India and the road to
Osama By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - Speculation is rife in India
that Osama bin Laden, who has gate-crashed the United
States elections with the release of his latest video,
is holed up in eastern Pakistan, in the northern regions
of the country's portion of Kashmir, with even the
possibility that he might have already ventured into
Indian territory.
Reports, calculated leaks
and intelligence are flowing thick and fast that bin
Laden is not where he was originally thought to be -
somewhere along the harsh Afghanistan-Pakistan border, running
from cave to cave to escape intense shelling. This view
has been further strengthened by the fact that the
recent bin Laden tape, in which he addressed the
American people, was delivered to the upscale Islamabad office
of Arabic network television channel al-Jazeera. This
has given credence to India's long-standing fear that
most of al-Qaeda's operatives are holed up and
living comfortably in urban hideouts in Karachi, Lahore
and Islamabad, with the complicity of the
Pakistan establishment. The US-Pakistan operations on
the Afghan-Pakistan border have been dismissed by India as
a wild-goose chase at the instance of Pakistan to keep US
troops occupied and confused.
Independent
confirmation by Asia Times Online, however, has elicited
mixed reactions from Indian government officials. While
sources in the military say that all reports about
sighting bin Laden close to the Indian border are mere
"hogwash" and "media speculation", intelligence sources
who report to the Home Ministry say that there is
considerable concern, as well as the belief that bin
Laden is indeed in Pakistan and moving to the
northeastern regions close to the Himalayas as a prelude
to a winter retreat before he surfaces again in spring.
It goes without saying that
the military generally tends to be more closed about
any sensitive information because of operational difficulties faced in the
wake of any such leakages, while intelligence agencies
not in the field of combat are generally more
forthcoming about information. Indeed, intelligence
officials here confirm the news that a senior official
of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) flew to
India last week to alert Indian intelligence agencies
about the possibility of bin Laden sneaking into India.
The Pakistan-based official sought Indian assistance for
joint operations by Indian and US forces to nab the
world's most wanted fugitive if he crossed over from
northeastern Pakistan, the sources said. The official's
visit followed the reported spotting of bin Laden in
northeastern Pakistan, close to the Pakistan-China-India
border. The sources said the FBI official met senior
officials related to internal and external security and
appeared to have information about the impending release
of the latest bin Laden videotape.
Apart from the
fact that bin Laden is the world's most wanted fugitive,
his presence close to the Indian border could have
a huge impact on the United States' "war on terror",
irrespective of who wins the US elections. The US will
have to seriously re-think its strategy of aligning with
Pakistan when it will be India's assistance, both
military and intelligence, that may be required to
finally crack down on bin Laden. It may also result in
the amassing of Indian and Pakistani troops along the
Indo-Pakistan border to scour for bin Laden, leading to
problems of logistics, command and control.
Hideaway in Kashmir? Reports of the
bin Laden sighting, even if speculative, come on the
back of news of heightened activity in the Ladakh region
(northern part of Indian-administered Kashmir) by the
Aviation Research Center (ARC), a specialized
reconnaissance agency of India's Research and Analysis
Wing, which looks after external intelligence. Highly
placed defense sources have been quoted as saying that
the Ladakh region has seen an unusual number of sorties
by ARC aircraft. While there is little information about
the purpose of such missions, the ARC's sudden
activities could trigger further speculation that bin
Laden may be lurking in what India refers to as
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
The former commander
of US Central Command, Tommy Franks, wrote in the New
York Times last month that even in late 2001 there was
intelligence speculation that bin Laden might be hiding
in Kashmir. That was around the time when the US had
pounded the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, with
reports saying that bin Laden had been injured and
forced to flee.
Indeed, in the past few days there
has been a surfeit of news about the alleged whereabouts
of bin Laden. The United States' Fox News Channel and
a website reported to have close links to Israeli
intelligence agency Mossad have claimed that an Indian
air force reconnaissance plane sighted bin Laden's
convoy a few days ago in the Tibet-Ladakh region close
to the northeastern border of Pakistan, near India and
China. The view has been endorsed by the website
Debka.com, which is believed to be run by Mossad.
Additional surveillance aircraft were called in and
identified the al-Qaeda leader on the move with a
10-vehicle convoy of black Japanese minivans, the
website says. Fox, too, made similar claims.
However, doubts have been expressed about
the ability of Indian agencies to nail so accurately
a convoy and identify it as that of bin Laden.
India's abilities to monitor a foreign land are primarily
based on a series of satellites, aerial reconnaissance
by aircraft and signal intelligence. While the
satellites have a resolution of about five meters, a plane
like the Jaguar - a deep-penetration fighter jet - can
monitor up to 80 kilometers within enemy territory. But
neither possesses the ability to pinpoint accurately a
specific person in a convey.
Despite the speculation surrounding
the whereabouts of
bin Laden, there are several conclusions about
the fugitive that cannot be denied - he
is not on the run; he is healthy, not injured and well fed,
as his earlier gaunt visage has been pretty much filled
out; he decides when he wants to issue another videotape, unlike
Saddam Hussein, who disappeared from his state-run satellite
television radars once US troops got
close to him; bin Laden says the security of the American
people (and by default the rest of the world) is
in their own hands, though it is not and perhaps won't be
for some time to come; he also knows that millions of dollars
might have been spent on promotions and advertising campaigns
by incumbent US President George W Bush and challenger
John Kerry to propagate their cause, but it is his one
videotape that may influence the way the American voters
are going to exercise their choice for president.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New
Delh-based journalist.
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