XINJIANG & TIBET:CONTINUING WEAKNESSES IN CHINA'S PERIPHERAL SECURITY

 

B.RAMAN

Ten Uighurs, three Hans and two Mongols working for the Ministry of Public Security in Xinjiang and six Uighur separatists were killed on the morning of April 23,2013, in an incident in the Selibya Township in the Bachu county, in the Kashgar area of China’s Xinjiang province. The area of the incident is near Xinjiang’s borders with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

2. The Information Office of the Xinjiang Government has projected the incident as a “severe, violent, terror incident” which has been brought under control. It has projected 15 of those killed as police officers and social workers helping the police in maintaining security.

3. In its announcement, the Information Office has given the following details of the incident: The  incident happened after three community workers  found several suspicious people and knives in a local house. They reported the details to their supervisor but were then restrained by suspected terrorists. When police and community workers arrived, they were ambushed by attackers inside and outside the house. The attackers, who had killed the three community workers who had been held captive, then set fire to the house. By the time police brought the situation under control, 15 people had been killed by the gang. Six gang members were shot dead at the scene, bringing the death toll to 21.

4.The “China Daily” has quoted Mutalif Wubuli, commissioner of Kashgar prefecture, as saying that eight suspects have been arrested. It has also quoted Qi Baowen, commander of the Xinjiang Armed Police, as saying that the consequences of the incident are relatively severe because there are many casualties.

5. Last month, courts in Kashgar had sentenced 19 people for their alleged  involvement in organized terror activities and for spreading extreme religious information via the  Internet and cellphones.

6.In March, the local Ministry of Public Security had started what was described as “Social management in communities” under which Uighurs were recruited as community workers to help the police in the maintenance of security. “It is the foundation of maintaining stability in the region,” Xiong Xuanguo, Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of Xinjiang, had said in a media briefing.

7. The incident of April 23,2013, appears to have been in retaliation for the jailing of 19 Uighurs last month and to deter the local Uighurs from co-operating with the police in dealing with separatism.

8. In a commentary on the incident carried on April 25,2013, the “Global Times” of the Communist Party of China said: “The latest clashes show that Xinjiang has a long way to go in its anti-terrorism efforts. But it's worth pointing out that this case will not pose a threat to the overall stability of Xinjiang. The public expects social harmony and prosperity…..Although Xinjiang has experienced several violent clashes in recent years, social confidence in Xinjiang and the confidence of the whole country toward the region have remained stable. The situation in Xinjiang since the July 5 riots in 2009  has improved and no violent cases have impeded that process. As the sources of violence in Xinjiang haven't been eradicated, its occasional occurrence cannot be fully prevented. Xinjiang has learned to manage the situation despite some isolated violent cases. It has been investigating and eradicating the internal and external sources of violent terrorist attacks. We should firmly act against violent terrorists. Terrorists should not be permitted to have the misconception that they are carrying out a "holy war" or simply fighting against the regime. They must be clear that they are making enemies of all the Xinjiang people and the Chinese people.”

9.The Xinjiang authorities have not so far blamed the Pakistan-based Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan for the fresh violence. They are apparently worried that as the US-led Western troops thin out from Afghanistan, violence by different separatist groups could increase in Xinjiang adding to internal instability. Hence, their interest in co-operating with India in monitoring the ground situation in Afghanistan.

10.The Chinese face a two-pronged threat to their peripheral security--- from the growing anger of the Tibetans in the Tibetan areas and from the Uighurs in Xinjiang. Their hopes that rapid economic development of these areas will dilute the threat have been belied so far.

11. In view of China’s insensitivity to India’s core interests and major concerns in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, it will not be in India’s interest to co-operate with China in relation to its peripheral security problems. ( 25-4-2013)

 

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. Twitter : @SORBONNE75)

 

INDIA-CHINA BORDER DISPUTE

 

B.RAMAN

( To be read in continuation of my article of November 6,2012, titled “Chinese Checkers” carried by “Outlook” in its online edition at http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?282899 )

  

The continuing (since April 15,2013) Chinese troop intrusion ( about 20 troops) 10 kms into Indian territory near Burthe in the Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) area of Eastern Ladakh in the western sector of the Sino-Indian border should be a matter for careful analysis and concern, but not alarm.

2.A spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Office has denied any Chinese intrusion into Indian territory in this area. The Government of India, for the present, has been treating it as one of those intrusions which take place sometimes due to differing perceptions of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in this area and trying to deal with it through the normal mechanism for handling such issues without disturbing peace and tranquillity across the border.

3. There is no evidence to show that this could be a prelude to a major Chinese assertion of territorial sovereignty in this area. The Chinese aim seems to be to re-assert their claim of sovereignty over this area without disturbing peace and tranquillity. The Chinese troops are presently camping in the area in a tent. We will have reasons to be more than concerned only if they stay put there and construct permanent defences as they often do in the uninhabited islands of the South China Sea.

4. Since last year, the Chinese have been a little more assertive of their sovereignty claims over the islands of the South and East China Seas. They have reportedly constructed permanent defensive and administrative structures on some of the islands over which they have disputes with Vietnam and the Philippines.

5. In the East China Sea, where they have sovereignty disputes with Japan, they have avoided any such construction, but stepped up seemingly aggressive air and naval patrols of the areas in the vicinity of these islands. The Chinese Navy has also stepped up its visits to the islands in the South China Sea claimed by Beijing.

6.Till now we have seen greater Chinese activism in the enforcement of their sovereignty claims only in the South and East China seas, but not across the Sino-Indian border. If the Chinese troops stay put in the Burthe area and construct defensive structures in the area, that will be an indicator of their deciding to follow a similar policy of activism across the Sino-Indian border too. That should add to our border concerns. We may have to revisit our peace and tranquillity strategy and think of a more activist policy to face the Chinese activism.

7. In the Western sector of the border, which is largely unpopulated, the status quo favours the Chinese. Since 1962, they are already in occupation of whatever territory they have claimed. We have very few options to re-assert our sovereignty in any area of this sector which is under Chinese control.

8. In the Eastern sector ( Arunachal Pradesh, which the Chinese call Southern Tibet), the area is populated and the status quo favours India. Even though our defensive and administrative infrastructure in the Arunachal Pradesh area is not comparable with the Chinese infrastructure in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), we are in a much stronger position in the Eastern sector than in the Western.

9.While the Chinese continue to repeat from time to time their claims to the Arunachal Pradesh area, they have avoided in the Eastern sector the kind of ground activism that one comes across in the Western sector. There is a noticeable keenness on the part of both China and India to avoid any provocative incident either in the Eastern or Western sector.

10.The Chinese are unlikely to relent in their claims to Indian territory in the Eastern sector till after they have succeeded in imposing on the Tibetans a Dalai Lama chosen by the Communist Party of China (CPC) with the help of the Panchen Lama chosen by the CPC.

11.The wave of self-immolations (115 incidents so far) in the Tibetan areas of China since March 2009 has created concerns in Chinese mind of possible political instability in the Tibetan areas after His Holiness the Dalai Lama when the CPC imposes its nominee on the Tibetans.

12. The older generation of Tibetans continues to abide by His Holiness’ exhortations for peaceful means of protest. The Chinese are worried that the GenNext of Tibetans represented by organisations such as the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) may take to violent means to resist the imposition of a Dalai Lama chosen by the CPC.

13. In their calculation,this may necessitate action by the PLA in the populated areas of Arunachal Pradesh. Till Tibet is pacified without fears of any further trouble and the Chinese have forced the Tibetans to accept their nominee as the Dalai Lama, Beijing would like to maintain its claim to Arunachal Pradesh to justify action by the PLA in that area to contain trouble, if need be.

14. If they now make a deal with India recognising Arunachal Pradesh as an integral part of India, they will not be able to act in that area. By recognising Tibet as an integral part of China we have given up our options for action in Tibet. The Chinese would not want to commit the same mistake by recognising Arunachal Pradesh as an integral part of India.

15. They will, therefore, keep the Arunachal Pradesh issue alive till they have forced the Tibetans to accept their decision regarding succession of His Holiness. We should factor this into our border strategies relating to China. (23-4-13)

 

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. @SORBONNE75  )

BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING:QUESTIONS SANS ANSWERS

 

B.RAMAN

 

Two Chechen brothers living in the US since 2002—Dzhokhar ( 19) and Tamerlan Tsarnaev ( 26),  are suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon on April 15,2013, in which three persons were killed and over 150 injured.

2.The team led by the FBI, which has been investigating the blast, has been able to identify them reportedly through CCTV images of their placing bags, which probably contained the improvised explosive devices (IED), fabricated with a pressure cooker and a metal container, at two places near the finishing line where the explosions occurred.

3. Even though the FBI-led team haS not said so, tip-off from persons knowing the brothers also possibly contributed to the needle of suspicion pointing at the two brothers.

4.Tamerlan died following a shootout with the  police on Thursday ( April 18) night. His  younger brother, Dzhokhar, is still on the run in Boston. However, latest reports indicate that the police are “in engagement” with a person suspected to be Dzhokhar in the Watertown area.

5. From the accounts of the police search for him received so far, Dzhokhar has been making  frantic efforts to evade capture by the police, who must be anxious to catch him alive to question him on what and who motivated him and Tamerlan to commit the bombing, if it is proved that they did it.

5.According to the profile of the Tsarnaev family carried by the BBC and the CNN, they were Chechens who had migrated to Kyrgyzstan and from there to Dagestan. They migrated to the US from Dagestan with Kyrgyz passports in 2002. The father, Anzor Tsarnaev, is since reported to have gone back to Dagestan.

6. According to the BBC, the brothers lived in the Massachusetts town of Cambridge, home of the prestigious Harvard University.  Tamerlan  studied engineering at Bunker Hill Community College just outside Boston but had taken the year off to train as a boxer. Dzhokhar  is enrolled at the University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth to study medicine.

7. Russian news agency RIA Novosti has reported that "extremist material" was on the YouTube account belonging to Tamerlan. "Several albums were posted, one of them titled 'terrorist'," the agency said. However, the BBC says it has been  unable to confirm the presence of extremist material on Tamerlan's YouTube page.

8. Their mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, told Russia's RT television network on April 19: "My youngest was raised from 8 years in America, my oldest he was really properly raised in our house," she said. "Nobody talked about terrorism. Tamerlan got involved in religion five years ago. (He) started following his own religion, never told me he could be on side of jihad."

9. According to some reports, the FBI had interviewed the father sometime ago to enquire why the two sons had started attending a local mosque for prayers. This would show that the two brothers were under watch by the FBI for some time before they carried out the bombing.

10.Details of their life in Boston available so far do not indicate any travels by them either within the US or outside. If they had developed any radical influences, it must have been through the Internet or during their visits to the local mosque for namaz. Particulars of the mosque to which they started going for namaz are not available. Who was the cleric in charge of it? Did he have any radical background? Why was the FBI worried about their going for namaz?

11. Dzhokhar was very proud of his Chechen ethnicity. It has been reported that whenever his friends referred to him as a Russian, he would correct them and say he is a Chechen.

12.If it is established that the two brothers carried out the Marathon bombing, what could have been their motive? They had no reasons to be angry against the US and its civil society. Their anger should have been against Russia.

13.Were they self-motivated to carry out the bombing or was their an external motivation due to US policies towards the Islamic world? It is not anger over the state of affairs in Chechnya and Dagestan, but anger over matters relating to Islam that seem to have motivated them.

14. Was there an Al Qaeda inspiration behind their action? Chechens had always formed an important component of Al Qaeda. Chechen instructors were employed in Al Qaeda’s training camps in the Waziristan area of Pakistan.

15. Under Ayman al-Zawahiri, the present chief of Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda has turned the focus of its operations from the Af-Pak region to Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Mali, Somalia, Libya and Algeria. Did Al Qaeda propaganda against the US policies in Libya and Syria influence the brothers in their actions?

16. There are many questions without answers. To find the answers, it is important for the US authorities to catch Dzhokhar alive. (20-4-13)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. Twitter: @SORBONNE75)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BENGALURU BLAST

B.RAMAN

( Written at the request of “The Times of India”. Carried by it on April 19,2013, at  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Dont-politicise-terror/articleshow/19619767.cms …

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Sixteen persons, 11 of them policemen posted on pre-election law and order duty near the office of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Bengaluru, are reported to have been injured on April 17,  when a  motor-byke   fitted with an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded near the BJP office. Some vehicles parked in the area were also destroyed or damaged. Some damage to window-panes of nearby buildings has also been reported.

2. The blast is in the preliminary stages of investigation  by the local police. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) of the Government of India has also joined the investigation. The State and central authorities have categorised the blast as an act of terrorism.

3.No organisation has  claimed responsibility for the blast. The motive is still to be established. The only lead the Police have so far  is that the motor-byke had a fake number plate of Tamil Nadu and was probably stolen from Hyderabad.

4.From the details available so far it can be tentatively categorised as an act of terror of low lethality carried out with a timed IED mounted on a motor-byke. The use of a motor-byke would indicate that the intention of the perpetrators was not just to create a scare, but to cause casualties.

5.While the BJP was the target of the blast, it is not clear whether it was directed against the BJP as a political party and its ideology or against the BJP-led Government which had been ruling the State and its policies or the local police.

6. It would be premature to say whether the blast was carried out by an angry individual or individuals with grievances against the BJP or by an ideologically motivated organisation such as the Indian Mujahideen (IM), which had operated in Bengaluru in the past.

7. The explosion coincided with the third anniversary of the blast outside the local Chinnaswami Stadium in 2010 in which the IM was suspected. Fasih Mehmood, an engineer from Bihar formerly  working in Saudi Arabia and arrested by the Delhi Police in May last year, was to have been interrogated by the Bengaluru Police in connection with his suspected role in the Stadium blast.

8. The blast of April 17 has also come about seven months after the high-profile  arrests by the Karnataka Police in September last year of  18 educated Muslim youths  in Bengaluru, Hubli, Hyderabad and Maharashtra on charges of conspiring to assassinate a number of Hindu personalities believed sympathetic to the Hindutva movement. According to the Bengaluru Police, who were interrogating them, the Muslim suspects in their custody were self-motivated by visiting the web site of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)in Yemen, also known as the Ansar al-Sharia. The Ansar-al-Sharia was suspected in the assassination of a US diplomat in Benghazi in Libya on September 11,2012.

9. There were no subsequent details of these Muslims allegedly in the custody of the Bengaluru Police. What did they say during their interrogation? Was there corroboration of the allegation that they were self-motivated by visiting the Web site of AQAP? What happened to the case against them?

10.There were already pockets of anger in sections of the Karnataka Muslim youth against the police and the Government due to various reasons. This anger was reflected in the low-intensity explosions allegedly carried out by the IM in Bengaluru in July 2008.

11. One should not be surprised if there was aggravation of this anger as a result of the  interrogation of Fashi Mehmood and the 18 Muslim youth arrested in September last year.

12.The anger against the Police and the perceived unfairness of the Indian criminal justice system towards the Muslims have often been cited by the IM as a cause for their movement against the Government and the police in different States. The recent execution of Afzal Guru, for his role in the attack on the Parliament in December 2001,has added to this.

13.One has been seeing reports of such anger in Bengaluru too since the IM struck in 2008. Bengaluru, being an IT nerve centre, has also been an important target of ISI-sponsored Pakistani jihadi organisations such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET).

14. While the IM reportedly has contacts with the LET, local anger has till now been the motivating factor of its activities and not the objectives of its Pakistani associates.

15. One has to keep in view these details in order to understand the background to the terrorist scenario in Bengaluru. This narrative should not be interpreted to mean that these elements must have been responsible for the blast of April 17.

16. One has to keep an open mind as to who might have been responsible and what could have been the motive and avoid pre-conceived assumptions. At the same time , one has to keep in view the background.

17. The political parties should leave it to the police and the counter-terrorism experts to do the investigation with an open mind. Till they come to definitive conclusions based on reliable evidence, the temptation to exploit the blast for political purposes should be avoided.

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi.

 

 

PRESSURE COOKER BOMB NEAR BOSTON MARATHON FINISHING LINE---I AM CONFUSED

 

B.RAMAN

I am confused by reports of the perpetrator or perpetrators of the Boston blasts on April 15,2013, having used a pressure cooker bomb.

2.A pressure cooker bomb is a conventional type of improvised explosive device (IED) of the 1990s vintage. It can be used to cause high casualties through low intensity explosives by packing it with shrapnel. The exploding part of the cooker will add to the shrapnel effect.

3. The pressure cooker bomb is ideal for use in a means of transport like a bus or a train or in a public place. They easily merge with the background. In India, many people visiting towns and cities buy pressure cookers and carry them with them. Nobody suspects anything on seeing a person carrying a pressure cooker on board a train or a bus or in a public place. A terrorist finds it easy to pack it with explosives and shrapnel and leave it in a train or a bus or in a public place, where physical security is not intense.

4. A pressure cooker bomb does not lend itself to easy use without risk of detection on occasions like the Boston Marathon, when physical security will be tight. Evasion of physical security will be difficult. A pressure cooker near the finishing line of the Marathon would have stuck out like a sore thumb.

5. Why did the perpetrator or perpetrators use a pressure cooker? It is difficult to think of an explanation unless the perpetrator or perpetrators are employed in a stall near the finishing line which makes and sells snacks etc during the Marathon. Carrying a pressure cooker to the stall on the day of the Marathon may not create suspicion in the minds of the police.

6. One could pack a pressure cooker already in use in the stall with explosive material and shrapnel and leave it nearby during the final moments of the race when in the prevailing joy and excitement among the participants attention may not be paid to a pressure cooker kept aside.

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai,and Associate of the Chennai Centre for China Studies. Twiiter: @SORBONNE75 )

BOSTON MARATHON EXPLOSIONS

B.RAMAN

 

THE FACTS: As reported by the BBC and the CNN:

•     Three persons, including an 8-year-old child, were killed in two explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on the afternoon of April 15,2013.

•     Hospitals reported at least 144 people are being treated for injuries, with at least 17 of them in critical condition and 25 in serious condition. At least eight of them  are children. At least 10 people injured had limbs amputated. Several of the patients treated at Massachusetts General Hospital suffered injuries to lower limbs.

•     The two blasts were about 50 to 100 yards apart with a few minutes one after the other. A federal law enforcement official told CNN that both bombs were small, and initial tests showed no C-4 or other high-grade explosive material, suggesting that the packages used in the attack were crude explosive devices.

•     Authorities in Boston found at least one other explosive device , Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said. Rep. Bill Keating of Massachusetts said two more were found. One unexploded device was found at a hotel on Boylston Street near the bomb site and another unexploded device was found at an undisclosed location.

·       There were no credible threats before the Marathon, a state government official said. There is no suspect in custody, but many people are being questioned, Davis said. Investigators warned police to be on the lookout for a "darker-skinned or black male" with a possible foreign accent in connection with the attack, according to a law enforcement advisory obtained by CNN. The man was seen with a black backpack and sweatshirt and was trying to get into a restricted area about five minutes before the first explosion, the lookout notice states. Also, a Saudi national with a leg wound was under guard at a Boston hospital in connection with the bombings, but investigators cannot say he is involved at this time and he is not in custody, a law enforcement official said.

·       In addition to scrutinizing images of surveillance cameras in the area, the FBI likely was issuing subpoenas for records from cell towers in the area to isolate and trace calls from around Copley Square at the time of the blasts, according to a former federal law enforcement official who now works in the intelligence community.

·       Mayor (Thomas) Menino said: “Our focus is on making sure that the area around Copley Square is safe and secured. I am asking everyone to stay away from Copley Square and let the first responders do their jobs."

·       The Federal Aviation Administration placed a flight restriction over the site of the blasts. Other cities, including New York and Washington, tightened security as a result. Following standard protocol, the White House cleared out an area in front of the West Wing.

·       Troops from the Massachusetts National Guard, already at the site as part of the marathon's security and crowd-management plan, were assisting police as well.

·       The FBI has taken over co-ordination of what it described as a "potential terrorist inquiry". Although President Obama, in his initial statement, did not use the word "terrorism", a White House official later said: "Any event with multiple explosive devices - as this appears to be - is clearly an act of terror and will be approached as an act of terror."

·       Officials in Washington said no group or individual had so far said they carried out the attack.

2. Since the 9/11 acts of catastrophic terrorism in the US Homeland carried out by Al Qaeda, using hijacked aircraft, there have been two attempted acts of catastrophic terrorism by Al Qaeda by causing explosions on US passenger aircraft flying from Europe to the US.

3. On 22 December 2001, Richard Reid, a British citizen, boarded American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami, wearing shoes packed with explosives, which he unsuccessfully tried to detonate. Passengers overpowered him on the plane, which quickly landed at Logan International Airport in Boston, , the closest US airport. He was  arrested and indicted. He was reported to have been motivated by Al Qaeda elements in Pakistan.

4. On December 26,2009, Abdul Mutallab, 23, a Nigerian, tried to detonate an explosive device, apparently a mix of powder and liquid,  on a North-West Airlines flight, coming from Nigeria via Amsterdam, and approaching Detroit. An alert passenger noticed him and he was overpowered. He was believed to have been motivated by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

5. The Boston Marathon blasts have coincided with a fast reportedly undertaken since March 19,2013, by 24 of the Al Qaeda suspects still held in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre to protest against the alleged inhuman conditions in the Centre. Activists of a Muslim group called Witness Against Torture (WAT) began a hunger strike  in solidarity with the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The group said in its web site: “We will gather for action in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities domestically and internationally  to denounce the barbaric practice of torture and indefinite detention and to demand justice for the men at Guantanamo.” The solidarity fast by WAT was scheduled to last till March 30. A handful of activists plan to continue fasting every Friday until the prison is closed.

 6. There is so far no evidence to indicate that the Boston blasts might have been linked with the fast. No claim of responsibility for the blasts has been made so far and there is till now no evidence to show whether the blasts were carried out by individual rogue elements with personal grievances or ideologically motivated organisations.

7. While the US Homeland had previously seen acts of catastrophic terrorism and attempts to commit such acts through aircraft, this is the first time a conventional act of terrorism using improvised explosive devices has been committed, if the involvement of rogue individual elements is ruled out.

8. The perpetrators, whether rogue individuals or members of ideologically motivated organisations, have succeeded in evading physical security for the Boston Marathon in procuring explosive material, detonators and timers and planting the IEDs without being noticed by the extensive CCTV camera network along the Marathon route.

9. The local security authorities and the FBI do not appear to have received any advance inkling of a possible terrorist strike either through electronic chatter or from human sources.

10. The explosions show that despite the strengthening of homeland security in the US after 9/11, terrorists have managed to find intelligence and physical security gaps in the security network and exploited them. The Boston blasts also illustrate the difficulties in preventing conventional style attacks as against sophisticated catastrophic attacks. (16-4-2013)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )

BOSTON BLASTS: INITIAL OBSERVATIONS
B.RAMAN

Three killed, over 100 injured in two explosions about two hours after the lead runners in the Boston Marathon had crossed the winning line on April 15,2013.

2.At least two other unexploded improvised explosive devices were reportedly defused by the police..An act of terrorism involving well-timed serial blasts.There was reportedly an interval of only a few minutes between the two explosions.

3.It was meant to be an act of mass casualty terrorism.If the IEDs had been planted along the route of the Marathon while it was on there might have been mass panic among the runners resulting in possible stampede. Fortunately, this did not happen.

4. Indications till now are that the perpetrators had used low or medium lethality explosives. There are reports of the limbs of some of the injured being blown away. If the explosive was not of high lethality, how did this happen?

5.Details of security checks during the Marathon are not known, but the perpetrators had successfully managed to evade whatever physical security was there while planting the IEDs.

6. No cliams of responsibility so far. No reports of any prior warnings.No indication that Homeland Security had any prior warning of a possible blast in the form of electronic chatter of the perpetratos or suspect interception and interrogation.The perpetrators had well maintained operational secrecy while planning and executing the blasts.

7. No indictation so far whether it was an act of rogue individuals or an organisation. The motive too is not clear. (16-4-2013)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (etd),Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi. Twitter : @SORBONNE75 )