B.RAMAN
Shri P.Chidambaram, our Home Minister, is to visit Islamabad in the last week of June to attend the SAARC Home Ministers' conference due on June 26,2010. He is to be accompanied among others by Smt.Nirupama Rao, the Foreign Secretary. During his stay in Islamabad, he is expected to have bilateral discussions with Mr.Rehman Malik, the Pakiwstani Interior Minister.
2. Mr.Malik was an officer of the Pakistani Police Service, the Pakistani equivalent of the Indian Police Service. He used to be No.2 (Additional Director-General) in the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) during the second tenure of Benazir Bhutto as the Prime Minister (1993-96). The FIA is Pakistan's equivalent of our Central Bureau of Investigation and National Investigation Agency combined. It plays an active role in the investigation of serious terrorism cases.
3.He was closely associated with the Bhutto family and paid heavily for it. When Mr.Farooq Leghari, the then President, dismissed her in 1996 with the implicit consent of the Army, he suspended Malik and had him arrested and prosecuted on corruption charges. He jumped bail and went to London where he started looking after the physical security of Benazir. He continued to exercise this responsibility till her assassination in Rawalpindi on December 27,2007.
4. Following her assassination, there were allegations of negligence against him. Despite this, Mr Asif Ali Zardari, who later became the President, retained his tremendous confidence in him. He was initially appointed Adviser on Internal Security and subsequently Minister of the Interior. He is a controversial and unpopular person, who has been the persistent target of the detractors of Zardari, who continue to accuse him of indulging in corruption when he was in the FIA for which, according to them, he should be held accountable. They also continue to accuse him of negligence, which, according to them, contributed to the assassination of Benazir.
5.All this has not shaken Zardari's confidence in him. The Chinese, who know this, cultivate him. He has just now returned from China after his second visit to discuss Sino-Pakistan co-operation in counter-terrorism and Chinese assistance for capacity-building in the civilian counter-terrorism agencies. The Chinese have not been putting all their eggs in the military basket. They maintain lines of communications with the civilian security bureaucracy too. During Mr.Malik's recent visit to China they announced an aid package of US $ 180 million for capacity-building in counter-terrorism. It is not clear whether this is an additional package or this was merely a reference to the package announced during his first visit to China.
6. Mr.Zardari's faith in Mr.Malik would be evident from the fact that shortly after the Government of Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani assumed office in 2008, an attempt was made to transfer the control of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to the Ministry of the Interior, which would have made it the overlord of the Pakistani intelligence community minus the Intelligence Directorates-General of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. If this attempt had succeeded, the Army's role in internal security management would have been curtailed. The Army protested and got the order reversed.
7. Mr.Zardari has inherited Benazir's idea that the only way of curtailing the internal role of the ISI is by re-building the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which comes under the Ministry of the Interior, demilitarising it by once again restoring the pre-eminence of the Pakistani Police Service in the organisation and by reversing the process of castration of the Police and other segments of the civilian security bureaucracy by the Army over the years since its debacle in the then East Pakistan in 1971.
8. The Army has not been opposing Mr.Zardari's attempts to restore to the IB its past pre-eminent role in internal security management because some of his ideas in this regard enjoy the blessings of the US , which too feels that one way of reducing the role of the ISI without provoking the Army is by strengthening the role of the police and the IB.
9. These are developments which India should be happy about.In our preoccupation with the ISI's use of jihadi terrorist organisations against India, we have not been paying any attention to the advisability of building a relationship with the Pakistani Police and IB. The IB has been playing an increasingly active role in the collection of intelligence about India, just as our IB and Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) have been playing an active role in the collection of intelligence about Pakistan. In the past, the Government of Pervez Musharraf had used serving and retired officers of the IB in peripheral countries such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Nepal for assisting the ISI in its operations against India. The close personal and professional relationships of the Pakistani police officers with their counterparts in these countries were sought to be used for this purpose. It is likely that the IB will continue to be used by the ISI for this purpose in future too.
10. Since 1947, no attempt has been made by any Government in New Delhi to build a police-police relationship between the two countries through means such as exchanges of visits by senior police officers, liaison between the professional police organisations such as the FIA and the IB in Pakistan and the Central Bureau of Investigation and the IB in India and laying down the ground rules for mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. The only relationship, which has continued even in the worst of times, has been between the narcotics control agencies of the two countries.
11. During his forthcoming visit to Islamabad, Shri Chidambaram should be accompanied not only by the Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary, but also by the heads of our IB, the CBI and the newly-created National Investigation Agency (NIA) to lay the groundwork for a police- police relationship. It is in our strategic interest to contribute to a strengthening of the role of the civilian security bureaucracy in Pakistan's internal security management.
12. Arguments such as the lack of adequate co-operation of Pakistan's Interior Ministry in the investigation and prosecution of the Pakistan-based co-conspirators involved in the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai, the continuing dominance of the military in national security management in Pakistan which might not permit any hobnobbing by the police officers etc should not be allowed to inhibit any initiatives in this regard.
13. The Joint Counter-Terrorism Mechanism set up at the meeting between Gen.Musharraf and Dr.Manmohan Singh at Havana in September,2006, was born dead. There is no point in hugging on to it. It should be given a decent burial and we should try the proposed experiment of a police-police relationship even if there be a risk of failure due to the negative attitude of the Pakistani Army. ( 13-5-10)
( 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, May 12, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
DECLASSIFICATION
I have been in receipt of the following comments from a reader of my article in rediff.com in the US:
"Several of us in the scholarly community have been commenting on your piece on sources, I thought you’d be interested in the remarks of one young scholar who’s done extensive archival work in several countries:
"I agree with his premise though he's not entirely correct that there has been no declassification at all. A number of MEA files from the 1950s have been declassified--though MOD has declassified almost nothing. And one can find other documents in ministers and senior bureaucrats' papers (incl from the 1960s and 1970s) at Teen Murti. At this point, for example, all the memcons from the Sino-Indian border talks are available in these collections (they were not included in the white papers); files re the Korean War, correspondence between Delhi and the Indian agencies in Tibet re Tibet and the Sino-Indian border, and reports from the Indian embassies in Beijing and Washington in the 1950s are available at the National Archives. Re the reports Raman mentions, while the Raghavan committee report might not be available, one can find primary material on the formation of R&AW in the Haksar papers.
"The bigger challenge I think is making the declassification process more systematic and transparent. At the moment it's very ad hoc and arbitrary and this allows MEA/MOD to keep anything it can deem "in the interest of national security" classified. The Right to Information Act doesn't really serve as a work-around because of its national security exemption (which the MEA has learned to use better post-fracas over a RTI filed for the Sharm-el-Sheikh statement files)."
"Several of us in the scholarly community have been commenting on your piece on sources, I thought you’d be interested in the remarks of one young scholar who’s done extensive archival work in several countries:
"I agree with his premise though he's not entirely correct that there has been no declassification at all. A number of MEA files from the 1950s have been declassified--though MOD has declassified almost nothing. And one can find other documents in ministers and senior bureaucrats' papers (incl from the 1960s and 1970s) at Teen Murti. At this point, for example, all the memcons from the Sino-Indian border talks are available in these collections (they were not included in the white papers); files re the Korean War, correspondence between Delhi and the Indian agencies in Tibet re Tibet and the Sino-Indian border, and reports from the Indian embassies in Beijing and Washington in the 1950s are available at the National Archives. Re the reports Raman mentions, while the Raghavan committee report might not be available, one can find primary material on the formation of R&AW in the Haksar papers.
"The bigger challenge I think is making the declassification process more systematic and transparent. At the moment it's very ad hoc and arbitrary and this allows MEA/MOD to keep anything it can deem "in the interest of national security" classified. The Right to Information Act doesn't really serve as a work-around because of its national security exemption (which the MEA has learned to use better post-fracas over a RTI filed for the Sharm-el-Sheikh statement files)."
Monday, May 10, 2010
PAKISTAN-BASED TERRORISM: DIMINISHING US OPTIONS
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO 647
B.RAMAN
The US is faced with diminishing options in its efforts to neutralise Al Qaeda, the Talibans and other terrorist organisations operating from North Waziristan in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. Any successful terrorist strike in the US Homeland would most probably originate from this area----whether it be one involving conventional modus operandi or one involving the use of weapons of mass destruction material.
2. So long as the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory----- particularly in North Waziristan which has been and which will continue to be the launching pad of strikes directed at the US---- is not neutralised once and for all, the US cannot be free of the fear of the terrorists succeeding one day.
3. The present US operations in North Waziristan are focussed on the neutralisation of senior and middle level leaders of Al Qaeda and other organisations operating from sanctuaries in this area. The Drone (pilotless plane) strikes on their hide-outs and vehicular movements have not been without success, but most of those killed were easily replaceable.
4. But eliminating the leaders alone will not be adequate. It is equally necessary to destroy their infrastructure. The damage suffered by the terrorist infrastructure from the Drone strikes has been insignificant. The ground-based infrastructure can be destroyed only through ground operations---- classical or covert--- and Cruise missile strikes. Predator strikes from Drones will not destroy infrastructure.
5. Ground-based operations---- whether of the hit and run variety or the hit and stay kind--- would need the involvement of ground troops of the US or Pakistan or both. Involvement of US troops in ground-based operations, whether alone or in tandem with Pakistani troops, could prove messy and counter-productive. The Pakistani Army is reluctant to undertake any operations in this area because of its dependence on the non-Al Qaeda groups based in this area such as the Haqqani network, the 313 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri, the Punjabi Taliban groups etc for advancing its own strategic agenda against India and Afghanistan.
6. Having followed since 9/11 a policy of incentives for action and nothing but incentives with no disincentives for inaction,the US finds itself helpless to counter Pakistani inaction. Its policy is inhibited by the fear that any punitive action against Pakistan might end even the inadequate co-operation that it has presently been getting from Pakistan.
7. If the US is not able to use its ground forces and is reluctant to force Pakistan to use its forces through appropriate disincentives if it does not do so, it has only one alternative left----encourage the Afghan Army and special forces to undertake covert actions in North Waziristan directed against the infrastructure. This is an option worth exploring even if the chances for success appear low at present. The Afghan elements to be used for covert actions should be appropriately trained and equipped.
8. Cruise missile attacks can be more effective against infrastructure than Predator strikes from Drones if those are sustained and without respite. The civilian casualties may go up, but the risk has to be faced in the absence of other alternatives. The Cruise missile attacks of 1998 against Al Qaeda's training infrastructure were ineffective because it was an one-shot affair. To be effective, they have to be sustained.
9. Instead of continuing to depend only on Drone strikes, the US should adopt a three-pronged strategy of a sustained campaign involving the use of Drones, Cruise missiles and the Afghan covert action forces. ( 10-5-10)
( 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 US is faced with diminishing options in its efforts to neutralise Al Qaeda, the Talibans and other terrorist organisations operating from North Waziristan in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. Any successful terrorist strike in the US Homeland would most probably originate from this area----whether it be one involving conventional modus operandi or one involving the use of weapons of mass destruction material.
2. So long as the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory----- particularly in North Waziristan which has been and which will continue to be the launching pad of strikes directed at the US---- is not neutralised once and for all, the US cannot be free of the fear of the terrorists succeeding one day.
3. The present US operations in North Waziristan are focussed on the neutralisation of senior and middle level leaders of Al Qaeda and other organisations operating from sanctuaries in this area. The Drone (pilotless plane) strikes on their hide-outs and vehicular movements have not been without success, but most of those killed were easily replaceable.
4. But eliminating the leaders alone will not be adequate. It is equally necessary to destroy their infrastructure. The damage suffered by the terrorist infrastructure from the Drone strikes has been insignificant. The ground-based infrastructure can be destroyed only through ground operations---- classical or covert--- and Cruise missile strikes. Predator strikes from Drones will not destroy infrastructure.
5. Ground-based operations---- whether of the hit and run variety or the hit and stay kind--- would need the involvement of ground troops of the US or Pakistan or both. Involvement of US troops in ground-based operations, whether alone or in tandem with Pakistani troops, could prove messy and counter-productive. The Pakistani Army is reluctant to undertake any operations in this area because of its dependence on the non-Al Qaeda groups based in this area such as the Haqqani network, the 313 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri, the Punjabi Taliban groups etc for advancing its own strategic agenda against India and Afghanistan.
6. Having followed since 9/11 a policy of incentives for action and nothing but incentives with no disincentives for inaction,the US finds itself helpless to counter Pakistani inaction. Its policy is inhibited by the fear that any punitive action against Pakistan might end even the inadequate co-operation that it has presently been getting from Pakistan.
7. If the US is not able to use its ground forces and is reluctant to force Pakistan to use its forces through appropriate disincentives if it does not do so, it has only one alternative left----encourage the Afghan Army and special forces to undertake covert actions in North Waziristan directed against the infrastructure. This is an option worth exploring even if the chances for success appear low at present. The Afghan elements to be used for covert actions should be appropriately trained and equipped.
8. Cruise missile attacks can be more effective against infrastructure than Predator strikes from Drones if those are sustained and without respite. The civilian casualties may go up, but the risk has to be faced in the absence of other alternatives. The Cruise missile attacks of 1998 against Al Qaeda's training infrastructure were ineffective because it was an one-shot affair. To be effective, they have to be sustained.
9. Instead of continuing to depend only on Drone strikes, the US should adopt a three-pronged strategy of a sustained campaign involving the use of Drones, Cruise missiles and the Afghan covert action forces. ( 10-5-10)
( 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 )
DECLASSIFICATION
Why India should declassify historical documents
rediff.com of May 10, 2010 18:12 IST
The government's policy of keeping all such information permanently classified under the Official Secrets Act has resulted in a situation in which no authentic account of national security management is available, writes B Raman.
Knowledgeable public debate on national security issues is hampered by the lack of the required information which would facilitate such debate. The government's policy of keeping all such information permanently classified under the Official Secrets Act has resulted in a situation in which no authentic account of national security management is available. Whatever studies have been done in public were based on open source information and leaks, which are often incomplete and unauthenticated.
In many countries, classified reports which would be of use for such studies are periodically declassified and made available to the research scholars and the other sections of the public after excising sections which could hamper future operations. In India, the political class and the bureaucracy have seen to it that there has been no declassification since 1947. V P Singh [ Images ], when he was the prime minister in 1989-90, wanted to change this, but had no time to have this issue examined due to his partisan political preoccupations.
There is a need for sustained public pressure on the government to change this policy. Among the documents of historic value which could be declassified after appropriate editing without damaging national security are the following:
* The Henderson-Brooks Committee report on the poor performance of the Indian Army [ Images ] in the Sino-Indian war of 1962.
* The report of the B S Raghavan IAS committee on the allegations of intelligence failure during the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965.
* The report of the B S Raghavan Committee on allegations of intelligence failure in Mizoram. These two reports by Raghavan contributed to the decision of Indira Gandhi [ Images ] to bifurcate the Intelligence Bureau and create the R&AW in September 1968.
* The report of the L P Singh Committee on the misuse of intelligence agencies and the Central Bureau of Investigation during the Emergency between 1975 and 1977. L P Singh, former home secretary, and the other members of the committee except B S Raghavan, its member-secretary, are no more.
* The report of the K Sankaran Nair Committee constituted in the early 1980s to recommend the restructuring of the cadre of the R&AW.
The National Democratic Alliance government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee [ Images ] released to the public the report of the Kargil [ Images ] Review Committee headed by K Subrahmanyam, which went into operational and intelligence failures during the Kargil conflict of 1999. It also released to the public the reports of the various task forces appointed by it to review the national security apparatus after excising sensitive portions. But it did not accept the recommendation of the first National Security Advisory Board headed by Subrahmanyam that the annual reports of the NSAB except those relating to the nuclear deterrent should also be released to the public. The NSAB reports are largely based on open source information.
There are other documents of historic value which should be made available to the public. When he was senior adviser to Indira Gandhi after 1980, R N Kao, who headed the R&AW from 1968 to 1977, had a retired officer of the information service who had served in the R&AW in the past appointed in the R&AW to prepare a factual account of the role of the R&AW in the liberation of Bangladesh after going through the records of the organisation and interviewing the people concerned.
He had made some progress, but his work remained incomplete when Kao resigned in 1984 after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. This post was abolished and the work discontinued after the resignation of Kao. What happened to his incomplete study? Where are those papers? Why this work is not being completed? Nobody knows.
Kao had also got a special study done on the US National Security Council. It is understood its conclusion was that an NSC of the US model would not suit India. What happened to it? When the NDA government set up a special task force in 1998 headed by K C Pant to recommend the setting-up of an NSC mechanism in India, Kao wanted to send this study to it. Nobody knew where it was.
Before Operation Blue Star [ Get Quote ], Indira Gandhi tried frantically to avoid sending the army into the Golden Temple [ Images ] by entering into secret talks with the overseas leaders of the Khalistan movement and the leaders of the Shiromani Akali Dal [ Images ] in Punjab [ Images ]. Kao co-ordinated this exercise. On his instructions, all these discussions were secretly recorded for the information of Indira Gandhi, who wanted to protect herself against any future misrepresentation. These recordings form an important part of the exercise, which preceded her decision to send the army into the Golden Temple. Nobody knows what happened to these recordings.
A former IFS officer, who was a great admirer of Kao, persuaded Kao in the last years of his life to record his memoirs by talking into a tape recorder. Kao agreed to it and recoded his memoirs as a police officer and also about some aspects of his work as the head of the R&AW. He insisted on the recordings being transcribed and corrected by him.
The corrected versions have been preserved in a national institution set up to perpetuate the memory of Jawaharlal Nehru [ Images ] to be released to the public some years after his death. It is hoped that these valuable recordings are not lost as had happened to other documents and that they are released to the public in accordance with Kao's wishes.
The officers, who participated in the Sri Lanka [ Images ] operations, are dying one after the other. In a few years from now, no one with a first-hand knowledge will be available. Before that happens, a detailed study should be made of the conflicting roles of different agencies and the Tamil Nadu police, which contributed to the failure of the Indian Peace Keeping Force, and released to the public.
B Raman
rediff.com of May 10, 2010 18:12 IST
The government's policy of keeping all such information permanently classified under the Official Secrets Act has resulted in a situation in which no authentic account of national security management is available, writes B Raman.
Knowledgeable public debate on national security issues is hampered by the lack of the required information which would facilitate such debate. The government's policy of keeping all such information permanently classified under the Official Secrets Act has resulted in a situation in which no authentic account of national security management is available. Whatever studies have been done in public were based on open source information and leaks, which are often incomplete and unauthenticated.
In many countries, classified reports which would be of use for such studies are periodically declassified and made available to the research scholars and the other sections of the public after excising sections which could hamper future operations. In India, the political class and the bureaucracy have seen to it that there has been no declassification since 1947. V P Singh [ Images ], when he was the prime minister in 1989-90, wanted to change this, but had no time to have this issue examined due to his partisan political preoccupations.
There is a need for sustained public pressure on the government to change this policy. Among the documents of historic value which could be declassified after appropriate editing without damaging national security are the following:
* The Henderson-Brooks Committee report on the poor performance of the Indian Army [ Images ] in the Sino-Indian war of 1962.
* The report of the B S Raghavan IAS committee on the allegations of intelligence failure during the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965.
* The report of the B S Raghavan Committee on allegations of intelligence failure in Mizoram. These two reports by Raghavan contributed to the decision of Indira Gandhi [ Images ] to bifurcate the Intelligence Bureau and create the R&AW in September 1968.
* The report of the L P Singh Committee on the misuse of intelligence agencies and the Central Bureau of Investigation during the Emergency between 1975 and 1977. L P Singh, former home secretary, and the other members of the committee except B S Raghavan, its member-secretary, are no more.
* The report of the K Sankaran Nair Committee constituted in the early 1980s to recommend the restructuring of the cadre of the R&AW.
The National Democratic Alliance government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee [ Images ] released to the public the report of the Kargil [ Images ] Review Committee headed by K Subrahmanyam, which went into operational and intelligence failures during the Kargil conflict of 1999. It also released to the public the reports of the various task forces appointed by it to review the national security apparatus after excising sensitive portions. But it did not accept the recommendation of the first National Security Advisory Board headed by Subrahmanyam that the annual reports of the NSAB except those relating to the nuclear deterrent should also be released to the public. The NSAB reports are largely based on open source information.
There are other documents of historic value which should be made available to the public. When he was senior adviser to Indira Gandhi after 1980, R N Kao, who headed the R&AW from 1968 to 1977, had a retired officer of the information service who had served in the R&AW in the past appointed in the R&AW to prepare a factual account of the role of the R&AW in the liberation of Bangladesh after going through the records of the organisation and interviewing the people concerned.
He had made some progress, but his work remained incomplete when Kao resigned in 1984 after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. This post was abolished and the work discontinued after the resignation of Kao. What happened to his incomplete study? Where are those papers? Why this work is not being completed? Nobody knows.
Kao had also got a special study done on the US National Security Council. It is understood its conclusion was that an NSC of the US model would not suit India. What happened to it? When the NDA government set up a special task force in 1998 headed by K C Pant to recommend the setting-up of an NSC mechanism in India, Kao wanted to send this study to it. Nobody knew where it was.
Before Operation Blue Star [ Get Quote ], Indira Gandhi tried frantically to avoid sending the army into the Golden Temple [ Images ] by entering into secret talks with the overseas leaders of the Khalistan movement and the leaders of the Shiromani Akali Dal [ Images ] in Punjab [ Images ]. Kao co-ordinated this exercise. On his instructions, all these discussions were secretly recorded for the information of Indira Gandhi, who wanted to protect herself against any future misrepresentation. These recordings form an important part of the exercise, which preceded her decision to send the army into the Golden Temple. Nobody knows what happened to these recordings.
A former IFS officer, who was a great admirer of Kao, persuaded Kao in the last years of his life to record his memoirs by talking into a tape recorder. Kao agreed to it and recoded his memoirs as a police officer and also about some aspects of his work as the head of the R&AW. He insisted on the recordings being transcribed and corrected by him.
The corrected versions have been preserved in a national institution set up to perpetuate the memory of Jawaharlal Nehru [ Images ] to be released to the public some years after his death. It is hoped that these valuable recordings are not lost as had happened to other documents and that they are released to the public in accordance with Kao's wishes.
The officers, who participated in the Sri Lanka [ Images ] operations, are dying one after the other. In a few years from now, no one with a first-hand knowledge will be available. Before that happens, a detailed study should be made of the conflicting roles of different agencies and the Tamil Nadu police, which contributed to the failure of the Indian Peace Keeping Force, and released to the public.
B Raman
Sunday, May 9, 2010
SECURITY FOCUS ON HUAWEI IN INDIA
SECURITY FOCUS ON HUAWEI IN INDIA
B.RAMAN
There has been an increasing focus by the Indian counter-intelligence agencies on the expanding presence, activities and business of the Chinese telecom giant Huawei, which is stated to have the largest mobile telephone business network in the world after Ericsson. Ever since the 1990s, there have been concerns in the Western countries over the suspected links of the company with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the Chinese intelligence agencies. The concerns initially started from the fact that the head of the company is a retired officer of the PLA. There were subsequent suspicions and allegations that many of its employees not only in China, but also in its overseas offices were either serving or retired officers of the PLA or the Chinese intelligence.
2. In fact,on the basis of the allegations made by the "Washington Times" in 2007, the US Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) made a review of the security implications of business deals between Huawei and some American companies. It called for a report on the subject from the office of the Director of National Intelligence.
3.Huawei, which greatly values its business in the US, took note of the security-related concerns being increasingly voiced in the US about the dangers of doing business with it and allowing it to acquire US companies, and reportedly volunteered to employ US citizens to supervise its contracts, which could have security implications. This offer was made following reports that it might be interested in acquiring a unit of the Motorola.
4. Wikipedia gives the following instances of security-related fears and enquiries relating to Huawei in different countries:
* A report of the US Government's Strategic Studies Institute on Argentina published in September 2007 described Huawei as "known to bribe and trap clients". The report further detailed its alleged unfair business practices, such as customers being given "full-paid trips" to China and monetary "presents".
* In February 2009, President of Indonesian mobile carrier Excelcomindo Pratama confirmed a data theft attempt by a visiting Huawei employee who "snuck in to General Manager's Network Planning Office"..
* In 2005, the possibility of Huawei's bid on British telecommunications company Marconi led to a request from the Conservative Party to the British Government to "consider the implications for Britain's defense security". Marconi was later acquired by Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson.
* In a 2008 Military Report to the Congress, the Pentagon stated that Huawei "maintains close ties" to the PLA. In the same year, the proposed acquisition of US-based communications company 3COM Corp by Huawei led to a US Congress investigation and a subsequent determination by the Director of National Intelligence that "3Com-Huawei merger would undermine U.S. national security".
* In March 2009, Alex Allan, the Chairman of the British Joint Intelligence Committee, briefed members of the British Cabinet about the "threat", allegedely posed by Huawei's equipment in the British national telecom network BT. ( My comment: The British media reported that the JIC Chairman had told the Cabinet at a special briefing that "Huawei components that form key parts of BT's new network might already contain malicious elements that could be activated by China and which could remotely disrupt or even permanently disable the network. Such action would have a significant impact on critical services such as power and water supplies, food distribution, the financial system and transport, which were dependent on computers using the communications network to operate." )
* In September 2009, the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation started investigating the alleged links between local Chinese Huawei employees and the Chinese military. ( My comment: This enquiry was started following complaints made to the Australian Government by some serving and former Australian employees of the Chinese company about its alleged suspicious activities).
5.In the US and other Western countries, the intelligence and security agencies keep a close watch on its activities. At the same time, this has not been allowed to come in the way of its legitimate business. This would be evident from the way it has been able to expand its business in the US and Europe despite all security-related fears and enquiries. Western countries follow a policy of allowing it to operate freely in areas and fields where there are no security-related concerns and curbing its activities where such concerns exist.
6. The suspicions and fears of the Indian intelligence agencies regarding the expanding presence and activities of the Chinese company arise from the results of the enquiries faced by the company in other countries, allegations of its close links with the PLA which cannot be dismissed lightly, the dangers of allowing it to operate from sensitive places such as Bangalore where it has an expanding research and development centre and the vulnerability to which our critical infrastruture could be exposed in times of a possible military conflict with China if we depend on hard and software supplied by Chinese companies.
7. One should not forget that Saddam Hussein lost his first Gulf War with the US in 1991 even before it started because the US from which he had procured most of his communication hardware and software managed to paralyse them before its troops went in . The headquarters of Saddam's army in Baghdad was totally cut off from all communications with its units in other parts of the country.
8. Prudence demands that in our enthusiam for expanding our economic ties with China, we should not allow suspect companies such as Huawei a free run of our country and access to our communications network, which could facilitate their collection of intelligence in times of peace and war and paralyse our critical infrastructure during any military conflict.
9. The Indian intelligence agencies have done the right thing in sounding the wake-up call. Instead of taking their warnings seriously and examining what mid-course corrections are called for in our policy of giving a free run to Chinese telecommunication companies, Shri Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State For Environment, has chosen to ridicule the intelligence agencies and the Ministry of Home Affairs for imposing what he has described as needless restrictions and for being paranoid about Chinese investments. He has been quoted as saying: " We are imagining demons where there are none."
10.One could not think of a more unfortunate, ill-informed and worrisome remark. ( 9-5-10)
( 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 )
B.RAMAN
There has been an increasing focus by the Indian counter-intelligence agencies on the expanding presence, activities and business of the Chinese telecom giant Huawei, which is stated to have the largest mobile telephone business network in the world after Ericsson. Ever since the 1990s, there have been concerns in the Western countries over the suspected links of the company with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the Chinese intelligence agencies. The concerns initially started from the fact that the head of the company is a retired officer of the PLA. There were subsequent suspicions and allegations that many of its employees not only in China, but also in its overseas offices were either serving or retired officers of the PLA or the Chinese intelligence.
2. In fact,on the basis of the allegations made by the "Washington Times" in 2007, the US Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) made a review of the security implications of business deals between Huawei and some American companies. It called for a report on the subject from the office of the Director of National Intelligence.
3.Huawei, which greatly values its business in the US, took note of the security-related concerns being increasingly voiced in the US about the dangers of doing business with it and allowing it to acquire US companies, and reportedly volunteered to employ US citizens to supervise its contracts, which could have security implications. This offer was made following reports that it might be interested in acquiring a unit of the Motorola.
4. Wikipedia gives the following instances of security-related fears and enquiries relating to Huawei in different countries:
* A report of the US Government's Strategic Studies Institute on Argentina published in September 2007 described Huawei as "known to bribe and trap clients". The report further detailed its alleged unfair business practices, such as customers being given "full-paid trips" to China and monetary "presents".
* In February 2009, President of Indonesian mobile carrier Excelcomindo Pratama confirmed a data theft attempt by a visiting Huawei employee who "snuck in to General Manager's Network Planning Office"..
* In 2005, the possibility of Huawei's bid on British telecommunications company Marconi led to a request from the Conservative Party to the British Government to "consider the implications for Britain's defense security". Marconi was later acquired by Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson.
* In a 2008 Military Report to the Congress, the Pentagon stated that Huawei "maintains close ties" to the PLA. In the same year, the proposed acquisition of US-based communications company 3COM Corp by Huawei led to a US Congress investigation and a subsequent determination by the Director of National Intelligence that "3Com-Huawei merger would undermine U.S. national security".
* In March 2009, Alex Allan, the Chairman of the British Joint Intelligence Committee, briefed members of the British Cabinet about the "threat", allegedely posed by Huawei's equipment in the British national telecom network BT. ( My comment: The British media reported that the JIC Chairman had told the Cabinet at a special briefing that "Huawei components that form key parts of BT's new network might already contain malicious elements that could be activated by China and which could remotely disrupt or even permanently disable the network. Such action would have a significant impact on critical services such as power and water supplies, food distribution, the financial system and transport, which were dependent on computers using the communications network to operate." )
* In September 2009, the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation started investigating the alleged links between local Chinese Huawei employees and the Chinese military. ( My comment: This enquiry was started following complaints made to the Australian Government by some serving and former Australian employees of the Chinese company about its alleged suspicious activities).
5.In the US and other Western countries, the intelligence and security agencies keep a close watch on its activities. At the same time, this has not been allowed to come in the way of its legitimate business. This would be evident from the way it has been able to expand its business in the US and Europe despite all security-related fears and enquiries. Western countries follow a policy of allowing it to operate freely in areas and fields where there are no security-related concerns and curbing its activities where such concerns exist.
6. The suspicions and fears of the Indian intelligence agencies regarding the expanding presence and activities of the Chinese company arise from the results of the enquiries faced by the company in other countries, allegations of its close links with the PLA which cannot be dismissed lightly, the dangers of allowing it to operate from sensitive places such as Bangalore where it has an expanding research and development centre and the vulnerability to which our critical infrastruture could be exposed in times of a possible military conflict with China if we depend on hard and software supplied by Chinese companies.
7. One should not forget that Saddam Hussein lost his first Gulf War with the US in 1991 even before it started because the US from which he had procured most of his communication hardware and software managed to paralyse them before its troops went in . The headquarters of Saddam's army in Baghdad was totally cut off from all communications with its units in other parts of the country.
8. Prudence demands that in our enthusiam for expanding our economic ties with China, we should not allow suspect companies such as Huawei a free run of our country and access to our communications network, which could facilitate their collection of intelligence in times of peace and war and paralyse our critical infrastructure during any military conflict.
9. The Indian intelligence agencies have done the right thing in sounding the wake-up call. Instead of taking their warnings seriously and examining what mid-course corrections are called for in our policy of giving a free run to Chinese telecommunication companies, Shri Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State For Environment, has chosen to ridicule the intelligence agencies and the Ministry of Home Affairs for imposing what he has described as needless restrictions and for being paranoid about Chinese investments. He has been quoted as saying: " We are imagining demons where there are none."
10.One could not think of a more unfortunate, ill-informed and worrisome remark. ( 9-5-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies . E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Saturday, May 8, 2010
THE SURROGATE JIHADIS IN US
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.646
B.RAMAN
The Agence France Presse (AFP) has quoted Mrs.Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, as warning Pakistan in a recorded TV interview for the CBS Channel to be telecast on May 9,2010, that it would face " very severe consequences" if a terror plot like the failed Times Square bombing of May 1 was traced to that country. She said:"We've made it very clear that if -- heaven-forbid-- an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences." However, she added: "We've gotten more cooperation and it's been a real sea change in the commitment we've seen from the Pakistan Government.We want more. We expect more."
2. Her warning has received greater attention in India than in Pakistan. The lack of an impact in Pakistan could be attributed to two reasons. Firstly, a careful reading of her remarks shows that her so-called warning is not with reference to the failed attempt by Faisal Shahzad, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, on May 1,2010, to cause an incendiary car bomb explosion in the Times Square of New York, but with reference to any future attack that might be successful. What she meant was that if there was a successful attack in future and the investigation traced it back to Pakistan, it would face severe consequences. Secondly, comments emanating from White House spokesmen, Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, and Gen.David Petraeus, the head of the US Central Command, after the May 1 attempt show continued appreciation of the operations mounted by the Pakistan Army against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the Swat Valley of the Khyber-Pakhtunkwa province and in South Waziristan and seek to project the Pakistani co-operation against terrorism in positive colours. Mrs.Clinton also projected it in positive colours, but added a warning as to what could happen in future. The White House and the Pentagon have refrained from uttering any such warning.
3. This has been interpreted by the Pakistani authorities as indicating that Islamabad continues to enjoy the support of the White House and the Pentagon despite the unsuccussful attempt by Faisal. The Pakistani reaction to the identification of Faisal as the perpetrator of the attempt has been typical. Firstly,to assure all co-operation to the US in the investigation of the case. Secondly, to round up about about 20 persons in Karachi, Peshawar and other places, including four alleged members of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM). Thirdly, to point out that Faisal is an American and not a Pakistani citizen and hence causes for his radicalisation are to be found in the US and not in Pakistan. And fourthly, to start releasing those arrested one after the other on grounds of lack of evidence. The ultimate outcome of the investigation at the Pakistan end is zero.
4.Cases detected in the US during the last two years or so show a trend which should be of concern to the US. Individual Muslims resident in the US, most of them of Pakistani origin, have been going to Pakistan in small groups to assist the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban in their operations in the Af-Pak territory. Their original intention when they left the US for Pakistan was not to indulge in acts of terrorism in the US Homeland. They wanted to attack US nationals and interests in the Af-Pak region.Al Qaeda, the myriad Talibans in Pakistan and Punjabi terrorist organisations such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the JEM and the 313 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri with whom they came into contact in Pakistani territory, played them back into the US.
5. What, in effect, these organisations told the American Muslims was: "We can handle the jihad in the Af-Pak region. You will better serve the cause of Islam by going back to the US and starting a jihad in the US Homeland. We will give you the necessary training for this." This has come out very clearly in the testimonies in the US case against Najibullah Zazi, a US resident of Afghan origin, and two others, who had been motivated by Al Qaeda and the JEM to mount an attack in the New York subway system similar to the Madrid bombing of March 2004 and the London bombing of July,2005.
6. Al Qaeda, the Talibans and their associates have been trying to turn these US Muslims going to Pakistan in the hope of fighting in the Af-Pak region into surrogarte jihadis who will fight for them in the US Homeland. US officials and non-Governmental analysts have been playing down the threats of the TTP to indulge in reprisal attacks in the US Homeland on the ground that the TTP has no known presence in the US and does not have such a long reach. The TTP and others are not trying to create a presence for themselves in US territory, but are trying to manipulate American Muslims going to Pakistan to wage a jihad to go back to the US and wage a hihad in the US Homeland instead,
7.The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Police in different US cities have till now succeeded in thwarting the attempts of these surrogate jihadis. Luck has also favoured them. But so long as more and more surrogate jihadis keep coming back to the US after having been motivated and trained in the training camps in Pakistani territory, there will always be a danger of one or more planned attacks being successful.
8. This danger will continue to confront the US so long as the jihadi infrastructure in Pakistani territory continues. The US has to act pre-emptively against the jihadi infrastructure instead of acting only if there is a successful terrorist strike in the US Homeland launched from Pakistan. All US warnings and admonitions have no effect on the Pakistani authorities because of their conviction that the importance of Pakistan for US policies in Afghanistan would protect Pakistan from any reprisals by the US and that anyhow, whatever the State Department might think and say, the Pentagon would oppose any action against Pakistan.
9. This conviction in the minds of the Pakistani leaders has to be removed and the Pakistani Army made to act against all jihadi infrastrcture whether directed against India, the US or anyone else and wherever it is located--- whether in North Waziristan, the Khyber-Pakhtunkwa province, Punjab, Sindh or Balochistan. Unless this is done now, more and more surrogate jihadis will keep going back to the US to start a jihad in the US Homeland. There is a need for a clear-cut enunciation of the US policy articulated by President Barack Obama himself. (9-5-10)
( 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 Agence France Presse (AFP) has quoted Mrs.Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, as warning Pakistan in a recorded TV interview for the CBS Channel to be telecast on May 9,2010, that it would face " very severe consequences" if a terror plot like the failed Times Square bombing of May 1 was traced to that country. She said:"We've made it very clear that if -- heaven-forbid-- an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences." However, she added: "We've gotten more cooperation and it's been a real sea change in the commitment we've seen from the Pakistan Government.We want more. We expect more."
2. Her warning has received greater attention in India than in Pakistan. The lack of an impact in Pakistan could be attributed to two reasons. Firstly, a careful reading of her remarks shows that her so-called warning is not with reference to the failed attempt by Faisal Shahzad, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, on May 1,2010, to cause an incendiary car bomb explosion in the Times Square of New York, but with reference to any future attack that might be successful. What she meant was that if there was a successful attack in future and the investigation traced it back to Pakistan, it would face severe consequences. Secondly, comments emanating from White House spokesmen, Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, and Gen.David Petraeus, the head of the US Central Command, after the May 1 attempt show continued appreciation of the operations mounted by the Pakistan Army against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the Swat Valley of the Khyber-Pakhtunkwa province and in South Waziristan and seek to project the Pakistani co-operation against terrorism in positive colours. Mrs.Clinton also projected it in positive colours, but added a warning as to what could happen in future. The White House and the Pentagon have refrained from uttering any such warning.
3. This has been interpreted by the Pakistani authorities as indicating that Islamabad continues to enjoy the support of the White House and the Pentagon despite the unsuccussful attempt by Faisal. The Pakistani reaction to the identification of Faisal as the perpetrator of the attempt has been typical. Firstly,to assure all co-operation to the US in the investigation of the case. Secondly, to round up about about 20 persons in Karachi, Peshawar and other places, including four alleged members of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM). Thirdly, to point out that Faisal is an American and not a Pakistani citizen and hence causes for his radicalisation are to be found in the US and not in Pakistan. And fourthly, to start releasing those arrested one after the other on grounds of lack of evidence. The ultimate outcome of the investigation at the Pakistan end is zero.
4.Cases detected in the US during the last two years or so show a trend which should be of concern to the US. Individual Muslims resident in the US, most of them of Pakistani origin, have been going to Pakistan in small groups to assist the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban in their operations in the Af-Pak territory. Their original intention when they left the US for Pakistan was not to indulge in acts of terrorism in the US Homeland. They wanted to attack US nationals and interests in the Af-Pak region.Al Qaeda, the myriad Talibans in Pakistan and Punjabi terrorist organisations such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the JEM and the 313 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri with whom they came into contact in Pakistani territory, played them back into the US.
5. What, in effect, these organisations told the American Muslims was: "We can handle the jihad in the Af-Pak region. You will better serve the cause of Islam by going back to the US and starting a jihad in the US Homeland. We will give you the necessary training for this." This has come out very clearly in the testimonies in the US case against Najibullah Zazi, a US resident of Afghan origin, and two others, who had been motivated by Al Qaeda and the JEM to mount an attack in the New York subway system similar to the Madrid bombing of March 2004 and the London bombing of July,2005.
6. Al Qaeda, the Talibans and their associates have been trying to turn these US Muslims going to Pakistan in the hope of fighting in the Af-Pak region into surrogarte jihadis who will fight for them in the US Homeland. US officials and non-Governmental analysts have been playing down the threats of the TTP to indulge in reprisal attacks in the US Homeland on the ground that the TTP has no known presence in the US and does not have such a long reach. The TTP and others are not trying to create a presence for themselves in US territory, but are trying to manipulate American Muslims going to Pakistan to wage a jihad to go back to the US and wage a hihad in the US Homeland instead,
7.The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Police in different US cities have till now succeeded in thwarting the attempts of these surrogate jihadis. Luck has also favoured them. But so long as more and more surrogate jihadis keep coming back to the US after having been motivated and trained in the training camps in Pakistani territory, there will always be a danger of one or more planned attacks being successful.
8. This danger will continue to confront the US so long as the jihadi infrastructure in Pakistani territory continues. The US has to act pre-emptively against the jihadi infrastructure instead of acting only if there is a successful terrorist strike in the US Homeland launched from Pakistan. All US warnings and admonitions have no effect on the Pakistani authorities because of their conviction that the importance of Pakistan for US policies in Afghanistan would protect Pakistan from any reprisals by the US and that anyhow, whatever the State Department might think and say, the Pentagon would oppose any action against Pakistan.
9. This conviction in the minds of the Pakistani leaders has to be removed and the Pakistani Army made to act against all jihadi infrastrcture whether directed against India, the US or anyone else and wherever it is located--- whether in North Waziristan, the Khyber-Pakhtunkwa province, Punjab, Sindh or Balochistan. Unless this is done now, more and more surrogate jihadis will keep going back to the US to start a jihad in the US Homeland. There is a need for a clear-cut enunciation of the US policy articulated by President Barack Obama himself. (9-5-10)
( 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, May 7, 2010
TERROR IN NY: A JEM LINK?
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.645
B.RAMAN
Najibullah Zazi , a 25-year-old Afghan citizen with permanent resident status in the US, was arrested by the USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in September 2009 on a charge of belonging to an Al Qaeda motivated and trained cell, which was allegedly planning suicide bombings in the New York City subway system. He pleaded guilty along with one of two other co-conspirators. The third co-conspirator did not plead guilty. The case is reserved for judgement in June.
2.According to the prosecution, the three had planned to attack the subway system at the instance of Saleh al-Somali, Al-Qaeda's head of external operations, and Rashid Rauf, who was described by the prosecution as an Al-Qaeda operative. Rashid Rauf, who was reportedly killed in a US Drone (pilotless plane) strike in North Waziristan in November,2008, belonged to the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) of Pakistan and was related by marriage to Maulana Masood Azhar, the Amir of the JEM.
3. Zarein Ahmedzay, a 25-year-old former New York taxi driver, one of the three co-conspirators, who pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, claimed the three had bought ingredients to make explosives similar to those used in the July 7 2005 bombings in London which killed 52 people on three tube trains and a bus. Ahmedzay told the court that he travelled to Pakistan with Najibullah Zazi and Adis Medunjanin in the summer of 2008. They went to a training camp in North Waziristan and volunteered to join the Taliban and fight the US forces in Afghanistan, but were told they would be "more useful if we returned to New York City... to conduct operations."Asked by the judge what kind of operations, he said: "Suicide-bombing operations.” Zazi told the court:"During the training, al Qaeda leaders asked us to return to the United States and conduct a martyrdom operation. We agreed to this plan." It was reported on April 13,2010, that a fourth suspect in the case----not yet named as a co-conspirator---had been arrested in Pakistan and that the US authorities were trying to get him to the US for interrogation.
4.Rashid Rauf, who motivated them, was from a Mirpuri family of Birmingham. The Mirpuris are the Punjabi-speaking residents of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK). He disappeared from the UK in 2002 after the British Police suspected him in connection with the murder of one of his relatives in Birmingham. On August 9, 2006, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) claimed to have picked him up from a house in Bhawalpur, southern Punjab, which he had bought after coming to Pakistan in 2002. The Pakistani authorities claimed that he was in close touch with Al Qaeda and that it was his arrest that gave them an inkling regarding the imminence of the plot of a group of jihadi extremists based in the UK to blow up a number of US-bound planes. The discovery of the conspiracy and the arrest of many UK-based suspects of Pakistani origin were then announced by the British Police.
5.Despite his alleged involvement in the August 2006 plot to blow up a number of US-bound planes with liquid explosives, the Pakistani authorities avoided handing him over to the British Police for interrogation. The Government of Pakistan told a court on October 30, 2006, that Rashid Rauf had been detained under the Security of Pakistan Act. A Rawalpindi Anti-Terrorism Judge, Justice Safdar Hussain Malik, passed orders on November 21, 2006, approving his judicial custody in the Adiala jail. This ruled out his early transfer to the British Police for interrogation. He escaped from custody under mysterious circumstances on December, 16,2007, while being taken back to jail from the court. Many alleged that the ISI had allowed him to escape to avoid pressure from the British Police to hand him over for interrogation.
6. Quoting an unnamed senior Pakistani security official, an Islamabad datelined report of the Agence France Press (AFP) stated as follows on November 22, 2008: "The alleged mastermind of a 2006 transatlantic airplane bombing plot was killed in a US missile attack in northwest Pakistan early Saturday (November 15, 2008) .The transatlantic bombing plot alleged mastermind Rashid Rauf was killed along with an Egyptian Al-Qaeda operative in the US missile strike in North Waziristan early Saturday," a senior security official told AFP. The Al-Qaeda operative killed in the strike was identified as Abu Zubair al-Misri, the official added. He and the Egyptian Al-Qaeda operative were killed along with at least two other militants in a US drone attack on the house of a local tribesman in the village of Alikhel, part of a district known as a stronghold for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, officials said. The missile strike came days after another US drone attack which killed six rebels, including an Arab Al-Qaeda operative. That attack prompted Taliban militants based in the rugged tribal territory bordering Afghanistan to warn of reprisal attacks across Pakistan if there were more strikes by the US. "
7.According to the “Daily Telegraph”,Rauf had been suspected of involvement in almost every significant terrorist plot in Britain since his escape to Pakistan in 2002, including the explosions of July 7, 2005 in London, the failed attacks of July 21, 2005 in London and the plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic.He was also behind an alleged plan to attack shopping centres in Manchester during Easter 2008.
8.Maulana Masood Azhar used to be a leader of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), a founding member of Osama bin Laden’s International Islamic Front For Jihad against the Crusaders and the Jewish People formed in 1998. Its then Amir, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, was a signatory of bin Laden’s first fatwa calling for attacks against the US. Azhar had fought as a member of bin Laden’s group in Somalia in the early 1990s. In 1994, he entered India and was arrested by the Police and kept in custody in Jammu & Kashmir. He was one of those released by the Government of India in December,1999, to secure the release of the passengers of a plane of the Indian Airlines hijacked by the HUM to Kandahar to demand the release of Azhar and others. After his return to Pakistan from Kandahar, Azhar developed differences with Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, left the HUM and formed his own organization in January 2000 called the JEM. bin Laden failed in his efforts to patch up the differences between the two. He then switched his support from the HUM to the JEM.
9. The JEM was very active in J&K and was suspected of involvement in the attempted attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi on December 13,2001. Unlike the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), which never indulges in an act of terrorism in Pakistani territory and against Pakistani targets, the JEM has been involved in acts of terrorism in Pakistani territory. It was suspected of involvement, along with Al Qaeda, in the two unsuccessful attempts to kill Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December,2003.It supported the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in its operations against the Pakistan Army in the Swat Valley and then in South Waziristan. It is now believed to have its training camps in North Waziristan along with those of Ilyas Kashmiri of the 313 Brigade.
10. Since Rashid Rauf joined it in 2002, the JEM has been training members of the Pakistani diaspora in the UK. The Zazi’s case was the first indication that it may be training jihadi volunteers from the US too. As part of the investigation into the attempted incendiary attack in Times Square of New York by Faisal Shahzad, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, on May 1,2010, four suspected members of the JEM in Pakistan are reported to have been detained by the Pakistani authorities. Among those detained is one Muhammed Rehan, a suspected associate of Shahzad who allegedly has links to the JEM. According to a senior Pakistani official, Rehan made possible a meeting between Shahzad and at least one senior Taliban official. He alleged that Rehan drove Shahzad on July 7, 2009, to Peshawar. They also went to the Waziristan region, where they met with one or more senior Taliban leaders.
11. The suspected involvement of the JEM in the training of Faisal, if proved correct, would indicate, in the wake of its involvement in the motivation and training of the Zazi cell, a possible link between the members of the Zazi cell and Faisal. It would also indicate the possibility that like Zazi, Faisal was not acting alone. The JEM is becoming as worrisome as the LET as a surrogate of Al Qaeda using angry elements in the Pakistani diaspora for acts of terrorism not only in the UK as it had done in the past, but also in the US now. ( 7-5-10)
( 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
Najibullah Zazi , a 25-year-old Afghan citizen with permanent resident status in the US, was arrested by the USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in September 2009 on a charge of belonging to an Al Qaeda motivated and trained cell, which was allegedly planning suicide bombings in the New York City subway system. He pleaded guilty along with one of two other co-conspirators. The third co-conspirator did not plead guilty. The case is reserved for judgement in June.
2.According to the prosecution, the three had planned to attack the subway system at the instance of Saleh al-Somali, Al-Qaeda's head of external operations, and Rashid Rauf, who was described by the prosecution as an Al-Qaeda operative. Rashid Rauf, who was reportedly killed in a US Drone (pilotless plane) strike in North Waziristan in November,2008, belonged to the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) of Pakistan and was related by marriage to Maulana Masood Azhar, the Amir of the JEM.
3. Zarein Ahmedzay, a 25-year-old former New York taxi driver, one of the three co-conspirators, who pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, claimed the three had bought ingredients to make explosives similar to those used in the July 7 2005 bombings in London which killed 52 people on three tube trains and a bus. Ahmedzay told the court that he travelled to Pakistan with Najibullah Zazi and Adis Medunjanin in the summer of 2008. They went to a training camp in North Waziristan and volunteered to join the Taliban and fight the US forces in Afghanistan, but were told they would be "more useful if we returned to New York City... to conduct operations."Asked by the judge what kind of operations, he said: "Suicide-bombing operations.” Zazi told the court:"During the training, al Qaeda leaders asked us to return to the United States and conduct a martyrdom operation. We agreed to this plan." It was reported on April 13,2010, that a fourth suspect in the case----not yet named as a co-conspirator---had been arrested in Pakistan and that the US authorities were trying to get him to the US for interrogation.
4.Rashid Rauf, who motivated them, was from a Mirpuri family of Birmingham. The Mirpuris are the Punjabi-speaking residents of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK). He disappeared from the UK in 2002 after the British Police suspected him in connection with the murder of one of his relatives in Birmingham. On August 9, 2006, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) claimed to have picked him up from a house in Bhawalpur, southern Punjab, which he had bought after coming to Pakistan in 2002. The Pakistani authorities claimed that he was in close touch with Al Qaeda and that it was his arrest that gave them an inkling regarding the imminence of the plot of a group of jihadi extremists based in the UK to blow up a number of US-bound planes. The discovery of the conspiracy and the arrest of many UK-based suspects of Pakistani origin were then announced by the British Police.
5.Despite his alleged involvement in the August 2006 plot to blow up a number of US-bound planes with liquid explosives, the Pakistani authorities avoided handing him over to the British Police for interrogation. The Government of Pakistan told a court on October 30, 2006, that Rashid Rauf had been detained under the Security of Pakistan Act. A Rawalpindi Anti-Terrorism Judge, Justice Safdar Hussain Malik, passed orders on November 21, 2006, approving his judicial custody in the Adiala jail. This ruled out his early transfer to the British Police for interrogation. He escaped from custody under mysterious circumstances on December, 16,2007, while being taken back to jail from the court. Many alleged that the ISI had allowed him to escape to avoid pressure from the British Police to hand him over for interrogation.
6. Quoting an unnamed senior Pakistani security official, an Islamabad datelined report of the Agence France Press (AFP) stated as follows on November 22, 2008: "The alleged mastermind of a 2006 transatlantic airplane bombing plot was killed in a US missile attack in northwest Pakistan early Saturday (November 15, 2008) .The transatlantic bombing plot alleged mastermind Rashid Rauf was killed along with an Egyptian Al-Qaeda operative in the US missile strike in North Waziristan early Saturday," a senior security official told AFP. The Al-Qaeda operative killed in the strike was identified as Abu Zubair al-Misri, the official added. He and the Egyptian Al-Qaeda operative were killed along with at least two other militants in a US drone attack on the house of a local tribesman in the village of Alikhel, part of a district known as a stronghold for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, officials said. The missile strike came days after another US drone attack which killed six rebels, including an Arab Al-Qaeda operative. That attack prompted Taliban militants based in the rugged tribal territory bordering Afghanistan to warn of reprisal attacks across Pakistan if there were more strikes by the US. "
7.According to the “Daily Telegraph”,Rauf had been suspected of involvement in almost every significant terrorist plot in Britain since his escape to Pakistan in 2002, including the explosions of July 7, 2005 in London, the failed attacks of July 21, 2005 in London and the plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic.He was also behind an alleged plan to attack shopping centres in Manchester during Easter 2008.
8.Maulana Masood Azhar used to be a leader of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), a founding member of Osama bin Laden’s International Islamic Front For Jihad against the Crusaders and the Jewish People formed in 1998. Its then Amir, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, was a signatory of bin Laden’s first fatwa calling for attacks against the US. Azhar had fought as a member of bin Laden’s group in Somalia in the early 1990s. In 1994, he entered India and was arrested by the Police and kept in custody in Jammu & Kashmir. He was one of those released by the Government of India in December,1999, to secure the release of the passengers of a plane of the Indian Airlines hijacked by the HUM to Kandahar to demand the release of Azhar and others. After his return to Pakistan from Kandahar, Azhar developed differences with Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, left the HUM and formed his own organization in January 2000 called the JEM. bin Laden failed in his efforts to patch up the differences between the two. He then switched his support from the HUM to the JEM.
9. The JEM was very active in J&K and was suspected of involvement in the attempted attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi on December 13,2001. Unlike the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), which never indulges in an act of terrorism in Pakistani territory and against Pakistani targets, the JEM has been involved in acts of terrorism in Pakistani territory. It was suspected of involvement, along with Al Qaeda, in the two unsuccessful attempts to kill Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December,2003.It supported the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in its operations against the Pakistan Army in the Swat Valley and then in South Waziristan. It is now believed to have its training camps in North Waziristan along with those of Ilyas Kashmiri of the 313 Brigade.
10. Since Rashid Rauf joined it in 2002, the JEM has been training members of the Pakistani diaspora in the UK. The Zazi’s case was the first indication that it may be training jihadi volunteers from the US too. As part of the investigation into the attempted incendiary attack in Times Square of New York by Faisal Shahzad, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, on May 1,2010, four suspected members of the JEM in Pakistan are reported to have been detained by the Pakistani authorities. Among those detained is one Muhammed Rehan, a suspected associate of Shahzad who allegedly has links to the JEM. According to a senior Pakistani official, Rehan made possible a meeting between Shahzad and at least one senior Taliban official. He alleged that Rehan drove Shahzad on July 7, 2009, to Peshawar. They also went to the Waziristan region, where they met with one or more senior Taliban leaders.
11. The suspected involvement of the JEM in the training of Faisal, if proved correct, would indicate, in the wake of its involvement in the motivation and training of the Zazi cell, a possible link between the members of the Zazi cell and Faisal. It would also indicate the possibility that like Zazi, Faisal was not acting alone. The JEM is becoming as worrisome as the LET as a surrogate of Al Qaeda using angry elements in the Pakistani diaspora for acts of terrorism not only in the UK as it had done in the past, but also in the US now. ( 7-5-10)
( 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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