Author: Bisheshwar Mishra
Publication: The Times of India
Date: September 15, 2001
With a Joint Working Group (JWG)
of India with the U.S., Britain, Canada, Germany and Israel in place to
fight terrorism, the mutual sharing of vital intelligence has become much
easier, experts say.
"Indian intelligence experts who
have a long and rich experience of tackling terrorism, can obviously offer
a lot of assistance to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the
U.S., which is investigating the unprecedented terrorist strikes there,"
a senior security expert said on condition of anonymity.
It is important to note that U.S.
ambassador Robert Blackwill and Israeli ambassador David Aphek met home
minister L. K. Advani separately at his office on Friday. Details of the
meetings were not made available, but it is learnt the discussions centred
on speedier initiation of the JWG against terrorism.
It was Mr Advani who had endeavoured
to forge the idea of JWG with democratic countries over the past three
years. In the JWG, officials of the two sides regularly meet to share vital
intelligence information about terrorists, smugglers of narcotic and contraband
and globe trotting criminals and their networks, the official explained.
Obviously, the FBI would be interested
in as much factual information as possible to help establish the identity
of the perpetrators and the conspirators behind Tuesday's strikes. The
intelligence agencies here have compiled huge documents detailing the background
of various Taliban and other militants based in Pakistan or in Kashmir
but working in tandem with each other.
The official said the hijacking
of Indian Airlines aircraft by Pakistan-based terrorists was remarkably
similar to Tuesday's terrorist acts in the U.S. The Taliban and Pakistani
terrorists were a common factor in both. The IC-814 flight from Kathmandu
(Nepal) to New Delhi was hijacked and the pilot was forced at knife point
to steer the plane to Taliban-ruled Kandahar airport in Afghanistan. It
was Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden who had trained the Pakistan-based
terrorists who were demanding the release of some Kashmiri terrorists in
Indian jails then.
Speaking at a function earlier in
the day, Mr Advani said the world has now realised the magnitude of the
menace of terrorism. "Possibly, the U.S. has experienced terrorism now,
only in the 21st century. But we, in India, have already witnessed a trailer
(of the coordinated terror strikes) in March 1993 in Mumbai when the serial
bomb blasts took a toll of 253 innocent lives," Mr Advani had said.