Indian Defence Review

The US pressured India into not retaliating against Pakistan after the attempted attack on the Indian Parliament by Pakistani terrorists on December 13, 2001, and promised that Pakistan would be made to dismantle the anti-Indian terrorist infrastructure in its territory. In response to the US pressure, India exercised moderation and did not exercise its right to retaliate. The promises made to India were never kept. The anti-Indian terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory continued to grow without the West taking any action against Pakistan.

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The result: the savage attack of November 26–29, 2008. The US and the other Western countries conducted themselves in exactly the same way as they did in 2001 — expressions of outrage over the terrorist strike, pretense of solidarity with India, but at the same time ill-concealed attempts to protect Pakistan and its military-intelligence complex from the consequences of their continuing to sponsor terrorism against India in Indian territory.

The US pressured India into not retaliating against Pakistan after the attempted attack on the Indian Parliament by Pakistani terrorists on December 13, 2001, and promised that Pakistan would be made to dismantle the anti-Indian terrorist infrastructure in its territory.

Pakistan’s behavior — whether it is ruled by elected political or military rulers — has not changed one iota since it started using terrorism against India in 1981. It would organize an act of terrorism and to pre-empt a possible Indian retaliation would project itself as the victim-State threatened by India and manipulate Western policy-makers into rationalizing its use of terrorism against India and pressuring India not to retaliate against Pakistan.

One thought and hoped that the West would act more firmly against Pakistan this time than it had done in the past because of the fact that the LeT terrorists, who attacked Mumbai, killed six Israelis and 19 other foreigners. These hopes were belied.

Instead of stepping up pressure on Pakistan to dismantle the LeT’s terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory and arrest and hand over to India those involved in the orchestration of the terrorist strike in Mumbai, pressure was stepped up on India not to retaliate against Pakistan — not even politically. Instead of calling Pakistan to account for the outrage, attempts were made to mollify it by accepting the various conditions sought to be imposed by it, one of the conditions being that it would, if India produced evidence, prosecute the terrorists in its own courts and would not hand them over to India.

This was the fifth time Pakistan had defied international pressure to hand over criminal suspects for investigation and prosecution. The first was Omar Sheikh, one of the principal accused in the case relating to the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, at Karachi in January–February, 2002. It got him tried and sentenced to death by one of its courts. The hearing on his appeal has been adjourned by the anti-terrorism court over a hundred times. In the meanwhile, reports from Pakistan said that he had been given all the facilities such as mobile phones, etc that he asked for and that with these he was once again active from jail in guiding the pro-Al Qaeda jihadi terrorist organizations like the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).

Pakistans behavior “” whether it is ruled by elected political or military rulers “” has not changed one iota since it started using terrorism against India in 1981.

The second was Dawood Ibrahim, the Indian mafia leader, who is the principal accused in the case relating to the serial explosions in Mumbai in March, 1993. He was designated by the US Department of Treasury as an international terrorist in October, 2003, because of his links with Al Qaeda and the LeT. Pakistan has avoided handing him over either to India or the US. He continues to live under an assumed name as a Pakistani national at Karachi. Even though sections of the Pakistani media have been periodically reporting about his presence and activities at Karachi, Pakistan continues to deny his presence in Pakistani territory.

The third was AQ Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist, found guilty of clandestinely transferring military nuclear technology to North Korea, Iran and Libya. Both the previous Government headed by Pervez Musharraf and the present Government headed by Asif Ali Zardari have consistently opposed demands that an international team of experts should be allowed to interrogate him outside Pakistan.

The fourth was Rashid Rauf, a British citizen of Mirpuri (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) origin, who was arrested by the Pakistani authorities in August, 2006, on suspicion of his involvement in a plot discovered by the London Police to blow up a number of US-bound planes originating from British airports. He was the brother-in-law of Maulana Masood Azhar, the Amir of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).

This was the fifth time Pakistan had defied international pressure to hand over criminal suspects for investigation and prosecution.

The Pakistani authorities repeatedly evaded action on a British request to hand him over so that they could interrogate him not only in connection with the alleged plot to blow up planes, but also in connection with the alleged murder of one of his relatives in Birmingham before he fled to Pakistan. He escaped from police custody under mysterious circumstances in December, 2007, and reportedly died in a missile strike by a US Predator (pilotless) plane on a suspected Al Qaeda- hide-out in North Waziristan on November 15, 2008.

The leaders of the LeT wanted by India in connection with the Mumbai attack constitute the fifth instance.

Pakistan’s reluctance to hand over Omar Sheikh was due to the long history of contacts between him and the ISI and between him and Osama bin Laden. The Pakistani authorities wanted to prevent US interrogators from finding out about these contacts. Fears that Dawood Ibrahim’s long history of contacts with the ISI, his contacts with Al Qaeda and the LeT and his role in helping AQ Khan in clandestinely transporting nuclear material to North Korea, Iran and Libya and North Korean missiles to Pakistan might come to the notice of the US during any interrogation have stood in the way of Pakistan handing him over either to India or the US.

In the case of AQ Khan, fears that he might reveal the role of the political and military rulers in his clandestine proliferation activities are behind Pakistan’s refusal to permit any independent interrogation of him. When the restrictions on his house arrest were relaxed after the elections of March 2008, he allegedly told some foreign journalists that Musharraf was totally in the picture about his nuclear and missile dealings with North Korea. The Government strongly denied these allegations and re-imposed the restrictions on him.

The fourth was Rashid Rauf, a British citizen of Mirpuri (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) origin, who was arrested by the Pakistani authorities in August, 2006, on suspicion of his involvement in a plot discovered by the London Police to blow up a number of US-bound planes originating from British airports.

In the case of Rashid Rauf, it was alleged by many in Pakistan that he was aware of the contacts of the JeM with the ISI and of the identities of the elements in Pakistan which trained the suicide bombers, who carried out the London blasts of July 2005. The LeT’s close links with the ISI on the one side and with Al Qaeda on the other were believed to be behind the refusal to hand over the masterminds behind the Mumbai attack to the Indian authorities. If the US, through independent sources, collected more irrefutable evidence and maintained the pressure on Pakistan, the most Pakistan might do is to hold a proforma trial against the LeT operatives, get them jailed and allow them to guide the LeT activities from jail in the same manner as Omar Sheikh has been guiding the activities of the JeM from jail.

If the US is really concerned over the refusal of Pakistan to act against the LeT’s terrorist infrastructure and operatives, it could declare Pakistan as a state-sponsor of terrorism and stop all military and economic assistance to it. However, it is unlikely to take this step due to fears that this might affect even the limited co-operation which Pakistan has been extending to the US in targeting Al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuaries.

India has failed to convince large sections of the international community that the ISI had orchestrated the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist strike. The experts of the various countries whose nationals died at the hands of the terrorists are convinced on the basis of their own substantial independent technical intelligence that the terrorist attack was carried out by Pakistani nationals belonging to the LeT, who came to Mumbai by boat from Karachi for carrying out the strike. They are also convinced on the basis of the voluminous evidence in their archives about the privileged relationship between the ISI and the LeT. But they claim not to have seen any conclusive evidence so far to show that the ISI had orchestrated the attack. A question, which they often posed during interactions in non-governmental discussions, was whether the terrorists would have killed nationals of the US, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Canada and Australia if they had been deputed by the ISI to indulge in the carnage.

Some of these experts were earlier convinced of the ISI hand behind the attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul in the first week of July, 2008, when Lt.Gen. Nadeem Taj was the ISI Director-General. They were prepared to allow for the possibility that Lt Gen Taj, before he was removed from the ISI on September 30, 2008, allegedly under US pressure by Gen Pervez Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan’s Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), might have also planned the Mumbai attack by the LeT and got its cadres chosen for the attack trained. In this connection, it is significant that Ajmal Kasab, the lone Pakistani survivor now facing trial, had reportedly stated during his interrogation that the attack was planned for September 26, but was postponed. These experts pointed out that Taj was still the DG of the ISI on September 26, 2008.The Americans had allegedly got Taj removed because of their conviction that his was the brain behind the Kabul attack and that Taj, who has a reputation of being rabidly anti-Indian and anti-US, had leaked out some information shared by the Americans with him to the Taliban. While thus some American experts had an open mind on the possibility of the involvement of Taj in the Mumbai carnage, they tended to give the benefit of doubt to Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, who has been the DG of the ISI since September 30, 2008. He enjoyed a good reputation in the West as a balanced person, who would not indulge in this type of operation, particularly when it was partly directed against Western nationals and Jewish civilians.

Click to buy: Mumbai 26/11

Apart from the way the attack was planned and executed, the most significant aspect of the attack was the targeting of foreign nationals — particularly the cream of the foreign business community who frequent these hotels. It was because of this that the technical intelligence agencies of the Western countries diverted all their capabilities to cover the conversations between the terrorists and their handlers in Pakistan. It was said in well-informed counter-terrorism circles that the US moved one of its communication satellites over Mumbai during the 60 hours that the drama lasted in order to cover these conversations.

Pakistans reluctance to hand over Omar Sheikh was due to the long history of contacts between him and the ISI and between him and Osama bin Laden.

After the drama was over and the National Security Guards (NSGs) had rescued the surviving hostages, the Western countries had all their surviving nationals quietly flown to Europe where they were thoroughly debriefed by special teams from their intelligence agencies. It is said that the French even sent a special plane for evacuating the French and other Western survivors from Mumbai to Paris.

Western experts were surprised that neither the Mumbai Police nor the central intelligence agencies showed interest in detaining the surviving foreign hostages in India in order to debrief them thoroughly. If they had done so, the details collected by them would have formed an important part of the dossier prepared by the Ministry of Home Affairs against Pakistan and disseminated to foreign Governments. It is learnt that such details, which could have been obtained by debriefing the foreign survivors, hardly figured in the dossier.

According to foreign experts, the Mumbai Police and the central intelligence agencies were so excited by the capture alive of one of the Pakistani perpetrators that they seemed to have devoted all their attention to interrogating him and getting as many details as possible, which could help them to fix Pakistan. They complain that other important aspects which might have helped them in reconstructing the terrorist attack, drawing the right lessons from it and preventing a repetition of similar attacks in future did not receive much attention.

In the case of Rashid Rauf, it was alleged by many in Pakistan that he was aware of the contacts of the JeM with the ISI and of the identities of the elements in Pakistan which trained the suicide bombers, who carried out the London blasts of July 2005.

Despite what has been stated above, it must be admitted that the American pressure on Pakistan was a little more than in the past because of two reasons. First, because of the anger in Israel and the Jewish Diaspora in the West over the brutal massacre of six Israeli nationals — two of them with dual US nationality — and a Jewish person from Mexico. Second, because of the concerns of Western businessmen, with business interests in India, over the security of their life and property in India.

Under this pressure, Pakistan ostensibly acted against the JUD, through measures such as placing its Amir Pro. Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed under house arrest, arresting some cadres at senior, middle and junior levels, freezing the bank accounts of the organization, etc. Interestingly, it attributed its actions to the decision of the anti-terrorism committee of the UN Security Council to designate the JUD as a terrorist organization and blacklist four of its top leaders including Prof Sayeed. It sought to avoid adding to the anti-Government anger in the pro-jihadi sections of its population by creating an impression that its actions were dictated by the decision of the UN Anti-Terrorism Committee, which the Government was bound to obey, and not by US pressure.

Since the terrorist attack lasted 60 hours and the lives of the nationals of many countries were in danger, the intelligence agencies of India, Israel, the US and the UK — and possibly of other countries too — were monitoring through technical means the conversations of the terrorists holed up in the two hotels and in the Jewish centre with each other and with their controllers in Pakistan. Thus, a substantial volume of independent technical intelligence exists — collected by the intelligence agencies of these countries independently of each other.

On the basis of the evidence gathered by the Indian investigators and shared by the intelligence agencies of other countries with India, the Government of India demanded three things from Pakistan: firstly, the arrest and handing over to India for interrogation and prosecution of the Pakistan-based ring leaders of the conspiracy as named by Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only surviving perpetrator, who was caught by the Mumbai police; secondly, the arrest and handing over to India of 20 other accused in terrorism related cases pending before Indian courts who have been given shelter in Pakistan; and thirdly, the dismantling of the Pakistan-based terrorist infrastructure of the LeT.

India has failed to convince large sections of the international community that the ISI had orchestrated the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist strike.

As other Pakistani Governments had done in the past, the present Government headed by President Asif Ali Zardari too has refused to extend mutual legal assistance to India as required by the conventions followed by the Interpol and by the UN Resolution No.1373 adopted unanimously by the UN General Assembly after the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US. It first even denied that the terrorist captured by the Mumbai Police is a Pakistani national despite Kasab’s father identifying him as his son in an interview to the Dawn, the prestigious daily of Karachi. Under pressure from the US, it reluctantly admitted that he is a Pakistani national, but continued to question the credibility of the evidence collected by India. It made clear that there was no question of handing over any Pakistani national to India for trial.

Since Pakistan became independent in 1947, it has never handed over to India any Muslim — Pakistani or Indian — who had committed an offence in Indian territory — whether the offence is terrorism or theft or robbery or rape or child sex or narcotics smuggling or any other. The attitude of non-cooperation adopted by the present Government should not, therefore, be a matter of surprise. The international community should not allow Pakistan to get away with its brazen defiance of all international conventions relating to action against terrorists. If it manages to do so due to the reluctance of the international community to act against Pakistan, this won’t bode well for the success of the war against terrorism.

India has to use three yard-sticks to decide on the genuiness and adequacy of any Pakistani co-operation. These are:

Western experts were surprised that neither the Mumbai Police nor the central intelligence agencies showed interest in detaining the surviving foreign hostages in India in order to debrief them thoroughly.

There was some forward movement with regard to the first question on February 12, 2009, when Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s Minister for Internal Security, who is known to be closer to President Asif Ali Zardari than to Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani,, handed over to the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad the salient points of the Pakistani investigation and action taken till then with a list of 30 questions for India to answer to enable them to take the investigation further. These salient points were revealed by him to the media at a special press conference held the same day.

A careful study of the Pakistani media reports showed that Pakistan seemed to be more forthcoming than it was since 26/11 and was keen to demonstrate to the international community that in investigating the case “Pakistan means business” as Malik repeatedly emphasized. There was a seeming shift from a position of total denial of the involvement of anyone in Pakistani territory to a partial acceptance of the conclusion of Indian and Western investigators that the conspiracy for the terrorist attack originated in Pakistani territory and that the key answers to many questions which arose during the investigation were to be found in Pakistan, which only Pakistani investigators can do.At the same time, there was an undisguised attempt by Malik to project the conspiracy as trans-national and not uni-national only in Pakistan. He repeatedly said that only a part of the conspiracy took place in Pakistani territory. To underline the trans-national dimensions of the conspiracy he referred to the role played by some members of the Pakistani Diaspora in Spain and Italy and to Pakistan’s suspicion of a role by some elements in India as seen, according to him, from the fact that the perpetrators had used SIM cards procured in India.

Click to buy: Mumbai 26/11

Pakistan’s attempt was to project the conspiracy as mounted by non-State elements of which the Pakistani intelligence agencies had no inkling till after the attack. There was a reluctance on the part of Indian analysts to accept that all the recruitment, planning and training could have been carried out by the LeT in Pakistani territory without the Pakistani intelligence agencies becoming aware of it. Malik seemed to have prepared the ground for meeting this argument if and when it acquired force by pointing out that if the intelligence agencies of India, Italy and Spain had missed noticing the preparations being made in their territory, how can one blame the Pakistani agencies for similarly missing them.

“¦there was an undisguised attempt by Malik to project the conspiracy as trans-national and not uni-national only in Pakistan.

There were two significant points in the press briefing of Malik. The first was the absence of any reference to Indian allegations that a group of 32 potential perpetrators was trained by the LeT initially in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and subsequently in Karachi before 10 of them were finally selected and sent to Mumbai by sea.

The second was his repeated use of the word “alleged” while referring to the role of the LeT operatives, who had been detained and against whom investigations had been launched in pursuance of the two First Information Reports (FIRs) registered by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). He did not use the word “alleged” while referring to those whose involvement Pakistan claimed to have unearthed through its own investigation. This would indicate a possible attempt by them to show their investigation against some LeT operatives as warranted by the Indian “allegations” against them and not by any evidence so far uncovered by the FIA.

Thus, while registering two FIRs against the LeT operatives named by India, they kept open the possibility of giving a clean chit to the LeT after the international pressure and interest subsided and releasing the LeT operatives on the ground that the investigation did not bring out any credible evidence against them.

Pakistans attempt was to project the conspiracy as mounted by non-State elements of which the Pakistani intelligence agencies had no inkling till after the attack.

This was exactly the same modus operandi (MO) which the Pakistanis had followed after the thwarted attack by a group of terrorists belonging to the LeT and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) on the Parliament House in New Delhi in December, 2001. Musharraf banned these organizations on January 15, 2002, arrested their leaders and ordered an enquiry into their activities. A few months later, they were quietly released and the enquiries discontinued.

While we were right in welcoming the changed Pakistani stance — even if it be only a change in tactics — as seen on February 12, 2009, we should avoid nursing illusions that the seeming change in the Pakistani stance marked a watershed in Pakistani attitude to anti-India terrorism. We have to wait and see whether Pakistan really means business this time, or is it merely pretending to co-operate while not sincerely co-operating as it has always done in the past — whether against anti-India terrorism or against the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan or against Al Qaeda.

Pakistan’s new stance of seeming co-operation in the investigation of the Mumbai attack did not respond to the remaining two questions posed above. There are no indications at all that it is having second thoughts about the wisdom or inadvisability of continuing to use terrorism as a strategic weapon against India and that it might now act against the anti-India terrorist infrastructure in its territory and the role of the ISI in keeping this terrorism sustained. Threats of new terrorist attacks against Indian and foreign targets in Indian territory mounted from Pakistan remain as high as before.

This was exactly the same modus operandi (MO) which the Pakistanis had followed after the thwarted attack by a group of terrorists belonging to the LeT and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) on the Parliament House in New Delhi in December, 2001.

Subsequent developments relating to the house arrest of Sayeed, the Amir of the JUD, justified India’s suspicions regarding the sincerity of Pakistani assurances of co-operation in the investigation of the Mumbai attack. After the Mumbai attack, the Government of Pakistan took two actions. It ordered the arrest of five members of the LeT against whom specific evidence of their involvement had been produced by the Government of India. It was reported that the USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had also collected independent evidence against them. A case against them was registered for investigation and prosecution and their judicial remand was being extended from time to time by an Anti-terrorism court of Islamabad.

The second action was the placing under house arrest of Prof Sayeed, Col. (retd) Nazir Ahmed and some others not on the ground of their involvement in the Mumbai attack, but on the ground that they belonged to an organization, which had been designated by the anti-terrorism sanctions committee of the UN Security Council as a terrorist organization. While placing them under house arrest, the Government did not officially ban their organization as a terrorist set-up.

The Review Board set up by the Government to review the legality of the house arrests had upheld the Government decision. However, Prof Sayeed and Nazir Ahmed had challenged their house arrest as illegal before the Lahore High Court. Their lawyer appealed to the court to set aside their house arrest on two grounds. The first was that they were not supplied with the grounds of their house arrest as required under the law within the time-limit laid down. This vitiated the procedure followed, they claimed. The second ground was that the Government had passed its order of house arrest purely on the basis of the resolution of the UN Sanctions Committee, without any independent evidence of its own necessitating their house arrest.

In response to these arguments, the Government contended that it had independent evidence, including evidence of the LeT’s links with Al Qaeda, and showed the evidence privately to the Bench without sharing it with the lawyers to Sayeed and his associate. The lawyers held this also as illegal since their clients had been deprived of their right to know all the grounds for their house arrest including the evidence on which they were based.

After considering these arguments, a three-member bench of the Lahore High Court held illegal on June 2, 2009, the house arrest of Prof Sayeed and his associate Col.(retd) Nazir Ahmed and ordered their release.

The final order explaining the release issued by the Bench on June 6, 2009, made the following observations: “The Government’s decision to detain the Dawa leaders was not based on solid evidence and the material provided by the Government against them was incorrect and even prepared after their detention. The Government had no evidence that Sayeed and Nazir had any links with Al Qaeda or were involved in anti-state activities, except the ‘bald allegations’ leveled by the Indian lobby that they were involved in the Mumbai attacks. The material against the petitioners was mostly based on intelligence reports, which had been obtained after four months of their detention.

Threats of new terrorist attacks against Indian and foreign targets in Indian territory mounted from Pakistan remain as high as before.

Moreover, these reports were found to be incorrect as nothing apprehended in the reports actually took place. Several intelligence reports were obtained during the period when the petition was pending, apparently to cover the lacunae, but there was no solid evidence or source to supplement the reports. About the Dawa leaders’ involvement in the Mumbai attacks, not a single document had been brought on the record that Dawa or the petitioners were involved in the said incident. There was no evidence that Dawa had links with Al Qaeda.

The security laws and anti-terrorism laws of Pakistan were silent on Al Qaeda being a terrorist organization. Even after the perusal of these documents we do not find any material declaring that the detention was necessary for the security of the petitioners and there was no evidence that the petitioners had any links with Al Qaeda or any terrorist movement.”

Thus, according to the court, no evidence was produced before it linking the JUD and its Amir with the 26/11 attacks. It has not only given a clean chit to the Amir, but also to his organization, namely, the LeT and held that there was no evidence of their being linked to Al Qaeda or any other terrorist movement. The Government has appealed against this judgment to the Supreme Court. If it concurs with the observations of the Lahore High Court, the criminal case filed separately against five members of the LeT for their involvement in 26/11 might also ultimately fail.

From the way the case was handled from the beginning, it was evident that the Government, while acting against those LeT operatives whose involvement in the Mumbai attack was not deniable, wanted to protect Prof Sayeed, his organization and their terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory. The whole case was handled in such a manner as to make their release by the court inevitable and to weaken the case against the others facing prosecution before an anti-terrorism court.

To be continued