'Tigers' extinct in Sri Lanka, but not in Europe

Two years after Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed, along with his lieutenants and cadre, and the LTTE obliterated by the Sri Lankan Army, the ruthless man who terrorised Sinhalese and brutalised Tamils alike is very much alive in the imagination of Germany’s — as well as Europe’s — Tamil diaspora.

In life, Prabhakaran tested the loyalty of his ‘Tigers’, many of whom were in their early teens, by asking them to turn themselves into human bombs. Any ‘Tamil Tiger’ taken alive by security forces was under instruction to swallow a cyanide pill; nobody is known to have violated that order.

Over the quarter century that he led a horrific campaign of terror for a Tamil Eelam, Prabhakaran set standards for terrorists around the world. The final battle against the LTTE was no doubt vicious and exacted terrible collateral damage, but in the end the evil that Prabhakaran and his organisation had come to symbolihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifse were destroyed root and branch.

On May 18, 2009, Prabhakaran was killed while trying to escape the military blockade of Mullaitivu. He met a violent end, as did the entire top leadership of the LTTE.

But as Dutch prosecutor Prosecutor Ward Ferdinandusse says, “Although the Tigers have been defeated in Sri Lanka, here in Europe they are very much alive.” The EU’s police coordination organisation, Europol, in its ‘Terrorism Situation and Trend Report’ for 2011, said ‘Tamil Tigers’ in Europe continue with their extortion and “are actively involved in drugs and human trafficking, the facilitation of illegal immigration, credit card skimming, money laundering, and fraud for the purpose of funding terrorist (support) operations”.

Read my take on how Europe keeps LTTE alive.

The Pakistani Connection!

This audio recording, courtesy Al Jazeera, reminds us of Kargil, 26/11 and the perfidy of the Pakistani military-jihadi Establishment.

Recording reveals Afghan attack plot

Intercepted calls show Taliban and Pakistan-based group planning June attack on Kabul hotel.

Afghan security officials have released a recording of intercepted phone calls between a Pakistan-based group and Taliban fighters planning an attack on a Kabul hotel.

Twenty-one people died when eight suicide bombers stormed the hotel in a nighttime raid in late June.

Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith reports from Kabul.

Palestinian Ambassador to India hails terrorists

Killers praised as 'shahids'!

Palestinian terrorists, armed with rifles and bombs, carried out a series of coordinated attacks last Thursday (August 18) near the southern Israeli city of Eilat, on the country’s border with Egypt, killing six civilians, a soldier and a security officer. More than 30 Israelis were injured in the attacks. [Video] It now transpires that three of the terrorists may have been Egyptians.

The terrorists shot at a bus and two cars, and targetted a military patrol with bombs. A suicide-bomber blew up a bus, killing the driver and himself. Israeli Army personnel took on the terrorists, killing seven of them.

In a swift (and admirable) retaliatory response, the IDF targetted leaders of the Popular Resistance Committees, responsible for the terror attacks. In the targeted airstrikes, five members of this terrorist organisation were killed in Gaza. Among those killed is Ismail Asmar of Rafiah in the Gaza Strip, a 'senior commander' in the Islamic Jihad, who financed and planned the terrorist attacks in Eilat. Unfortunately, collateral damage included a child who died.

The following day, on August 19, the Palestinian National Authority Ambassador to India, Adli Sadeq, wrote an article in Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the official daily newspaper of the PNA, praising the terrorists and hailing their attacks on Israeli civilians. The article was published with the headline: “A great operation, regardless of anything”.

In that article, Adli Sadeq writes:

"May Allah have mercy upon the shahids (martyrs) who fell during Ramadan, those of them who went out to confront the occupation forces and did not return, and those of them who were bombed in the home of Khaled Shaath (commander of the Popular Resistance Committees unit manufacturing rockets and bombs) and died a shahid's death... What happened yesterday (August 18) may be considered one of the most successful infiltration operations, for it is clear that the preparation of the routes for the men to reach their target was done some time ago, took much time, and required great effort. What this means is that this was a quality operation that will be difficult to repeat.”

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, August 19, 2011]

There are three issues for consideration.

First, the praise that Adli Sadeq has showered on the Popular Resistance Committees terrorists and the honour he has bestowed upon killers of innocent civilians is remarkably similar to the praise that is showered routinely by Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other similar terrorist organisations on their killers and the honour that they bestow upon their ‘shahids’.

Second, the Ministry of External Affairs, indeed, the Government of India, should not only take serious note of the statement endorsing terrorism by an accredited Ambassador based in New Delhi who enjoys diplomatic privileges and immunity but also summon him for an explanation before declaring him persona non grata. Not to do so would be tantamount to the Government of India shutting its eyes and ears to incitement of terrorism from Indian soil.

Third, as is the wont of our Left-liberal commentariat which dominates media and controls content, it has blithely glossed over Adli Sadeq’s statement. Is this simply because the perpetrators of these terror attacks were Muslims and their victims were Jews? Do our commentariat and the media it dominates find it politically incorrect to call out killers of civilians who happen to be Muslims?

Responses to all three points raised here are welcome.


Do also read Egypt’s Brotherhood Declares War on the Bikini: What the 'Revolution' really means.

"More zealous Muslims demand cover-up of pharaonic monuments, too

Sunbathing in Alexandria may soon be a thing of the past, at least if some Egyptian Islamist politicians have their way.

Egypt's tourism industry has suffered a severe blow since the outburst of anti-regime demonstrations in January. But that did not stop the Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, from demanding stricter regulations over what tourists can do and wear while visiting the country. The party is urging officials to ban skimpy swimwear and the consumption of alcohol on Egyptian streets..."

My column Coffee Break on Israel, India and terrorism makes the point What tiny Israel can, giant India can't!

Targeting the Armed Forces

Manmohan Singh is believed to be working on an ‘Eid Package’ to appease separatists in Kashmir Valley. Will AFSPA be diluted?
(Pakistani flag hoisted by separatists at Lal Chowk, Srinagar, on Eid-ul-Fitr, 2010.)

The Union Government, according to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is “groping for a solution” to the current unrest in the Kashmir Valley where separatists, with the help of their rage boys whom they pay to pelt the police and security forces with stones, have been virtually holding the administration to ransom for the past couple of months. Just in case people expect the Government to act firmly and restore the authority of the state without allowing the situation to worsen any further, Mr Singh has let it be known that “we are not dealing with an easy problem… The country and the people must be patient”. After all, a problem that has been allowed to fester for 60 years cannot be solved in six years; that would be an unfair expectation.

Yet, the need to do something, or at least to be seen to be doing something, in response to the worsening law and order situation in the Kashmir Valley and arresting the slide into separatist violence and chaos reminiscent of the late-1980s and early-1990s, cannot be entirely wished away. The Prime Minister, therefore, has called a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security to “discuss the Kashmir issue threadbare”. It’s amazing that he should have waited till now to do so. But, as the cliché goes, better late than never.

However, the manner in which the Prime Minister has phrased the agenda of the CCS meeting should cause disquiet and discomfort, at least among those Indians who still passionately believe that Jammu & Kashmir was, is and shall remain an integral part of the Union of India; that instead of conceding even an inch to the Pakistan-sponsored separatists, we should focus on governance and restoring law and order; and, that the best option at the moment is to ride out the storm while minimising collateral damage.

It is, in a sense, alarming that Mr Singh, given his penchant for ‘thinking out of the box’, should propose to “discuss the Kashmir issue threadbare” along with his colleagues in the CCS. That would imply discussing the entire range of issues raised by the separatists, including azadi, the demand for “autonomy” voiced by the National Conference (articulated in the voluminous report that was drafted and approved by the State Assembly when Mr Farooq Abdullah was Chief Minister) and the People’s Democratic Party’s insistence on “greater autonomy” (a delightfully undefined and vague concept which includes accepting Pakistani currency as legal tender in the State).

However, we can seek comfort in the fact that it is unlikely the CCS, after “discussing the Kashmir issue threadbare”, will come to any definitive conclusions. For instance, it is unimaginable that the Government would be authorised to use its executive powers to grant either ‘autonomy’ or ‘greater autonomy’. Apart from the fact that this cannot be done with a note being sent out by the PMO or a notification being issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the political backlash would be too strong for the Congress to risk, leave alone weather. India’s corrupt, cynical and self-seeking urban middle-class may have become indifferent to the nation’s unity and integrity, but the masses still carry the vote on polling day.

Any changes in the existing arrangement through amendments to the Constitution can similarly be ruled out. The BJP may not have sufficient votes in Parliament to force the deletion of Article 370, but it can block the strengthening of this debilitating Article through further amendments to the Constitution. The Government is presumably mindful of this simple arithmetical fact and will not make a promise that it will later regret having made to the separatists (and their masters in Pakistan).

But something is cooking, of that we can be sure. Or else Chief Minister Omar Abdullah would not have been summoned by Mr Singh for discussions, nor would a meeting have been convened to “discuss the Kashmir issue threadbare”. We are told that the Prime Minister is keen on announcing an ‘Eid Package’ to restore peace in the Kashmir Valley. If there is any truth in it, then we should expect a dramatic gesture of capitulation — nothing less than that would make the separatists feel they have won half the battle and ask their rage boys to take a break — amounting to appeasing those who repudiate India’s sovereignty.

And this is most likely to come in the form of the Government announcing its decision to amend the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Separatists and their stooges among jholawallahs masquerading as human rights activists want the Act to be repealed. Since the Government wouldn’t dare do that, it will seek to dilute the law that makes life difficult for the lawless. While it is anybody’s guess as to what those amendments, which will probably be introduced through an Ordinance and then ratified by a Bill that will require a simple majority in Parliament (and hence cannot be blocked by the BJP), will be, but a fair guess can be attempted on the basis of the discussions that have taken place so far between the Government and the Armed Forces.

The amendments are likely to focus on three clauses in the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. First, the right of Army personnel to search premises and arrest individuals believed to be guilty of terrorism and separatist violence without warrants will be sought to be curtailed. The Army has rightly asserted that without this power its counter-insurgency operations will be rendered futile.

For, it’s frightfully stupid to expect the Army to deliver results without the element of surprise that is necessary to raid a hideout or arrest a terrorist. In Jammu & Kashmir, where the civil administration has been infiltrated by the separatists and their sympathisers, information about the Army seeking and securing warrants to raid a particular house where terrorists may be hiding or arrest a suspect will not remain a secret. Indeed, it will be communicated within minutes and the Army will be left looking silly; its men will become objects of ridicule and worse.

The second amendment that is being proposed will make it mandatory for the Army to hand over those who have been arrested to the police or a magistrate within 24 hours of the arrest. Given the terrain of operations and the logistics involved, this will prove to be virtually impossible. If implemented, this amendment will force the Army to abandon mopping up operations; jawans will have to rush to the nearest police station or magistrate’s court instead of sanitising the area and ensuring there are no more militants hiding there. This is a patently absurd proposition and is designed to raise obstacles for the security forces rather than make their task easier.

The third amendment which the separatists and their jholawallah friends are pushing for is a sinister move to tarnish the reputation of the Indian Army and a devious ploy to prevent it from fearlessly performing its duties. The UPA Government, which has a pronounced bias towards jholawallahs, has apparently agreed to the demand for setting up ‘grievance cells’ in every sub-division.

This would be a perfect recipe for disaster. The right to file a complaint will be merrily misused and there will be a flood of allegations, dealing with which will become the main occupation of the Army instead of conducting counter-insurgency operations. Even without such a mechanism, the Army has been repeatedly accused of ‘violating’ human rights, more often than not with the sole purpose of tarring the dignity and honour of our men in uniform.

Along with financial sops at the tax-payers’ expense, these and other amendments to the Armed Forces Special Powers Act would make a perfect ‘Eid Package’ for the separatists: They can celebrate a big victory in the proxy war they have been waging against the nation with the help of its foes. But the ‘peace’ such abject surrender may bring will be a prelude to another offensive for azadi which will be timed to coincide with US President Barack Hussein Obama’s November visit. Make no mistake about that.

[This appeared as Edit Page leading article in The Pioneer.]

Tough guy act by limp-wristed UPA

How will Congress react if push comes to shove?

Nearly five years after the Cabinet Committee on Security cleared what was then billed as a ‘tough anti-hijacking policy’, the UPA Government has decided to amend the antiquated Anti-Hijacking Act of 1982. The purpose behind the proposed amendments, we are told, is to make the punishment for hijackers harsher so that the law acts as a deterrent. It would be churlish to cavil against such intent. After all, what good is a law unless it scares the daylights out of potential criminals and forces them to desist from risking the state’s clenched fist of fury?

The Government, therefore, should be complimented for deciding to make the law against hijacking more stringent. On Friday, the Cabinet discussed and approved the proposal, as drafted by a Group of Ministers headed by Union Minister for Home Affairs P Chidambaram, to introduce the death penalty for hijackers of aircraft. The 1982 law stipulates that hijackers and/or their accomplices will be sentenced to life imprisonment as well as made to pay a fine. Obviously, such measures have not proved to be a deterrent, hence the decision to make hijacking a capital offence. This will also necessitate an amendment to the definition of hijacking. Although the exact language of the proposed amendments has not been disclosed, it would be safe to assume that the amended law will describe hijacking as tantamount to ‘waging war on the state’.

Till such time the draft Bill amending the Anti-Hijacking Act of 1982 is circulated, any detailed comment on the proposed changes in the law would be premature. It also remains to be seen how much of the UPA Government’s declared policy to prevent hijacking of aircraft and deal with hijackers in the event they succeed in seizing a plane is reflected in the Bill. Policy and law are not necessarily inter-changeable, nor is there any binding requirement for the former to be codified through an Act of Parliament.

However, it would be in order to recall the salient features of the anti-hijacking policy that was cleared by the CCS in August, 2005. The policy commits the Government to treat any attempt to hijack an aircraft, or the hijacking of an aircraft, as an act of aggression against India. Hence, the Government will respond in a manner that is fit to deal with an aggressor. Second, hijackers, irrespective of whether they succeed or fail in their mission, will be sentenced to death. Third, the Government will engage hijackers in negotiations but not to cut a deal. Negotiations will be aimed at bringing the hijacking to an end, to comfort passengers and prevent loss of lives. Fourth, IAF fighters will try and force hijacked aircraft to land. Fifth, if hijackers try to use the aircraft as a missile to strike ‘strategic targets’, as was done on 9/11 in the US, the plane will be shot down. Sixth, if a hijacked aircraft lands at an Indian airport, it will not be allowed to take off under any circumstances.

According to details of the policy made available to media in 2005, the Bureau of Civil Aviation would be asked to prepare a list of designated ‘strategic targets’ that hijackers might target with a commandeered plane. Since the list would qualify as ‘Top Secret’, we will never get to know what all are deemed as ‘strategic targets’. The Government is neither obliged to nor should it voluntary disclose the list. As for the decision to shoot down a hijacked plane to prevent it from being used as a missile to blow up ‘strategic targets’, it is supposed to be taken by the CCS. If there is no time to go through the elaborate process of summoning the CCS, the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister or the Home Minister are authorised to take the call. Air Force officers not below the rank of Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Operations) will have the authority to prevent a hijacked aircraft from taking off, if necessary by shooting at the plane. All this, of course, is based on the presumption that the policy, barring the death penalty for hijackers, which requires an amendment to the 1982 law through an Act of Parliament, has been implemented. For all we know, it has been shelved in a ‘red corner’ file in the ‘Not to Go Out’ section in the Prime Minister’s Office.

We no doubt need to adopt a tough law both to prevent hijacking of aircraft and punish hijackers. But are a no-nonsense policy and a tough law sufficient to deal with a problem faced by Governments across the world after 9/11? More important, what good are a policy and a law if they are not implemented? It’s not only about determination, which the UPA Government lacks in large measure, but also compulsion. For instance, if push came to shove, it would be a tough call to issue instructions to shoot down a passenger aircraft. Apart from the moral dimension, there is the legal aspect: Can the state take such an extreme measure? The courts in Germany and Poland have ruled otherwise.

Which brings us to the other moral compulsion: Can any Government decide to callously ignore the plight of the families of hostages on a hijacked aircraft? The low point of the NDA Government was no doubt its capitulation to the demands of the hijackers of IC 814 which led to the release of three Pakistani terrorists, Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Sheikh Ahmed Omar Sayeed. That capitulation followed the NDA Government giving in to the demand of the families of the hostages “to do anything to secure their release”. In hindsight, it is easy to say that Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee erred, that he should have stood firm rather than be persuaded by tearful relatives of hostages to accept the hijackers’ demand. But would any other Prime Minister or Government have acted differently? Mr Chidambaram has been candid enough to admit that this is a question not easily answered.

As for the deterrent value of the death penalty proposed for hijackers, it is doubtful whether terrorists will feel deterred. Jihadis are not scared of death; they see it as ‘martyrdom’ which will fetch them a short-cut to a zannat teeming with houries. In any event, the threat of a state which does not have the courage to punish terrorists after a fair trial — Afzal Guru, held guilty of masterminding the jihadi attack on Parliament House in December, 2001, and sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in 2004, is yet to be executed — will raise no more than condescending twitter among those planning to hijack passenger planes. It is one thing to have a Prime Minister who is a fawning admirer of the US and eager to do its bidding, it is quite another to act like the Americans did when they intercepted an Egypt Air plane carrying the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985 over the Mediterranean and forced it to land in Sicily. Or conduct a daring commando raid on foreign soil to free hostages as the Israelis did in Entebbe in 1976 . That requires courage, not a harsh Act of Parliament or a hard policy, neither of which is worth the paper it is printed on.

Which does not make the Congress any better. The UPA has miserably failed to deal with the Maobadi problem just like it has made all of India vulnerable to Pakistan-sponsored jihadi attacks. The amended Prevention of Unlawful Activities Act remains on paper; the much-touted Operation Green Hunt is no more than Government bluster. It increasingly appears that no Government in India is keen to tackled internal security issues. Which is a shame and a pity.

PS: The BJP, in the five years that it was in power after the IC 814 humiliation, should have amended the 1982 anti-hijacking law and adopted a tough policy to deal with hijackers. Instead, it chose waffle over action and paid the price in 2004 -- and again in 2009.

[This appeared as my regular weekly column Coffee Break in Sunday Pioneer. (c) CMYK Printech Ltd.]

US cuts deal with terrorist Headley!

Mockery of America's alleged war on terror
So much for justice and so much for America's alleged war on terror! In its wisdom, the US Department of Justice, no doubt with clearance from the Obama Administration which is blinded by its perverse love for Pakistan, has decided to enter into a plea bargain with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley aka Daood Gilani (his father was a top Pakistani diplomat)who played a key role in the 26/11 jihadi attack on Mumbai, masterminded in and launched from Pakistan by the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, the favourite handmaiden of the Pakistani establishment.

Headley has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bomb public places in India; conspiracy to murder and maim persons in India; six counts of aiding and abetting the murder of American citizens in India; conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism in India; conspiracy to murder and maim persons in Denmark; conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism in Denmark; and conspiracy to provide material support to Lashkar-e-Tayyeba.

The DoJ indictment of December 7, 2009, filed against Headley can be read here.

A statement issued by the US Department of Justice says Headley attended the following training camps operated by Lashkar: A three-week course starting in February 2002 that provided indoctrination on the merits of waging jihad; a three-week course starting in August 2002 that provided training in the use of weapons and grenades; a three-month course starting in April 2003 that taught close combat tactics, the use of weapons and grenades, and survival skills; a three-week course starting in August 2003 that taught counter-surveillance skills; and a three-month course starting in December 2003 that provided combat and tactical training.

By agreeing to a plea bargain, the US DoJ has ensured:

a. There will be no trial and hence no public disclosure of details that may have indicated a larger conspiracy; no depositions by witnesses; no chance of CIA chaps being called in if he were to claim he was a CIA agent. [Headley has been variously described as a CIA 'agent', 'double agent' and 'strategic asset'. There has been no official denial. Needless to add, there has been no confirmation either!]
b) Headley will escape death penalty, despite causing the death of several Americans in among the 173 innocent people who died in the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack.
c) Prevent his deportation to India to stand trial for crimes, including mass murder, committed on Indian soil.

The DoJ statement says, “In light of Headley’s past cooperation and expected future cooperation, the Attorney-General of the United States has authorized the United States Attorney in Chicago not to seek the death penalty against Headley".

The deal makes a mockery of America's so-called war on terror. US Attorney-General Aric Holder has absurdly argued: “Today's guilty plea is a crucial step forward in our efforts to achieve justice for the more than 160 people who lost their lives in the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Working with our domestic and international partners, we will not rest until all those responsible for the Mumbai attacks and the terror plot in Denmark are held accountable. Not only has the criminal justice system achieved a guilty plea in this case, but David Headley is now providing us valuable intelligence about terrorist activities. As this case demonstrates, we must continue to use every tool available to defeat terrorism both at home and abroad.”

Having allowed Headley to get away with his crimes, what punishment is America talking about?

As fellow tweeter said in his response to the stunning plea bargain: "Post-Headley, wonder why the US doesn't end the charade of 'fighting terror' by putting itself on its own list of terrorist nations."

Our pusillanimous Prime Minister, of course, will continue to look up to America for strength, guidance and inspiration. Who is to tell him that this India's war and we have to fight it ourselves, on our terms, our way?

How legitimate are targeted killings?

What is a legitimate killing? And what makes a killing illegitimate? On the face of it, these are not difficult questions to answer. Those who take an absolutist position on right to life would argue that any killing is illegitimate. On the other end of the absolutist spectrum are those who would insist that when the state kills, no matter what the reason, it is legitimate; when individuals kill, unless they do so in self-defence, it is illegitimate. Then there are those who would cite the law to justify certain killings — for instance, killing enemy soldiers on the battlefield; executing those found guilty of committing capital offences; and, killing criminals who resist arrest or attack the police — but insist that extrajudicial killings by the state or agencies of the state are illegitimate. Human rights activists would strangely argue that while it is legitimate for ‘armed opposition groups’ to resort to violence and even indulge in senseless killings, the state, as the protector of human life and liberty, does not have the right to kill.

Macabre and distasteful as it might be, the debate over what is and is not legitimate killing came up, although fleetingly, during a recent television discussion on Maoist violence. The human rights activists who were present in the studio were most emphatic in asserting that the state, in this case represented by security forces, has no right to kill even if those who are targeted are known to have indulged in killing innocent people and policemen or, unless put down, can be expected to shed human blood in the future. Of course, this is an absurd proposition. If it is the state’s responsibility to ensure the security of its citizens, then it is equally its responsibility to take any measure that it may deem fit to protect them from marauders.

The argument proffered by human rights activists is fallacious for a second reason. Implicit in what they say is the suggestion that men and women in uniform (whether of the police or the military) are fair targets for ‘armed opposition groups’ — or ‘gunmen’, as terrorists are referred to by politically correct sections of ‘civil society’ — since they represent the state and hence the ‘enemy’. As if that robs them of the right to life which, for everybody else, is considered inviolable. This is not only chillingly callous, but also downright sinister. Thankfully, in real life it doesn’t quite work that way.

The reason why I have raised this issue is not to discuss whether it is right or wrong to adopt tough measures against Maoists; that’s a settled point and little or no purpose is served by endlessly debating it. Maoists must be crushed with minimum, if at all any, collateral damage. But we need to look beyond what has come to be accepted as the normal, textbook response to terrorism, never mind the shade of terror, which could range from shimmering green to dazzling red. Must the state entirely depend on ‘massive deployment’ of security forces? Should action be always visible to the people? Or has the time come to consider the adoption of strategic responses, for instance targeted killings, which could be more effective and virtually rule out the possibility of collateral damage?

After all, if the top leaders of an insurgency, Islamist or Maoist, were to be neutralised through surgical strikes, there would be disarray and demoralisation in the ranks and the cadre, no matter how motivated, would feel deterred from persisting with the ‘cause’. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eeelam did not become extinct because fighters were killed in scores if not hundreds. The LTTE became history only after its top leadership was annihilated. Till the moment the Sri Lankan Government released photographs of V Prabhakaran’s lifeless body, the Tigers fought back fiercely. Similarly, in Punjab the guns fell silent after the top leaders of the Khalistani insurgency were methodically neutralised. Perhaps far fewer lives would have been lost had this approach been adopted in the early days of separatist violence in Punjab — and in Jammu & Kashmir.

These thoughts come to mind while reading about the targeted killing of Hamas’s top military commander Mahmoud Al Mabhouh in Dubai on January 20 and subsequent investigations by the emirate’s police. The Government of Israel has refused to comment on what is widely perceived to have been a Mossad operation. No other organisation could have carried out such a daring and flawless execution, that too on hostile territory. If details pieced together from closed-circuit television camera footage collated from various spots and released by the authorities of Dubai are to be believed, a group of men and women travelled from foreign destinations on forged passports a day before Mabhouh arrived in the emirate. Apparently, he had come to Dubai to meet someone who had offered to sell arms to Hamas. It may have been a trap set up by his assassins who tracked their quarry to his hotel room and killed him before he could raise an alarm. Their mission accomplished, the assassins flew out of Dubai the same afternoon.

It could be argued that Mabhouh’s assassination will not lead to the collapse of Hamas or end its rule of terror in Gaza, just as ‘Operation Wrath of God’ and ‘Operation Spring of Youth’ did not result in the destruction of the PLO, although they did serve to revive and reinforce the fear of Gideon in rage. Mabhouh is not the first Hamas leader to be killed. Salah Shahade was assassinated in 2002; Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a wheelchair-bound quadriplegic who would remorselessly direct suicide bombers to murder Israeli civilians, was killed in March 2004; within a month, Sheikh Yassin’s successor, Abdel Aziz Al Rantissi, was assassinated; and, in October that year, another senior Hamas leader, Adnan Al Ghoul, was put down. Hamas was no doubt shaken, but not necessarily deterred, or else there would have been no need for ‘Operation Cast Lead’. Although, the killing of Nizar Rayyan on January 1, 2009, during the Gaza raid did result in a hudna which is still holding.

Was Mabhouh despatched before he could acquire sufficient weapons for Hamas to break the truce and launch a fresh attack on Israel? Will his killing revive the fear of Gideon the righteous destroyer and reinforce the idea of Israel as a mighty warrior? Whatever the answer, the utility of targeted killing of terrorists — we need not go into the morality or legality of such counter-insurgency measures since terrorism is neither morally right nor a legal expression of dissent — is demonstrated by the fact that Israel has survived six decades of relentless and fierce hostility without ever feeling the need to capitulate before its enemies.

PS: Ever since Mabhouh’s assassination, there has been a phenomenal increase in the demand for custom-made T-shirts emblazoned with Mossad’s logo sold by an Israeli firm. Orders have been pouring in from countries across the world, including, hold your breath, India.

[This appeared as my Sunday column Coffee Break in The Pioneer on February 28, 2010]

Two eyes for an eye...

Exterminate Maobadi terror now!

This picture was taken at the Silda Eastern Frontier Rifles camp in West Midnapore district, West Bengal, after Monday's (February 15) raid by Maobadis, reportedly led by a woman Maobadi with the "eyes of a cobra". The Maobadi raid left 24 security personnel dead.

A marauding horde of Maobadis descended on Phulwaria Karasi village in Bihar’s Jamui district on Wednesday night and slaughtered 12 tribals. Reports say that the Maobadis have abducted several villagers. Their fate is not known.
On Monday, Maobadis killed 24 jawans of Eastern Frontier Rifles at Shilda in West Bengal's West Midnapore district. Many of them were charred alive. Crucial, actionable, real time intelligence input received by the West Bengal Police at least three hours before the attack was not passed on to the EFR camp.
The attack was led by a woman Maobadi, Jagari Baskey, who is said to have the “eyes of a cobra”. Maobadi leader Koteswara Rao, also known as ‘Kishenji’, who is in regular contact with mediapersons, issued a statement after the attack: “”We have attacked the camp and this is our answer to P Chidambaram’s Operation Green Hunt… unless the Centre stops this inhuman military operation we are going to answer this way only.”
Maobadis, coyly described as ‘Left-wing extremists’ by the Government of India but in reality thugs and criminals masquerading as champions of tribals whom they terrorise with guns, loot, rape and murder at will, now have a free run of at least 25 per cent of all districts in the country.
The worst affected States are Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar.
The much-touted and talked about Operation Green Hunt is yet to be launched. The Government’s hand, it would seem, is being held back by the Left-liberal intelligentsia which monopolises television studios and provides an ‘intellectual’ cover for Maobadi terrorism, romancing their criminal misdeeds and justifying murder in the name of Mao.
If the Union Government is hesitant to act against what the Prime Minister has repeatedly described as the “gravest internal security threat” which India faces, then State Governments, barring the Government of Chhattisgarh, have proved to be equally pusillanimous in their approach.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar refuses to crack down on Maobadis. Jharkhand Chief Minister Shibu Soren is equally reluctant. Neither of them attended a recent meeting in Kolkata chaired by Union Home Minister to review the Maobadi situation in Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha and work on a blueprint or inter-State coordinated action against Red terror.
Soren has agreed to free wanted Maobadis from prison to secure the release of an abducted BDO. The Union Government has conveyed its approval! Strangely, a Cabinet Minister, Mamata Banerjee, claims that there are no Maobadis and hence there is no need for police action. The Trinamool Congress is long suspected of being backed by Maobadis in rural West Bengal. A Trinamool MP, Kabir Suman, who sits in the Lok Sabha and has sworn to uphold the Constitution of India, has recently released a music CD extolling a Maobadi, Chhatradhar Mahato, now in police custody.
Just how grim the situation is can be gauged from what Chidambaram said while presenting his Ministry’s report card for January 2010:

“The situation in the States affected by Left Wing Extremism continues to be a cause of grave concern. The number of deaths in 2009 amongst civilians (591), security forces (317) and militants (217) indicated a rising trend. The increase in the number of incidents and casualties is not surprising because, after a review of the policy, State Governments decided to deploy a larger number of security forces and engage the naxalites in the districts dominated by them with a view to re-establish the authority of the civilian government. I expect this trend to continue in 2010.”

[Data regarding Maobadi violence can be accessed here. Assessments of the threat posed by Maobadis in various States can be read here.]
The time to discuss and strategise the state’s response to Maobadi terror is long past. The Government cannot be seen to be abdicating its primary responsibility of protecting citizens from criminal excesses. It must act with the fully fury of the state, and act now.

. Maobadis are thugs and criminals who deserve to be hunted down.
. Maobadis are pursuing the path of armed insurrection to overthrow the state.
. Maobadis do not respect human rights yet their protectors in the Left-liberal intelligentsia wax eloquent on the need to protect the human rights of Maobadis!
After such knowledge, what forgiveness?

The argument about fighting Maobadis with development is fallacious. Maobadis are the biggest impediment to development projects. They have been blowing up schools, hostels, health centres, roads and panchayat buildings, thus destroying crucial infrastructure for taking development to the rural hinterland inhabited by tribals. They are anti-development, yet claim they are fighting for tribal welfare! The photograph reproduced below is of a school building blown up by Maobadis in a remote area of Jharkhand -- it was the only school in the area.

[My comments on Barkha Dutt's NDTV programme Buck Stops Here on February 16 on intellectuals romanticising Maobadi violence can be watched here http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1201939 ]
[My comments on Vikram Chandra's NDTV programme, Big Fight, on February 20 can be watched here http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1203542 ]
[My comments on Barkha Dutt's NDTV programme We the People on February 21 on Maobadi violence can be watched here http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1203629 ]

The Left-liberal intelligentsia’s demand that Government should talk to the Maobadis is absurd. What will the Government negotiate? The takeover of the Indian state by Maobadis? To allow them full control over vast swaths of Indian territory?
The Government’s response must be harsh, relentless and unforgiving: Two eyes for an eye; a jaw for a tooth. Terror must be met with overwhelming force. Jolawallahs should be asked to go take a walk, or join Khobad Gandi in his prison cell.
Unless the Maobadi menace is put down mercilessly now, we will end up with a situation similar to the one that prevailed in Sri Lanka till the LTTE was exterminated. Surely we don’t need a civil war to establish the primacy of the Constitution of India, do we?
What do you think?

News Updates

Two get bail
Jamshedpur, Feb 20 (PTI) Two of the 14 people whose release was demanded by the CPI (Maoist) as a condition for the release of abducted BDO of Dalbhumgarh Prashant Layek were today granted bail by a court in Ghatsila here. Additional District Judge M M Singh granted bail to Jasmi Mardi and her father Bahadur Mardi after hearing the case, which was re-investigated recently following the directives from Home department of Jharkhand. Mardi's lawyer M Haque said the two were released on a bond of Rs 10,000 each and will be released from Ghatsila sub-divisional jail later in the day.
Referring to Mardi's case, Haque claimed they alongwith other accused were falsely implicated in the case by Jasmi's husband Ramrai Hembram, a police constable, following the murder of Hembram's brother Dukhia Hembram last year.
Layek, who was kidnapped by Maoists from his office in Dalbhumgarh on Saturday last, was released yesterday at Hadian village under Ghatsila sub-division.
Picture below shows the kidnapped BDO Prashant Lakak with a Maobadi at Ghatshila:

Rs 25 lakh demanded for safety of BSNL towers
Rourkela (Orissa), Feb 20 (PTI) In a letter, written by the Maoists, the rebels have threatened to blow up BSNL's mobile towers at Maoist affected Biramitrapur in Sundargarh district, if the authorities did not pay Rs 25 lakh. B K Jog, general manager, BSNL Rourkela, today said an open envelop containing the letter was found from the commercial section of the office.
The letter written in Oriya with red ink was not addressed to any officer of the department. After receiving the letter, the GM said he has requested the superintendent of police to investigate. The police said an investigation has been ordered to verify the authenticity of the letter.

Islamic human bombs

This is the photograph of a Taliban commander Abdullah alias Abu Waqas, who was presented before the media in Karachi, Pakistan, on Wednesday, February 17, 2010. According to the police, Abdullah was involved in recruiting female suicide bombers and training them.

Islam, many clerics have claimed, prohibits terrorism and definitely disallows the horrific practice of jihadis strapping themselves with explosives and pulling the trigger in a crowded place, killing themselves as well as innocent men, women and children.

But there are other clerics like the notorious Yusuf al-Qaradawi who proudly proclaim that while Christians, Jews and Hindus have nuclear bombs, Muslims have 'human bombs'.

(See my earlier blog on Islam's stockpile of human bombs.)

What is alarming is that jihadis are believed to be recruiting women who volunteer to become 'breast bombers' -- explosive planted in their breasts that do not show up in security scanners.

Recently, a 13-year-old Pakistani girl called Meena told the BBC her shocking story (Bombs and beatings: Life among the Taliban) of how her own family tried to turn her into a human bomb.

Truth is often horrifyingly tragic, more so when it is the truth about Islamism and jihad.

On February 26, suicide-bombers struck guesthouses in Kabul popular with Indians on assignment to Afghanistan. Here's the AP report:

Suicide bombers strike in heart of Kabul; 16 dead
By AMIR SHAH and RAHIM FAIEZ (AP) – Feb 26, 2010
KABUL — Insurgents struck in the heart of the Afghan capital Friday with suicide attackers and a car bomb, targeting hotels used by foreigners and killing at least 16 people and wounding dozens, police said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks, which Afghan President Hamid Karzai said were aimed at Indians working in Kabul.
The Taliban has long opposed India's involvement in the country and its ties to the Northern Alliance that helped the U.S. oust the Taliban regime in 2001 and formed the backbone of Karzai's government.
Six Indians were killed in the attacks, a spokesman for the country's foreign ministry said, revising the number from the ministry's original estimate of up to nine Indians dead. An Italian diplomat and a French filmmaker were also among the dead. Three Afghan police were killed, and six more officers were among the 36 people wounded, Afghan government officials said.
The four-hour assault began about 6:30 a.m. with a car bombing that leveled a residential hotel used by Indian doctors. A series of explosions and gunbattles left blood and debris in the rain-slicked streets and underscored the militants' ability to strike in the heavily defended capital even as NATO marshals its forces against them in the volatile south.

And here's a report from The Daily Telegraph of London, in which jihadis reiterate their claim about a huge arsenal of 'human bombs':

Taliban 'ready to unleash 3,000 suicide bombers in Pakistan'
The Taliban has claimed it is ready to unleash 3,000 suicide bombers in Pakistan in protest at military operations and American drone attacks in its tribal areas.
Dean Nelson in New Delhi
The Daily Telegrapg 09 Mar 2010
In the last few weeks the Taliban's overall military commander for Afghanistan, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who is Mullah Omar's deputy, was captured in a joint intelligence raid in Karachi by Pakistani and American agents.
Several members of the 'Quetta Shura', the movement's ruling council were later captured in the city, while the group's Pakistani leader Hakimullah Mehsud was believed to have been killed in a missile strike by an unmanned Predator drone. Earlier this week, Mullah Omar's son-in-law, a former minister in the last Taliban government was also arrested.
The threat was issued after one of its leaders claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb which killed 13 people outside an interrogation centre in Lahore where militant suspects are questioned.
Eight officials from the Federal Investigation Agency were those killed when the bomber detonated a Toyota Carolla packed with 1300 pounds of explosives between the office and a local religious school.
It was the third time the centre had been targeted and marked a return to its suicide bombing campaign after a number of serious setbacks for the Taliban leadership.
The bombing in Lahore served notice that the movement retains the ability to strike throughout Pakistan, while Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the Taliban, served notice that it had the capacity to intensify its campaign.
"We have around 3,000 more suicide bombers. We'll target all government places, buildings and offices," he said in a call to a news agency.
More than 3,000 people were killed in terrorist attacks in Pakistan last year as suicide bombers and 'fedayeen' commandos struck in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Peshawar. The figure marked a 48 per cent increase on 2008, reflecting a furious Taliban reaction to Pakistan Army operations against Taliban militants in South Waziristan and Bajaur Agencies.
Analysts believe the success of the army offensive in South Waziristan and their recent successes in arresting senior Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders has damaged the militants' ability to strike as regularly as they did last year.

I came across an interesting news story on Thursday (February 18) which I am posting below:

Wife of UK airliner bomb plotter gives testimony

LONDON (AP) -- The wife of a man convicted of plotting to bomb trans-Atlantic flights has testified in a British court that she was horrified to learn of his plans – but insisted she had no advance knowledge.
Cossor Ali told a London trial she was disgusted to be later shown a suicide video he had recorded in preparation for the attacks. The 28-year-old Ali is accused of failing to disclose information about her husband's terrorism plans, an offense which carries a punishment of up to five years in jail.
Abdulla Ahmed Ali – the plot's ringleader – was previously convicted and jailed for a minimum of 40 years, one of the longest sentences ever handed out by a UK court. He hoped to down at least seven passenger jets, and kill thousands, using liquid explosives. His wife denies withholding information.

To forget would be to forgive

Nandimarg massacre of Pandits: Even toddlers were not spared by Islamists.

Twenty years ago this past week, Hindus were forced to flee Kashmir Valley, their ancestral land, by Islamic fanatics baying for their blood. Not a finger was raised by the state in admonition nor did ‘civil society’ feel outraged. In these 20 years, India has forgotten that outrage, a grotesque assault on our idea of nationhood. So much so, nobody even talks of the Kashmiri Pandits, driven out of their home and hearth, virtually stripped of their identity and reduced to living as refugees in their own country, any more.

Our ‘secular’ media, obsessed as it is with pandering to the baser instincts of Muslim separatists, waxing eloquent about the many sorrows of India’s least of all minorities, arguing the case for rabid mullahs and demanding ‘greater autonomy’ for Jammu & Kashmir so that the Tricolour doesn’t fly there any more, has not thought it fit to take note of the 20th anniversary of the new age Exodus. Our politicians, who salivate for Muslim votes and are willing to go to any extent to appease ‘minority sentiments’ — including approving the automatic though absurd inclusion of Muslims in the list of BPL beneficiaries of the Indian state’s munificence in keeping with the Prime Minister’s ‘Muslims first’ policy — would rather pretend this particular event never happened. Our judiciary, which endlessly agonises over terrorists and their molls being killed in Gujarat, has not thought it fit to set up a Special Investigation Team to identify the guilty men of 1990 and bring them to justice. It would seem Hindu pride, Hindu dignity and Hindu lives are irrelevant in this wondrous land of ours.

Tragically, Hindus have no sense of history: Those who have come of age in these 20 years, we can be sure, are ignorant of how the Kashmir Valley was cleansed of its Hindu population through a modern day genocide. To forget, it is often said, is to forgive. But should we forgive those who committed this monstrous act of criminal misdeed? Should we forget that the Government of India has disowned the Hindus of Kashmir Valley? Should we rationalise the remorseless attitude of the Government of Jammu & Kashmir towards the plight of Kashmiri Pandits?

***

Srinagar, January 4, 1990. Aftab, a local Urdu newspaper, publishes a Press release issued by Hizb-ul Mujahideen, set up by the Jamaat-e-Islami in 1989 to wage jihad for Jammu & Kashmir’s secession from India and accession to Pakistan, asking all Hindus to pack up and leave. Another local paper, Al Safa, repeats this expulsion order.

In the following days, there is near chaos in the Kashmir Valley with Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and his National Conference Government abdicating all responsibilities. Masked men run amok, waving Kalashnikovs, shooting to kill and shouting anti-India slogans.

Reports of killing of Kashmiri Pandits begin to trickle in; there are explosions; inflammatory speeches are made from the pulpits of mosques, using public address systems meant for calling the faithful to prayers. A terrifying fear psychosis begins to take grip of Kashmiri Pandits.

Walls are plastered with posters and handbills, summarily ordering all Kashmiris to strictly follow the Islamic dress code, prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcoholic drinks and imposing a ban on video parlours and cinemas. The masked men with Kalashnikovs force people to re-set their watches and clocks to Pakistan Standard Time.

Shops, business establishments and homes of Kashmiri Pandits, the original inhabitants of the Kashmir Valley with a recorded cultural and civilisational history dating back 5,000 years, are marked out. Notices are pasted on doors of Pandit houses, peremptorily asking the occupants to leave Kashmir within 24 hours or face death and worse. Some are more lucid: “Be one with us, run, or die!”

* * *

Srinagar, January 19, 1990. Mr Jagmohan arrives to take charge as Governor. Mr Farooq Abdullah, whose Government has all but ceased to exist, resigns and goes into a sulk. Curfew is imposed as a first measure to restore some semblance of law and order. But it fails to have a deterrent effect.

Throughout the day, Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front and Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists use public address systems at mosques to exhort people to defy curfew and take to the streets. Masked men, firing from their Kalashnikovs, march up and down, terrorising cowering Pandits who, by then, have locked themselves in their homes.

As evening falls, the exhortations become louder and shriller. Three taped slogans are repeatedly played the whole night from mosques: ‘Kashmir mei agar rehna hai, Allah-o-Akbar kehna hai’ (If you want to stay in Kashmir, you have to say Allah-o-Akbar); ‘Yahan kya chalega, Nizam-e-Mustafa’ (What do we want here? Rule of Sharia’h); ‘Asi gachchi Pakistan, Batao roas te Batanev san’ (We want Pakistan along with Hindu women but without their men).

The Pandits have reason to be fearful. In the preceding months, 300 Hindu men and women, nearly all of them Kashmiri Pandits, had been slaughtered ever since the brutal murder of noted lawyer Pandit Tika Lal Taploo by the JKLF in Srinagar on September 14, 1989. Soon after that, Justice NK Ganju of the Srinagar High Court was shot dead. Pandit Sarwanand Premi, 80-year-old poet, and his son were kidnapped, tortured, their eyes gouged out, and hanged to death. A Kashmiri Pandit nurse working at the Soura Medical College Hospital in Srinagar was gang-raped and then beaten to death. Another woman was abducted, raped and sliced into pieces at a saw mill.

In villages and towns across the valley, terrorist hit lists have been floating about. All the names are of Pandits. With no Government worth its name, the administration having collapsed, the police nowhere to be seen, despondency sets in. As the night of January 19, 1990, wears itself out, despondency gives way to desperation.

And tens of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits across the valley take a painful decision: To flee their homeland to save their lives. Thus takes place a 20th century Exodus.

* * *

After the Holocaust, Jews reflected on their persecution and resolved, ‘Never again.’ Yad Vashem is not only a moving memorial to the atrocities committed against Jews, it is also an archive that documents specific details, including names, addresses and photographs, so that future generations neither forget nor forgive their tormentors. Twenty years after the persecution of Hindus began in Kashmir Valley, we don’t even know how many men, women and children were stripped of their rights; how many were raped, slaughtered and maimed; their names; and, what happened to those who survived. Barring those living in refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi, in the hope that some day they will be able to return to Kashmir Valley with their dignity and safety assured. Deep within they know, and the rest of us know, that is never going to happen.

And thereby hangs a tragic tale of callous Hindu indifference.

[This appeared as my Sunday column Coffee Break in The Pioneer on 24/01/10]

Has Musharraf fled Pakistan?

Comment / Kanchan Gupta / May 7, 2009.

When Gen Pervez Musharraf resigned from his post as President of Pakistan on August 18, 2008, there was speculation that he would seek asylum in a Western country, most possibly the US. Another version had it that the Saudi monarch had arranged for him to shift to a palatial building in either Jeddah or Riyadh. Yet another story said that the Sheikh of Dubai had made arrangements to ‘receive’ him. But nothing like that happened. Gen Musharraf, a cigar-smoking, fun-loving man stayed put in Army House, Rawalpindi, making occasional appearances in public to hold forth, in his pompous style, on internal and external issues. He visited India for the India Today conclave and quite frankly made a fool of himself by talking utter rubbish.
On April 19 this year, when Pakistan began showing signs of crumbling before the Taliban’s onslaught, Gen Musharraf left for a ‘private visit’ to Saudi Arabia. From there he left for a ‘lecture tour’ of Europe, and hasn’t been heard of since then.
It would appear that Gen Musharraf was worried about the Taliban getting him. Which is ironical, considering that he contributed in no small measure to the growth of the Taliban in Pakistan and collaborated with the Taliban in Afghanistan to try and topple the Karzai regime. A recent story in the Pakistani newspaper, Dawn, elaborates on this point.
On Thursday, May 7, PTI put out an interesting report datelined Islamabad. It is reproduced here:

Musharraf unlikely to return to Pak in the near future

PTI/Islamabad
As Pakistan is gripped by a volatile situation following a crackdown on Taliban, question marks hang over whether former President Pervez Musharraf, on a trip to Europe, will return back home or not.
Musharraf is not expected to return to Pakistan from a foreign lecture tour in the near future, said his close aide Maj Gen (retired) Rashid Qureshi.
Qureshi, a former spokesman of Musharraf, confirmed that the former President would stay abroad for a longer period of time but had no information on when he would return home. "I have no idea how long the former President will stay abroad. Though I am still in touch with him, (I) have no exact idea on this count," Qureshi told The News daily. Musharraf, who survived two assassination attempts, is believed to be on the hit list of several militant groups. There has been considerable speculation in political circles about him leaving Pakistan for an unspecified period of time.
Sheharyar, another aide of the former military ruler, said Musharraf is currently in London and would be travelling to the US from there. Musharraf would then travel back to Europe, he said. On Tuesday, a three-member judicial review board of the Lahore High Court had ordered the release of two JuD leaders – Amir Hamza and Mufti Abdur Rehman – and extended the detention of Saeed and Ahmed by 60 days.
In the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks, the UN Security Council had declared JuD a front for a terror outfit.
JuD leaders were placed under house arrest on December 12 last year under the Maintenance of Public Order ordinance, which allows a person to be held for up to 90 days. The review board has subsequently extended Saeed's detention twice.

No blank cheque for Pakistan; US Congress adds strings to trebled American aid

Comment / Analysis / May 5, 2009

So, for all the bluff and bluster of his Administration, US President Barack Hussein Obama, who wants to treble American military and civilian aid to Pakistan as a ‘reward’ for Washington’s ‘frontline ally’ in the war on terror, has not been able to have his way. He wanted to write out a $ 1.5 billion cheque without any strings attached; lawmakers on the Hill said nothing doing. His Administration argued that tying down American aid to Pakistan delivering on its many (all unkept) promises of taking on the Taliban and Al Qaeda would rob the President of “flexibility”! What they meant was Mr Obama would not be able to hand out money for nothing. Well, he can’t. And there’s no dole waiting for Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has he reaches Washington, DC, for what is bound to be no more than yet another photo-op.

A PTI report provides interesting details of the conditionalities being attached to the new aid package:

Lalit K Jha
Washington

The Kerry-Lugar Bill, which triples the United States' civilian aid to Pakistan to $ 1.5 billion per annum for next five years, does not offer a blank check to Islamabad, as was being sought by the establishment in the nuclear-armed country.
The Bill, introduced in the US Senate on Monday, May 4, subjects US security assistance to a "certification" that the Pakistani government is using the money to combat the Taliban and Al Qaeda. An identical Bill has already been introduced in the House of Representatives.
"While our Bill envisions sustained economic and political cooperation with Pakistan, it is not a blank check. It expects that the military institutions in Pakistan will turn their attention to the extremist dangers within Pakistan's borders," Republican Senator Richard Lugar said on the Senate Floor while introducing the Bill.
A Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Lugar said the Bill calls for tangible progress in governance, including an independent judiciary, greater accountability by the Federal Government, respect for human rights, and civilian control of the levers of power, including the military and the intelligence agencies.
Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Senator John Kerry is other co-sponsor of the bill, which has the backing of the Obama Administration.
"Once money begins to flow, the Administration must report every six months on how the money is spent and what impact it is having," Lugar said. "In addition, the Bill provides that before the Administration spends more than half of the $ 1.5 billion authorised in any fiscal year, it must certify that the assistance provided to that date is making substantial progress toward the principal objectives contained in the Administration's strategy report," he said.
"We also have asked the Government Accountability Office to review annually the Administration's progress on stated goals. To ensure that sufficient resources will be available to oversee our programmes in Pakistan, we authorise $ 20 million each year for audits and programe reviews by the Inspectors-General of the State Department, USAID, and other relevant agencies," the Senator said.
Under Kerry-Lugar, economic assistance is no longer the poor cousin to military aid. Rather than locking in a level of such aid which might not be in line with rapidly- changing Pakistani capabilities and commitment, the bill leaves the level of security aid to be determined on a year-by-year basis.
It conditions military assistance on certification that the Pakistani security forces are making concerted efforts to prevent Al Qaeda and associated terrorist groups from operating in the territory of Pakistan, making concerted efforts to prevent the Taliban from using the territory of Pakistan as a sanctuary from which to launch attacks within Afghanistan; and are not materially interfering in the political or judicial processes of Pakistan.

Left with no option, on Tuesday the White House said US President Barack Hussein Obama supports the lawmakers' calls for accountability measures for the American aid to Pakistan. "The President supports the building in of accountability measures to ensure that we're making progress, and that if progress isn't made, then we'll readjust our strategy," the White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at his daily Press briefing yesterday.
"He said that in ordering and conducting the review of our strategy in this region, and in the delivery of that review just a little while ago," he said, referring to the statements made by Obama that "there shouldn't and there wouldn't be blank cheques".
Obama would be meeting Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, at the White House on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, according to the US Chairman of Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, the US has invested about $ 100 million in helping Pakistan secure its nuclear weapons!

The US Administration is either frightfully naïve or utterly stupid!

US glosses over Pakistani terror

Obama's blue-eyed Zardari can do no wrong!

Kanchan Gupta

The US State Department’s annual Country Reports on Terrorism 2008, which was released last Thursday, serves as both a compendium of terrorist activities around the world as well as an indicator of the prevalent thinking in Washington’s foreign policy establishment. While those in India who constantly look up to the US for succour, support and sympathy as a substitute to fighting terrorism on our terms and in a meaningful manner will no doubt seize upon this year’s Country Reports to proclaim how America has accepted that “in 2008, India ranked among the world’s most terrorism-afflicted countries” — as if we needed the Americans to tell us this simple fact, a truth that would have been controverted had the State Department not made a passing mention of it — a full reading of the document will reveal that we need not be distracted by such hoopla to which the English-speaking middle classes are given.

President Barack Hussein Obama’s Administration may have found it pertinent to record India’s “pivotal moment that is now called ‘26/11’ (our very own scaled down version of ‘9/11’)”, but it has shown no inclination towards placing on record how last November’s multiple fidayeen attacks on high profile targets in Mumbai conclusively exposed Pakistan’s role in promoting cross-border terrorism. This is what the Country Reports has to say on India’s ‘pivotal moment’: “Terrorists struck at a variety of locations in Mumbai on November 26, killing at least 183 people, including 22 foreigners, six of whom were Americans and 14 members of the police and security forces. Over 300 more were injured. The attacks in Mumbai targeted places frequented by foreigners and wealthy Indians. The attackers entered Mumbai from the sea and attacked people in two hotels, a Jewish centre, the main train station, and additional locations ... The terrorists appeared to have been well-trained and took advantage of technology, such as Global Positioning System trackers.”

There’s no mention of where the attackers came from, no assertion of Pakistani complicity, not even the most casual reference to the manner in which the Pakistani Government mocked at overwhelming evidence about the nationality of the fidayeen, their ‘handlers’ and those who trained them in guerrilla warfare. Ten men held an entire city to ransom for 62 hours, killed 183 people and fiercely fought back crack commando units. Yet, the Obama Administration is of the view that Mohammad Ajmal Mohammad Amir Kasab and his fellow marauders “appeared to have been well-trained”. The implicit doubt is not without purpose.

Way down in the chapter titled ‘South and Central Asia Overview’, the Country Reports says, “Despite an increased number of infiltrations across the Line of Control, Pakistan-India relations were improving, with trade opened for the first time in over 60 years, until they were significantly set back by the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November. These attacks were attributed to the (Pakistan-based) Kashmir terrorist group Laskhar-e-Tayyeba, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organisation, and to its fundraising subsidiary, the Jamaat ud-Dawah, which the Government of Pakistan banned after the UN Security Council listed the group and certain named individuals in the 1267 Sanctions Committee.” So, Pakistan gets a pat for taking prompt action against Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, a “Kashmir terrorist group” to which the Mumbai attack has been merely “attributed”.

The report then points out how despite “allegations of involvement by the LeT and JuD in the Mumbai attacks”, Pakistani “officials (have) pledged to prosecute all individuals in Pakistan found to be involved in the Mumbai attacks and offered to share intelligence regarding the attacks with the Government of India”. No less a person than President Asif Ali Zardari has said “non-state actors (terrorists) were operating on Pakistani soil and noted his own wife (Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto assassinated on December 27, 2007) had been a victim of terrorism”. What, then, is India complaining about? In a suggestive apportioning of blame, the Country Reports adds: “The composite dialogue between Pakistan and India was frozen by the Indian Government in December ... contributing to heightened tension between the two Governments.” Never mind the terrible waste of innocent lives, New Delhi should have continued with devising ‘confidence-building measures’ to bolster the dissolute Zardari regime in Islamabad.

Pakistan after all, as the Country Reports makes out, is a ‘victim’ and not the perpetrator of terrorism, or, as Mr Gordon Brown, the trans-Atlantic ally of Mr Obama, has recently described it, the “crucible for global terrorism” and the “breeding ground for international terrorists”. To drive home this point, the chapter titled ‘South and Central Asia Overview’ begins with a quote of, hold your breath, Mr Zardari: “We are fighting the menace and we will continue to fight... This is the fight for the peace of the world...” Hopefully next year’s Country Reports will record the fact that among the means adopted by Mr Zardari to “fight for the peace of the world” was to meekly capitulate to the Taliban. For the moment, the Obama Administration is gratified that “Pakistani security services (have) cooperated with the United States and other nations to fight terrorism within Pakistan and abroad. Hundreds of suspected Al Qaeda operatives have been killed or captured by Pakistani authorities since September 2001. Pakistan (has) continued to pursue Al Qaeda and its allies through nationwide police action and military operations in the FATA and elsewhere.” The most expensive lobbying firm in Washington, DC, could not have done a better job of whitewashing Pakistan’s sins of omission and commission.

Ironically, the publication of this year’s Country Reports with its cockamamie tale of Pakistani valour in the face of jihadi aggression coincided with a revealing Fox News report. America’s top military commander David Petraeus, according to this report, has told lawmakers on Capitol Hill, currently debating billions of dollars in fresh American aid to Pakistan, that he is “looking for concrete action by the Pakistani Government to destroy the Taliban in the next two weeks before Washington determines the next course of action ... The Pakistanis have run out of excuses”. In what appears to be a reference to the alleged ‘crackdown’ on the Taliban in Buner, Gen Petraeus, who heads the US’s Central Command, is believed to have commented wearily that “we’ve heard it all before from the Pakistanis”.

Given the tone and tenor, not to mention the contents of this year’s Country Reports, it could well be said, “We’ve heard it all before from the Americans.”


[You can read the full Country Reports on Terrorism 2008 here.]


[My friend Prof Barry Rubin, who is director of the Gloria Center in Jerusalem, among the foremost commentators on West Asian affairs and author of several books, including a biography of Yasser Arafat, has analysed the Country Reports section on Israel related issues. His analysis provides a unique perspective.]

UPDATE

Obviously embarrassed by the Fox News story, the US State Department put out a statement through its acting spokesperson who said, "[There has been] a positive last couple of days in terms of Pakistan taking action against these militants. [B]ut we’re under no illusions. It’s going to take more than two days' worth of actions. It’s going to take consistent, determined, and forceful action. And Pakistan seems committed to that, and we’re willing to be as helpful as we can in terms of dealing with the militants."

The truth behind Kandahar

Was it really an ‘abject surrender’ by the NDA Government?

There have been innumerable communal riots in India, nearly all of them in States ruled by the Congress at the time of the violence, yet everybody loves to pretend that blood was shed in the name of religion for the first time in Gujarat in 2002 and that the BJP Government headed by Mr Narendra Modi must bear the burden of the cross.

Similarly, nobody remembers the various incidents of Indian Airlines aircraft being hijacked when the Congress was in power at the Centre, the deals that were struck to rescue the hostages, and the compromises that were made at the expense of India’s dignity and honour. But everybody remembers the hijacking of IC 814 and nearly a decade after the incident, many people still hold the BJP-led NDA Government responsible for the ‘shameful’ denouement.

The Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to New Delhi, designated IC 814, with 178 passengers and 11 crew members on board, was hijacked on Christmas Eve, 1999, a short while after it took-off from Tribhuvan International Airport; by then, the aircraft had entered Indian airspace. Nine years later to the day, with an entire generation coming of age, it would be in order to recall some facts and place others on record.

In 1999 I was serving as an aide to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the PMO, and I still have vivid memories of the tumultuous week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Mr Vajpayee had gone out of Delhi on an official tour; I had accompanied him along with other officials of the PMO. The hijacking of IC 814 occurred while we were returning to Delhi in one of the two Indian Air Force Boeings which, in those days, were used by the Prime Minister for travel within the country.

Curiously, the initial information about IC 814 being hijacked, of which the IAF was believed to have been aware, was not communicated to the pilot of the Prime Minister’s aircraft. As a result, Mr Vajpayee and his aides remained unaware of the hijacking till reaching Delhi. This caused some amount of controversy later.

It was not possible for anybody else to have contacted us while we were in midair. It’s strange but true that the Prime Minister of India would be incommunicado while on a flight because neither the ageing IAF Boeings nor the Air India Jumbos, used for official travel abroad (in those days), had satellite phone facilities.

By the time our aircraft landed in Delhi, it was around 7:00 pm, a full hour and 40 minutes since the hijacking of IC 814. After disembarking from the aircraft in the VIP bay of Palam Technical Area, we were surprised to find National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra waiting at the foot of the ladder. He led Mr Vajpayee aside and gave him the news. They got into the Prime Minister’s car and it sped out of the Technical Area. Some of us followed Mr. Vajpayee to Race Course Road, as was the normal routine.

On our way to the Prime Minister’s residence, colleagues in the PMO provided us with the basic details. The Kathmandu-Delhi flight had been commandeered by five hijackers (later identified as Ibrahim Athar, resident of Bahawalpur, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Gulshan Iqbal, resident of Karachi, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, resident of Defence Area, Karachi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, resident of Akhtar Colony, Karachi, and Shakir, resident of Sukkur City) at 5:20 pm; there were 189 passengers and crew members on board; and that the aircraft was heading towards Lahore.

At the Prime Minister’s residence, senior Ministers and Secretaries had already been summoned for an emergency meeting. Mr Mishra left for the crisis control room that had been set up at Rajiv Bhavan. In between meetings, Mr Vajpayee instructed his personal staff to cancel all celebrations planned for December 25, his birthday. The Cabinet Committee on Security met late into the night as our long vigil began.

Meanwhile, we were informed that the pilot of IC 814 had been denied permission to land at Lahore airport. With fuel running low, he was heading for Amritsar. Officials at Raja Sansi Airport were immediately alerted and told to prevent the plane from taking off after it had landed there.

The hijacked plane landed at Amritsar and remained parked on the tarmac for nearly 45 minutes. The hijackers demanded that the aircraft be refuelled. The airport officials ran around like so many headless chickens, totally clueless about what was to be done in a crisis situation.

Desperate calls were made to the officials at Raja Sansi Airport to somehow stall the refuelling and prevent the plane from taking off. The officials just failed to respond with alacrity. At one point, an exasperated Jaswant Singh, if memory serves me right, grabbed the phone and pleaded with an official, “Just drive a heavy vehicle, a fuel truck or a road roller or whatever you have, onto the runway and park it there.” But all this was to no avail.

The National Security Guards, whose job it is to deal with hostage situations, were alerted immediately after news first came in of IC 814 being hijacked; they were reportedly asked to stand by for any emergency. The Home Ministry was again alerted when it became obvious that after being denied permission to land at Lahore, the pilot was heading towards Amritsar.

Yet, despite IC 814 remaining parked at Amritsar for three-quarters of an hour, the NSG commandos failed to reach the aircraft. There are two versions as to why the NSG didn’t show up: First, they were waiting for an aircraft to ferry them from Delhi to Amritsar; second, they were caught in a traffic jam between Manesar and Delhi airport. The real story was never known!

The hijackers, anticipating commando action, first stabbed a passenger, Rupin Katyal (he had gone to Kathmandu with his newly wedded wife for their honeymoon; had they not extended their stay by a couple of days, they wouldn’t have been on the ill-fated flight) to show that they meant business, and then forced the pilot to take off from Amritsar. With almost empty fuel tanks, the pilot had no other option but to make another attempt to land at Lahore airport. Once again he was denied permission and all the lights, including those on the runway, were switched off. He nonetheless went ahead and landed at Lahore airport, showing remarkable skill and courage.

Mr Jaswant Singh spoke to the Pakistani Foreign Minister and pleaded with him to prevent the aircraft from taking off again. But the Pakistanis would have nothing of it (they wanted to distance themselves from the hijacking so that they could claim later that there was no Pakistan connection) and wanted IC 814 off their soil and out of their airspace as soon as possible. So, they refuelled the aircraft after which the hijackers forced the pilot to head for Dubai.

At Dubai, too, officials were reluctant to allow the aircraft to land. It required all the persuasive skills of Mr Jaswant Singh and our then Ambassador to UAE, Mr KC Singh, to secure landing permission. There was some negotiation with the hijackers through UAE officials and they allowed 13 women and 11 children to disembark. Rupin Katyal had by then bled to death. His body was offloaded. His widow remained a hostage till the end.

On the morning of December 25, the aircraft left Dubai and headed towards Afghanistan. It landed at Kandahar Airport, which had one serviceable runway, a sort of ATC and a couple of shanties. The rest of the airport was in a shambles, without power and water supply, a trophy commemorating the Taliban’s rule.

On Christmas Eve, after news of the hijacking broke, there was stunned all-round silence. But by noon on December 25, orchestrated protests outside the Prime Minister’s residence began, with women beating their chests and tearing their clothes. The crowd swelled by the hour as the day progressed.

Ms Brinda Karat came to commiserate with the relatives of the hostages who were camping outside the main gate of 7, Race Course Road. In fact, she became a regular visitor over the next few days. There was a steady clamour that the Government should pay any price to bring the hostages back home, safe and sound. This continued till December 30.

One evening, the Prime Minister asked his staff to let the families come in so that they could be told about the Government’s efforts to secure the hostages’ release. By then negotiations had begun and Mullah Omar had got into the act through his ‘Foreign Minister’, Muttavakil. The hijackers wanted 36 terrorists, held in various Indian jails, to be freed or else they would blow up the aircraft with the hostages.

No senior Minister in the CCS was willing to meet the families. Mr Jaswant Singh volunteered to do so. He asked me to accompany him to the canopy under which the families had gathered. Once there, we were literally mobbed. He tried to explain the situation but was shouted down.

“We want our relatives back. What difference does it make to us what you have to give the hijackers?” a man shouted. “We don’t care if you have to give away Kashmir,” a woman screamed and others took up the refrain, chanting: “Kashmir de do, kuchh bhi de do, hamare logon ko ghar wapas lao.” Another woman sobbed, “Mera beta… hai mera beta…” and made a great show of fainting of grief.

To his credit, Mr Jaswant Singh made bold to suggest that the Government had to keep the nation’s interest in mind, that we could not be seen to be giving in to the hijackers, or words to that effect, in chaste Hindi. That fetched him abuse and rebuke. “Bhaand me jaaye desh aur bhaand me jaaye desh ka hit. (To hell with the country and national interest),” many in the crowd shouted back. Stumped by the response, Mr Jaswant Singh could merely promise that the Government would do everything possible.

I do not remember the exact date, but sometime during the crisis, Mr Jaswant Singh was asked to hold a Press conference to brief the media. While the briefing was on at the Press Information Bureau hall in Shastri Bhavan, some families of the hostages barged in and started shouting slogans. They were led by one Sanjiv Chibber, who, I was later told, was a ‘noted surgeon’: He claimed six of his relatives were among the hostages.

Dr Chibber wanted all 36 terrorists named by the hijackers to be released immediately. He reminded everybody in the hall that in the past terrorists had been released from prison to secure the freedom of Ms Rubayya Sayeed, daughter of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, while he was Home Minister in VP Singh’s Government. “Why can’t you release the terrorists now when our relatives are being held hostage?” he demanded. And then we heard the familiar refrain: “Give away Kashmir, give them anything they want, we don’t give a damn.”

On another evening, there was a surprise visitor at the PMO: The widow of Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja, whose plane was shot down during the Kargil war. She insisted that she should be taken to meet the relatives of the hostages. At Race Course Road, she spoke to mediapersons and the hostages’ relatives, explaining why India must not be seen giving in to the hijackers, that it was a question of national honour, and gave her own example of fortitude in the face of adversity.

“She has become a widow, now she wants others to become widows. Who is she to lecture us? Yeh kahan se aayi?” someone shouted from the crowd. Others heckled her. The young widow stood her ground, displaying great dignity and courage. As the mood turned increasingly ugly, she had to be led away. Similar appeals were made by others who had lost their sons, husbands and fathers in the Kargil war that summer. Col Virendra Thapar, whose son Lt Vijayant Thapar was martyred in the war, made a fervent appeal for people to stand united against the hijackers. It fell on deaf ears.

The media made out that the overwhelming majority of Indians were with the relatives of the hostages and shared their view that no price was too big to secure the hostages’ freedom. The Congress kept on slyly insisting, “We are with the Government and will support whatever it does for a resolution of the crisis and to ensure the safety of the hostages. But the Government must explain its failure.” Harkishen Singh Surjeet and other Opposition politicians issued similar ambiguous statements.

By December 28, the Government’s negotiators had struck a deal with the hijackers: They would free the hostages in exchange of three dreaded terrorists — Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Sheikh — facing various charges of terrorism.

The CCS met frequently, several times a day, and discussed the entire process threadbare. The Home Minister, the Defence Minister and the Foreign Minister, apart from the National Security Adviser and the Prime Minister, were present at every meeting. The deal was further fine-tuned, the Home Ministry completed the necessary paper work, and two Indian Airlines aircraft were placed on standby to ferry the terrorists to Kandahar and fetch the hostages.

On December 31, the two aircraft left Delhi airport early in the morning. Mr Jaswant Singh was on board one of them. Did his ministerial colleagues know that he would travel to Kandahar? More important, was the Prime Minister aware of it? The answer is both yes and no.

Mr Jaswant Singh had mentioned his decision to go to Kandahar to personally oversee the release of hostages and to ensure there was no last-minute problem. He was honour-bound to do so, he is believed to have said, since he had promised the relatives of the hostages that no harm would come their way. It is possible that nobody thought he was serious about his plan. It is equally possible that others turned on him when the ‘popular mood’ and the Congress turned against the Government for its ‘abject surrender’.

On New Year’s eve, the hostages were flown back to Delhi. By New Year’s day, the Government was under attack for giving in to the hijackers’ demand! Since then, this ‘shameful surrender’ is held against the NDA and Mr Jaswant Singh is painted as the villain of the piece.

Could the Kandahar episode have ended any other way? Were an Indian aircraft to be hijacked again, would we respond any differently? Not really. As a nation we do not have the guts to stand up to terrorism. We cannot take hits and suffer casualties. We start counting our dead even before a battle has been won or lost. We make a great show of honouring those who die on the battlefield and lionise brave hearts of history, but we do not want our children to follow in their footsteps.

We are, if truth be told, a nation of cowards who don’t have the courage to admit their weakness but are happy to blame a well-meaning politician who, perhaps, takes his regimental motto of ‘Izzat aur Iqbal’ rather too seriously.

(This was originally published in The Pioneer on December 24, 2008.)