NEW DELHI - The terror strike in the western city of Pune of February 13 that
killed 11, including two foreigners, and injured 60 people has once again
brought into focus the role and nexus of indigenous terror groups and sleeper
cells in orchestrating militant strikes in India.
Although New Delhi has said elaborate planning went into implementing the
attack, it is apparent that "soft targets" can almost be picked at will in
India, as has happened following India's recent offer to renew the peace
process with Pakistan.
United States President Barack Obama called Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh on Thursday morning to condemn the Pune blast and express solidarity in
the fight against terrorism, an
official statement said. Obama also backed the upcoming India-Pakistan talks.
Commenting on the Pune blast, Home Minister P Chidambaram told reporters, "I am
not ruling out anything and not ruling in anything. It was an insidious attack,
planting a bomb at a soft-target establishment."
"Most pointers to the blast suggest it is the handiwork of terror elements from
outside the city. The incident appears thoroughly well-planned and executed."
Official sources tell Asia Times Online that the role of a domestic terror
group such as the Indian Mujahideen (IM) is being overstated as over time
numerous sleeper cells involving just a few people, sometimes even single
individuals (such as arrested Pakistani-American national David Headley) have
been formed and cultivated.
Like with al-Qaeda, IM is an abstract for multiple terrorist cells plotting
attacks without knowing about each other's existence and they can also be
involved with banned groups such as the Student's Islamic Movement of India
(SIMI), which are known for their radical or extremist stands.
An attack such as the one on Mumbai in November 2008 - involving 10 gunmen and
lasting several days - required elaborate planning and training of jihadi
commandos, while a strike such as Pune using improvised explosive devices (IED)
is relatively easy to execute and need only involve one person.
The changing and dynamic nature of the IM and associate cells is reflected in
the statement of Home Secretary G K Pillai, who said following the Pune attack,
"We do not know whether the old modules still exist or whether some new modules
have come up. But we have alerted the states wherever they had existed earlier
and where we had kept a check on their activities."
At the same time, officials say that the count of local Indians involved in
terrorist crimes does not exceed 100-150. The handlers, meanwhile, could be
much bigger forces embedded within the Pakistani military and Inter-Services
Intelligence or based out of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh or
Nepal.
Investigating agencies are particularly pursuing what has been dubbed the
"Karachi project", involving Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)-IM groups
that worked with American jihadi Headley, who has confessed to the US Federal
Bureau of Investigation of having conducted several reconnaissance trips to
potential targets in Pune and other cities.
There is evidence of big monetary compensation involved rather than purely
fighting for a "cause", whether "Kashmir or injustice to Muslims or imperialist
America", that requires a separate strategy of building indoctrinated jihadi
cadres involved in the numerous suicide attacks in the region, the officials
say.
The Pune attacks bear some resemblance to attacks carried out in India over the
past five years spanning cities across the country - Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad,
Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur and Guwahati, among others.
The IEDs, usually remote-controlled, are locally assembled or smuggled
explosive is used, causing maximum casualties in a small area, usually a
crowded place such as a restaurant, movie hall, market, passenger train or
place of worship.
Police have procured CCTV footage of the Pune blast and are studying the
evidence, which reports say points to at least two terrorists involved.
New Delhi has rubbished claims by two obscure groups - the Lashkar-e-Taiba
al-Alami (International) and the IM-Kashmir - claiming responsibility for the
Pune blast as having "no value" and intended to "confuse ongoing
investigations".
Much has been said about the absence of any militant attack in India following
the brazen Mumbai strikes, until Pune happened. However, officials closely
involved in internal security operations in India say that the 15-month "lull"
was because terror cells "chose" not to attack. That is, the lull was not the
result of any major security overhaul or systemic change.
This is also reflected in the repeated Maoist attacks in West Bengal and Bihar
over the past months - there has also been violence in the states of Jharkhand,
Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.
"Terror strategies keep on changing," said an official. "Earlier, the focus of
militant groups such as LeT and their backers in Pakistan was to orchestrate a
low-intensity proxy war against India, implemented most violently in Kashmir.
Now the aim is to create a global impact as the message is sought to be
conveyed to America, which is seen as enemy number one."
Given such an approach, sources tell ATol, there was no "rationale" for the
Pune attacks as the effects of the brazen Mumbai attacks, in which many
foreigners died, still continue to reverberate across the globe.
"The focus of the Islamists right now is in Afghanistan and Pakistan. India has
come into the spotlight of the militants again only because of the recent
happenings related to renewing India-Pakistan talks and efforts by New Delhi to
have more of a say in Kabul," an official said.
In this context, the sources say that the message from the Pune blast is
clearly to the US, which has been pushing the peace talks so that Pakistani
troops from the eastern borders (with India) can be deployed for operations
against al-Qaeda and militants in the northwest provinces bordering
Afghanistan.
This could also pave the way for a gradual reduction of the American military
presence in the violent Pakistan-Afghanistan vortex that involves the Taliban
and al-Qaeda.
The worrying factor for officials is that strikes such as the one in Pune could
be carried out will little preparation time. Pune took place within days of the
India-Pakistan talks being announced.
New Delhi's official statement following the attack reflects this. The
top-level Cabinet Committee on Security stated, "The government believes the
blast was timed to derail the resumption of dialogue between India and
Pakistan," adding that this should not be allowed.
As a result, Foreign Minister S M Krishna said "terror" would be the focus of
the India-Pakistan foreign-secretary talks slated for February 25. "The
composite dialogue [discussing Kashmir and water among other issues] is
suspended. The brief for our secretary is that terror is the center and focus
point of the talks."
Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist. He can be reached
at sidsri@yahoo.com.
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