US sets stage for strikes if Pak does not act

WASHINGTON: The United States has set the stage for punitive internationally-backed strikes by India against terrorist camps in Pakistan if Terror cover premium to rise 50%? |
Places targeted

Islamabad does not act first to dismantle them by rejecting President Zardari’s alibi that non-state actors were responsible for the last week’s carnage in Mumbai.

The game-changer, outlined by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, among others, robs Islamabad of the fig leaf that Zardari used in his interview on Larry King Live that ''stateless actors'' are holding the whole world hostage and Pakistan was not to blame. Rice said in effect that the excuse does not absolve Pakistan responsibility for terrorist acts that originate from its territory,“ Rice said.

Although US officials have not outright approved immediate punitive Indian strikes against terrorist targets in Pakistan, it is clear Rice has bought time for Islamabad to prove its bonafides. Pakistan has a ''special responsibility'' and needs to act ''urgently'' she said, even as India has indicated it will wait for a Pakistani response to its demands before any punitive action.

In Washington, experts pressed the administration to expand the scope of punitive strikes to an international level to avoid making it an India-Pakistan issue, particularly since the death toll included citizens of ten countries.

''Rather than simply begging the Indians to show restraint, a better option could be to internationalise the response. Have the international community declare that parts of Pakistan have become ungovernable and a menace to international security,'' Robert Kagan, an influential analyst with the Carnegie Endowment, said.

''Would such an action (strikes) violate Pakistan's sovereignty?'' Kagan asked in an op-ed, and answered, ''Yes, but nations should not be able to claim sovereign rights when they cannot control territory from which terrorist attacks are launched.''

Rice echoed this outlook more discreetly and cautiously.

Pakistan's civilian government has sought to portray its helplessness in governing its own territory. In fact, in a startling slip noted by the Economist, Zardari said in a television interview last week that ''if any evidence points towards any individual or group in MY PART OF THE COUNTRY,'' he would take action. The implication, it said, was Pakistan was already severed if with parts of the country out of federal control.

While US position towards Pakistan has hardened perceptibly after the Mumbai attack, Indian officials are still leery about Washington’s approach. The hard part to swallow for New Delhi is that the Bush administration, while pushing for a strategic relationship with India, has bankrolled what some are already dubbing a terrorist state to the tune of $ 10 billion since 2002. Most of the money, according to the US government’s own audit, has gone towards building Pakistan's military muscle against India.

On Tuesday, even as Rice counselled patience and restraint in New Delhi, India’s Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon made the rounds in Washington, explaining India’s position and the growing anger across the country after Pakistan’s latest provocation.

Menon packed more than a dozen meetings, including with former intelligence czar and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, Under Secretary of State William Burns, House speaker Nancy Pelosi and several top lawmakers as Washington struggled to contain Indian outrage. New Delhi’s message was uniform: India’s patience is wearing thin.

The Indian Embassy said later that ''unequivocal condemnation of the (Mumbai) incident and the need for the perpetrators to be held accountable was reiterated,'' at the meetings. It was also indicated that there would be full cooperation and support at various levels, including government, from the US to India as it dealt with the consequences of the incident, it added.

From all accounts, India too appears to be preparing ground for punitive action if Pakistan fails to respond and act adequately.

Probe confirms terrorists' Pakistan and LeT links

KEEPING VIGIL: A security personnel stands guard near an entrance to Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Station, one of the sites targetted last week by terrorists.


Mumbai: Investigations into the Mumbai terror attacks are throwing up more details with sources now saying the terrorists were in constant touch with each other and with their coordinators based in Pakistan.


The dramatic visuals of captured terrorist Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab in a black T-shirt, armed with an AK 47 assault rifle, along with his partner on a killing spree in south Mumbai, before the terrorists took over hundreds of hostages at the Taj Hotel, Oberoi Trident Hotel and Nariman House started one of the longest terror strikes in India.


Sources have now confirmed the terrorists used locally procured six pre-paid mobile SIM cards out of which three each were purchased from Kolkata and Delhi.


The SIMs were purchased in advance and sent to Pakistan. The SIMs were carried by the terrorists while coming to Mumbai from Karachi.


Police believe their controller was Lashkar-e-Toiba commander Mohammed Muzammil, who put six of them on a conference call using Voice over Internet Protocol system.


Sources also say the calls were made using the same computer from Lahore, which was used to send the Deccan Mujahideen e-mail claiming responsibility for the attack.


Sources have now established the controller in Lahore was issuing instructions to the terrorists in Punjabi, briefing them on what movements they should adopt once they were surrounded by commandos.


They were even told how to change floors and how to fire strategically.


Sources have told CNN-IBN the Federal bureau of Investigation (FBI) officers are now helping Mumbai Police in decoding and tracking the VOIP connection.


Sources also say intelligence agencies were able to tap the conversation a short while after hotel siege began.


One such conversation referred to a congratulatory sentence between Kasab and the Lahore handler boasting about the killing of senior police officers.


Sources claim once the batteries of the terrorists' mobile sets got exhausted, they used handsets of guests inside the hotel to carry on their discussions.


Crime branch officials are now scanning about 500 numbers which were inside the hotel at the time of the attack to establish which sets were used.


Investigations have also suggested that the terrorists were given operational code names. One of the terrorist was called Operation VTS.


A Garmin GPS system has been seized and FBI has helped Mumbai Police with their technical inputs.


The Joint Intelligence Committee has several hours of recorded conversations between the terrorists and their handlers and it is a piece of evidence which is turning out to be most crucial in linking the horrific terror attack to the masterminds and pinning the larger conspiracy.


With FBI helping Mumbai Police in decoding technical coordinates, the jigsaw may finally be falling in place.

Rice reaches Delhi on India-Pak peace mission

RICE TO THE OCCASSION: Rice cut short a European tour to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.


New Delhi: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was due in New Delhi on Wednesday as part of intense US efforts to ease tension between India and Pakistan that has surged over the Mumbai attacks. The top US military commander was also visiting the nuclear-armed south Asian rivals and India's senior-most diplomat held meetings in Washington in other initiatives.


The 10 gunmen who killed 183 people in a three-day rampage in India's financial capital last week were from a Pakistani terrorist group, investigators said.


The deterioration in ties could put US counterterrorism efforts in the region at risk -- Islamabad has said the tensions may force it to shift troops from operations against al Qaeda militants on the Afghanistan border to the frontier with India.


Rice cut short a European tour to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is under election-year pressure to craft a muscular response to opposition criticism his ruling Congress party is weak on security. Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, would also visit the region starting Wednesday, officials said. They declined to give specific details.


"The chairman intends to meet with civilian and military leaders of both nations to encourage a cooperative approach to regional security concerns in the wake of the Mumbai attacks," Navy Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for Mullen, said by e-mail.


"He believes the attacks, which also killed Americans, point to a growing sophistication of extremist groups that threaten the entire region." India's Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon met Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and other officials in Washington on Tuesday.


"They discussed our continuing cooperation to find and bring to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks," State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said.


Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said military action was not being considered but later warned a peace process begun in 2004 was at risk if Pakistan did not act decisively.


His Pakistani counterpart offered a joint probe to find the militants responsible for the killing spree in Mumbai. "We don't want to do anything in haste.


We don't want to do anything that fuels confrontation," Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told reporters after an all-party meeting on relations with India. "We want to defuse the situation." Islamabad has yet to answer the demand for the fugitives. The United States, Britain and the European Union this week urged Pakistan's civilian government to cooperate with the probe.


Islamabad denied involvement and condemned the attacks, and has said it is battling the same kind of enemy at home. Mumbai's police chief Hasan Gafoor said the attackers had trained for a year or more in commando tactics. Azam Amir Kasav, the only gunmen of the 10 not killed by commandos, told investigators he is a Pakistani citizen from Punjab, Gafoor said. Investigators have said a former Pakistani army officer led the training, organised by the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba group blamed for a 2001 attack on India's parliament. Ibrahim is said to be one of its financial backers. The 2001 attack nearly set off the fourth war between the two countries since Muslim Pakistan was carved from Hindu-majority India in 1947 after independence from Britain. US officials say the attacks bear the hallmarks of operations by groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, which have fought Indian rule in Kashmir.


"I don't think we can rule out al Qaeda, I just don't think we know at this point," a US official said on condition of anonymity.

4,100 terror attacks in 34 yrs; India scarred, scared

TERROR NON-STOP: The terror operation on at the Hotel Oberoi Trident।


Washington: India faced more than 4,100 terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2004, accounting for more than 12,000 fatalities, according to the Global Terrorism Database।



The database is maintained by the University of Maryland and the US National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).


START's Terrorist Organisation Profiles (TOPs) collection has information on 56 groups known to have engaged in terrorism in India, including the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).


About 12,540 terrorist-related fatalities in India between 1970 and 2004 - an average of almost 360 fatalities per year from terrorism in India. These fatalities peaked in 1991 and 1992, when 1,184 and 1,132 individuals (respectively) were killed in such incidents, a University of Maryland statement said.


These figures are on the lower side as official figures in India put the toll at around 70,000 deaths.


Terrorists in India have employed a variety of attack types over time, 38.7 per cent of terrorist events were facility attacks, 29.7 per cent were bombings (in which the intent was to destroy a specific facility), and 25.5 per cent were assassinations. Last week's terror attacks in Mumbai, which left at least 183 dead, would be classified as a series of coordinated facility attacks.

Pakistan won't hand over India's most wanted

Washington: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said on Tuesday his government was not responsible for last week's attacks on Mumbai and said he doubted India's claim the lone surviving gunman was a Pakistani।

"The state of Pakistan is no way responsible," Zardari told CNN's Larry King Live program.
Indian has said the 10 terrorists who killed nearly 200 people in the three-day rampage in Mumbai were from a group based in Pakistan।

Azam Amir Kasav, the only gunmen not killed by Indian commandos, told investigators he is a Pakistani citizen, Mumbai police chief Hasan Gafoor said।

But Zardari said India has provided no proof the gunman is Pakistani। "We have not been given any tangible proof to say that he is definitely a Pakistani. I very much doubt ... that he's a Pakistani," Zardari said.

"The gunmen, plus the planners, whoever they are -- they are stateless actors who are holding hostage the whole world," he said।

Zardari said if India produced evidence that a Pakistani group was behind the attacks, his government would take action against them।

After the attacks, India renewed a long-standing demand Islamabad hand over about 20 terrorists New Delhi believes are hiding in Pakistan।

Zardari said if India provided proof against the fugitives, Pakistan would let its own judiciary handle the cases।

"If we had the proof, we would try them in our courts, we would try them in our land and we would sentence them, he said।

Larry King: Mr President the Indian government is demanding that your nation handover some 20 suspected terrorists who are believed to be living in Pakistan। What is your response to this...Among those are Dawood Ibrahim, a powerful gangster, Masood Azhar, a terror suspect from an Indian prison in exchange for the release of hostages. And Hafiz Mohammad a former chief of a terrorist group. Are you going to comply with that?

Zardari: I'm definitely going to look into all the possibility of any proof that is given to us that at the moment these are just names of individuals। No proof, no investigation, nothing has been brought to, forward. We have offered to take this step forward and cooperate with the Indians, I'm willing to have my security adviser and their security in charge of our internal security and their internal security head a joint committee, which we've proposed to the Indians for a joint investigation in all of the Bombay incident.

Larry King: And if you had the proof you would turn them over?
Zardari: If we had the proof we would try them in our courts, we would try them in our land, and we would sentence them.
(Inputs from CNN and Reuters)

Time to put Pak on notice: US security expert

UNDER SEIGE: At least 185 people, including foreign tourists and top cops, were killed and over 250 injured in the terror strike।

Uncomfortable questions are being asked about how India's intelligence failed to detect the plan for Mumbai attacks। US security expert Alex Alexiev blames it on India's poor grasp of terror dynamics and lack of coordination between various agencies.

Alexiev is the vice president for research at Center for Security Policy, Washington DC and has directed several research projects for the US Defense Department। His present research focuses on issues related to Islamic extremism and terrorism. In a telephone interview to Network18 from his home in California, he tells Shloka Nath that the time has come to put Pakistan on notice.

What do you think is the reason behind the Mumbai attacks?
What happened in Mumbai didn’t come as a surprise। Actually, the reason the attacks took place was because India had not bothered to understand the basics of what was happening. There is a deeper malignancy at work here and we are at war with a radical totalitarian interpretation of Islam. With every passing year since the 9/11 incident, the world situation has only got worse – not better. India is a good example of the deteriorating effects of terrorism. India is not willing to accept that there are harmful sects within its own borders which are supported by Pakistan.

The last time I was in India, I was shocked to hear Government officials at a conference on security in India। They stood up and said there has never been an Indian Muslim who was a terrorist. Most might be peaceful but a lot are not. There is certainly radicalization in India and it’s a problem that needs to be addressed.

What lessons can India learn from the way America stepped up its security after 9/11?
We have done better than India in stopping attacks। But, in India, there is very little active coordination and sharing of information between different organizations. India today is what the USA was before 9/11 when the FBI and CIA did not even talk to each other. The lack of coordination has to be looked into.

The other thing is poor equipment। The police sent to confront the terrorists had ordinary handguns while the terrorists were better armed. You need to spend whatever money necessary to give your police the right tools so they can deal with all kinds of situations effectively. A well-known police chief of New York City -- William Bratton – says all terrorism is local because ultimately, when it happens, it’s local. It’s on your shores. The police are the first line of deterrence rather than the last. But the police in India are almost like a marginal factor in counter terrorism. It’s the police who know the locals and the neighborhoods and there has to be some level of effective local intelligence.

One of the positive steps we have taken in the US has been to set up terrorism intelligence centers where various agencies of government and local police work side by side। For example, in Los Angeles, you have the FBI, CIA, LA police and various other agencies like the fire department and the airport police all working together. They are intelligence fusion centers, if you will, and are functioning in several other large cities. These professionals sit in the same office, the same department and they become colleagues as opposed to different competing departments. In India, they need to cooperate closely and make sure that no lead goes cold.

Think of the economic damage done by shutting down Mumbai for a day or two -- the billions of dollars lost। The cost of effective policing is actually a very good economic investment. You need to train your police force the best way you can.

India’s Prime Minister is thinking of a crime-fighting agency along the lines of America’s Homeland Security model। What are the benefits and disadvantages in implementing such a framework?

The USA's Department of Homeland Security consolidates 22 agencies and 18,000 employees। It unifies the fragmented federal functions into a single agency dedicated to protecting America from terrorism. But the issue about a Homeland Security (HS) system is that it cuts both ways. Due to a complete lack of cooperation between intelligence agencies it is good to have one place where they can exchange views. Under the HS, there is a Joint Terrorism Task Force, a place at the Federal level where representatives of CIA, FBI and all others sit together and work like the city-level fusion centers I just mentioned. That is very good.

However, on the other hand, bringing all the existing agencies under a single roof could, in a way, mean adding another layer of bureaucracy। I'm in two minds -- because when the HS was formed it was supposed to be an organization where everything was coordinated. It was meant to rally together the separate agencies in the US -- and there were many: The Armed Forces -- the Army, Marine, Navy, the Defense Intelligence Agency, a military organisation, and the NSA military spying agency, the CIA and the FBI. We had so many receptacles for information but no cooperation among ourselves.

Right now, fingers are pointing towards Pakistan। Is this simply a knee-jerk, emotional reaction one can expect from India at this time?

I have spent an extensive amount of time in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan। And the one thing I have learnt is that all terrorism is, to some extent, state-sponsored. Let’s be frank. Nearly all terrorist attempts in India can said to have been sponsored by Pakistan. Take Lashkar-e-Toiba, the child of the ISI that continues to be supported by them. You just can’t separate terrorist attacks in India from Jihadi outfits in Pakistan. Many who were banned under the Musharraf regime have simply renamed themselves and continued to operate and be supported by the ISI.

The current Pakistani government knows that the ISI is a state within the state। Look at the number of ISI chiefs who turn out to be zealous Islamists after they retire. The raison d’etre of the Pakistan military depends on India’s image as an enemy. Because, without it, how do you justify spending 40% of the country's income on the military?

And I’m not sure if America has recognized that Pakistan today is not a state with a military but a military with a state। Personally, I thought America’s policy with Musharraf was misguided – Washington thinks Pakistan is a strategic ally. We don't understand that actually we may be losing Afghanistan because of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia’s support for extremists. We know the ISI is behind the bombing of Indian embassy in Kabul. If they can attack the sovereign territory of a neighbor, why would it come as a surprise if they chose to attack India’s business centre? For some reason there is this pervasive belief that if you don't speak of evil it will go away. The fact is, it won’t. And the time has come to put Pakistan on notice.

The other fascinating thing is the Dawood connection - another example of the state sponsoring terrorism। We know Dawood is protected and given refuge and allowed to operate his criminal empire by the ISI and now it looks like he could be one of the guys involved in this. So you have a possible organized crime and terror nexus – who made that possible?

India’s government needs to wake up to what’s happening and what’s coming down the pipe। There are terrorist incidents in India every one or two months, which are really disruptive. How long can you tolerate that?

Shloka Nath is a senior features writer at the new business magazine to be launched by Network18 in alliance with Forbes, USA।