THE ‘RAYMONDS’ AND THE ‘DAVISES’

What is common between the following apparently unrelated events?

• Raymond Davis
• Terrorist Attacks in Pakistan
• Operations in South and North Waziristan
• Drone Attacks

First identify the main players-the CIA, the ISI, the FBI, the Pakistan Army, US/NATO forces, Afghan Intelligence and government and the Government of Pakistan. Opposing these main players are the Taliban, the religious parties and organizations in Pakistan and the people of Pakistan and the Pashtuns of Afghanistan.

Read Complete Article Here: http://www.area148.com/cms/?p=2299

Petition before High Court: Hafiz Saeed says govt should defend him before US court

The Express Tribune

LAHORE: Jamatud Dawa ameer Hafiz Saeed has moved a writ petition in the Lahore High Court (LHC) seeking a direction to the federal government to defend him in an American court which has issued him a summons. The suit has been filed by the relatives of an American citizen who was killed in the Mumbai attacks.

Rabbi Gavriel Noah Holtzberg and his wife Rivka were gunned down by militants at the Chhabad House in Mumbai. Their son, Moshe, escaped the attack. Moshe, and other people, have filed nine claims against Lashkar-e-Tayaba (LeT), Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Azam Cheema and Sajid Majid as well as the former director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Nadeem Taj and its current head, Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha. Major Iqbal and Major Samir have also been named as part of the ISI. The plaintiffs have asked for over $75,000 in damages for each claim.

Through his lawyer AK Dogar, Saeed has said that he is the head of Jamatud Dawa, a charitable organisation and that he has not connection with LeT. He has said that after the government had detained him in 2009, a full bench of the LHC had ordered him released. The bench had held, he said, that there was no evidence that he had any links with AlQaeda or any other terrorist movement. He said false allegations had been made by an Indian lobby that he was involved in the Mumbai attacks. He said there was no evidence that he was involved in any anti-security activities nor that he was a security risk.

Saeed said that the federal government had announced on December 31 that it would defend the ISI’s head in the suit. He said as a Pakistani citizen he enjoyed the same rights as any other individual. He said the government should defend him in the same manner as ISI officials.

He said the prime minister had told the National Assembly that ISI officials would not be handed over to an American court and that the government would take appropriate steps to have the case dismissed. He said access to justice was every citizen’s fundamental right. He said under Article 25 of the Constitution all citizens are equal and entitled to equal protection by the law.

A reply, in response to the summons, has been sent to an American court, repudiating the assumption of jurisdiction by the American court. International law, the reply says, does not allow exercise of jurisdiction over the persons and property of other states.

He prayed to the court that the federal government be directed to defend him in the American court like the ISI officials that are being so defended against allegations.

Let’s move on, Mr Singh

The News International

The mood in India after the Mumbai attacks was ugly. All India had to offer was revenge. One recalls being confused that official India, not the Indian herd, was acting in the manner that it was. Its stance was so naïve, so self-defeating, so Americanesque that one actually began to fret, much as one does here at the utterances of our leaders.

Why was Manmohan Singh acting so? Did he not understand that Mumbai was a terrorist ploy to keep India and Pakistan at daggers drawn and wreck years of painstakingly constructed agreements emerging from the Composite Dialogue. Or was he, like his best friend Bush, also someone who speaks a moment or so before he thinks? And was he so weak, so much a populist, so given to bending with the wind, that he would rather wager war than risk unpopularity for the sake of preserving peace? We have the answer to that question from Mr Manmohan Singh himself.

After Mumbai Indian public opinion demanded that Pakistan be held to account. India had hoped that this would give it leverage to coerce Pakistan into paying greater attention to India’s concerns, but unfortunately that had not happened; the results were not as expected. That is why, at Thiumphu, his effort was to find ways and means of getting the two countries once again back on the path of a dialogue: “If we don’t want to go to war, then engagement and dialogue are the only way forward,” as he told Indian newspaper editors on Sept 7. Welcome aboard, Mr Singh; you have got it right, finally.

If Mr Singh cares to recall, this is what some of us had said would occur. As for the Indian herd, namely the public and their opinion, Disraeli said there is no such thing as “public opinion,” there is only “public sentiment.” Besides, one knows how this sentiment is formed. It is a brew of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, sound bites, headlines and newspaper paragraphs. As a politician Mr Singh must no doubt bear public opinion in mind for the next election, but as a statesman he must think of the next generation. Hence, he should not let truth go a-begging. He should tell his compatriots that nations do not make peace with friends but rather with unsavoury enemies, like Pakistan, and persuade them to let him work at it. It appears that he may be getting around to doing so. He therefore deserves support.

In case Mr Singh fears for the future, so do we; because the closer India and Pakistan get to cobbling peace the greater the prospect-nay, certainty-of another terrorist attack on India emanating possibly from Pakistan soil or with Pakistani connections. Hence, when that happens, despite all our precautions, Mr Singh should not go tub-thumping and making menacing gestures, and accuse Pakistan of promoting it; or queer the pitch for negotiations once again. We need to get a grip on the terrorist monster more than India does. By helping Pakistan Mr Singh will be helping India. Threaten Pakistan, and Osama bin Laden, if dead, will be smiling in his grave; attack Pakistan and bin Laden, if alive, will be doing a jig around his dialysis machine.

Mr Singh should now proceed with alacrity because he has wasted enough time to:

- Announce that India is now ready to resume the Composite Dialogue where it was broken off; offer to conclude the agreement on Sir Creek that has been finalised, and remove the persisting small difference on Siachin.

- Announce, further, that he will be sending/allowing Indian officials to testify against those arrested and now on trial in Pakistan for complicity in the Mumbai attacks in the hope of securing their conviction and not to let the guilty off merely on account of non-fulfilment of procedural requirements.

- Understand that while he can deal with the Naxalites as he wishes, when it comes to Kashmir he cannot, at least not without enraging us across the Line of Control. Mr Singh should deal with the Kashmiri leadership; and to understand how they define Azadi and to see if there can be a meeting of minds. It is true Pakistan cannot wrest Kashmir by force from India. But is it not equally true that India cannot retain Kashmir by force and expect that India’s image and peace of mind will not suffer the consequences, to say nothing of its security?

- Be prepared to address Pakistan’s reasonable military concerns, and specifically what meaningful measures could be taken that would lessen the threat of an armed Indian incursion into Pakistan. India will not need to disarm to appear accommodating because there are many ways of skinning this cat. And, of course, to abandon Cold Start, a pernicious doctrine that has triggered endless preparations for a hot response.

- Finally, offer to revisit the Indus Waters Treaty to take into account Pakistan’s concerns. Eventually this treaty will have to be revised. Climate change, rather than any other factor, has made this obvious.

Such steps and/or others similar in nature would have a huge impact on the atmospherics. They will lend efforts for peace considerable momentum. They would also put Pakistan under considerable pressure to respond. They would strengthen the hands of those here who believe that an equable relationship with India is not only possible but essential. If then Mr Singh truly desires peace, as many feel that he does, he should not follow a path that makes it impossible.

Needless to say hurdles will arise and on occasions despair may result. That is in the very nature of India-Pakistan negotiations. Often we are our own worst enemies. However, that is not reason enough to give up. Moreover, his having been instrumental in righting India’s economic policies, what would be a more fitting legacy for Mr Singh than to complete a distinguished period in public life by aligning India’s relations with Pakistan in a manner that the single-biggest threat to India’s security and steady economic growth is diminished, if not entirely removed.

Go for it, Mr Singh; you have cogitated long enough. The globe-trotting Shah Mehmood Qureshi would be in Delhi in a jiffy at the first signs of a change of heart on your part. Let’s not live as if we are going to live forever.

The writer is a former ambassador. Email: charles123it@hotmail.com

Mumbai attacks gunman could be hanged this year

MUMBAI – The lone surviving gunman of the 2008 Mumbai attacks could be executed this year if he does not appeal his death sentence, a senior Indian government official said on Tuesday.

Pakistani national Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab was handed the death penalty last week

Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, 22, was found guilty of waging war on India, mass murder, conspiracy and terrorism offences last week over the assault, which left 166 people dead and more than 300 injured.

Convicting Ajmal Kasab

By Shah Waseem

“Ajmal Kasab gets what he gave: Death” reads the headline of one of the India’s leading daily. The lone “assailant” of Mumbai attacks was handed out death sentence on four counts and life term on five counts by Special Court judge M.L Tahiliyani, who said “Death penalty must be imposed there is no other option”. Mumbai attacks were shocking and heinous in which more than 150 innocent people got killed. No body with his senses intact will condone this horrible incident and no cause what so ever can be justified in which innocent people loose their lives.

But the way Indian media portrayed the verdict of awarding death sentence to Kasab showing extra mile of energy in body language, people bursting crackers, from bigwigs to tea vendors jumping in joy, political parties from all hues and cries welcoming death sentence as if India has got rid of some big monster makes it look like an act in vengeance rather than what they say getting justice. Even some went to an extent of asserting that his (Kasab’s) “arms and legs be chopped off”.

Mumbai attacks trial lawyer criticised for court ‘rant’

by Phil Hazlewood

MUMBAI (AFP) – The Indian lawyer who prosecuted the sole surviving gunman of the 2008 Mumbai attacks has been criticised for going “overboard” in his submissions to court on the eve of the trial’s climax.

Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam gestures to the media as he enters the special bomb-proof court in Mumbai on May 4. Indian lawyer Nikam who prosecuted the sole surviving gunman of the 2008 Mumbai attacks has been criticised for going “overboard” in his submissions to court on the eve of the trial’s climax.

The Mail Today newspaper said Ujjwal Nikam was “over-zealous” and “went overboard with his epithets” against Pakistani national Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, who was convicted on Monday of waging war against India and mass murder.

India secretly buries Mumbai attackers

MUMBAI (AFP) – The bodies of nine militants killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks have been secretly buried in an undisclosed place, according to state government officials.

Pigeons fly outside the Taj Mahal hotel — one of the sites of 2008 terror attacks — in Mumbai in November 2009. The bodies of nine militants killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks have been secretly buried in an undisclosed place, according to state government officials.

The gunmen killed 166 people in a 60-hour rampage in India’s financial capital that traumatised the nation and strained already tense relations with Pakistan.

INDIAN HINDU TERRORIST BAL THACKERAY ‘WANTED’ BY PAKISTAN

Thackeray issued a call to form Hindu suicide squads, “to take the Muslims head on”. Labeling them as “trouble makers”, Balaji called for them to be wiped out from the country to make India secure. Urging Hindus to start referring to India Hindu rashtra” (Hindu nation), the Shiv Sena militant leader maintains that only “our religion [Hinduism] is to be honored here” and then “we will look after other religions”. At least two senior retired Indian military officers answered Bal Thackeray’s call to set up the suicide squads in India.

By S.M Hali
The Daily Mail of Pakistan
Wednesday, 17 March 2010.
WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM

According to reports, the eighth Indian dossier containing more “details” on the Mumbai terror attacks has been handed over to the Interior Minister, Mr. Rehman Malik by Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir.

Khuda Hafiz Pakistan

People on both sides must take charge of peace-making.

Nirupama Subramanian

“There is a Pakistani in every Indian; and an Indian in every Pakistani,” President Asif Ali Zardari famously said two years ago. Those words rang in my head with new resonance as I packed my bags and left Pakistan recently after a nearly four-year-long assignment as this newspaper’s Islamabad-based correspondent.

It should have been easy to leave a country that is by word and deed hostile to India, and where the state machinery treats every Indian as a “RAW agent”, spending considerable human and material resources on the surveillance of the only two Indian journalists – from The Hindu and Press Trust India – that are permitted to be based there.

US backtracks on direct access to Headley

By Iftikhar Gilani

NEW DELHI: The US has not yet decided whether to give India direct access to David Headley who identified targets for the Mumbai 2008 attacks, US Ambassador to India Timothy Roemer said on Tuesday.

Roemer said, “the US is committed to full information sharing in our counter-terror partnership and has provided substantial information to India”. “However, no decision on direct access for India to David Headley has been made,” Roemer said.

Headley last week pleaded guilty to 12 charges of conspiring in the Mumbai terror attacks and has agreed to cooperate with US investigators, in return for avoiding the death penalty and extradition to India.

US suspect in Mumbai siege, Danish plot pleads guilty

by Mira Oberman Mira Oberman

CHICAGO (AFP) - A Pakistani-American pleaded guilty in a US court Thursday to scouting out sites for the deadly 2008 Mumbai siege and plotting to kill a Danish cartoonist.

The Taj Hotel during the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai. A Chicago man pleaded guilty Thursday to using his Western appearance as a cover while scoping out sites for the deadly 2008 Mumbai siege and plotting to kill a Danish cartoonist.

David Coleman Headley, 49, admitted to using a friend’s immigration company as a cover for surveillance activities in India and Denmark on behalf of two different Pakistan-based terrorist groups.

In a deal to change his earlier not guilty plea, prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty or to allow Headley to be extradited to either India, Pakistan or Denmark to face related charges.

He will, however, be required to “truthfully testify in any foreign judicial proceedings held in the United States by way of deposition, video-conferencing or letters rogatory,” prosecutors said.

“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,” US Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.

“David Headley is now providing us valuable intelligence about terrorist activities,” Holder said.

“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.”

The grey-haired, Washington-born son of a former Pakistani diplomat and American woman, Headley reportedly befriended Bollywood stars and even dated an actress during his lengthy surveillance trips to India.

Headley told prosecutors after his October arrest that he changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006 so he could “present himself in India as an American who was neither Muslim nor Pakistani,” charging documents said.

In a plot that reads like a movie thriller, Headley spent two years casing out Mumbai, including taking boat tours around the city’s harbor to scope out landing sites for the attackers who killed 166 people, including six Americans.

Charging documents also indicated Headley was so eager to kill a Danish cartoonist who sparked outrage with cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed that he began working seriously on that plot two months before the bloody 60-hour Mumbai siege which began on November 26, 2008.

India and Washington blamed the deadly rampage on Pakistan’s banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The attacks stalled a fragile four-year peace process between the two nuclear-armed south Asian rivals.

Headley — who said he began working with LeT in 2002 — also had Bollywood and one of India’s most sacred Hindu temples in his sights as he began plotting a second India attack during a March 2009 surveillance trip.

Prosecutors said the potential targets also included the National Defense College, Chabad Houses in “several cities” in India Prosecutors and Shiv Sena, a political party in India with roots in Hindu nationalism.

Indian media have reported that Headley developed a reputation as a fitness fanatic while staying in an expatriate enclave in south Mumbai near the US consulate during five lengthy surveillance trips.

He reportedly lived a more devout Muslim life in Chicago with his wife and children and prosecutors said he attending LeT terror training camps in Pakistan in 2002 and 2003.

Headley began working with an Al-Qaeda-linked group in Pakistan called Harakat-ul-Jihad-Islami on the Danish plot after LeT became distracted with the final planning for the Mumbai attack, charging documents said.

He was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare airport in October as he was on his way to deliver 13 surveillance videos he obtained after pretending to be interested in buying ads in Jyllands-Posten, Denmark’s highest circulation daily.

Headley was later charged in the Mumbai attacks, as was his old friend from military school in Pakistan, Tahawwur Hussain Rana.

Rana, who owns the Chicago-based First World Immigration Services that Headley allegedly used as a cover, insists he is a pacifist who was “duped” by his friend. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Mumbai attacks – Facts that cannot be denied

Afshain Afzal

The moment Indian authorities came to know through media that Mumbai has been attacked at different locations on November 26, New Delhi did not waste any time in leveling allegations that all attackers were Pakistanis. Later all attacker were killed leaving lone attacker Ajmal Amir Kasab to dance on the tune of Indian intelligence agencies. Without giving any regard to the country’s law and court procedure, those statements of Kasab which he reportedly furnished to unidentified intelligence officers, even before his case was admitted in the court, were regarded as evidence against groups living in other countries, thousand of miles away. Isn’t it the height of stupidly on the part of world powers and the United Nations to over react on the Mumbai attacks by banning a Muslim organization Jamaat-ud-Daawa without even looking at on ground evidences against this unfortunate organization? Ironically the case of Ajmal Kasab is even today pending before Mumbai court and you never know that he may come out as an innocent. One wonders that if this is the criteria of the world governments and organizations like United Nation, there is very dark future of this world.

Ajmal Amir Kasab has recently denied all charges before the Mumbai court as well as his allege links with Lashkar-e-Tayyiaba or Pakistan. One cannot say with confidence if Kasab is guilty in Mumbai attacks or otherwise but who would undo the United Nations Security Council Resolutions which banned Lashkar-e-Tayyiaba and Jamaat-ud-Dawah. If we recall, Jonathan Evans, the Director General of MI5 said that his organization had investigated Mumbai attackers’ communications and uncovered connections between the Mumbai attackers and Britain. MI5 analysts, who claim to be experts at picking clues from phrases and communications, feel that there could be connection of the militant group which carried out Mumbai attacks with Hyderabad. It reminds that a similar incident which happened five years back in India when four Muslim terrorists linked with Lashkar-e-Tayyiaba who had planned to launch a massive terrorist attack on the Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehradun were arrested in 2005. The terrorist included Maulana Dilawar Khan of Imdad-ul-Uloom Madrassa in Delhi’s Welcome area and Imam Masood Ahmed, an Imam at the Baghwali Masjid in the same area, Haroon Rashid, a former mechanical engineer at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and Muhammad Iftikhar Ahsan Malik, a second year student of Biotechnology at Dehradun’s Dolphin Institute of Biomedical & Natural Sciences. Police was quick enough to put recovery of a grenade and a Chinese pistol with 24 bullets on them. Ironically, all the four so called terrorists were acquitted and released in the light of Patiala House Court judgment of January 8, 2010 which set them free for want of evidence. So it would not surprise many if the case of Ajmal Amir Kasab and his links with Laskar-e-Tayyiaba also turn out to be cock and bull story.

If we recall, the Mumbai Police Crime Branch arrested 36 Indian nationals who were behind Mumbai attacks. In the same regard, a remand application was submitted by Joint Commissioner of Mumbai Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria before the MCOCA court on December 15, 2008 to allow investigate if the Indian Mujahideen (IM) militants had any links with those behind the Mumbai attacks. Assistant Commissioner of Police, Ashok Duraphe who had drafted the remand application confirmed that they filed an application to verify if the 20 alleged members of Indian Mujahideen in their custody had links with Mumbai attacks. Mumbai Police filed a second remand application for additional suspects before the same MCOCA court on January 02, 2009 but under the pressure of Indian Intelligence agencies they filed a corrigendum next day, requesting the court to delete that point from the application. Donald Van Duyn, Chief Intelligence Officer, Directorate of Intelligence, National Security Branch of FBI disclosed that his organization is conducting an independent probe of Mumbai attacks and has sought permission from New Delhi to interrogate more suspects locked up with Indian Police. The FBI interviewed suspects in Indian custody and collected critical information on attack planning and group leadership of militants involved in Mumbai attacks. The concluded western link as well as Indian home grown terrorism.

Our memories are still sharp to recall that Kavita, wife of slain ATS (Anti Terrorist Squad) Chief Hemant Karkare and their daughter had asked the Indian government pardon Ajmal Amir Kasab on humanitarian grounds. What made Kavita and her daughter to make such an unusual request indicate that Ajmal Amir Kasab had nothing to do with killing of Hemant Karkare. Kasab himself in a statement immediately after his arrest disclosed that he did not open fire on any Police officer as he was twice hit by Police bullets on his hand before he could do anything. Probably Hemant Karkare had discussed with his wife about his extinction plans by RAW and Mossad, before leaving for operation on November 26. It is on record that Hemant Karkare, soon after receiving the word of warning from the RAW, personally called the managers of the Taj and Oberoi-Trident Hotels and asked them to scale up the security at their hotels. He specifically told the managers that he had received a warning that the militants had been planning an attack on the hotels. Indian renowned industrialists Ratan Tata told reporters after Mumbai attacks that Karkare had asked hotel management two days before the attacks to scale up security at hotels. Hemant Karkare’s wife stance of letting off Ajmal Kasab is not shared by many Hindus on the plea that it would be insulting to their martyr ‘Hemant Karkare’ if he is let off on humanitarian grounds without any punishment. Whatever the case may be, any sane person can make out that Mumabi attacks were an attempt to cover up Indian Military Intelligence (MI) terrorists, who were caught red-handed in terrorist activities like Malegaon, Nanded and Samjhaota Express blasts.

India’s Pune Blast: Hinting of another 26/11?

Harinder Singh
22 February 2010

The Pune bomb blast highlights the vulnerability of `soft spots` to acts of terror within India. Transnational terrorist outfits are best tackled through increased international cooperation and involving local communities to secure susceptible neighbourhoods.

THE WEEKEND blast at the German Bakery in Pune was a grim reminder of the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, India’s commercial city. While the act does not compare itself with the death and destruction from the Mumbai attacks, the fact that terror continues to haunt `soft spots` in India is a matter of serious concern. Pune, a city known for its cosmopolitan culture attracts a very large technical workforce to staff its IT parks, pharmaceutical laboratories and heavy industries. The city also happens to be one of India’s fastest growing educational hubs. With close to a dozen educational institutions, it offers a host of specialised programmes to several thousand local as well as foreign students.

The Incident

The blast, which occurred more than a year after the 26/11 attacks in 2008, ripped apart this trendy bakery, killing nine persons and injuring some 60 others, including a few foreigners. This was the first time that the city has seen such an attack. The explosive device delivered by an `unsuspecting` patron was triggered during the rush hours of the evening. The attack seemed quite unsophisticated; the device camouflaged as a backpack was activated by a remote control or timed-fuse action. It is also quite possible that the device was triggered off when the eatery staff tried to examine the unattended baggage.

Initial reports indicate the possible involvement of Indian Mujahideen (IM). The authorities however maintain that this remained unconfirmed. Incidentally, the bakery happened to be located close to the Chabad House, a well known Jewish cultural centre, and the famed Osho Ashram – much popular with westerners in the past. FBI investigations had recently revealed that both the locations had been visited by David Headley as part of his mission to collect information for potential targets in India. Formerly known as Daood Sayed Gilani, Headley is a Pakistani-American businessman accused of involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Competing Explanations

Few questions have been raised about the incident. Why was the German bakery targeted? What was the intent? How does this incident differ from patterns witnessed in the past? Which terrorist outfit could have been responsible? Did it have anything to do with the expatriate population in the town? Or was it just well timed to scuttle the dialogue between India and Pakistan scheduled later this month? There are several competing arguments doing rounds. While most allude to the Indo-Pak dialogue, it is worth examining some other evidence as well.

India’s counterterror expert B. Raman raises some interesting facts. He claims that the city came to be known as a centre for jihadi activities way back in March 2002. This came to light when a Palestinian national named Abu Zubaidah — a close lieutenant of Osama Bin Laden – revealed that he had trained as a computer engineer at Pune before joining the Al Qaeda. Abu Zubaidah is presently detained at the Guantanamo Detention Centre. Later in October 2008, a few Indian Mujahideen suspects arrested by Mumbai police turned out to be residents of Pune. They were all computer graduates and, one of them namely Mohammad Asghar Peerbhoy had even studied at Pune’s Quran Foundation – a place known for recruiting cadres for the IM. Incidentally, Riaz Bhatkal, the chief of Indian Mujahideen, also hails from Pune and allegedly maintains close links with Pakistan’s banned organisations, Lashkar-e-Toiba and its charity wing, Jammat-ud-Daawa (LeT/JuD).

There is yet another interesting argument – on the choice of target. Raman draws attention to the analysis of Nick Grace – a counterterrorism expert – on a person of Moroccan origin named Bekkay Harrach, who grew up in Germany and then gravitated to Al Qaeda. Bekkay has repeatedly issued terror threats to Germany, one of significance being the statement made prior to the attack on the German Embassy in Kabul in January 2009. The Pune attack could even be seen in this context.

The Stratfor however carries a different view. It cites a recent statement by Ilyas Kashmiri, the commander of 313 Brigade,which warns India of grave consequences during the upcoming global sporting events within the country. The 313 Brigade is the fighting arm of the International Islamic Front formed by Osama bin Laden in 1998.Stratfor opines that incidents of such kind by prodigies of Al Qaeda are likely to increase in future. Kashmiri could well have had a distant hand in the incident. It is even possible that the claim put forth for the incident by Lashkar-e-Taiba al Alami – a new faction of LeT — could have been prompted by Kashmiri.

It is time that these pronouncements from Al Qaeda are taken seriously. The argument that Al Qaeda as an outfit is increasingly becoming ineffective or diffused is questionable. In fact, the Al Qaeda and Taliban are threats of serious consequence in the region. The two combined have produced the most virulent `Tali-qaida` effect in highlands of Pakistan. Of late, its seeping effect east of the Indus carries serious implications for India as well.

Socialising the Approach

The incident is yet another reminder of a growing need for international cooperation to combat terrorism. Notwithstanding the emerging trend, there can be no denial of the fact that intelligence agencies need to increasingly cooperate to contain terror at the global, regional and national levels. Exchange of real time information and collaborative interpretation of inputs can go a long way in curbing `lone wolf` attacks like the one witnessed at Pune or the catastrophic attacks of 9/11 and 26/11. Sharing of intelligence inputs through a cooperative framework is therefore crucial towards securing the `soft spots`.

Yet at another level, equally important is the involvement of local communities in securing the neighbourhoods. Community-based policing, for example, can enhance the state’s capacity to check terrorism. Collaborative security structures between the state and its populace are relevant, and governments need to seriously work towards evolving such ethics and work groups. In no way does this excuse the state of its prime responsibility to protect its citizens.

Several such measures have been initiated in the Indian context. But then, the state still needs to walk the `last mile` to field optimal policing and counterterror structures to secure its large populace.

Harinder Singh is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He works on military-related issues at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), New Delhi.

Pune bombed: More Shiv Sena terror in Maharahstra

PKKH

After much rioting, violence, and firebombing of theatres, the Shiv Sena has now bombed Puna to sabotage the efforts of the people of South Asia to achieve peace. Shiv Sena: Mumbai for Maharashtrians Xenophobia

• “It seems that terror has struck back again in the backdrop of talks with Pakistan.” Congress Party spokesman
• http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/14/stories/2010021460240800.htm
• http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i_THH84S9bUIhGGUr1Hqcm5ssBVAD9DRAGEO0
• http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/world/asia/12pstan.html

This Shiv Sena move was expected, actually called out by Rupee News and many other defense analysts. This sits in perfectly with their Anti-Northe India, Anti-Muslim and Anti-Pakistan campaign disguised as “Mumbai for Maharashtrians”. Shiv Sena’s Hindu ‘suicide squad’ in Balasore India.

As the dust settles on the Shah Rukh vs Shiv Sena episode, television channels are quick to proclaim Mumbai and Mumbaikars as having ‘defeated’ the Sena. If only the truth was that simple.

The fact is, this is the first time in my 40 years of living in Mumbai that the law and order machinery of the state has done its job in the face of a threat. Seeing this, the Mumbaikar has been only too happy to go and watch My Name Is Khan. Had there been no security arrangements, I am certain that the halls would not have exhibited the film, and the few that would have would have run near-empty.

This would have been in complete sync with the way the Mumbaikar has behaved in the past. We shrank into our one BHK when, in 1992, Muslims were being targeted by right-wing Hindu mobs; When greeting cards outlets were vandalised on Valentine’s Day; when taxis were pelted with stones; when films were disrupted in multiplexes; when stores were broken because their signs were not displayed in Marathi.

Clearly, Mumbai has yet to discover its collective soul, its moral compass. But there are signs of change. The first step was 26/11. Yes, the enemy was foreign, the state government did not have to calculate the political cost of condemning it, the cause was ‘safe’ – middle-class Mumbaikars could vent their anger without fear of angering any right-wing faction. Rahul Bose, Hindustan Times, Mumbai, February 14, 2010

Will Shiv Sena Marhati xenophobia destroy Bollywood and Mumbai? Shiv sena has succeeded in tarnishing Bollywood, and Mumbai-today Mumbai is a synonym for terror. More cracks in India: Can it survive Shiv Sena xenophobia?

PUNE: Terror returned to haunt the country on Saturday when a bomb blast ripped through the city’s popular German Bakery, close to the Osho Ashram Bystanders look at the destroyed bakery in Pune after a bomb blast. (AFP) and diagonally across from the Jewish Chabad House, … killing at least nine people, four of them foreigners, all women.

More than 45 people have been rushed to hospital with varying degrees of injury.

This is the first terror attack since the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, 15 months ago. For the last two months, there has been a growing buzz of an imminent terror attack, especially as India and Pakistan were preparing to resume talks that have been suspended since the Mumbai carnage. Now there is a question mark over the talks scheduled for February 25 in Delhi.

The blast, which left a 6ftx4ft hole in the wall, took place at 7.15pm when the bakery was milling with people, many of them foreigners. According to Union home secretary G K Pillai, there was an unattended packet which exploded when a waiter tried to open it.

The German Bakery is a popular haunt of foreigners like Leopold restaurant in Mumbai – in fact, both are mentioned by the Lonely Planet tourist guide and are therefore patronised by many backpackers.

Investigators from the Army’s bomb disposal squad said it appears that a battery-operated improvised explosive device had been used. ”We have found traces of an explosive,” said M Z Ansari, an official. The impact was such that the walls of the bakery caved in. Body parts of some of the dead were found strewn on the North Main Road and near the O Hotel, a few metres from the bakery. Asseem Shaikh, Swati Shinde & Mihir Tanksale, TNN, 14 February 2010, 02:00am

Failed States. The Shev Sena vials of hate about “Mumbai for Maharashtrians only” is more insidious than the most vocal Nazi racism that was built on ethnic cleansing and deportation of “aliens”. The Shiv Sena “war against North-Indian’s” is more profound than the chauvinistic malevolence of the KKK that propagates the racial superiority of a race. The Thakaray’s supremacy vitriol against the “Italians” is actually rhetoric against all Christians. When the ignoble Sena bans Australian cricketers from Mumbai-it is actually spewing malignity and malicious venom against all people of European origin. The villainous Sena’s ethnocentrism opposing Mayawati is really its misogynic policy of continued enslavement of the Dalits.

The Sena’s obnoxious diatribes against Jews and the Chinese are not isolated murmers-they are part and parcel of the Swastika heralding philosophy that sees Hindu dominance over all other faiths and races. The Shiv Sena vitriol against Muslims is disguised as a tirade against the Khans. While the press reports and the Shiv Sena TV and newspaper outlets simply mention “Khan”, the term term “Khan” implies all Muslims. Shiv Sen’a odious campaign against “foreigners” in Mumbai is to displace and move out all Muslims and all North Indians from Maharashtra, by coercion, and intimidation. The Shiv Sena squalid outbursts against all Australians, Nepalese, and Bangladeshis is an outburst against humanity. India intoxicated by meager success is blind to real self-portrait of caste infested penury and balkanization

India’s Security nightmares: Naxalites, Mioram, Tamilland, Khalistan, 7 sisters of Northeast, 450 million Untouchable Dalits, Kashmiris, 150 million Muslims. Mumbai the commercial center of Bharat (aka India) today looks and feels like Pre-Weimar Germany, where the Jews lived in fear of being deported and killed. Bharat’s Maoist insurgency

It is hard finding a single thread of logic in the whole affair, now that Khan has even tweeted an ambiguous apology. All it has done is prove that a few angry men can downsize our freedoms. Resistance is futile, in a situation where other politicians speak in forked tongues and exploit the very paranoid Maratha-manoos impulse they now decry. After all, a clutch of movie exhibitors cannot be expected to shoulder responsibility for political freethinking. At an individual level, each player would offer the defence that s/he is only looking out for the movie’s profitability. In short, the schoolyard bully triumphs again. As it whipped up a seething stew of Hindu and Maharashtrian nativist indignation, the Shiv Sena has been enabled by many, including the NCP. When it looked like the Sena authority was shaky, and could be finally undercut by the combined political firepower of the BJP, Congress and a range of civil society voices, Thackeray was shored up by Sharad Pawar’s gesture of placation. Indian Express

Cracks in India: 40% of “India” not under Government control. Blaming the ISI cannot dampen the 89 Indigenous Indian insurgencies. The Thackerays are using the Gujerat model where the blatant genocide of 3000 Muslims forced out 300,000 Muslims. mr. Modi’s machine ensures that hese poor souls cannot return to their villages.

The current virulence of the Shiv Sena is nothing new to South Asia. Shiv Sena’s KKK type of philosophers Lala Hardayal said this in the 40s-and this part and parcel of the Thakaray philosophy:-

“I declare that the future of the Hindu race, of Hindustan and of the Punjab, rests on these four pillars:

(1) Hindu Sangathan [extermination by murder or deportation],

(2) Hindu Raj,

(3) Shuddhi [conversion] of Moslems, and

(4) Conquest and Shuddhi of Afghanistan and the Frontiers.

So long as the Hindu nation does not accomplish these four things, the safely of our children and great-grandchildren will be ever in danger, and the safety of the Hindu race will be impossible. The Hindu race has but one history, and its institutions are homogeneous. But the Musalmans and Christians are far removed from the confines of Hindustan, for their religions are alien and they love Persian, Arab and European institutions. Thus, just as one removes foreign matter from the eye, Shuddhi must be made of these two religions. Afghanistan and the hilly regions of the frontier were formerly part of India, but are at present under the domination of Islam. . . .Lala Hardayal in Pratap of Lahore.

The venomousness of the Shiv Sena and related bodies have to be seen in the light of the philosophy of those that the Thakarays worship.

”The dead include some foreigners but we are yet to establish their nationality,” minister of state for home Ramesh Bagwe said. The injured suffered burns and fractures, said doctors at Sassoon hospital.

Chabad House in Mumbai which was attacked on 26/11 had been recced by Headley, just as he had recced the one in Pune. Headley had stayed at the Surya Villa hotel in Koregaon, which is close to the blast site.

In Delhi, Pillai called an emergency meeting of security officials and instructed all state capitals to be put on high alert. A team also began interrogation of the Batla House terror suspect, Shahzad Ahmad, to find out if he had any information about an attack in Pune.

The Centre immediately moved in to rush a forensic team to Pune. “It is most probably a terror attack. We are sending a forensic team of CBI and personnel of National Investigative Agency,” said Union home secretary G K Pillai.

Panic gripped the city as the news of the blast spread. The police, however, refused to confirm whether any terror group was involved, saying it was too early to arrive at any conclusion. The police closed all roads to Koregaon Park area and a nakabandi has been ordered across the city.

… The state home minister R R Patil reached Pune late on Saturday night, while chief minister Ashok Chavan is expected to be in the city on Saturday.

Maharashtra deputy CM Chhagan Bhujbal and some officials said that police had inputs about a threat to the German Bakery and security had been beefed up in the Koregaon area, but state home minister R R Patil denied there was any intelligence input about an attack. Blast rips Pune’s German Bakery; 9 dead, 45 wounded
Asseem Shaikh, Swati Shinde & Mihir Tanksale, TNN, 14 February 2010, 02:00am ISTText Size:|

While there is much discussion of the Jaish and the Lashkar in the media, the international press has not realised the profound evil that resides in the Senas, Dals and the Sangs of Bharat (aka India). The lashkars rose up as a response to occupation, aggression and genocide. The Senas and the Sangs had their genesis in “Shuddhi and Sangathan” (Deport, kill or Convert) philosophies of the forties. The RSS and the Shiv Sena type of organization proliferate the Bharati landscape. They are armed, trained, and full of venom against the Muslims, the Christians, and the Dalits and Shudras. The violence perpetuated on the Dalits and the Christians in Orissa and Bihar is mimicked on the rape and genocide inflicted on the Muslims of Bihar and other places.

Today the Shiv Sena is forcing the cab drivers to learn Marhati-or face deportation. Yesterday the same type of organization forced Muslims and Christians to sing religious hymns which contradicted their religious beliefs. In the forties, the Vandhe Mahtram was forced on the Muslims and it forced the government of the Indian National Congress to collapse. In the recent past the BJP has not only ruled Bharat. Today the xenophobic Shiv Sena rules Mumbai. This is like the KKK wining the elections in New York and asking all the cab drivers to learn Latin. Red Nepal: Clear and present danger to India

The only stark takeaway is this: when the state abdicates its most fundamental responsibility of ensuring security, liberal values are in jeopardy. Freedom of expression is so vulnerable in India because governments have failed to thwack down these bullies and their cultural warfare. Mumbai has been the arena for the worst of such betrayals – little by little, its politics have ceded way to the Sena’s provincial, thuggish worldview. Individuals can hardly be blamed for their quick, insincere “sorry” – acutely disappointing as such cave-ins are – when no political party has been able to articulate a confident liberal alternative, and when the state apparatus is so riddled with Sena cheerleaders. Citizens have no choice but to internalise these pathologies, and restrict their own actions so as not to attract the angry attention of the Sena thugs. Indian Express

The evils of Xenophobia has destroyed many cities and countries. Germany ruled by the Nazis were so enamored by their race and language that they wanted all Germans under a single government.

The rise and rise of the RSS and Shiv Sena have complicated the politics of Bharat (aka India) and their popular support shake the so called secular foundations of the country which was formed as an anti-thesis to religion, and race.

Today, the bigoted racists who murdered Mohandas Gandhi are running the center of commerce and currency of Bharat (aka India). The Shiv Sena is run by one of the worst racists on the planet-Mr. Bal Thakaray. His nephew runs another racist outfit now called MNS. Both organizations are threatening all HIndi speaking people to leave their state of Maharashtra. This is very similar to what the General Mankeshaw thugs did in Bengal and this is exactly what is happening in Gujarat.

Maharashtra is for Maharashtrians say the Shiv Sena and the MNS. There is insanity in their logic. Their goal is to give employment to the suffering farmers of their state. Their inane logic appeals to the people of Mumbai and Maharashtra. If they throw out or scare away the penury stricken Cab drivers, then the farmers can get jobs in Mumbai

Shiv Sen’a odious campaign against “foreigners” in Mumbai is to displace and move out all Muslims and all North Indians from Maharashtra, by coercion, and intimidation. The Shiv Sena squalid outbursts against all Australians, Nepalese, and Bangladeshis is an outburst against humanity. India intoxicated by meager success is blind to real self-portrait of caste infested penury and balkanization

India’s Security nightmares: Naxalites, Mioram, Tamilland, Khalistan, 7 sisters of Northeast, 450 million Untouchable Dalits, Kashmiris, 150 million Muslims. Mumbai the commercial center of Bharat (aka India) today looks and feels like Pre-Weimar Germany, where the Jews lived in fear of being deported and killed. Bharat’s Maoist insurgency

Cracks in India: 40% of “India” not under Government control. Blaming the ISI cannot dampen the 89 Indigenous Indian insurgencies. The Thackerays are using the Gujerat model where the blatant genocide of 3000 Muslims forced out 300,000 Muslims. mr. Modi’s machine ensures that hese poor souls cannot return to their villages.

What did we gain out of Gates visit?

Kanwal Sibal
28 January 2010

Last week’s visit of US Defence Secretary Robert Gates does not seem to have advanced the India-US defence agenda visibly. The deliverables from the visit haven’t surfaced publicly. Three defence related agreements have been under discussion for some time now: the Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA), the Logistical Services Agreement (LSA) and the Basic Exchange Cooperation Agreement (BECA). But these have remained unclinched even as India has already begun purchasing big ticket US defence items. India has not yet been persuaded of the value of signing these agreements. The US will therefore “do a better job of putting on paper and using concrete examples of the benefits to India of all these agreements”, according to Gates.

The issue is not so much one of US convincing India on the material and technological merits of signing these agreements it is of India convincing itself of the political desirability of doing so at this point in time. According to Gates these agreements are enablers, in that they will provide to India the highest quality equipment and systems. CISMOA would allow, for instance, the highest US cryptologic information to be provided along with the C-130Js that India has bought. BECA, in the geospatial area, would provide the aircraft India has acquired with the highest tecnology in terms of navigational capability and targeting.

The point about benefits and protection of technology made by Gates publicly has surely been made in greater detail during several exchanges at various levels between the two sides all these years. It is hardly likely that any new decisive argument remains to be made. Now that India has already bought advanced transport and maritime aircraft from the US, the implication of Gates’s remarks is that India has not obtained the “highest technology” along with them. Assuming, however, that India would not buy such platforms without an acceptable level of technology, the question therefore is whether India would want the”highest technology” if it is accompanied by conditions that are too onerous, or politicaly problematic.

Earlier, the US side considered the End-Use Monitoring Agreement (EUMA) indispensable for transfers of its arms and technology. India’s acceptance of EUMA earned the government considerable political flak, as it meant, in the eyes of the critics, accepting conditions that impinged on our sovereignty by subjecting us to the oversight that the US enjoys on the use of US arms by its allies.

If India can obtain satisfactory levels of defence equipment and technology under exisiting conditions, why should it want to accept agreements that seem intended essentially to strengthen operational defence cooperation- easier interoperability and easier logistics- in the identified areas of joint training exercises, counter-terrorism efforts and maritime security. The logic of the agreements under discussion is a stronger defence partnership for facilitating joint operations as well as US operations in the region through easier access to Indian port facilities.

This might explain why India is dragging its feet on these agreements. It may be wary of being caught in the web of a military relationship with the US that may exceed politically prudent limits. It may want to calibrate the pace of the defence relationship, given the conditions attached to US arms supplies, restrictive US practices with regard to technology transfer and political risks of interruption of supplies in a conflict situation. US arms supplies to Pakistan that are suitable more for use against India rather than for counter-terrorism purposes remain an irritant, and these concerns were expressed officially shortly before Gates’s visit.

The nuances of Gates’s pronouncements in Delhi on Pakistan and the issue of terrorism are important. In his view it is the Al Qaida that is orchestrating attacks in Aghanistan, in Pakistan through the Tehrik-e-Taliban and in India through the LeT. The objective is to “to destabilize not just Afghanistan or Pakistan, but potentially the whole region by provoking a conflict perhaps between India and Pakistan through some provocative act or terrorist act”. Success against a single group will not help as they are all linked in a “syndicate of terrorism”. Therefore a “high level of cooperation among us all” is needed. This analysis presents Pakistan as a victim of terrorism, absolves it of any responsibility in promoting it, places terrorism against India in a context larger than Pakistan and the solution to this problem as well. A call to India to cooperate with Pakistan to meet this common threat is also implied. Such an analysis is quite at variance with India’s view of the issue, especially the close links between the Pakistani establishment and the LeT.

On the danger of a repeat Mumbai like attack Gates reacted publicly with unexpected realism, admitting that “Indian patience would be limited were there to be further attacks”. He did not offer the facile, and for India the annoying counsel that India should show continue to show restraint etc. This intelligent position would help the US in private to continue to dissuade India from retaliating militarily, while sending a subtle message to Pakistan to exert more to prevent such an attack as an Indian reaction would be difficult to stop.

In Afghanistan the US is willing to acknowledge the positive role India is playing in providing development assistance, but it remains sensitive to Pakistan’s concerns about our intentions and goals. While extolling India’s developmental effort, Gates ruled out any Indian role in training the Afghan military. Surprisingly, he drew a questionable equation between Indian and Pakistani activity in Afghanistan, mentioning the “real suspicions in both India and Pakistan about what the other is doing in Afghanistan”. Calling for “full transparency towards each other in what they are doing” suggests that Pakistani paranoia apart, the US itself has concerns about some dimensions of India’s role. That with full knowledge of Pakistan’s duplicitous role in Afghanistan vis a vis the US itself, its strategic ambitions there, its connivance at the bombings of our Embassy in Kabul itself, the US should put India and Pakistan in the same basket in Afghanistan is objectionable.

Gates stated suo moto at the press conference that he had discussed China with the Indian leaders, though not at length. Views on China’s military modernization programme, its implications, and the intentions behind it were exchanged. In China’s context, the security of the Indian Ocean and the global commons, including cyberspace, was discussed in generic terms. That this was said publicly on Indian soil by a US Defence Secretary is significant. At the very least the pretense of China’s peaceful rise is being punctured.

Gates’s visit turned out to be, surprisigly, relatively low profile, with nothing of real substance emerging. Whether it signals the maturing of the relationship, in the sense that such visits should become more routine, without expectations of major announcements each time, or it signals a lowering of euphoria about the transformation of India-US ties and the relationship settling down at more realisitc levels, has to be assessed. The press briefing that we raised with Gates the issue of continuing US sanctions on India defence PSUs and DRDO laboratories contrary to the strategic relations that India and the US are building might support the latter view.

The writer is a former Foreign Secretary and can be contacted at sibalkanwal@gmail.com