OSAMA, ARE YOU THERE?

B.RAMAN

( An updated version of an article titled "The Oracle of Al Qaeda" written by me on October 3,2003, available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers9/paper808.html )

"Watch out if you are over six feet tall. The CIA's Predator aircraft have been programmed to kill all those above six feet, hoping one of them would turn out to be bin Laden." So said the graffiti in villages in the Pashtun tribal belt of Pakistan in 2003, reflecting the extent to which the US hunt for Osama bin Laden had become a butt of ridicule amongst the tribals.

Osama, Osama everywhere, yet nowhere to be found. The US has been desperately hunting for him ever since he reportedly escaped from the exotic-sounding Tora Bora caves of Afghanistan in 2002, injured and slightly incapacitated by a sharpnel, but alive and kicking.

And leading. So claimed his followers. His hand was felt, but not seen from Bali to Mombasa, from Riyadh to Casablanca, from Madrid to London.

He became like Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Feared, but not seen. Hunted relentlessly, but not found.

Offers of rewards of millions of dollars did not help. Naturally, said an intelligence analyst. The tribals are so poor and illiterate that they don't know what is a million dollar reward. If one offered them instead a plot of land or a few dozen goats they would join the hunt with gusto. So it was said. And so it was done. But without results. Neither offers of dollars nor plots nor goats would interest the tribals.

Why? The answer is simple, my dear Americans, wrote Mr.Afrasiab Khattak, a well-known Pashtun leader of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), in the "Dawn" of May 10, 2003. Osama was nowhere in the tribal belt, according to him.

He wrote: "The myth of no-man's land and the wild north-west comes quite handy as a spin and as a diversion when the Government fails to muster the required political will for taking the bull of terrorism right by the horns."

Gen.Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's then military dictator, sent the Americans on a wild goose chase in the forbidding tribal land. "Osama can't be alive," he said in 2002. He always moved around with a large entourage to protect him. Even if one failed to notice him, one would not fail to notice his retinue. So he used to say.

Then, tricky Mush, as his retired seniors in the Army used to call him, had a different spin. He was alive, he admitted, but in the no-go land of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where no British soldier had ever gone and come back alive. "We Pakistanis are of a different mettle," said the legendary commando. "We will go where no British dared. And we will find him dead or alive. "

The Americans were duly impressed. Gave him another three billion dollars at Camp David.

Lollipops kept pouring into Pakistan in the expectation that Musharraf would help the US rid the world of Osama and his terrorist hordes. Hadn't he already delivered nearly 500 Al Qaeda types?

What he did was to round up many poor Arabs living in Pakistan who had become a social pest and make them a charge on the US tax-payers' money. Only five Al Qaeda leaders of real consequence were caught and handed over to the US. And that too, only after the US intelligence came to know of their sanctuaries in Pakistan and he had no other option but to arrest them.

Where were they found? asked the Pashtun leader. Abu Zubaidah in Faislabad in Pakistani Punjab;Ramzi Binalshibh and Waleed bin Attash in Karachi, Musharraf's home town after he migrated to Pakistan from India, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the so-called master-mind of 9/11, in Rawalpindi, where the Army's GHQ is located. Nowhere in the tribal belt. Only Abu Faraj al-Libi was found in the tribal belt in 2005.

And in Karachi was harboured the injured Osama till August ,2002. In the Binori madrasa, which has produced more terrorists than all the other madrasas of Pakistan put together. That was the one place where Musharraf should have searched for him, if he was really sincere about wanting to help the US.

And that was one place where he did not search for him. Why? Because he knew Osama was there. And the Americans did not.

After Osama knew that the US intelligence traced his presence in Tora Bora through his communications with his followers, he totally stopped using modern means of communications.

After Binalshibh was caught in a different hide-out in Karachi in September 2002, because he had indiscreetly used the telephone, Osama was whisked out of Binori and possibly Karachi.

Is Osama still alive or dead? If alive, where is he? There are only three who know the answers to these questions definitively. Allah, the ISI and those who produce and disseminate through Al Jazeera videos and audios purporting to be his provided they are authentic.

Why doesn't the ISI arrest and hand him over to the US and get a few more billions of dollars? Because of a fear that he might spill the beans about his links with the ISI.

Why doesn't the ISI get him killed and be rid of this nuisance? Because of a fear that Osama's terrorist hordes may no longer help Pakistan in India and Afghanistan. And an equally strong fear that Pakistan may lose its importance in the eyes of the US, if Osama and Al Qaeda were no longer there.

The Pakistanis know their Americans. How naive and trusting, the Americans can be. Didn't Ahmed Chalabi and other anti-Saddam money-makers make millions from the CIA and the DIA by feeding imaginary reports about Saddam's WMD and by telling the then US Vice-President Dick Cheney and the then Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the Iraqi people would welcome the US troops as liberators.

And since November 2002 an oracle started getting disseminated one tape after another purportedly of Osama and his No.2 Ayman al-Zawahiri. These tapes started coming out of Pakistan and reaching Al Jazeera and other Arab channels like rabbits out of a magician's hat.

The tapes kept coming at periodic intervals. The Congressional committees kept holding one session after another with testimonies by the top guns of the US intelligence and Armed Forces regarding the whereabouts of bin Laden. We know now he is in North Waziristan, they said.

US Drones went after him----attacking one suspected hide-out after another. They killed a lot of people. The world was told they were top guns of Al Qaeda. "We may not have got OBL, but we are eliminating others around him".

"Al Qaeda is weakened even if we have not caught or killed OBL," said one Al Qaeda watcher.

The then President George Bush came out with his own gem: " The fact that Osama has not yet been caught shows that he is trying desperately not to get caught."

Many Al Qaeda cadres---- each of them projected at the time of their capture as the No.3 of Al Qaeda--- were caught in different cities of Pakistan. " We will now know where OBL is. The No.3 will know. We will get it during the interrogation."

Apparently, their interrogation revealed nothing. Either they were tough nuts to crack or they themselves did not know where the hell was OBL.

So the hunt goes on. There has been no business like Al Qaeda and OBL business. How many Al Qaeda watchers must have minted fortunes by claiming to know all that is fit to be known about them!

How many billions Islamabad must have made by pretending to help the US in its search! How much of that must have gone into the jihad chest of Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban!

In an interview to the ABC news on December 6,2009, a sheepish Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, has finally admitted: "The US has had no reliable information on the whereabouts of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in years. Well, we don't know for a fact where Osama Bin Laden is. If we did, we'd go get him."

Well, Mr.Gates, search for him where you have not searched for him so far. You are till now looking for him in the sparsely populated tribal areas of the FATA. Start looking for him in the populated tribal areas of the North-West Frontier Province and in the other provinces of Pakistan. Set up a special group to re-interrogate all the top guns of Al Qaeda arrested in Pakistan. Find out how the tapes are reaching Al Jazeera from Pakistan. Trace them back to wherefrom they started their journey. Seek the co-operation of the Sindhis, the Mohajirs, the Balochs and the Shias of Pakistan in the search for him.

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

WANTON BRUTALITY OF PINDI MOSQUE ATTACK

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR—PAPER NO. 585

B.RAMAN


Thirty-six devout Muslims, all of them with links to the Pakistani armed forces either as serving or retired officers or their relatives or friends, were killed on December 4,2009, in a commando-style raid by a group of four to seven terrorists into a mosque in Parade Lane off the Peshawar Road in Rawalpindi where the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Pakistan Army, a number of other military establishments and residential houses of serving and retired military officers, including the Chief of the Army Staff, are located. The terrorists attacked at the time of the Friday prayers.


2. Of those killed, 17 were children, who had accompanied their parents for the prayers and four were the terrorists. The “Friday Times” of Lahore has published the following list of the fatalities on December 5: “Major General Umer Bilal, Brigadier Abdul Rauf, Colonel Mansoor, Lieutenant Colonel Fakhar, Lieutenant Colonel Manzoor Saeed, Major Zahid, Major (retired) Shoaib, Naik Masood, Sepoy Sarwar and Sepoy Abdul Qayyum. Children killed in the attack included Bilal Riaz, son of Major General Nasim Riaz; Ali Hasan, son of Colonel Shabbir; Hassan, son of Colonel Shukhran; Sadaul Hasan, son of Lieutenant Colonel Fakhar; Zamin, son of Akmal Hussain; Qaiser Khan, son of Syed Akbar; Adil Rauf, son of Abdul Rauf; Muhammad Khan, son of Sultan Bakhsh; Fazal Khan, son of Madad Khan; and Hashim, son of Peshawar Corps Commander Lieutenant Colonel (Lt.Gen?) Masood Aslam. Names of seven children, who according to the Inter-Services Public Relations, were sons of senior army officials, were yet to be ascertained. Father of Major General Awais Mustafa, father of Colonel Kaleem Zubair and father of Lieutenant Colonel Farooq Awan were also killed in the attack. According to the ISPR, the civilians killed in the terrorist attack included NLC Deputy Director Taskeen, Khalid Javed, Ghulam Mujtaba, Javed, Muhammad Fiaz and Asad. Names of the remaining people killed were yet to be ascertained.”


3. Details available so far indicate that at the time of the prayers, two of the terrorists carrying explosive devices entered the mosque and blew themselves up. As the surviving worshippers rushed out, two other terrorists at the gate opened fire and threw hand-grenades. They then took cover inside one of the remaining buildings and engaged in an exchange of fire with the security forces who managed to kill them after about an hour. The Army has been saying that only four terrorists were involved and that all of them are dead, but the local police suspect that there were at least two or three more, who managed to escape.


4. Details of the attack carried by the “News” on December 5,2009, give the following significant information:


“The mosque is predominantly frequented by serving and retired Army officers, Jawans and members of their families and is not open to civilians living in the area.”

“This attack bears the signatures of the terror strike on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore as here also these terrorists were carrying back-packs full of arms and ammunition and targeting innocent victims while standing openly in the grounds and shouting commands and orders to each other. Later, when challenged, they engaged the law-enforcement agencies, both the Army and the police, in crossfire and some even got holed up in hideouts in houses close to the mosque. We are trying to locate them and kill or arrest them,” the sources in the Rawalpindi Police and intelligence agencies told The News on condition of anonymity.”


5. Some media reports speak of wanton brutality such as the terrorists at the gate catching hold of some fleeing worshippers by the hair and killing them. Generally, Sunni terrorist organizations exhibit such acts of brutality only against known Shias and non-Muslims. The attack definitely had an anti-military angle to wreak vengeance against military personnel for the military operations against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the Pashtun tribal belt and for not stopping the US drone (pilotless planes) strikes in the area.


6. Suspicion that the attack might have also had a sectarian anti-Shia angle arises from the following factors. Firstly, the report that civilians were not allowed to pray in the mosque. A Muslim has a right to pray in any mosque unless it be located in a sensitive military area. The mosque was not located in a sensitive area. However, Shias because of the repeated attacks on them by Sunni extremists, carefully regulate entry into their places of worship.


7. Secondly, the TTP is reported to have claimed responsibility for the attack. The “Daily Times” has reported as follows: “Claiming responsibility for Friday’s attack, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) said the Parade Lane mosque was similar to Masjid-e-Zarrar built in Madina by the munafiqeen, and was “demolished on the orders of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)”. Talking to BBC, TTP chief Waliur Rehman Mehsud said his men attacked senior army officers. “Our militants attacked the military officers (our primary target) and we will continue to attack the army,” he said, adding that the civilians killed in the attack were relatives of army personnel and their deaths did not matter”.


8. To quote from an Islamic source on why the Masjid-e-Zarrar was demolished: “During the time of the Rasoolullah himself, some faction-mongers constructed a new mosque. The intensity with which the Quran opposed this construction can be gauged from the relevant verses of the Sura Taubah. Pause and reflect for what the Quran says in this matter. (9: 107) “Those who put up the mosque with this intention that loss be incurred to the Millat-e-Islamia and the Deen itself." "and kufr be favoured or the path of kufr be hiked." (9:107) " i.e., with the purpose that dissention be created in the Muslims." Do you think of it as a mosque? No, it is not a mosque. (9:107) "It is that ambush from which those who were the enemy of Allah and His Rasool (i.e., The Divine System) shall attack the Millat." It means this is not a mosque; this is the fort where the enemies of Allah and His Rasool will lie in ambush to demolish the structure of Deen. “They will indeed swear that their intention by constructing this mosque is nothing but good. We do never desire destruction of the Deen." "Do not be taken in. God stands witness to this stark fact that they are out and out liars." (9:108) "O Rasool! Never take a single step into this mosque." This mosque, so as to say, is just on the verge of hell. Whoso have constructed it or whosoever entered into it this will let all crumble down into the abyss of hell (9: 107-109). Hence history stands witness to this fact that Rasoolullah demolished this mosque through his associates. Imagine from this incidence how heinous and horrendous the crime of sectarianism in Islam is! Even if the construction of a mosque casts any speck of factionalism, the demolishing of this mosque becomes imperative. Mosque can be demolished but the foundation of sectarianism can never be laid. It is because factionalism, in express terms, is anathema (Shirk), and is anathema of a conspicuous nature. (http://www.parvez-video.com/insight/Islam/sects_islam/index.asp)


9. The Masjid-e-Zarrar was demolished because the followers of the Holy Prophet suspected that it had been constructed by hypocrite (Munafiqeen) Christians and Jewish people, who posed as Muslims, in order to create a divide among the followers of the Holy Prophet. By attacking the military worshippers in the Rawalpindi mosque, the jihadis have sought to convey a message to the Sunnis of the Armed Forces and the civil society that military officers collaborating with the US are no different from the Shias, the Christians, and the Jewish people and killing them is justified. ( 5-12-09)


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

THE SOMALI FRONT OF THE GLOBAL JIHAD

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR—PAPER NO.584
B.RAMAN
Al Qaeda looks upon its continuing jihad against the so-called Crusaders --- thereby meaning essentially the US, Israel and their supporters--- as a global intifada waged on many fronts and through many means. In this global jihad, Afghanistan, Somalia and Algeria are seen as battle fronts, which will determine the ultimate outcome. Afghanistan is seen as the core of the battle, Somalia as its southern front and Algeria as the Western front.

2. In a message disseminated on December 20,2006, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No.2 to Osama bin Laden in Al Qaeda, said: “Brothers in Islam and Jihad in Somalia: know that you are on the southern garrison of Islam, so don’t allow Islam to be attacked from your flank, and know that we are with you, and that the entire Muslim Ummah is with you. So don’t lose heart, or fall into despair, for you must dominate if you are true in faith. And know that you are fending off the same Crusade which is fighting your brothers in Islam in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. So be resolute, be patient and be optimistic, for by Allah beside whom there is no other God, even if your enemies possess thousands of tons of iron and explosives, in their chests lie the hearts of mice. So be severe against them like Muhammad was. "

3. To keep the jihad going in Somalia is one of its important objectives. For this purpose, it uses not only recruits from the impoverished local population, but also from the Somali diaspora in the West----including the US--- as well as jihad-hardened cadres sent from the battle fronts in the Af-Pak region. The Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) of Pakistan has had a long history of contacts with the Muslim population in Somalia and East African countries just as it has with the Muslim population of Chechnya and Dagestan. Though the TJ itself does not indulge in acts of terrorism, it plays an important role in facilitating the ideological motivation of the population on behalf of Al Qaeda.

4. In September 2009, Al Shabaab, meaning “The Lads”, an organization of Somali youths, was reported to have disseminated through Islamic web sites usually identified with Al Qaeda a 48-minute video documentary in which it proclaimed its allegiance to Osama bin Laden. It derives its name “The Lads” from the fact that it used to be the youth wing of a fundamentalist organization called the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which had established control over some parts of Somalia and was ultimately crushed by invading Ethiopian troops in 2006. While the elders of the UIC disappeared after being defeated by the better trained and better armed Ethiopian troops allegedly inspired and aided by the US, the Al Shabaab replaced the UIC as a born-again jihadi organization, which was determined to continue the jihad against the troops of the African Union, which had replaced the Ethiopian troops, and of the UN-backed local Government, which it viewed as apostate.

5. Though Somalis had participated in acts of suicide terrorism on behalf of Al Qaeda in other countries, suicide terrorism was unknown in Somalia itself till Al Shabaab made its appearance in 2006. Even though it proclaimed its loyalty to bin Laden only in September,2009, it had carried out a number of acts of suicide terrorism against local Government targets as well as the peace-keeping troops of the African Union ever since the AU troops took over their peace-keeping responsibility in Somalia. Al Shabaab has been waging a two-front jihad---- against the AU troops and the local Government being protected by the AU troops. The first act of suicide terrorism took place on September 18,2006. Since then, there have been 13 suicide attacks--- two in 2006, four in 2007, two in 2008 and five this year.

6. The Al Shabaab cadres, many of whom had allegedly served with the Afghan Mujahideen, the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the Af-Pak region, look upon their jihad as similar to the jihad waged by the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet troops and those of the Government of the then President Najibullah in the 1980s and the early 1990s.

7. In a serious attack of suicide terrorism, a male suicide bomber dressed as a woman managed to find his way into a graduation ceremony of medical students in a Mogadishu hotel on December 3,2009, and blew himself up killing 19 persons, including three Ministers of the Cabinet of Prime Minister Omar Sharmarke of the UN-backed Government. Even though no organization has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, Al Shabaab is strongly suspected by the local authorities.

8. Though there is so far no evidence of any nexus between Al Shabaab and the Somali pirates, the dangers of money earned from piracy going to the coffers of Al Qaeda and the availability in Somalia of sea-faring people who could be used by Al Qaeda for future acts of maritime terrorism cannot be ignored.

9. A Reuters report carried on December 4,2009, by the “Daily Times” of Lahore has quoted Bethuel Kiplagat, who used to be Kenya’s special envoy to the Somalia peace process from 2003 to 2005, as saying as follows: “Suicide bombings are a worrying trend not only for Somalia but also the region. There has been a rise in fundamentalism in Somalia coming from the Middle East and Pakistan. There’s a worry Al Qaeda may be looking at Somalia as a new sanctuary.”

10. On March 16,2009, Mohamed Mohamed of the BBC’s Somali section, reported as follows: “As well as alleged links to al-Qaeda it is said to have Arabs, Asians, other Africans and - America's FBI believes - Westerners among its ranks. These foreigners are said to be involved in training Al Sabaab recruits in various aspects of guerrilla warfare, including suicide bombings and booby traps.”

11. On February 29, 2008, the then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice designated Al Shabaab as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act . (4-12-09)

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

WHY DID ZARDARI KEEP HIMSELF OUT OF NUCLEAR COMMAND AUTHORITY?

B.RAMAN

On February 2, 2000, Pakistan's National Security Council (NSC), chaired by Gen.Pervez Musharraf, set up a National Command Authority (NCA) to co-ordinate and control policy-making relating to nuclear weapons. It consisted of an Employment Control Committee, a Development Control Committee and a Strategic Plans Division to act as the Secretariat of the NCA.

2.The Employment Control Committee was chaired by the head of the Government and included the Ministers of Foreign Affairs (Deputy Chairman), Defence and the Interior, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC), the three Service Chiefs and the Director-General of the Strategic Plans Division, who acted as its Secretary. The Chairman was empowered to co-opt technical and other advisers.

3.The Development Control Committee was also chaired by the head of the Government and included the CJCSC (Deputy Chairman), the three Service Chiefs, the Director-General of the Strategic Plans Division and representatives of strategic organizations and the scientific community. This Committee controlled the development of strategic assets. Political personalities holding important Cabinet posts were excluded from it.

4.The Strategic Plans Division, headed by a senior army officer, was established in the Joint Services Headquarters under the CJCSC to act as the Secretariat for the NCA and perform functions relating to planning, coordination, and establishment of a reliable command, control, communication, computers and intelligence network.

5. The security division of the NCA was made responsible not only for the physical security of the assets and installations, but also for personnel security. It now reportedly has more than 10,000 personnel and is headed by a 3-star General. It has a personnel reliability programme (PRP) directorate.

6.The NCA thus constituted functioned for over seven years without any legislative authority. Just before the elections to the National Assembly held in the beginning of 2008, Musharraf promulgated an ordinance called the NCA Ordinance 2007 on December 13, 2007, which sought to give it the required legislative authority. This was one of the many ordinances issued by Musharraf, which remained unapproved by the two Houses of the Parliament when he left office and was succeeded by Asif Ali Zardari as the President last year.

7. Earlier this year, this ordinance came up for consideration by a 17-member committee of the newly-elected National Assembly headed by the Chairperson of the NA Standing Committee on Defence Azra Fazal Pechuho, who incidentally is the sister of President Asif Ali Zardari.

8.Contrary to the widespread public speculation on the subject, neither the charter of the NCA as laid down when Musharraf was in power nor the subsequent proceedings in the Committee of the NA and then in the NA itself dealt with the question of who will have the ultimate power to press the nuclear button in case of a war with an adversary. From the beginning in the days of Zia ul-Haq, the Army had made it clear that the nuclear button would be under its control and was not prepared to share this control with any elected political leader----whether he or she be the head of State or Govt.

9.When Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party won the elections of 1988 after the death of Zia ul-Haq, the Army and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agreed to let her become the Prime Minister only after she agreed to let herself be excluded from all decision-making in nuclear-related matters. The Army insisted that it would report directly to the then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in nuclear matters and not to her and she had to agree to it.

10.During her two terms as the Prime Minister (1988-90 and 1993-96) and during his first term as the Prime Minister (1990-93), neither Benazir nor Nawaz was in a position to over-rule the Army in nuclear matters because the then Presidents had the power to dismiss the Prime Minister and they were afraid that if they decided to be assertive in nuclear matters, the Army might pressure the President to dismiss them. This fear disappeared in 1996 when Nawaz won a two-thirds majority in the elections to the National Assembly. He used this majority to abolish the powers of the President to dismiss the Prime Minister. Thereafter, he tried to be more assertive in nuclear matters. His desire that the elected Prime Minister should co-ordinate the decision-making process in nuclear matters became one of the bones of contention between him and Musharraf, who was the Chief of the Army Staff. He was reportedly taken by surprise when the Americans allegedly informed him that at the height of the Kargil conflict, Musharraf had alerted the nuclear forces on his own without keeping Nawaz in the picture.

11.After seizing power in October 1999, Musharraf ensured that whatever be the set-up of the NCA and whoever chaired it, the final decision in all nucear-related matters would be taken by him and not by his Prime Minister-----initially Zulfiquar Ali Magsi and then Shaukat Aziz, who succeeded Magsi. Musharraf also re-introduced the 17th Amendment of the Constitution of 1973 under which the President has the power to dismiss the elected Prime Minister and dissolve the National Assembly. Zardari inherited from Musharraf the powers assumed by him in respect of the dismissal of the Prime Minister and the dissolution of the National Assembly. He also inherited Musharraf’s powers relating to the NCA. Nawaz Sharif and other leading political leaders belonging to parties other than the PPP have been demanding that the 17th Amendment should again be abolished. While accepting this ostensibly in principle, Zardari has been avoiding it by taking advantage of the fact that no party has a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly to be able to implement this.

12.After Zardari took over as the President last year, the powers and methods of functioning of the NCA became a subject of international concern because of growing fears over the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. What concerned the US was not so much as to who will have control over the nuclear button in case of a war, but as to who will be responsible for the security of the nuclear arsenal. This concern over the security of the arsenal had become magnified after the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the various other Punjabi jihadi organisations commonly referred to as the Punjabi Taliban stepped up their activities after the Lal Masjid raid of July,2007 and after the TTP started attacking the security forces.

13.The emergence of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) as a terrorist organisation with capabilities on par with Al Qaeda---- as demonstrated by the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist strike--- increased these concerns even more. In the past, the US concerns regarding the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal mainly related to the reported attempts of Al Qaeda to acquire weapons of mass destruction material. After Mumbai 26/11, the US is increasingly concerned over likely threats to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal from organisations such as the TTP and the LET and others of Pakistani origin.

14.Reports of the infiltration of the Pakistani armed forces by these organisations---- as demonstrated by the alleged involvement of junior and middle level Air Force and Army personnel in the two attempts to kill Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December, 2003 --- created fears of such infiltration into Pakistan's nuclear set-up and into the Division under the NCA responsible for the physical security of the nuclear arsenal.

15.The post-2003 discussions between the US and Pakistani officials on the security of the nuclear arsenal focussed attention not only on the physical security of the arsenal in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of terrorists, but also on preventing the infiltration of the nuclear set-up by the terrorist organisations in order to obtain nuclear and other technologies.

16.As a result of these concerns, the major part of the discussions in the 17-member committee came to be devoted not to the question of the control over the nuclear button, but to the question of how to meet the US concerns over the physical security of the nuclear arsenal and over the dangers of the infiltration of the nuclear set-up by jihadi elements.

17.Reflecting this change of focus, the "Daily Times" of Lahore wrote in an editorial as follows: " A report of the standing committee on defence regarding the National Command Authority (NCA) bill 2007 has been laid before the National Assembly. The timing of the report’s presentation suggests to some observers the urgency of allaying the fears expressed by the Western media, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh’s piece in the New Yorker being only the latest significant case in point, regarding the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. The greater concern is not about any external force gaining access to the arsenal. The apprehension being expressed concerns internal leakage of technology and/or the weapons themselves. The beneficiaries of such a hypothetical leakage, according to Western media reports, could be the terrorists operating within and around Pakistan. The concerns of the Western media and even some governments have to be seen in the context of the track record of the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. The least likely scenario would be that a weapon/s could actually be spirited away by some inimical personnel. A nuclear weapon is not a piece of candy or a lollipop that can be secreted away in a pocket to be calmly taken away under the nose of tight security. Our weapons have been dispersed and rendered impossible to use without proper authorisation precisely to pre-empt any such possibility and even prevent the accidental use of these deadly weapons. The real apprehension in the minds of those fundamentally hostile to the existence of this capability is that the very personnel charged with the responsibility to ensure their security may be infected sufficiently by jihadi ideology to consider leaking vital information and/or equipment to the terrorists currently battling against the Pakistani state. From Musharraf onwards and downwards, officials in positions of high authority have been emphasising consistently that no such threat exists or will be allowed to rear its head. While knowledgeable US officials have been saying much the same thing, the Western media seems not to be inclined to let the facts stand in the way of a good story. The proposed bill to give legal cover to the NCA would have the President as the ex-officio chairman of the Authority, with the Prime Minister as the ex-officio deputy chairman. The bill proposes to give retrospective cover to all acts by officials of the NCA committed before the bill becomes law. It seeks to institute vigilance not only against external threats but also to keep an eye on the officials and employees of the NCA to prevent any breach of security, which has been held punishable with a jail term extending up to 25 years."

18.When everybody was expecting that as recommended by the 17-member committee, Zardari would take over as the Chairman of the NCA after the approval of the committee's report by the National Assembly, he sprang a surprise on November 27,2009, by issuing an ordinance which designated the Prime Minister as the Chairman. "Transferring the chairmanship of the National Command Authority to the Prime Minister is a giant leap forward to empowering the elected parliament and the Prime Minister," presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said in a statement.

19.Why did Zardari do so? There is no satisfactory answer to this question. According to some, it reflects the weakening position of Zardari, who is increasingly distrusted not only by the Army, but also by important sections of political and public opinion because of the perception that he is amenable to American pressure. According to others, who are in the PPP, Zardari took this decision not due to political or military pressure but due to a desire to avoid getting involved in a sensitive controversy over the security of the nuclear arsenal in the light of the growing US pressure on the subject.

20.As is evident from the “New Yorker” article of Hersh, the secret US talks on the security of the nuclear arsenal are being held with the military leadership and not with the elected political leadership. Whether the NCA is chaired by the President or the Prime Minister, it is apparent that the US would like to deal directly with the Army on this subject instead of through the President or the Prime Minister. Zardari has chosen to come to terms with this harsh reality as Benazir did in 1988 instead of making an issue of it which he is bound to lose if he did. ( 3-12-09)

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

ANOTHER JIHADI ATTACK ON PAK NAVY

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO. 583

An alert official of the Pakistani naval intelligence in plain clothes and a naval security guard in uniform deployed outside the building of the Pakistan Navy Headquarters in Islamabad prevented what could have been a major terrorist strike against the Naval Headquarters by an unidentified suicide bomber on December 2,2009. Spotting a suspicious-looking individual outside the NHQ, they stopped him and searched him. He turned out to be a suicide bomber wearing a concealed suicide vest. However, they could not prevent him from activating the explosive device in the vest.One person was killed on the spot and another succumbed to his injuries later.

2. This was the second jihadi terrorist attack on a naval target since the commando raid into the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July,2007. The Lal Masjid raid made the Pakistani Taliban known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) turn against the Pakistani security forces.Since July 2007, there have been many suicide and suicidal attacks on personnel of the Armed Forces and the police----not only in the tribal areas, but also in non-tribal areas , including in Islamabad and Rawalpindi and in heavily guarded cantonments.

3.The first attack on a naval establishment took place on March 4, 2008. Two unidentified suicide bombers, operating in tandem, attacked the prestigious Naval War College located in a high security area of Lahore. They were both on motor-cycles. One of them rammed his motor-cycle against the security gate at the rear of the building breaking it open. The other drove through this opening into the parking area and blew himself up. Their target was the naval institution and not any particular individual or individuals inside. They wanted to demonstrate their ability to penetrate the campus and cause damage. Six persons were killed--- one of them a naval officer, three members of the security guards at the gate and the two suicide bombers.

4.The Pakistan Navy has had no role to play in the operations in the Lal Masjid, the FATA ( Federally-Administered Tribal Areas) and Swat.However,the logistic supplies for the NATO forces are brought to the Karachi port, unloaded there under the protection of the Pakistani Navy and then transported to Afghanistan by trucks. While the Pakistani Army and Air Force have no operational role to play in the US-led military operations in the Afghan territory against Al Qaeda and the Neo Taliban, the Pakistani Navy is a member of the US-led international naval force which patrols the seas to the west of Pakistan to prevent any hostile activity which could hamper the operations in Afghan territory. The Combined Task Force (CTF) 150, established near the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001, comprise naval forces from France, Germany, Italy, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The task force conducts maritime security operations (MSO) in the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean. The leadership of the Task Force is rotated amongst the participating navies. A Pakistani naval officer has been commanding it off and on when the turn of the Pakistan Navy comes.

5.During the election campaign of 2008, one of the issues raised by Mr. Nawaz Sharif, former Prime Minister, was the need to re-examine the implications of the US declaring Pakistan a non-NATO ally. He apparently felt that this declaration was meant to facilitate the involvement of the Pakistani Navy in the Afghanistan-related joint naval operations of the NATO and wanted a re-think on it. He has not been raising this issue in recent months. The TTP has not raised this issue either.( 3-12-09)

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

OBAMA'S AF-PAK POLICY---SEEDS OF FAILURE

B.RAMAN

President Barack Obama's Af-Pak policy ----Mark 2 as unveiled by him in his address to US military officer cadets at West Point on December 2,2009, has been marked by critical words for the Afghan Government and soft words for the rulers of Pakistan----- as if evils such as corruption, poor governance, narcotics production and lack of accountability are confined only to Afghanistan and one does not find these evils in Pakistan.

2. It is these evils long tolerated by successive US administrations that have landed Pakistan in the situation in which it finds itself today----- a breeding ground of extremism and sectarianism of every hue. The cancer of extermism and jihadi terrorism did not spread to Pakistan from Afghanistan. It spread from the madrasas of Pakistan to Afghanistan with the encouragement and often at the instance of Pakistan's military and intelligence establishments. The root of this cancer is in Pakistan and not in Afghanistan. The surgery has to start in Pakistan. This harsh reality has been played down in his address.

3. The Taliban, which nourished Al Qaeda and gave it shelter in Afghan territory, was born in Pakistani territory in 1994. Al Qaeda and the leadership of the Afgan Taliban escaped defeat by the US forces post-9/11 by taking shelter in Pakistani territory----- Al Qaeda in the North Waziristan area of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the Neo Taliban headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar in the Quetta area of Balochistan.

4. From there, the surviving senior cadres of the two organisations moved to sanctuaries in the non-tribal areas. A recent report of the "Washington Times" has quoted retired US intelligence sources as saying that Mulla Omar and other leaders of the Neo Taliban have shifted to the Karachi area from the Quetta area to escape attacks by US drone (pilotless) planes in the tribal areas.

5. Many senior Al Qaeda leaders operated from the non-tribal areas of Pakistan----some even before 9/11. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) was reported to have orchestrated the 9/11 strikes in the US from Karachi from where he shifted to Quetta and then to Rawalpindi, where he was ultimately arrested. Abu Zubaidah was caught in Faislabad in Punjab and Ramzi Binalshib in Karachi. One should not be surprised if it ultimately turns out that Osama bin Laden and his No.2 Ayman al-Zawahiri have also been sheltered in the non-tribal areas and that is why the US has not been able to get at them so far despite offers of huge rewards and the Drone strikes.

6. The command and control of both the Neo Taliban and Al Qaeda are now located in Pakistani territory. Obama said in his address at West Point: "Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future. ...... We will strengthen Pakistan's capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries, and have made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe-haven for terrorists whose location is known, and whose intentions are clear."

7. Strong words regarding the safehavens for terrorists in Pakistan. As in the past, strong words do not presage strong action to force Pakistan to destroy those safehavens.The Pakistani military operations in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan are meant to counter a threat to Pakistan's internal security from indigenous elements. They are not directed against the external activities of Al Qaeda. Nor are they directed towards facilitating the military operations of the NATO forces and the Afghan National Army in Afghan territory. The safehavens of organisations, which are seen as an asset and not as a threat to Pakistan, are being shifted from place to place to escape detection and action by the US.

8. If Obama is serious about wanting to start withdrawing from Afghanistan in dignity and honour by the middle of 2011, he has only two options. Either force the Pakistani rulers to act against the safehavens whether they are located in tribal or non-tribal areas or act against them with available US capabilities. The Obama Administration like its predecessor lacks the political will to do so.

9. Seeking partnership with a state perpetrator of terrorism is not the way of ending it. That is what Obama has done in his address. That is why his revised Af-Pak policy is unlikely to meet the objectives which he has set for the US and other NATO countries. Obama's West Point address contains the seeds of its pre-destined failure. (2-12-09)

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

PM IN US: THE SPIN & THE FIZZLE

B.RAMAN

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The Washington pudding served by President Barack Obama to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the latter's visit to the US from November 23 to 26,2009, is yet to be tasted, but if one is objective in analysing the outcome of the visit, one will have to concede that the spins put out by one of the PM's advisers from the PM's plane through obliging journalists before he landed in Washington DC have remained what they were----spins and nothing more.

2.Two of the pre-summit spins put out from the plane related to India's right to reprocess used nuclear fuel from US-supplied power stations and co-operation in counter-terrorism. The Indian public was given the impression that the agreement on the re-processing modalities had almost been finalised and would be a flagship outcome of the visit.

3.Hardly had the PM landed in Washington DC when Nirupama Rao, the Foreign Secretary, had to unspin the spin put out from the aircraft.She told the journalists that while there was progress in the negotiations, an agreement was still away and may not be the outcome of the visit.We have now been told during a post-summit spin session on board the plane while the PM and his party were returning to New Delhi that barring one or two issues, the agreement has almost been clinched. It might not have been possible to initial it during the PM's stay in Washington DC, so what? It is a question of a wait of another seven to 10 days. So we are told now.

4.Another pre-summit spin from the PM's aircraft was that a memorandum of understanding on future counter-terrorism co-operation between the two countries would be another important outcome. It was made out that the lightning visit of Leon Panetta, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, to New Delhi before the Prime Minister took off for Washington was an indicator of the importance attached by Obama to this subject.

5. What the spin-masters did not tell the Indian public was that the CIA chief had actually flown to Islamabad due to concerns over the growing isolation of President Asif Ali Zardari and had stopped over in India by the way.

6.Some New Delhi-based analysts, who always go lyrical on Indo-US relations, have extensively quoted from the Manmohan Singh-Obama joint statement to claim that the so-called joint counter-terrorism initiative mentioned in the statement was, in fact, the flagship outcome of the visit. In post-summit spin sessions on board the returning aircraft, one of the PM's advisers put out for all who might believe him that Obama himself was personally monitoring the FBI investigation into the activities of the Chicago cell ( David Coleman Headley--- Tahawuur Hussain Rana) of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and that on his instructions a high-level team of the FBI headed by its chief would be flying to India to share with us all the information collected by the FBI during the investigation.

7. What the Indian public was not told was that the programme for the New Delhi visit of the FBI chief was fixed long before the PM's visit to Washington DC and that in the US the President has no powers to monitor the FBI's investigation process which is independent. Indian Prime Ministers may as a matter of habit monitor the investigations of the CBI, but the US President can't monitor the FBI 's investigations.

8.Embarrassed by the statement of the US National Security Adviser, Gen.James Jones, when the PM was still abroad that the Indian investigators may not be able to join in the interrogation of Headley and Rana due to legal difficulties, the spin-masters told us that this was because the two suspects had not yet been indicted before a court.We were told that once they were indicted, our investigators would be able to interrogate them.

9. What we were not told was that once a suspect is indicted, he is transferred to judicial custody and no more interrogation is possible without a special court order. US courts are often hesitant to permit foreign investigators to interrogate suspects facing trial before them. That is what Gen.Jones meant when he talked of legal difficulties.

10. The so-called counter-terrorism initiative, which has been projected as path-breaking, is thin in substance and thinner in new ideas. Two ideas of considerable originality and significance were born out of Indo-US counter-terrorism co-operation initiatives under the Bill Clinton and George Bush Administrations. The idea of a Joint Working Group on Counter-terrorism came out of the meeting between Jaswant Singh, the then Foreign Minister, and Strobe Talbot, the then US Deputy Secretary of State, at London in January 2000 in the wake of the Kandahar hijacking. Now this has become a model for a similar mechanism with many other countries.

11. The Indo-US Cyber Security Forum was born post-9/11 during counter-terrorism interactions between security officials of the Bush and Atal Behari Vajpayee Governments. Compared to those ideas, not a single new idea has come out of the much-hyped summit between Manmohan Singh and Obama.

12. And yet we are asked to hail the so-called counter-terrorism initiative. We should gladly do so if someone could explain to us what this initiative is about. Yes, there has been an improvement in what is called mutual legal assistance between India and the US after the 26/11 terrorist strike in Mumbai. For the first time since counter-terrorism co-operation between the two countries started in the 1980s the FBI allowed its officers not only to share their forensic findings with their Indian counterparts, but also to help the Mumbai Police in its prosecution by allowing FBI officers to testify before the trial court through video-conferencing. In the past while the FBI had shared its findings with us, it had refused to allow its officers to testify before an Indian court.

13. There has been a welcome change in that attitude because of the enormity of the offence and the death of six US nationals at the hands of the terrorists. There was an improvement in intelligence-sharing under the Bush Administration. In December,2008, Indian media carried reports about two timely warnings regarding the 26/11 strikes received by the Indian agencies from their US counterparts in September,2008. The US agencies were also of considerable assistance in the collection of technical intelligence during the terrorist strike which forced the Government of Pakistan to arrest some of the conspirators based in Pakistan and initiate action, however unsatisfactory, against them. All this was done between November 26,2008, and January 20,2009, when Bush was still the President.

14. One understands that under the Bush Adminisatration, the US agencies were helpful in collecting intelligence about the Pakistani involvement in the explosion outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul in July,2008, and sharing it with their Indian counterparts. They did it automatically on their own without the need for our PM having to take it up with Bush.

15. What has been our experience since Obama took over on January 20,2009? One has not heard of any active US role in helping us in the investigation of the recent second explosion outside our Embassy in Kabul. Even though the FBI has reportedly already shared a lot of intelligence with our agencies in the Headley-Rana case, one has the impression that there has been some foot-dragging by the US authorities in respect of sharing with the Indian agencies information which could help them in identifying serving or retired Pakistani military and intelligence officials with whom Headley and Rana were in touch.

16. If we are given permission to interrogate them, our investigators will query them on the identities of the Pakistani officials. The officials of the Obama Administration are uncomfortable over the prospect of this.

17. There is an apparent strip-tease going on about Headley. There are wheels within wheels in the Headley case. Before he gravitated to the world of jihadi terrorism, he was in the world of narcotics smuggling. He was reportedly arrested once by US officials responsible for narcotics control.

18.Instead of being dealt with severely as one does normally with narcotics offenders, he seems to have been treated somewhat leniently. Did the narcotics control agency of the US recruit him as its agent in return for the lenient sentence? Was the FBI aware of this? We are all assuming that he was able to lead a high-profile life in India because of financial assistance from the LET and the Pakistani intelligence. Were payments from th US narcotics control agency also helping him lead a comfortable life in India and rub shoulders with film personalities and other high-flyers?

19. Will we get complete answers to these questions from the FBI ? The Obama Administration's counter-terrorism co-operation with India reminds one of the policy pursued by the Clinton Administration. Help India in preventing and investigating an act of terrorism originating from Pakistan, but avoid helping India in any matter which might prove detrimental to the State of Pakistan.

20. We ought to be more balanced in our assessment of US policies which have an impact on our core interests and more articulate in expressing our concerns and misgivings. Our relationship with the US is important, but that does not mean that we let ourselves be overawed into silence. ( 30-9-09)

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