Indian Defence Review

According to specific inputs received by intelligence agencies, Pakistan’s ISI recently held a meeting in a camp in POK with chief commanders of top terrorist outfits LeT, Hum and JeM asking them to carry out terror strikes in India. Some 30 militants from the three outfits have been briefed by ISI and brought close to the LoC to take part in a ‘spectacular’ strike on Indian soil.

The meeting was reportedly headed by an ISI handler identified as Showkat Khan. Own intelligence fears an attack in the next one month. Reports also indicate that the LeT is joining hands with the ISIS. Interestingly, these developments come in the wake Raheel Sharif, Pakistani army chief visiting US were reportedly Washington told him that Pakistan should act against “all” terrorist organizations. But such perfunctory advice by Uncle Sam is routine, is not the first time, and Raheel would have forgotten it moment he walked out from the meeting. Not that Washington meant any of this advice seriously.

But even before these fresh intelligence warnings, the repeated warnings by military commanders in J&K based on intelligence inputs of hundreds of Pakistani terrorists waiting to infiltrate indicated Pakistan is in no mood to let up on its proxy war against India. The recent terrorist attack in Tanghdhar by three heavily armed JeM cadres reconfirms that Pakistan wants to up her sub-conventional war against India.  Multiple factors for Pakistan to do so are not difficult to guess. There is no pressure from US and China for Pakistan to stop generating terrorism, latter actually encouraging it.

The fact that Pakistan has continuously avoided any worthwhile action against the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack and the US looking away by itself is proof she is under no pressure from that quarter. On the contrary, financial and military support by the Obama administration continues unabated. Significantly, an editorial titled ‘Brass Tacks’ dated 3rd March in the Pakistani daily The Nation read, “When a violent international criminal suspect (Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi – alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks) is allowed to live a life of luxury in the nation’s central jail, when that suspect happens to be the operational head of a banned militant organization (Lashker-e-Jhangvi ) while the nation is in the middle of a raging war against “all shades of terrorism” then it raises serious doubts over the state’s sincerity to the cause.

Although the US-NATO forces stay in Afghanistan has been extended to coincide with Obama’s tenure, the US still requires the Pakistani proxies to orchestrate the ground situation in Afghanistan from the background and ensure an honourable exit finally, whenever that happens.

Pakistan’s strategic value to US and China has gone up because Pakistan now has a handle on the Taliban having installed Mullah Akhtar Mansoor (religious teacher of Haqqanis) to head the Afghan Taliban filling the gap with Mullah Omar’s death. With both Pakistan Taliban and Afghan Taliban linked underhand, it was easy to lodge them in Badakshan region of Afghanistan, capture Warduj and invest bulk Kunduz, threatening Central Asia and increasing security concerns of President Putin who was forced to increase Russia’s troop strength in Tajikistan. Such action would have endeared Pakistan further to the Obama administration.

The Haqqanis anyway are based in Pakistan for more than past 30 years and are protégé of Pakistan’s ISI. What Pakistan has achieved further is introduced the ISIS into Afghanistan, with ISIS already controlling seven districts of Nangarhar district. According to Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Karzai, ISIS has also spread to other parts of Afghanistan.

For China, her relationship with Pakistan is crucial because of her strategic ambitions, the China-Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC), Gwadar and safeguarding her economic interests in Afghanistan; aside from other projects, China is the only country commercially drilling oil in Afghanistan and she also bagged a US$ 4.4 billion contract in 2007 for extraction of copper.

China wants to realize the China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Trilateral Alliance (Pamir Group) with Chinese investments integrating Af-Pak with China to home onto the Persian Gulf. That is the reason that China had established links with Taliban and was supporting them even before the US invasion of Afghanistan. China-Pakistan sub-conventional nexus goes back decades. Presently, China tacitly supports Pakistani proxies. China provides training, support to ULFA on her soil and in May this year, Chinese intelligence brought nine militant groups of northeast India under one umbrella organization, United National Liberation Front of West, South, East Asia (UNLFWSEA) in Myanmar.

The radicalization of Maldives through LeT has been ongoing for past decade. It was amusing that while Defence Minister Parrikar and visiting General Fan Changlong, Vice Chairman of China’s CMC jointly condemned the recent terrorist attack in Paris and agreed to strengthen cooperation to fight terrorism together including at international level, China’s Ministry of National Defence made a pointed statement simultaneously to the Indian media saying, “Pakistan is also a victim of terrorism. In the past few years, Pakistan has been fighting terrorism with a lot of casualties.”

The alacrity and purport of the message was unmistakable. The fact remains that as long as Pakistan can rook the Obama and Xi administrations that she can help prevent or even delay terrorist strikes on their respective mainland, she will continue to get support of the big two.

Buoyed by the above, Pakistan obviously increase terror attacks in India and endeavour to create more instability. Her eagerness to play cricket with India is a separate issue simply because not doing so hurts Pakistani cricket.

Pakistani militant Asim Umar is Al Qaeda’s South Asia head. He facilitated bin Laden’s move to a safe-house in the Pakistani city of Abbotabad, where he lived undetected for years before US forces killed him. His mother organization HUJI used to run branches in Kashmir and Myanmar. Additionally, if Pakistan has succeeded in inducting ISIS into Afghanistan, why would she not divert ISIS to India? As per ISIS, 100 Indians anyway joined ISIS, six of whom have been killed.

The linking up of ISIS and LeT is no surprise. If Al Qaida and ISIS have mated to be referred to as AQIS, why not IsLeT ? For past few months, ISIS has been calling for lone wolf attacks which axiomatically can be quite lethal with CBRN terrorism. Ironically, the PDP in J&K won its election because of its support by the HuM.

The frequent raising of Pakistani and ISIS flags in the Kashmir Valley are obviously by design and under instructions from Islamabad. The recent incident of the Pakistani flag flying atop the ancestral home of the present Chief Minister of J&K indicates the hold that HuM has on the PDP. Even during the 2001 elections in J&K, Mehbooba Mufti’s bodyguards were reportedly hardcore HuM cadres. That is the reason the separatists in J&K have been given undue prominence not only in J&K but also wooed profusely by the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi.

So Pakistan can be expected to try her level best to destabilize India, particularly J&K. But it would be wrong to think only J&K would be ISI’s focus. Chosen targets could be anywhere, even in northeast in conjunction radicals based in India and / or the UNLFWSEA or even South India.

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The recent incident of October 6 where the Sri Lankan Navy boarded MV Avant Garde in Galle harbour in Eastern Sri Lanka and seized a cargo of more than 816 automatic rifles of different types and 2,02,674 rounds of ammunition, the worrying part being that the vessel before coming to Galle had been traversing Indian territorial waters while carrying its cargo of weapons and belonged to a company affiliated with Mahinda Rajapaksa, former President of Sri Lanka and China’s favourite.

And if the intelligence agencies are right in their assessment that ISI is planning a major terrorist attack within one month, will not the Chinese be hugely enthralled if Pakistan could time it with the forthcoming visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in first half of December. Needless to reiterate we need to review our counter strategy accordingly.

The requirement of establishing credible deterrence against proxy wars being waged against us was never so great.