Ashwin Krushna Trayodashi Kaliyug Varsha 5112
By: Ashok K Mehta
Ever since 9/11 what has worked best in neutralising jihadi plots to strike terror is effective intelligence-sharing and counter-terrorism
Now that the Commonwealth Games have ended successfully, besides investigating corruption, it is time for also instituting a ‘Lessons Learnt Commission’ about efficient event organisation, including its security cover.
While Union Home Secretary GK Pillai held a briefing to announce that terror attacks expected on October 12 and 13 were thwarted, Delhi Police Commissioner YS Dadwal dismissed the threats as “not real”.
Doing the rounds were bizarre stories about glider-borne terrorists striking during the CWG when airspace over Delhi had been completely sanitised. Intelligence-sharing and counter-terrorism cooperation were key to an incident-free CWG.
The US’s Ambassador to India, Mr Timothy Roemer, told a television channel that at least thrice before the 26/11 Mumbai attack, American counter-terrorism officials had warned their Indian counterparts about a possible attack on Mumbai, including The Taj Mahal Palace hotel.
Mr Roemer insisted that counter-terrorism cooperation between the US and India was working well despite revelations that the FBI was tipped off on David Headley’s Lashkar-e-Tayyeba connections at least three years before 26/11. Our Foreign Ministry officials have said that information given was “very general and non-specific”.
Next month will be two years after Mumbai. Miraculously not a single attack sourced in Pakistan has occurred in India. Some credit for this must go to counter-terrorism cooperation besides the bilateral joint working groups on counter-terrorism India has with more than two dozen countries, not to mention the ineffective Joint Anti-Terror Mechanism established in 2006 with Pakistan.
Besides UN counter-terrorism programmes on monitoring and cooperation and the US-based Centre on Global Counter-Terrorism Cooperation there are also regional organisations and initiatives for cooperation on this front. The UN has appointed Mr Richard Bennet as head of its Al Qaeda/Taliban monitoring team.
It is estimated that at least 14 terrorist strikes were attempted against India in the last two years and in four to six cases the tip-off came from Germany, the US, the UK and Russia. How well India’s own National Counter-Terrorism Centre for Homeland Security is shaping we will know by the end of the year, the deadline for its formation.
The two terrorist attacks that succeeded were against German Bakery in Pune and the hit-and-run shooting at foreign tourists outside Jama Masjid Delhi before the CWG. Both have been attributed to the home-grown ‘Indian Mujahideen’.
Meanwhile, it is useful to study (and for India to imbibe and implement) how Europe, the UK and the US are addressing problems of home-grown terrorism.
The report of the London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalism and Political Violence, King’s College, on ‘Recruitment and Mobilisation for Islamic Militant Movement in Europe’ reveals that recruitment efforts have been driven underground and recruitment is occurring in mosques with the Internet playing a stellar role in virtual self-recruitment.
It is not surprising that the biggest terrorist attack in recent history — 9/11 — was planned by Mohammed Atta and his team from a Hamburg mosque in Germany. The jihadi phenomenon in Germany came to light after a German, Cuneyt Ciftci, carried out a suicide attack on an American post in Afghanistan.
More recently American troops in Afghanistan held a German from Hamburg, Ahmad Siddiqui, who revealed the terror plot against European targets in London, Berlin and Paris. Other German Muslims traced in Afghanistan were killed or captured in fighting.
The German Federal Bureau of Investigation has claimed that around 200 Muslims from Germany were trained in camps in Pakistan. And of these at least 100 had returned to Germany.
The German recruits are known to be linked to two Al Qaeda affiliates, the Islamic Mujahideen of Uzbekistan and the Islamic Jihad Union. Germany’s unintended export of jihadi terror has made Chancellor Angela Merkel admit to radicalisation of some Muslims in Germany.
Similar radicalisation of Muslims into Islamists has taken place in the US and the UK. Several terrorist attacks were preempted in the UK due to its intelligence and counter-terrorism cooperation.
The Americans have had two lucky escapes from terror plots sourced in Pakistan’s North Waziristan. Both the failed attempt to blow up a NorthWest Airlines flight to Detroit last Christmas and the Times Square bomb plot were linked to Pakistan.
The US State Department’s warning earlier this month of an Al Qaeda plot to strike targets in Europe shows the West’s increasing success in monitoring and tracking terrorist cells and disrupting and dispersing them.
North Waziristan is the new terror hub housing a variety of terrorist groups ranging from Afghan and Pakistan Taliban to the Haqqani network to Al Qaeda and other foreign cells.
Targeted killings by American unmanned drones have involved German and British jihadis who were in training camps plotting new attacks. During last week’s strategic dialogue, Americans urged the Pakistani Army to launch operations in North Waziristan but Islamabad is not cooperating as some of the terrorist groups there are its declared ‘strategic assets’.
The Al Qaeda has diversified its operations from AfPak and elsewhere to Yemen and Islamic Maghreb which is a source of threat for Spain and France.
The Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb has indulged in kidnapping and killing of Europeans working with local Government, seeking ransom as well as political demands such as repeal of ‘un-Islamic’ demands like the ban on burqa.
It is clear that the CIA and its associates have infiltrated Pakistan-based terrorist cells on the AfPak border and their agents and spies are able to direct drones with deadly accuracy.
In addition, dedicated intelligence agents and electronic intelligence through eves-dropping techniques from friendly listening posts have provided key leads to the CIA to issue warnings of Mumbai-style attacks in Europe.
When American forces begin withdrawing from Afghanistan next year, one hopes for the West’s sake that the intelligence network and the drone response capacity is not disturbed. Otherwise, Mumbais could happen all over again.
So which secret weapon has kept the Lashkar-a-Tayyeba away from Indian shores? India, despite being a nuclear power and possessing the third largest military in the world, does not have an active deterrent against cross-border terrorist attacks.
Last week’s security conclave of the National Defence College was confronted by this dilemma. Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s much awaited NCTC will be as good as the Indian system will permit it to be. But counter-terrorism cooperation with strategic partners will be vital.
Source: Pioneer
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