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Mumbai: Tip of the jihadi
iceberg
By B Raman
The series
of explosions since last December in Mumbai, culminating
in the twin blasts on Monday that killed more than 50
civilians, should be a matter of great concern to
India's policymakers and public opinion, for three
reasons.
First, there seems to be a
deterioration in the preventive and investigative
capability of the country's security agencies in matters
relating to terrorism outside of Jammu & Kashmir
(J&K).
Second, despite the reports of task
forces on the revamping of the intelligence apparatus
and internal security management set up by the
government in 2000, and those of the three National
Security Advisory Boards, there seems to be no
significant improvement in India's counter-terrorism
capability.
Third, despite periodic claims by
government spokesmen about the successes of the security
agencies in detecting and neutralizing dozens of jihadi
terrorist and Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI) modules, dozens more of them continue to operate
undetected and with their motivation and capability for
action undiminished.
Effective counter-terrorism
depends on the ability to collect preventive
intelligence and on physical security to deny success to
the terrorists. And even if intelligence fails, a
thorough investigation of the acts of terrorism
committed is needed in order to identify those
responsible, their supporters and their networks to take
action against them.
Penetration of terrorist
organizations for the collection of preventive human
intelligence (HUMINT) about their plans is very
difficult. No intelligence agency in the world has done
so effectively - not even in Israel, despite some
occasional successes. A HUMINT gap is, therefore,
inevitable. This has to be made good by effective
technical intelligence (TECHINT) coverage and competent
investigation of the acts of terrorism committed.
Evidence collected during the investigation through the
interrogation of captured suspects and following up the
clues provided by them could result in a fund of
actionable intelligence.
The successes scored so
far by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and
Central Intelligence Agency in arresting or killing some
of the senior leaders of al-Qaeda would not have been
possible but for the excellent TECHINT coverage provided
by the National Security Agency and clues collected
during the interrogation of those arrested.
One
has the impression that the Mumbai Police have not had
the benefit of similar TECHINT backup, either from the
Intelligence Bureau (IB), which is responsible for
internal security, including counter-terrorism, or the
Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW), which deals
with the external ramifications of jihadi terrorism.
Excellent TECHINT support provided by the IB and
the R&AW was one of the factors that facilitated the
success of India's counter-terrorism operations in
Punjab. One has not seen evidence of similar support in
Mumbai. It is not clear what this is due to. Temporary
weakening of TECHINT capability due to the reported
decision to set up a new TECHINT agency, which is still
in the process of finding its feet? The non-use of
modern means of communications, such as telephones, the
Internet etc by the terrorists in India's territory for
communicating with one another, or inhibitions arising
from two different political formations being in power
in New Delhi and Mumbai? One does not have ready
answers.
Even in the absence of adequate TECHINT
backup, Mumbai's police force should have been able to
get clues of a preventive nature during the
investigation of the previous blasts. The importance of
thorough investigation in identifying and neutralizing
perpetrators of terrorism was vividly demonstrated after
the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 1991, after the Mumbai blasts
of March 1993 by the Dawood Ibrahim gang and its
terrorist associates, and after the Coimbatore blasts of
February 1998 in Tamil Nadu by al-Ummah.
The
absence of similar results after the explosions in
Mumbai since December is an indicator of a possible
deterioration in the investigative capability of the
Mumbai Police since March 1993. The same police who did
so brilliantly in investigating the 1993 blasts seem to
have been groping in the dark since December 2002.
What is it due to? Political interference in the
functioning of the police force? Its hands being tied in
the investigation of acts of jihadi terrorism due to a
misplaced anxiety on the part of the ruling
establishment in Mumbai not to antagonize members of the
Muslim community by too vigorous an action against the
terrorists, many of whom have come from their ranks?
Lack of adequate coordination between the central and
state agencies due to their political masters being from
opposite sides of the political spectrum?
The
same political party was in power in New Delhi as well
as in Punjab and Maharashtra during the height of
India's counter-terrorism operations in those areas in
the early 1990s. This strengthened the hands of the
police and other security agencies in dealing with
terrorism and mafia gangs. How to ensure equally
effective coordination when different political
formations are in power and bring about a convergence of
approach in dealing with jihadi terrorism? Again, these
are questions difficult to answer satisfactorily, but
they are nonetheless valid and relevant.
Effective physical security is an important
component of counter-terrorism, especially when the
terrorists target guarded establishments and
personalities. Weak physical security has been
responsible for many of the successes of the jihadi
terrorists in J&K, such as their recent attack on an
army establishment at Akhnoor, during which they killed
a brigadier and others. But, when terrorists attack soft
unguarded targets through means such as the use of
explosives in public places, as they have been doing in
Mumbai, physical security, however effective, cannot
deny them success. Hence, better intelligence collection
and investigative capabilities are all the more
important.
It is not as if the Mumbai Police and
the central intelligence agencies helping them have not
made breakthroughs in the investigation of the earlier
blasts. They have. Arrests of suspects have been made
and clues obtained. But the fact that despite them,
terrorist strikes continue to take place shows that what
they have detected so far is only the tip of the jihadi
iceberg.
This jihadi iceberg has been forming
for years since the Babri masjid demolition of
December 1992 - not only in Mumbai, but also in Andhra
Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, New Delhi and other parts
of India. While India focused on jihadi terrorism in
J&K, it did not pay the same attention to this
iceberg threatening the rest of India.
Even
though India has been the worst victim of jihadi
terrorism in the world today, neither the political
leadership nor the molders of public opinion nor even
many of the professional experts have an adequate
understanding of the nature and magnitude of the problem
and of the international linkages of the jihadi
terrorists operating in India since 1993.
India's comparative successes of the past in
dealing with insurgency or terrorism in the northeast,
Punjab, Mumbai (in the 1990s), Tamil Nadu and Hyderabad
in Andhra Pradesh were due to the fact that while the
insurgents and terrorists were in receipt of financial,
training and arms assistance from Pakistan's ISI, there
was no involvement of Pakistani jihadis.
The
difficulties faced by India in J&K since 1993 are
due to the large-scale induction by the ISI of Pakistani
and other foreign jihadis belonging to the
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Lashkar-e-Toiba
(LET) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM). The HUM is a
founding member of Osama bin Laden's International
Islamic Front (IIF) since 1998 and the other three
joined it subsequently.
Since the India-Pakistan
Kargil conflict in 1999, these four Pakistani components
of the IIF, operating under the guise of Kashmiris, have
taken over the leadership of the terrorist
infrastructure in J&K and have been extending it
from there to the rest of India. These are pan-Islamic
organizations whose objectives are not restricted to
J&K. They look on J&K as the gateway of India
and believe in bin Laden's objective of the creation of
regional Islamic caliphates to bring the Muslim-majority
areas of Asia under a single ruling dispensation devoted
to the implementation of the Sharia.
Outside
J&K, their initial focus was on creating a jihadi
network in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh and Junagadh in
Gujrat because they felt that these areas should have
gone to Pakistan when India was partitioned in 1947.
From there, they have extended their networks, under the
instructions of the ISI, to Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and
Kerala because of their strategic significance in the
eyes of Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment.
In their perception, this strategic significance arises
from Mumbai being the economic and financial capital of
India and all the three states being the nerve centers
of India's nuclear and space establishments.
Of
the four Pakistani components of the IIF, only the LET
would seem to have succeeded in good measure so far in
extending its jihadi tentacles to Maharashtra, Andhra
Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. There is so far no evidence of
similar successes by the other three components outside
J&K and New Delhi.
While the LET and the
other pro-bin Laden Pakistani organizations now exercise
the leadership of the terrorist infrastructure in
J&K, the LET's networks in Maharashtra, Andhra
Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and possibly Kerala are still in the
process of formation and they have to rely largely on
local organizations such as the Students' Islamic
Movement of India in Maharashtra, al-Ummah and the
Muslim Defense Force of Tamil Nadu etc for their
sustenance and success. Their role has been more from
the background as mentors and motivators than as jihadi
foot-soldiers. This should explain the fact that while
Pakistanis constitute the largest number of terrorist
suspects killed or captured in J&K, this is not so
in the rest of India.
In India, there is not yet
adequate appreciation of the implications for the
country's internal security arising from the membership
of these organizations in bin Laden's IIF. The
implications are particularly ominous in respect of the
LET. It is the most well-motivated, well-funded and
well-organized jihadi organization in the Indian
subcontinent today, with its tentacles spreading as far
east as Indonesia, to the whole of the Persian Gulf and
even to the United States, as the recent arrests of an
LET cell there show.
Abu Zubaidah, reportedly
the then No 3 in al-Qaeda, who is now in US custody, was
arrested from the house of an LET office bearer in
Faislabad in Pakistani Punjab in March last year. The
Pakistani media had reported at that time that before
coming to Pakistan, he had taken a course in computer
technology in Pune in India. Was this information
developed further by the Indian intelligence agencies
with the help of their US counterparts? Were they able
to detect any network of sleeper-agents that he might
have set up in Pune and Mumbai during his stay in Pune?
Again, more questions without satisfactory answers.
The social profile of the breed of jihadi
terrorists who have been playing havoc in India and the
rest of the world disturbingly brings to mind that breed
of Marxist ideological terrorists of the 1970s and the
1980s, such as Carlos the Jackal (Ilich Ramirez Sanchez)
and his followers, the Baader-Meinhof of Germany, the
Red Army Faction of Germany and Japan, the Red Brigade
of Italy, the Action Directe of France etc.
It
would be unwise to dismiss them as marginals of their
society or as misled youth or as irrationals. Many of
them have affluent and educated backgrounds and are
capable of independent thinking and action. What we view
as irrational actions, they view as the only rational
response available to them to deal with the perceived
acts of injustices against their community. We cannot
tolerate their giving vent to their anger through
terrorism, but this is no excuse for closing our eyes
and ears to their anger. Even if we cannot reduce their
anger for the present, we should at least not aggravate
it by unwise words and actions.
The Marxist
ideological terrorist movements of the West collapsed
post-1991 for two reasons. First, the drying-up of the
flow of adherents due to the increasing economic
prosperity of their societies. Second, the collapse of
the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and other communist states
that were supporting and using them.
The flow of
adherents to the jihadi terrorists from Muslim
communities in different countries shows no signs of
abating. And the states that have been helping and using
them, such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria,
for achieving their own objectives have not suffered the
consequences of their actions. As long as this state of
affairs continues, there is going to be no respite for
the security agencies of the world from the ravages of
jihadi terrorism.
International cooperation is
important in our efforts to control them, but that alone
will not help us in the absence of an effective national
counter-terrorism capability. India has a capability
better than that of many other affected countries of the
world, but the fact that despite this India has not been
able to prevent the spread of their clandestine networks
and activities would show that there are serious
deficiencies in the country's capability and internal
security management.
Instead of continuing to
rationalize failures, India must honestly admit them and
try to improve its capability. This has to be done not
only at the professional level of the police and the
security agencies, but also at the political level.
Poor internal security management at the
political level has been India's Achilles' heel. After
September 11, 2001, the US Congress, at the joint
initiative of that country's two main political parties,
has devoted about one-fourth of its sittings, if not
more, to an examination of the counter-terrorism
capability of the United States and to reach bipartisan
consensus on how to strengthen it.
India has
been the worst victim of jihadi terrorism in the world
today, as stated above. How many hours have its
parliament and the legislative assemblies of the states
devoted to this task? Zilch.
Will it be fair
then to blame the police and the security agencies
alone? Every country gets the counter-terrorism
capability that its political leadership deserves.
B Raman is additional secretary
(retired), Cabinet Secretariat, government of India, and
currently director, Institute for Topical Studies,
Chennai; former member of the National Security Advisory
Board of the government of India. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com. He
was also head of the counter-terrorism division of the
Research & Analysis Wing, India's external
intelligence agency, from 1988 to August 1994.
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