other foreign nationals.
Q: Will the FBI allow Indian investigators to interrogate him in the US if it is not prepared to transfer him to Indian custody?
A: I am again doubtful because of the expected US keenness to protect Pakistan from possible adverse consequences. The best they might do is to ask the Indian investigators to give them a set of questions which the FBI investigators will pose to Headley and communicate his replies to their Indian counterparts.
Q: Has India reasons to be satisfied with the co-operation extended by the FBI so far?
A: The FBI has been very helpful in certain matters. It seems to have shared with India many of the admissions made by Headley during the interrogation. One piece of material evidence which would be of tremendous interest to the Indian investigators is the voice recordings of Headley’s telephone conversations with his handlers in Pakistan identified in the original affidavit as Individual A and LET member A. Individual A has since been identified by the FBI on the basis of Headley’s admissions as retired Major Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Pasha. The FBI does not seem to know as yet who exactly is he. Amir Mir, the Pakistani journalist, has reported in the “News” of December 9,2009, that the FBI is trying to find out whether he could be identical with a nephew of Qari Saifullah Akhtar of the HUJI, who has a similar name. The FBI has not yet named the LET member A. One possibility is that he is one of the LET conspirators presently in custody in Pakistan and facing trial in a case filed before an anti-terrorism court in connection with the Mumbai 26/11 conspiracy. If it turns out to be so, it will show that the Pakistani authorities have allowed those ostensibly in jail to continue to remain in touch with Headley in order to plan another terrorist strike in India. I am doubtful whether the US would want India to find this out. It will definitely pressure Pakistan to stop this, but would not share this information with India. If the US shares the voice recordings with the Indian investigators, they would be able to compare them with the recordings of the voices of the Pakistani masterminds, who were directing the 26/11 terrorists and see whether any of the voices are identical. I am not sure whether the US would share the voice recordings. If it doesn’t, that would show that the co-operation is even now not whole-hearted despite the improvement and that the keenness to protect the Pakistani State from adverse consequences still influences US decisions vis-à-vis counter-terrorism co-operation with India.. (10-12-09)
(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 )
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
HEADLEY & DHIREN BAROT : THE JIHADI MOLES
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.587
B.RAMAN
David Coleman Headley, the middle-aged US citizen of Pakistani origin born to a former Pakistani public servant posted in the US and his American wife, who is facing investigation and prosecution before a Federal court in Chicago on charges relating to the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist attack of last year and a planned terrorist attack on a Danish newspaper in Copenhagen, is not a home-grown jihadi on the model of the British residents of Pakistani origin who carried out the suicide acts of terrorism in London in July,2005.
2.He was not an ill-integrated American like the Pakistani terrorists were ill-integrated British who hated the society in which they had grown up. He did not nurse any grievance or anger against the country of his adoption. There is so far no evidence to show even that he was a practising Muslim with a fundamentalist mindset. His original anger arose from the publication of some cartoons of the Holy Prophet by a Danish newspaper in 2005. He strongly felt the need for a Muslim retaliation against the paper.
3. It was this anger and the urge to retaliate, which seemed to have driven him first into the arms of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) in 2005 and then into the fold of the so-called 313 Brigade based in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan and headed by Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistani of suspected Army links, who had initially served in the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and then gravitated towards Al Qaeda along with his organisation.
4. The British suicide bombers were not recruited by Al Qaeda or any of its affiliates. Driven by anger against the British role in Iraq and Afghanistan, they volunteered themselves for a suicide attack, got trained in Pakistan and carried out the attack in London. They targeted innocent British civilians and wanted them to die.
5. There is so far no evidence to show that Headley's anger had anything to do with the US role in Iraq or Afghanistan or with the militant movement in India's Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). His anger was triggered off by a perceived insult to the Holy Prophet and to Islam and a strongly-felt urge to avenge it.
6. He was not recruited by the LET and the 313 Brigade. He volunteered himself to help them --- not for personally carrying out an act of terrorism in US territory against US nationals, but for facilitating an act of terrorism in Copenhagen by undertaking reccee missions to Denmark under the cover of an employee of a Chicago-based immigration consultation company, which ostensibly wanted to open an office in Copenhagen.
7. The LET and the 313 Brigade welcomed him with open arms. The LET diverted his anger to India and used him as a mole with an assumed non-Pakistani Christian/Jewish identity for undertaking frequent visits to India of long duration to reccee targets and the Mumbai sea front for its planned sea-borne terrorist attack. He willingly became a facilitator of the conspiracy, which resulted in the death of 166 persons---- 25 of them foreign nationals, including six American nationals.
8. The LET's decision to use the willingness of Headley to conceal his Pakistani/Muslim identity and highlight his American/ Christian identity helped it in overcoming the suspicions of Indian immigration authorities against Muslims of Pakistani origin. In the wake of the growing closeness of India to the US, an American passport holder with a non-Muslim identity hardly created any suspicion in India. On the contrary, the features of a White American inherited by him from his mother helped him in ingratiacting himself with different sections of the urban Indian elite. He managed to create an image of himself as a "jolly good American", who wished well of India.
9.Headley knew that the LET was planning to target Jewish people and a Jewish religious-cultural centre in Mumbai because it had asked him to reccee the Nariman House in which the Jewish centre was located. But one does not know as yet whether he knew that the LET was also planning to target and kill non-Jewish foreigners, including Americans.
10. Headley willingly and painstakingly undertook the reccee missions for the LET in India, but his heart was in Copenhagen where he wanted to help the 313 Brigade in attacking the Danish paper. It was his enthusiasm for the planned attack in Copenhagen by Ilyas Kashmiri, which brought him to the notice of the FBI and ultimately led to his arrest along with the arrest of his associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin. living and working in Chicago.
11. Headley was helping the LET since 2005 and the 313 Brigade since 2008, but his admiration for Ilyas Kashmiri and his poor opinion of the LET despite his association with it come out clearly from his intercepted communications produced by the FBI in the court. He looked upon the LET as lacking the courage to undertake a major terrorist strike in Copenhagen.
12. The LET's interest in recruiting US residents of Pakistani origin and White converts to Islam for terrorist attacks in India was known to the FBI since 2003. What must have come as a surprise to it was the first-time use by the LET of dissimulation as part of its modus operandi.
13. The question that US and Indian investigators would be asking themselves is---- is Headley a lone fish or are there other Headleys who remain undetected in the US and India?
14. Headley's case brings to mind the attempt of Al Qaeda to use Dhiren Barot also known as Esa-al-Hindi, a Hindu convert to Islam living in the UK, to undertake reccee missions to New York to collect operational intelligence about US financial institutions which could be used for another terrorist attack in US territory. Barot's Indian origin and British passport did not ring the same alarm bell in the minds of the US immigration as Arabs and Pakistanis did. Al Qaeda sought to exploit this.
15. Barot was not recruited by Al Qaeda. Angered by reports of the alleged suppression of Muslims in J&K and other parts of India and the anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002, he volunteered himself to help Al Qaeda and its affiliates. Al Qaeda welcomed him and turned his anti-India anger to the US and the UK and tried unsuccessfully to use him for its operations in those countries. He was detected by the joint efforts of the US and British intelligence, arrested and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.
16. Home-grown jihadi moles, who act as facilitators of terrorist conspiracies, without personally participating in a terrorist attack, are going to be more difficult to detect than home-grown jihadi terrorists. The close co-operation of the FBI and the Indian intelligence in the Headley case should form the starting block for a joint drive to guard them against this phenomenon.(10-12-09)
( 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, the middle-aged US citizen of Pakistani origin born to a former Pakistani public servant posted in the US and his American wife, who is facing investigation and prosecution before a Federal court in Chicago on charges relating to the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist attack of last year and a planned terrorist attack on a Danish newspaper in Copenhagen, is not a home-grown jihadi on the model of the British residents of Pakistani origin who carried out the suicide acts of terrorism in London in July,2005.
2.He was not an ill-integrated American like the Pakistani terrorists were ill-integrated British who hated the society in which they had grown up. He did not nurse any grievance or anger against the country of his adoption. There is so far no evidence to show even that he was a practising Muslim with a fundamentalist mindset. His original anger arose from the publication of some cartoons of the Holy Prophet by a Danish newspaper in 2005. He strongly felt the need for a Muslim retaliation against the paper.
3. It was this anger and the urge to retaliate, which seemed to have driven him first into the arms of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) in 2005 and then into the fold of the so-called 313 Brigade based in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan and headed by Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistani of suspected Army links, who had initially served in the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and then gravitated towards Al Qaeda along with his organisation.
4. The British suicide bombers were not recruited by Al Qaeda or any of its affiliates. Driven by anger against the British role in Iraq and Afghanistan, they volunteered themselves for a suicide attack, got trained in Pakistan and carried out the attack in London. They targeted innocent British civilians and wanted them to die.
5. There is so far no evidence to show that Headley's anger had anything to do with the US role in Iraq or Afghanistan or with the militant movement in India's Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). His anger was triggered off by a perceived insult to the Holy Prophet and to Islam and a strongly-felt urge to avenge it.
6. He was not recruited by the LET and the 313 Brigade. He volunteered himself to help them --- not for personally carrying out an act of terrorism in US territory against US nationals, but for facilitating an act of terrorism in Copenhagen by undertaking reccee missions to Denmark under the cover of an employee of a Chicago-based immigration consultation company, which ostensibly wanted to open an office in Copenhagen.
7. The LET and the 313 Brigade welcomed him with open arms. The LET diverted his anger to India and used him as a mole with an assumed non-Pakistani Christian/Jewish identity for undertaking frequent visits to India of long duration to reccee targets and the Mumbai sea front for its planned sea-borne terrorist attack. He willingly became a facilitator of the conspiracy, which resulted in the death of 166 persons---- 25 of them foreign nationals, including six American nationals.
8. The LET's decision to use the willingness of Headley to conceal his Pakistani/Muslim identity and highlight his American/ Christian identity helped it in overcoming the suspicions of Indian immigration authorities against Muslims of Pakistani origin. In the wake of the growing closeness of India to the US, an American passport holder with a non-Muslim identity hardly created any suspicion in India. On the contrary, the features of a White American inherited by him from his mother helped him in ingratiacting himself with different sections of the urban Indian elite. He managed to create an image of himself as a "jolly good American", who wished well of India.
9.Headley knew that the LET was planning to target Jewish people and a Jewish religious-cultural centre in Mumbai because it had asked him to reccee the Nariman House in which the Jewish centre was located. But one does not know as yet whether he knew that the LET was also planning to target and kill non-Jewish foreigners, including Americans.
10. Headley willingly and painstakingly undertook the reccee missions for the LET in India, but his heart was in Copenhagen where he wanted to help the 313 Brigade in attacking the Danish paper. It was his enthusiasm for the planned attack in Copenhagen by Ilyas Kashmiri, which brought him to the notice of the FBI and ultimately led to his arrest along with the arrest of his associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin. living and working in Chicago.
11. Headley was helping the LET since 2005 and the 313 Brigade since 2008, but his admiration for Ilyas Kashmiri and his poor opinion of the LET despite his association with it come out clearly from his intercepted communications produced by the FBI in the court. He looked upon the LET as lacking the courage to undertake a major terrorist strike in Copenhagen.
12. The LET's interest in recruiting US residents of Pakistani origin and White converts to Islam for terrorist attacks in India was known to the FBI since 2003. What must have come as a surprise to it was the first-time use by the LET of dissimulation as part of its modus operandi.
13. The question that US and Indian investigators would be asking themselves is---- is Headley a lone fish or are there other Headleys who remain undetected in the US and India?
14. Headley's case brings to mind the attempt of Al Qaeda to use Dhiren Barot also known as Esa-al-Hindi, a Hindu convert to Islam living in the UK, to undertake reccee missions to New York to collect operational intelligence about US financial institutions which could be used for another terrorist attack in US territory. Barot's Indian origin and British passport did not ring the same alarm bell in the minds of the US immigration as Arabs and Pakistanis did. Al Qaeda sought to exploit this.
15. Barot was not recruited by Al Qaeda. Angered by reports of the alleged suppression of Muslims in J&K and other parts of India and the anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002, he volunteered himself to help Al Qaeda and its affiliates. Al Qaeda welcomed him and turned his anti-India anger to the US and the UK and tried unsuccessfully to use him for its operations in those countries. He was detected by the joint efforts of the US and British intelligence, arrested and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.
16. Home-grown jihadi moles, who act as facilitators of terrorist conspiracies, without personally participating in a terrorist attack, are going to be more difficult to detect than home-grown jihadi terrorists. The close co-operation of the FBI and the Indian intelligence in the Headley case should form the starting block for a joint drive to guard them against this phenomenon.(10-12-09)
( 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 )
Monday, December 7, 2009
HEADLEY'S ROLE IN MUMBAI 26/11 CONSPIRACY & HIS PAKISTANI HANDLERS
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO 586
B.RAMAN
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) filed before a Federal court in Chicago on December 7,2009, a Criminal Information Report charging David Coleman Headley previously known as Daood Gilani, a US national of Pakistani origin normally resident in Chicago, on 12 counts. Six of these counts related to participating in a conspiracy to bomb public places in India, murder and maim persons in India and Denmark, providing material support to foreign terrorist plots and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). The remaining six counts related to participating in a conspiracy to aid and abet the murder of US citizens in India. This refers to the massacre of six US nationals by the LET in Mumbai during the terrorist strike of 26/11 last year.
2. It is learnt that it has been called a Criminal Information Report and not yet an indictment because the charges relating to India are largely based on voluntary admissions made by him during his interrogation after he was arrested by the FBI on October 3,2009, on a charge of conspiring with Pakistan-based elements to carry out a terrorist attack in Copenhagen against a Danish journal which had published caricatures of Prophet Mohammad in 2005. The FBI had originally filed a criminal affidavit giving details of evidence collected on the basis of technical intelligence which justified his arrest and interrogation. Subsequently, they submitted to the court in a sealed cover information obtained during his initial interrogation to justify his continued custody. This sealed cover has now been opened and its contents incorporated in the Criminal Information Report.
3. The FBI has described the investigation against Headley as still active. A formal indictment would follow after the investigations into his disclosures in India and Pakistan. The National Investigation Agency of the Government of India has already started an investigation into his activities in India during his periodic visits, but no arrests would appear to have been made as yet during this investigation. Rahul Bhatt, the film world personality and son of Mahesh Bhatt, film producer/director, who was the only Indian whose name had figured in the E-mails exchanged by Headley with his Pakistani handlers, could be a material witness during the investigation and prosecution in the US as well as India. The Criminal Information Report against Headley, however, does not refer to Rahul.
4. The FBI has also filed a separate Criminal Information Report on two counts in the same court on December 7,2009, against Major (retd) Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, a Pakistani citizen based in Pakistan. The two counts relate to conspiring to attack the Danish newspaper and its employees. The Criminal Information Report against the retired Pakistani Major does not refer to Mumbai 26/11. In the affidavit filed earlier by the FBI against Headley, there were references to two handlers of Headley in Pakistan--- a person referred to as Individual A and an LET office-bearer referred to as LET member A. Headley was allegedly in touch with Individual A in connection with the Copenhagen conspiracy and with LET member A in connection with the Indian and Copenhagen conspiracies. Individual A appeared in the earlier affidavit as an associate of Ilyas Kashmiri of the 313 Brigade. He had introduced Headley to Ilyas Kashmiri and was acting as a cut-out between the two.
5. The earlier affidavits had not identified Individual A and the LET member A. The Criminal Information Report filed on December 7 has identified Individual A as Major (retd) Abdur Rehman. While the Report does not say anything about the arrest of the Major, media reports have said that he has been arrested by the Pakistani authorities at the request of the FBI. For reasons which are not clear, no Criminal Information Report has been filed against Ilyas, who seemed to have initiated the conspiracy relating to Copenhagen. The FBI has not yet named the LET handler of Headley called LET member A.
6.A careful reading of the earlier affidavits, the criminal information reports filed on December 7 and the media reports in the US and Canada would indicate that Headley played a role in two conspiracies unrelated to each other. The first conspiracy was initiated by the LET in 2006 for the terrorist strike in Mumbai. In this connection, he visited India five times spending long periods to reccee the targets ultimately attacked by the LET, including the two hotels, the railway terminus and the Jewish centre, took video photographs and then carried them to Pakistan. The details of his participation in the Mumbai 26/11 related conspiracy are as follows:2005:
The LET, of which he had become a member, asked him to "travel to India to perform surveillance."
Feb. 2006: He changed his name from his original "Daood Gilani" in order to "present himself in India as an American who was neither Muslim nor Pakistani."
June 2006: Obtained permission from friend and businessman, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, to open an ostensible consultancy franchise in India. Rana is a Canadian national of Pakistani origin living in Chicago, who was running an immigration consultancy service.
Sept. 2006: Visited India for several weeks, then Pakistan.
Feb. 2007: Visited India for several weeks, then Pakistan.
Sept. 2007: Visited India for several weeks, then Pakistan.
April 2008: Visited India for several week, making a surveillance video as he took a boat ride through the Mumbai harbour.
July 2008: Visited India for several weeks, then Pakistan.
7. The FBI's Criminal Information Report does not refer to any Indian visit by Headley in November,2008. There is also no reference to any role of his in connection with the July 2006 explosions in some suburban trains of Mumbai.
8. The second conspiracy related to the planned terrorist attack in Copenhagen for which Headley had visited Copenhagen earlier this year on behalf of Ilyas Kashmiri and Major Abdur Rehman. It is known that Ilyas heads the so-called 313 Brigade based in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas. Maj.Abdur Rehman also probably belonged to the 313 Brigade.
9. The LET and the 313 Brigade were aware of each other's conspiracies relating to India and Denmark respectively and of the role of Headley in both the conspiracies, but their focus of interest was different. The LET was more interested in a spectacular operation in India than in Denmark. The 313 Brigade was more interested in a spectacular operation in Denmark than in India. It was the FBI's successful monitoring of the plans for an attack in Copenhagen which led to the arrest of Headley and the subsequent discovery of his role in India.
10. The FBI has not filed any Criminal Information Report against Rana in connection with Mumbai 26/11.
11.This may please be read in continuation of my earlier paper titled RE-VISITING MUMBAI 26/11 INVESTIGATION available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3504.html (8-12-09)
( 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
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) filed before a Federal court in Chicago on December 7,2009, a Criminal Information Report charging David Coleman Headley previously known as Daood Gilani, a US national of Pakistani origin normally resident in Chicago, on 12 counts. Six of these counts related to participating in a conspiracy to bomb public places in India, murder and maim persons in India and Denmark, providing material support to foreign terrorist plots and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). The remaining six counts related to participating in a conspiracy to aid and abet the murder of US citizens in India. This refers to the massacre of six US nationals by the LET in Mumbai during the terrorist strike of 26/11 last year.
2. It is learnt that it has been called a Criminal Information Report and not yet an indictment because the charges relating to India are largely based on voluntary admissions made by him during his interrogation after he was arrested by the FBI on October 3,2009, on a charge of conspiring with Pakistan-based elements to carry out a terrorist attack in Copenhagen against a Danish journal which had published caricatures of Prophet Mohammad in 2005. The FBI had originally filed a criminal affidavit giving details of evidence collected on the basis of technical intelligence which justified his arrest and interrogation. Subsequently, they submitted to the court in a sealed cover information obtained during his initial interrogation to justify his continued custody. This sealed cover has now been opened and its contents incorporated in the Criminal Information Report.
3. The FBI has described the investigation against Headley as still active. A formal indictment would follow after the investigations into his disclosures in India and Pakistan. The National Investigation Agency of the Government of India has already started an investigation into his activities in India during his periodic visits, but no arrests would appear to have been made as yet during this investigation. Rahul Bhatt, the film world personality and son of Mahesh Bhatt, film producer/director, who was the only Indian whose name had figured in the E-mails exchanged by Headley with his Pakistani handlers, could be a material witness during the investigation and prosecution in the US as well as India. The Criminal Information Report against Headley, however, does not refer to Rahul.
4. The FBI has also filed a separate Criminal Information Report on two counts in the same court on December 7,2009, against Major (retd) Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, a Pakistani citizen based in Pakistan. The two counts relate to conspiring to attack the Danish newspaper and its employees. The Criminal Information Report against the retired Pakistani Major does not refer to Mumbai 26/11. In the affidavit filed earlier by the FBI against Headley, there were references to two handlers of Headley in Pakistan--- a person referred to as Individual A and an LET office-bearer referred to as LET member A. Headley was allegedly in touch with Individual A in connection with the Copenhagen conspiracy and with LET member A in connection with the Indian and Copenhagen conspiracies. Individual A appeared in the earlier affidavit as an associate of Ilyas Kashmiri of the 313 Brigade. He had introduced Headley to Ilyas Kashmiri and was acting as a cut-out between the two.
5. The earlier affidavits had not identified Individual A and the LET member A. The Criminal Information Report filed on December 7 has identified Individual A as Major (retd) Abdur Rehman. While the Report does not say anything about the arrest of the Major, media reports have said that he has been arrested by the Pakistani authorities at the request of the FBI. For reasons which are not clear, no Criminal Information Report has been filed against Ilyas, who seemed to have initiated the conspiracy relating to Copenhagen. The FBI has not yet named the LET handler of Headley called LET member A.
6.A careful reading of the earlier affidavits, the criminal information reports filed on December 7 and the media reports in the US and Canada would indicate that Headley played a role in two conspiracies unrelated to each other. The first conspiracy was initiated by the LET in 2006 for the terrorist strike in Mumbai. In this connection, he visited India five times spending long periods to reccee the targets ultimately attacked by the LET, including the two hotels, the railway terminus and the Jewish centre, took video photographs and then carried them to Pakistan. The details of his participation in the Mumbai 26/11 related conspiracy are as follows:2005:
The LET, of which he had become a member, asked him to "travel to India to perform surveillance."
Feb. 2006: He changed his name from his original "Daood Gilani" in order to "present himself in India as an American who was neither Muslim nor Pakistani."
June 2006: Obtained permission from friend and businessman, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, to open an ostensible consultancy franchise in India. Rana is a Canadian national of Pakistani origin living in Chicago, who was running an immigration consultancy service.
Sept. 2006: Visited India for several weeks, then Pakistan.
Feb. 2007: Visited India for several weeks, then Pakistan.
Sept. 2007: Visited India for several weeks, then Pakistan.
April 2008: Visited India for several week, making a surveillance video as he took a boat ride through the Mumbai harbour.
July 2008: Visited India for several weeks, then Pakistan.
7. The FBI's Criminal Information Report does not refer to any Indian visit by Headley in November,2008. There is also no reference to any role of his in connection with the July 2006 explosions in some suburban trains of Mumbai.
8. The second conspiracy related to the planned terrorist attack in Copenhagen for which Headley had visited Copenhagen earlier this year on behalf of Ilyas Kashmiri and Major Abdur Rehman. It is known that Ilyas heads the so-called 313 Brigade based in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas. Maj.Abdur Rehman also probably belonged to the 313 Brigade.
9. The LET and the 313 Brigade were aware of each other's conspiracies relating to India and Denmark respectively and of the role of Headley in both the conspiracies, but their focus of interest was different. The LET was more interested in a spectacular operation in India than in Denmark. The 313 Brigade was more interested in a spectacular operation in Denmark than in India. It was the FBI's successful monitoring of the plans for an attack in Copenhagen which led to the arrest of Headley and the subsequent discovery of his role in India.
10. The FBI has not filed any Criminal Information Report against Rana in connection with Mumbai 26/11.
11.This may please be read in continuation of my earlier paper titled RE-VISITING MUMBAI 26/11 INVESTIGATION available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3504.html (8-12-09)
( 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 6, 2009
OSAMA, ARE YOU THERE?
B.RAMAN
( An updated version of an article titled "The Oracle of Al Qaeda" written by me on October 3,2003, available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers9/paper808.html )
"Watch out if you are over six feet tall. The CIA's Predator aircraft have been programmed to kill all those above six feet, hoping one of them would turn out to be bin Laden." So said the graffiti in villages in the Pashtun tribal belt of Pakistan in 2003, reflecting the extent to which the US hunt for Osama bin Laden had become a butt of ridicule amongst the tribals.
Osama, Osama everywhere, yet nowhere to be found. The US has been desperately hunting for him ever since he reportedly escaped from the exotic-sounding Tora Bora caves of Afghanistan in 2002, injured and slightly incapacitated by a sharpnel, but alive and kicking.
And leading. So claimed his followers. His hand was felt, but not seen from Bali to Mombasa, from Riyadh to Casablanca, from Madrid to London.
He became like Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Feared, but not seen. Hunted relentlessly, but not found.
Offers of rewards of millions of dollars did not help. Naturally, said an intelligence analyst. The tribals are so poor and illiterate that they don't know what is a million dollar reward. If one offered them instead a plot of land or a few dozen goats they would join the hunt with gusto. So it was said. And so it was done. But without results. Neither offers of dollars nor plots nor goats would interest the tribals.
Why? The answer is simple, my dear Americans, wrote Mr.Afrasiab Khattak, a well-known Pashtun leader of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), in the "Dawn" of May 10, 2003. Osama was nowhere in the tribal belt, according to him.
He wrote: "The myth of no-man's land and the wild north-west comes quite handy as a spin and as a diversion when the Government fails to muster the required political will for taking the bull of terrorism right by the horns."
Gen.Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's then military dictator, sent the Americans on a wild goose chase in the forbidding tribal land. "Osama can't be alive," he said in 2002. He always moved around with a large entourage to protect him. Even if one failed to notice him, one would not fail to notice his retinue. So he used to say.
Then, tricky Mush, as his retired seniors in the Army used to call him, had a different spin. He was alive, he admitted, but in the no-go land of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where no British soldier had ever gone and come back alive. "We Pakistanis are of a different mettle," said the legendary commando. "We will go where no British dared. And we will find him dead or alive. "
The Americans were duly impressed. Gave him another three billion dollars at Camp David.
Lollipops kept pouring into Pakistan in the expectation that Musharraf would help the US rid the world of Osama and his terrorist hordes. Hadn't he already delivered nearly 500 Al Qaeda types?
What he did was to round up many poor Arabs living in Pakistan who had become a social pest and make them a charge on the US tax-payers' money. Only five Al Qaeda leaders of real consequence were caught and handed over to the US. And that too, only after the US intelligence came to know of their sanctuaries in Pakistan and he had no other option but to arrest them.
Where were they found? asked the Pashtun leader. Abu Zubaidah in Faislabad in Pakistani Punjab;Ramzi Binalshibh and Waleed bin Attash in Karachi, Musharraf's home town after he migrated to Pakistan from India, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the so-called master-mind of 9/11, in Rawalpindi, where the Army's GHQ is located. Nowhere in the tribal belt. Only Abu Faraj al-Libi was found in the tribal belt in 2005.
And in Karachi was harboured the injured Osama till August ,2002. In the Binori madrasa, which has produced more terrorists than all the other madrasas of Pakistan put together. That was the one place where Musharraf should have searched for him, if he was really sincere about wanting to help the US.
And that was one place where he did not search for him. Why? Because he knew Osama was there. And the Americans did not.
After Osama knew that the US intelligence traced his presence in Tora Bora through his communications with his followers, he totally stopped using modern means of communications.
After Binalshibh was caught in a different hide-out in Karachi in September 2002, because he had indiscreetly used the telephone, Osama was whisked out of Binori and possibly Karachi.
Is Osama still alive or dead? If alive, where is he? There are only three who know the answers to these questions definitively. Allah, the ISI and those who produce and disseminate through Al Jazeera videos and audios purporting to be his provided they are authentic.
Why doesn't the ISI arrest and hand him over to the US and get a few more billions of dollars? Because of a fear that he might spill the beans about his links with the ISI.
Why doesn't the ISI get him killed and be rid of this nuisance? Because of a fear that Osama's terrorist hordes may no longer help Pakistan in India and Afghanistan. And an equally strong fear that Pakistan may lose its importance in the eyes of the US, if Osama and Al Qaeda were no longer there.
The Pakistanis know their Americans. How naive and trusting, the Americans can be. Didn't Ahmed Chalabi and other anti-Saddam money-makers make millions from the CIA and the DIA by feeding imaginary reports about Saddam's WMD and by telling the then US Vice-President Dick Cheney and the then Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the Iraqi people would welcome the US troops as liberators.
And since November 2002 an oracle started getting disseminated one tape after another purportedly of Osama and his No.2 Ayman al-Zawahiri. These tapes started coming out of Pakistan and reaching Al Jazeera and other Arab channels like rabbits out of a magician's hat.
The tapes kept coming at periodic intervals. The Congressional committees kept holding one session after another with testimonies by the top guns of the US intelligence and Armed Forces regarding the whereabouts of bin Laden. We know now he is in North Waziristan, they said.
US Drones went after him----attacking one suspected hide-out after another. They killed a lot of people. The world was told they were top guns of Al Qaeda. "We may not have got OBL, but we are eliminating others around him".
"Al Qaeda is weakened even if we have not caught or killed OBL," said one Al Qaeda watcher.
The then President George Bush came out with his own gem: " The fact that Osama has not yet been caught shows that he is trying desperately not to get caught."
Many Al Qaeda cadres---- each of them projected at the time of their capture as the No.3 of Al Qaeda--- were caught in different cities of Pakistan. " We will now know where OBL is. The No.3 will know. We will get it during the interrogation."
Apparently, their interrogation revealed nothing. Either they were tough nuts to crack or they themselves did not know where the hell was OBL.
So the hunt goes on. There has been no business like Al Qaeda and OBL business. How many Al Qaeda watchers must have minted fortunes by claiming to know all that is fit to be known about them!
How many billions Islamabad must have made by pretending to help the US in its search! How much of that must have gone into the jihad chest of Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban!
In an interview to the ABC news on December 6,2009, a sheepish Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, has finally admitted: "The US has had no reliable information on the whereabouts of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in years. Well, we don't know for a fact where Osama Bin Laden is. If we did, we'd go get him."
Well, Mr.Gates, search for him where you have not searched for him so far. You are till now looking for him in the sparsely populated tribal areas of the FATA. Start looking for him in the populated tribal areas of the North-West Frontier Province and in the other provinces of Pakistan. Set up a special group to re-interrogate all the top guns of Al Qaeda arrested in Pakistan. Find out how the tapes are reaching Al Jazeera from Pakistan. Trace them back to wherefrom they started their journey. Seek the co-operation of the Sindhis, the Mohajirs, the Balochs and the Shias of Pakistan in the search for him.
(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 )
( An updated version of an article titled "The Oracle of Al Qaeda" written by me on October 3,2003, available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers9/paper808.html )
"Watch out if you are over six feet tall. The CIA's Predator aircraft have been programmed to kill all those above six feet, hoping one of them would turn out to be bin Laden." So said the graffiti in villages in the Pashtun tribal belt of Pakistan in 2003, reflecting the extent to which the US hunt for Osama bin Laden had become a butt of ridicule amongst the tribals.
Osama, Osama everywhere, yet nowhere to be found. The US has been desperately hunting for him ever since he reportedly escaped from the exotic-sounding Tora Bora caves of Afghanistan in 2002, injured and slightly incapacitated by a sharpnel, but alive and kicking.
And leading. So claimed his followers. His hand was felt, but not seen from Bali to Mombasa, from Riyadh to Casablanca, from Madrid to London.
He became like Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Feared, but not seen. Hunted relentlessly, but not found.
Offers of rewards of millions of dollars did not help. Naturally, said an intelligence analyst. The tribals are so poor and illiterate that they don't know what is a million dollar reward. If one offered them instead a plot of land or a few dozen goats they would join the hunt with gusto. So it was said. And so it was done. But without results. Neither offers of dollars nor plots nor goats would interest the tribals.
Why? The answer is simple, my dear Americans, wrote Mr.Afrasiab Khattak, a well-known Pashtun leader of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), in the "Dawn" of May 10, 2003. Osama was nowhere in the tribal belt, according to him.
He wrote: "The myth of no-man's land and the wild north-west comes quite handy as a spin and as a diversion when the Government fails to muster the required political will for taking the bull of terrorism right by the horns."
Gen.Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's then military dictator, sent the Americans on a wild goose chase in the forbidding tribal land. "Osama can't be alive," he said in 2002. He always moved around with a large entourage to protect him. Even if one failed to notice him, one would not fail to notice his retinue. So he used to say.
Then, tricky Mush, as his retired seniors in the Army used to call him, had a different spin. He was alive, he admitted, but in the no-go land of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where no British soldier had ever gone and come back alive. "We Pakistanis are of a different mettle," said the legendary commando. "We will go where no British dared. And we will find him dead or alive. "
The Americans were duly impressed. Gave him another three billion dollars at Camp David.
Lollipops kept pouring into Pakistan in the expectation that Musharraf would help the US rid the world of Osama and his terrorist hordes. Hadn't he already delivered nearly 500 Al Qaeda types?
What he did was to round up many poor Arabs living in Pakistan who had become a social pest and make them a charge on the US tax-payers' money. Only five Al Qaeda leaders of real consequence were caught and handed over to the US. And that too, only after the US intelligence came to know of their sanctuaries in Pakistan and he had no other option but to arrest them.
Where were they found? asked the Pashtun leader. Abu Zubaidah in Faislabad in Pakistani Punjab;Ramzi Binalshibh and Waleed bin Attash in Karachi, Musharraf's home town after he migrated to Pakistan from India, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the so-called master-mind of 9/11, in Rawalpindi, where the Army's GHQ is located. Nowhere in the tribal belt. Only Abu Faraj al-Libi was found in the tribal belt in 2005.
And in Karachi was harboured the injured Osama till August ,2002. In the Binori madrasa, which has produced more terrorists than all the other madrasas of Pakistan put together. That was the one place where Musharraf should have searched for him, if he was really sincere about wanting to help the US.
And that was one place where he did not search for him. Why? Because he knew Osama was there. And the Americans did not.
After Osama knew that the US intelligence traced his presence in Tora Bora through his communications with his followers, he totally stopped using modern means of communications.
After Binalshibh was caught in a different hide-out in Karachi in September 2002, because he had indiscreetly used the telephone, Osama was whisked out of Binori and possibly Karachi.
Is Osama still alive or dead? If alive, where is he? There are only three who know the answers to these questions definitively. Allah, the ISI and those who produce and disseminate through Al Jazeera videos and audios purporting to be his provided they are authentic.
Why doesn't the ISI arrest and hand him over to the US and get a few more billions of dollars? Because of a fear that he might spill the beans about his links with the ISI.
Why doesn't the ISI get him killed and be rid of this nuisance? Because of a fear that Osama's terrorist hordes may no longer help Pakistan in India and Afghanistan. And an equally strong fear that Pakistan may lose its importance in the eyes of the US, if Osama and Al Qaeda were no longer there.
The Pakistanis know their Americans. How naive and trusting, the Americans can be. Didn't Ahmed Chalabi and other anti-Saddam money-makers make millions from the CIA and the DIA by feeding imaginary reports about Saddam's WMD and by telling the then US Vice-President Dick Cheney and the then Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the Iraqi people would welcome the US troops as liberators.
And since November 2002 an oracle started getting disseminated one tape after another purportedly of Osama and his No.2 Ayman al-Zawahiri. These tapes started coming out of Pakistan and reaching Al Jazeera and other Arab channels like rabbits out of a magician's hat.
The tapes kept coming at periodic intervals. The Congressional committees kept holding one session after another with testimonies by the top guns of the US intelligence and Armed Forces regarding the whereabouts of bin Laden. We know now he is in North Waziristan, they said.
US Drones went after him----attacking one suspected hide-out after another. They killed a lot of people. The world was told they were top guns of Al Qaeda. "We may not have got OBL, but we are eliminating others around him".
"Al Qaeda is weakened even if we have not caught or killed OBL," said one Al Qaeda watcher.
The then President George Bush came out with his own gem: " The fact that Osama has not yet been caught shows that he is trying desperately not to get caught."
Many Al Qaeda cadres---- each of them projected at the time of their capture as the No.3 of Al Qaeda--- were caught in different cities of Pakistan. " We will now know where OBL is. The No.3 will know. We will get it during the interrogation."
Apparently, their interrogation revealed nothing. Either they were tough nuts to crack or they themselves did not know where the hell was OBL.
So the hunt goes on. There has been no business like Al Qaeda and OBL business. How many Al Qaeda watchers must have minted fortunes by claiming to know all that is fit to be known about them!
How many billions Islamabad must have made by pretending to help the US in its search! How much of that must have gone into the jihad chest of Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban!
In an interview to the ABC news on December 6,2009, a sheepish Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, has finally admitted: "The US has had no reliable information on the whereabouts of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in years. Well, we don't know for a fact where Osama Bin Laden is. If we did, we'd go get him."
Well, Mr.Gates, search for him where you have not searched for him so far. You are till now looking for him in the sparsely populated tribal areas of the FATA. Start looking for him in the populated tribal areas of the North-West Frontier Province and in the other provinces of Pakistan. Set up a special group to re-interrogate all the top guns of Al Qaeda arrested in Pakistan. Find out how the tapes are reaching Al Jazeera from Pakistan. Trace them back to wherefrom they started their journey. Seek the co-operation of the Sindhis, the Mohajirs, the Balochs and the Shias of Pakistan in the search for him.
(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 4, 2009
WANTON BRUTALITY OF PINDI MOSQUE ATTACK
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR—PAPER NO. 585
B.RAMAN
Thirty-six devout Muslims, all of them with links to the Pakistani armed forces either as serving or retired officers or their relatives or friends, were killed on December 4,2009, in a commando-style raid by a group of four to seven terrorists into a mosque in Parade Lane off the Peshawar Road in Rawalpindi where the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Pakistan Army, a number of other military establishments and residential houses of serving and retired military officers, including the Chief of the Army Staff, are located. The terrorists attacked at the time of the Friday prayers.
2. Of those killed, 17 were children, who had accompanied their parents for the prayers and four were the terrorists. The “Friday Times” of Lahore has published the following list of the fatalities on December 5: “Major General Umer Bilal, Brigadier Abdul Rauf, Colonel Mansoor, Lieutenant Colonel Fakhar, Lieutenant Colonel Manzoor Saeed, Major Zahid, Major (retired) Shoaib, Naik Masood, Sepoy Sarwar and Sepoy Abdul Qayyum. Children killed in the attack included Bilal Riaz, son of Major General Nasim Riaz; Ali Hasan, son of Colonel Shabbir; Hassan, son of Colonel Shukhran; Sadaul Hasan, son of Lieutenant Colonel Fakhar; Zamin, son of Akmal Hussain; Qaiser Khan, son of Syed Akbar; Adil Rauf, son of Abdul Rauf; Muhammad Khan, son of Sultan Bakhsh; Fazal Khan, son of Madad Khan; and Hashim, son of Peshawar Corps Commander Lieutenant Colonel (Lt.Gen?) Masood Aslam. Names of seven children, who according to the Inter-Services Public Relations, were sons of senior army officials, were yet to be ascertained. Father of Major General Awais Mustafa, father of Colonel Kaleem Zubair and father of Lieutenant Colonel Farooq Awan were also killed in the attack. According to the ISPR, the civilians killed in the terrorist attack included NLC Deputy Director Taskeen, Khalid Javed, Ghulam Mujtaba, Javed, Muhammad Fiaz and Asad. Names of the remaining people killed were yet to be ascertained.”
3. Details available so far indicate that at the time of the prayers, two of the terrorists carrying explosive devices entered the mosque and blew themselves up. As the surviving worshippers rushed out, two other terrorists at the gate opened fire and threw hand-grenades. They then took cover inside one of the remaining buildings and engaged in an exchange of fire with the security forces who managed to kill them after about an hour. The Army has been saying that only four terrorists were involved and that all of them are dead, but the local police suspect that there were at least two or three more, who managed to escape.
4. Details of the attack carried by the “News” on December 5,2009, give the following significant information:
“The mosque is predominantly frequented by serving and retired Army officers, Jawans and members of their families and is not open to civilians living in the area.”
“This attack bears the signatures of the terror strike on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore as here also these terrorists were carrying back-packs full of arms and ammunition and targeting innocent victims while standing openly in the grounds and shouting commands and orders to each other. Later, when challenged, they engaged the law-enforcement agencies, both the Army and the police, in crossfire and some even got holed up in hideouts in houses close to the mosque. We are trying to locate them and kill or arrest them,” the sources in the Rawalpindi Police and intelligence agencies told The News on condition of anonymity.”
5. Some media reports speak of wanton brutality such as the terrorists at the gate catching hold of some fleeing worshippers by the hair and killing them. Generally, Sunni terrorist organizations exhibit such acts of brutality only against known Shias and non-Muslims. The attack definitely had an anti-military angle to wreak vengeance against military personnel for the military operations against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the Pashtun tribal belt and for not stopping the US drone (pilotless planes) strikes in the area.
6. Suspicion that the attack might have also had a sectarian anti-Shia angle arises from the following factors. Firstly, the report that civilians were not allowed to pray in the mosque. A Muslim has a right to pray in any mosque unless it be located in a sensitive military area. The mosque was not located in a sensitive area. However, Shias because of the repeated attacks on them by Sunni extremists, carefully regulate entry into their places of worship.
7. Secondly, the TTP is reported to have claimed responsibility for the attack. The “Daily Times” has reported as follows: “Claiming responsibility for Friday’s attack, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) said the Parade Lane mosque was similar to Masjid-e-Zarrar built in Madina by the munafiqeen, and was “demolished on the orders of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)”. Talking to BBC, TTP chief Waliur Rehman Mehsud said his men attacked senior army officers. “Our militants attacked the military officers (our primary target) and we will continue to attack the army,” he said, adding that the civilians killed in the attack were relatives of army personnel and their deaths did not matter”.
8. To quote from an Islamic source on why the Masjid-e-Zarrar was demolished: “During the time of the Rasoolullah himself, some faction-mongers constructed a new mosque. The intensity with which the Quran opposed this construction can be gauged from the relevant verses of the Sura Taubah. Pause and reflect for what the Quran says in this matter. (9: 107) “Those who put up the mosque with this intention that loss be incurred to the Millat-e-Islamia and the Deen itself." "and kufr be favoured or the path of kufr be hiked." (9:107) " i.e., with the purpose that dissention be created in the Muslims." Do you think of it as a mosque? No, it is not a mosque. (9:107) "It is that ambush from which those who were the enemy of Allah and His Rasool (i.e., The Divine System) shall attack the Millat." It means this is not a mosque; this is the fort where the enemies of Allah and His Rasool will lie in ambush to demolish the structure of Deen. “They will indeed swear that their intention by constructing this mosque is nothing but good. We do never desire destruction of the Deen." "Do not be taken in. God stands witness to this stark fact that they are out and out liars." (9:108) "O Rasool! Never take a single step into this mosque." This mosque, so as to say, is just on the verge of hell. Whoso have constructed it or whosoever entered into it this will let all crumble down into the abyss of hell (9: 107-109). Hence history stands witness to this fact that Rasoolullah demolished this mosque through his associates. Imagine from this incidence how heinous and horrendous the crime of sectarianism in Islam is! Even if the construction of a mosque casts any speck of factionalism, the demolishing of this mosque becomes imperative. Mosque can be demolished but the foundation of sectarianism can never be laid. It is because factionalism, in express terms, is anathema (Shirk), and is anathema of a conspicuous nature. (http://www.parvez-video.com/insight/Islam/sects_islam/index.asp)
9. The Masjid-e-Zarrar was demolished because the followers of the Holy Prophet suspected that it had been constructed by hypocrite (Munafiqeen) Christians and Jewish people, who posed as Muslims, in order to create a divide among the followers of the Holy Prophet. By attacking the military worshippers in the Rawalpindi mosque, the jihadis have sought to convey a message to the Sunnis of the Armed Forces and the civil society that military officers collaborating with the US are no different from the Shias, the Christians, and the Jewish people and killing them is justified. ( 5-12-09)
( 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
Thirty-six devout Muslims, all of them with links to the Pakistani armed forces either as serving or retired officers or their relatives or friends, were killed on December 4,2009, in a commando-style raid by a group of four to seven terrorists into a mosque in Parade Lane off the Peshawar Road in Rawalpindi where the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Pakistan Army, a number of other military establishments and residential houses of serving and retired military officers, including the Chief of the Army Staff, are located. The terrorists attacked at the time of the Friday prayers.
2. Of those killed, 17 were children, who had accompanied their parents for the prayers and four were the terrorists. The “Friday Times” of Lahore has published the following list of the fatalities on December 5: “Major General Umer Bilal, Brigadier Abdul Rauf, Colonel Mansoor, Lieutenant Colonel Fakhar, Lieutenant Colonel Manzoor Saeed, Major Zahid, Major (retired) Shoaib, Naik Masood, Sepoy Sarwar and Sepoy Abdul Qayyum. Children killed in the attack included Bilal Riaz, son of Major General Nasim Riaz; Ali Hasan, son of Colonel Shabbir; Hassan, son of Colonel Shukhran; Sadaul Hasan, son of Lieutenant Colonel Fakhar; Zamin, son of Akmal Hussain; Qaiser Khan, son of Syed Akbar; Adil Rauf, son of Abdul Rauf; Muhammad Khan, son of Sultan Bakhsh; Fazal Khan, son of Madad Khan; and Hashim, son of Peshawar Corps Commander Lieutenant Colonel (Lt.Gen?) Masood Aslam. Names of seven children, who according to the Inter-Services Public Relations, were sons of senior army officials, were yet to be ascertained. Father of Major General Awais Mustafa, father of Colonel Kaleem Zubair and father of Lieutenant Colonel Farooq Awan were also killed in the attack. According to the ISPR, the civilians killed in the terrorist attack included NLC Deputy Director Taskeen, Khalid Javed, Ghulam Mujtaba, Javed, Muhammad Fiaz and Asad. Names of the remaining people killed were yet to be ascertained.”
3. Details available so far indicate that at the time of the prayers, two of the terrorists carrying explosive devices entered the mosque and blew themselves up. As the surviving worshippers rushed out, two other terrorists at the gate opened fire and threw hand-grenades. They then took cover inside one of the remaining buildings and engaged in an exchange of fire with the security forces who managed to kill them after about an hour. The Army has been saying that only four terrorists were involved and that all of them are dead, but the local police suspect that there were at least two or three more, who managed to escape.
4. Details of the attack carried by the “News” on December 5,2009, give the following significant information:
“The mosque is predominantly frequented by serving and retired Army officers, Jawans and members of their families and is not open to civilians living in the area.”
“This attack bears the signatures of the terror strike on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore as here also these terrorists were carrying back-packs full of arms and ammunition and targeting innocent victims while standing openly in the grounds and shouting commands and orders to each other. Later, when challenged, they engaged the law-enforcement agencies, both the Army and the police, in crossfire and some even got holed up in hideouts in houses close to the mosque. We are trying to locate them and kill or arrest them,” the sources in the Rawalpindi Police and intelligence agencies told The News on condition of anonymity.”
5. Some media reports speak of wanton brutality such as the terrorists at the gate catching hold of some fleeing worshippers by the hair and killing them. Generally, Sunni terrorist organizations exhibit such acts of brutality only against known Shias and non-Muslims. The attack definitely had an anti-military angle to wreak vengeance against military personnel for the military operations against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the Pashtun tribal belt and for not stopping the US drone (pilotless planes) strikes in the area.
6. Suspicion that the attack might have also had a sectarian anti-Shia angle arises from the following factors. Firstly, the report that civilians were not allowed to pray in the mosque. A Muslim has a right to pray in any mosque unless it be located in a sensitive military area. The mosque was not located in a sensitive area. However, Shias because of the repeated attacks on them by Sunni extremists, carefully regulate entry into their places of worship.
7. Secondly, the TTP is reported to have claimed responsibility for the attack. The “Daily Times” has reported as follows: “Claiming responsibility for Friday’s attack, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) said the Parade Lane mosque was similar to Masjid-e-Zarrar built in Madina by the munafiqeen, and was “demolished on the orders of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)”. Talking to BBC, TTP chief Waliur Rehman Mehsud said his men attacked senior army officers. “Our militants attacked the military officers (our primary target) and we will continue to attack the army,” he said, adding that the civilians killed in the attack were relatives of army personnel and their deaths did not matter”.
8. To quote from an Islamic source on why the Masjid-e-Zarrar was demolished: “During the time of the Rasoolullah himself, some faction-mongers constructed a new mosque. The intensity with which the Quran opposed this construction can be gauged from the relevant verses of the Sura Taubah. Pause and reflect for what the Quran says in this matter. (9: 107) “Those who put up the mosque with this intention that loss be incurred to the Millat-e-Islamia and the Deen itself." "and kufr be favoured or the path of kufr be hiked." (9:107) " i.e., with the purpose that dissention be created in the Muslims." Do you think of it as a mosque? No, it is not a mosque. (9:107) "It is that ambush from which those who were the enemy of Allah and His Rasool (i.e., The Divine System) shall attack the Millat." It means this is not a mosque; this is the fort where the enemies of Allah and His Rasool will lie in ambush to demolish the structure of Deen. “They will indeed swear that their intention by constructing this mosque is nothing but good. We do never desire destruction of the Deen." "Do not be taken in. God stands witness to this stark fact that they are out and out liars." (9:108) "O Rasool! Never take a single step into this mosque." This mosque, so as to say, is just on the verge of hell. Whoso have constructed it or whosoever entered into it this will let all crumble down into the abyss of hell (9: 107-109). Hence history stands witness to this fact that Rasoolullah demolished this mosque through his associates. Imagine from this incidence how heinous and horrendous the crime of sectarianism in Islam is! Even if the construction of a mosque casts any speck of factionalism, the demolishing of this mosque becomes imperative. Mosque can be demolished but the foundation of sectarianism can never be laid. It is because factionalism, in express terms, is anathema (Shirk), and is anathema of a conspicuous nature. (http://www.parvez-video.com/insight/Islam/sects_islam/index.asp)
9. The Masjid-e-Zarrar was demolished because the followers of the Holy Prophet suspected that it had been constructed by hypocrite (Munafiqeen) Christians and Jewish people, who posed as Muslims, in order to create a divide among the followers of the Holy Prophet. By attacking the military worshippers in the Rawalpindi mosque, the jihadis have sought to convey a message to the Sunnis of the Armed Forces and the civil society that military officers collaborating with the US are no different from the Shias, the Christians, and the Jewish people and killing them is justified. ( 5-12-09)
( 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 )
THE SOMALI FRONT OF THE GLOBAL JIHAD
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR—PAPER NO.584
B.RAMAN
Al Qaeda looks upon its continuing jihad against the so-called Crusaders --- thereby meaning essentially the US, Israel and their supporters--- as a global intifada waged on many fronts and through many means. In this global jihad, Afghanistan, Somalia and Algeria are seen as battle fronts, which will determine the ultimate outcome. Afghanistan is seen as the core of the battle, Somalia as its southern front and Algeria as the Western front.
2. In a message disseminated on December 20,2006, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No.2 to Osama bin Laden in Al Qaeda, said: “Brothers in Islam and Jihad in Somalia: know that you are on the southern garrison of Islam, so don’t allow Islam to be attacked from your flank, and know that we are with you, and that the entire Muslim Ummah is with you. So don’t lose heart, or fall into despair, for you must dominate if you are true in faith. And know that you are fending off the same Crusade which is fighting your brothers in Islam in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. So be resolute, be patient and be optimistic, for by Allah beside whom there is no other God, even if your enemies possess thousands of tons of iron and explosives, in their chests lie the hearts of mice. So be severe against them like Muhammad was. "
3. To keep the jihad going in Somalia is one of its important objectives. For this purpose, it uses not only recruits from the impoverished local population, but also from the Somali diaspora in the West----including the US--- as well as jihad-hardened cadres sent from the battle fronts in the Af-Pak region. The Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) of Pakistan has had a long history of contacts with the Muslim population in Somalia and East African countries just as it has with the Muslim population of Chechnya and Dagestan. Though the TJ itself does not indulge in acts of terrorism, it plays an important role in facilitating the ideological motivation of the population on behalf of Al Qaeda.
4. In September 2009, Al Shabaab, meaning “The Lads”, an organization of Somali youths, was reported to have disseminated through Islamic web sites usually identified with Al Qaeda a 48-minute video documentary in which it proclaimed its allegiance to Osama bin Laden. It derives its name “The Lads” from the fact that it used to be the youth wing of a fundamentalist organization called the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which had established control over some parts of Somalia and was ultimately crushed by invading Ethiopian troops in 2006. While the elders of the UIC disappeared after being defeated by the better trained and better armed Ethiopian troops allegedly inspired and aided by the US, the Al Shabaab replaced the UIC as a born-again jihadi organization, which was determined to continue the jihad against the troops of the African Union, which had replaced the Ethiopian troops, and of the UN-backed local Government, which it viewed as apostate.
5. Though Somalis had participated in acts of suicide terrorism on behalf of Al Qaeda in other countries, suicide terrorism was unknown in Somalia itself till Al Shabaab made its appearance in 2006. Even though it proclaimed its loyalty to bin Laden only in September,2009, it had carried out a number of acts of suicide terrorism against local Government targets as well as the peace-keeping troops of the African Union ever since the AU troops took over their peace-keeping responsibility in Somalia. Al Shabaab has been waging a two-front jihad---- against the AU troops and the local Government being protected by the AU troops. The first act of suicide terrorism took place on September 18,2006. Since then, there have been 13 suicide attacks--- two in 2006, four in 2007, two in 2008 and five this year.
6. The Al Shabaab cadres, many of whom had allegedly served with the Afghan Mujahideen, the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the Af-Pak region, look upon their jihad as similar to the jihad waged by the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet troops and those of the Government of the then President Najibullah in the 1980s and the early 1990s.
7. In a serious attack of suicide terrorism, a male suicide bomber dressed as a woman managed to find his way into a graduation ceremony of medical students in a Mogadishu hotel on December 3,2009, and blew himself up killing 19 persons, including three Ministers of the Cabinet of Prime Minister Omar Sharmarke of the UN-backed Government. Even though no organization has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, Al Shabaab is strongly suspected by the local authorities.
8. Though there is so far no evidence of any nexus between Al Shabaab and the Somali pirates, the dangers of money earned from piracy going to the coffers of Al Qaeda and the availability in Somalia of sea-faring people who could be used by Al Qaeda for future acts of maritime terrorism cannot be ignored.
9. A Reuters report carried on December 4,2009, by the “Daily Times” of Lahore has quoted Bethuel Kiplagat, who used to be Kenya’s special envoy to the Somalia peace process from 2003 to 2005, as saying as follows: “Suicide bombings are a worrying trend not only for Somalia but also the region. There has been a rise in fundamentalism in Somalia coming from the Middle East and Pakistan. There’s a worry Al Qaeda may be looking at Somalia as a new sanctuary.”
10. On March 16,2009, Mohamed Mohamed of the BBC’s Somali section, reported as follows: “As well as alleged links to al-Qaeda it is said to have Arabs, Asians, other Africans and - America's FBI believes - Westerners among its ranks. These foreigners are said to be involved in training Al Sabaab recruits in various aspects of guerrilla warfare, including suicide bombings and booby traps.”
11. On February 29, 2008, the then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice designated Al Shabaab as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act . (4-12-09)
( 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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