Author: B. Raman
Publication: South Asia Analysis
Group
Date: June 4, 2003
URL: http://www.saag.org/paper8/paper704.html
Under a successful operation code-named
Sarp Vinash (Snake Eradication), the Indian Army has smoked out a large
number of terrorists belonging to different Pakistani jihadi organisations,
which are members of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front, from
a secret launching base in the Hill Kaka area of Surankote in Jammu &
Kashmir (J&K).
2. Details of the operation have
not been officially announced, but media reports suggest that this launching
base has been functioning undetected at least for the last four years and
that many terrorist operations, not only in J&K but also in other parts
of India, were being co-ordinated and controlled from there.
3. An article on the operation written
by Parveen Swami of the "Frontline", the prestigious fortnightly of Chennai,
for the South Asia Terrorism Portal on June 2, 2003, says as follows: "Operation
Sarp Vinash , a three-division strength operation involving three Army
brigades, has thrown up evidence that terrorists on the Poonch heights
have been building up safe bases in key areas of the district for several
years. Troops discovered a network of almost a hundred well- defended bunkers
around the Hill Kaka bowl in Surankote, built up from the high-altitude
Dhoke shelters used by Gujjar herdsmen in the summers. So far, the Army
claims to have killed upwards of 62 terrorists in the operation, although
not all the bodies of those killed have so far been recovered."
4. The "Indian Express' has reported
on June 3, 2003, as follows: " Operation Sarp Vinash has unearthed documents
that show the Military Intelligence and Intelligence Bureau failed to sense
the scale of activities in Hill Kaka for about four years.....The place---which
the field intelligence units of both the IB and the Army thought was a
mere transit point for terrorists---turned out to be a full-fledged command
and control centre for almost all tanzeems (terrorist outfits) in J&K.
There were 250-350 terrorists living there at any given time, making it
one of the biggest hide-outs south of Pir Panjal."
5. The discoveries made so far during
this operation bring to mind the undetected intrusions of the Pakistan
Army into the Kargil Heights in the beginning of 1999, which ultimately
led to a military conflict between the Indian and Pakistani armies. Recently,
there have been statements by the office-bearers of the Pakistan Muslim
League (N) of Nawaz Sharif, who was the Prime Minister in 1999, as to what
really happened in 1999. According to them, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, as the
Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), took Nawaz Sharif's clearance for helping
the terrorists to occupy the heights and set up hide-outs there; instead,
he sent regular Army units to do so. They claimed that Nawaz was totally
surprised when he later came to know that instead of using the terrorists,
Musharraf had used the Army for this purpose and that this started the
differences between the two.
6. Even during the Kargil war, some
British correspondents based in New Delhi, on the basis of briefings from
their High Commission, had reported that terrorists of Osama bin Laden
had been used by Musharraf to facilitate the occupation of the Kargil heights.
Before the intrusion, the Pakistan Government and Army were under intense
pressure from the US to help it in the eradication of the camps of pro-bin
Laden terrorist groups from the Afghan territory. There was reason to suspect
that Musharraf obtained the clearance of Nawaz for shifting these terrorists
from Afghanistan to the Kashmiri territory and that Nawaz gave the clearance,
but the involvement of the Pakistan Army in the occupation of the heights
surprised and unnerved him.
7. The technical intelligence (TECHINT)
units of our intelligence agencies failed to detect the presence of a large
number of intruders in our territory either through aerial surveillance
or through direction-finding (DF) of their communication set-up. While
such intruders could escape detection through aerial surveillance by adopting
appropriate concealment techniques, it would be difficult for them to escape
detection through DF of their communication network, if we have a good
DF capability.
8. Communication monitoring units
play two roles. First, they intercept the communications of the adversary,
which provide useful preventive intelligence. Second, through DF, they
establish the co-ordinates of the place from where such communications
are emanating. Even if the agencies are not able to break the code of the
intercepted communications, effective use of a good DF capability should
enable them to determine where from such communications are originating.
This would facilitate raids by the security forces.
9. Inadequate DF capability and
ineffective use of even the existing capability have generally been the
weak points of our intelligence agencies. This was seen before the assassination
of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. The LTTE assassination team had taken up position
in Chennai and was in wireless communication with the LTTE headquarters.
According to reported testimony before the Jain Commission, which had enquired
into the assassination, one of the intelligence agencies had intercepted
some coded communications suspected to be of the LTTE, which could not
be broken in time. No attempt would appear to have been made to establish,
through DF, where from in Chennai these W/T communications were going to
the LTTE headquarters. It was the subsequent effective use of DF, which
enabled the agencies to track down the killers, after the assassination,
in a hide-out near Bangalore where they committed suicide before they could
be arrested.
10. During the events preceding
the Kargil conflict also, inadequate DF capability prevented the agencies
from detecting the intrusions into our territory. The details of Operation
Sarp Vinash show that our DF capability continues to be as inadequate as
ever, even four years after Kargil. It is most probably this, combined
with inadequate patrolling of the areas susceptible to such intrusions,
which have enabled the terrorists to set up such a large secret launching
base in our territory without being detected. The improvement of this capability
needs urgent attention, if it is not already engaging the attention of
our authorities.
11. Operation Sarp Vinash also contains
a warning for the future. Since Musharraf took over as the COAS in October,1998,
there have been indications that shifting the Afghan-based terrorists owing
allegiance to bin Laden to inaccessible Indian territory and letting them
loose in J&K has been one of his pet ideas. In his calculation, this
would have two advantages. First, this would enable him evade US pressure
for action against them. Second, this would add to the difficulties of
the Indian security forces.
12. We should be alert to the possibility
that he and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) might help the dregs
of these terrorist organisations to set up similar launching hide-outs
in others parts of J&K. After this, he could claim to the Americans
that he had wound up all terrorist camps in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK)
and put an end to cross-border infiltration.
13. The attached Annexure gives
extracts from an article titled "The Terrorists In Our Midst " ( Paper
388, dated January 4, 2002, of the South Asia Analysis Group) written by
me, which has some bearing on this subject.
(The writer is Additional Secretary
(retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently,
Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Convenor, Advisory
Committee, Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com).
ANNEXURE
EXTRACTS FROM ARTICLE TITLED "THE
TERRORISTS IN OUR MIDST"
The success of these (terrorist)
operations was partly due to our inadequacies in preventing infiltration
of terrorists from Pakistan, in detecting their presence in our territory
and smoking them out and in unearthing and dismantling their sleeper/support
networks in India.
They would not be able to operate
with success without some local support. Even Kashmiri organisations, who
have realised the futility of violence, empathise with these Pakistani
organisations. They either assist them clandestinely or refrain from assisting
the security agencies in having them smoked out.
Ghazi Baba, alias Shabaz Khan, a
Punjabi of Bhawalpur in Pakistani Punjab, who is stated to be the leader
of the JEM (Jaish-e-Mohammad)in India, has reportedly been operating in
India for at least two years now without being smoked out. According to
media accounts, the five Pakistani (JEM) terrorists who carried out the
attacks on the Parliament House had also similarly been living in New Delhi
for weeks, if not months, before they mounted the attack.
They had hired a flat, reportedly
enrolled themselves in computer courses and managed to get hold of cellular
phones without creating any suspicion about themselves in the eyes of the
security agencies. This shows how easy it is for a foreign mercenary to
infiltrate into India, even into its capital, become a sleeper agent and
mount a terrorist strike without alerting the security agencies to their
presence.
This is what happened in the US
too before September 11, 2001. The ease with which the Al Qaeda suicide
terrorists took up residence in the US, underwent flying training with
wide-bodied aircraft despite their not being from any airline company and
mounted a synchronised operation showed a shocking state of internal security
or homeland security as the Americans call it.
The US has drawn the right lessons
from the terrorists strike. While waging its world-wide war against terrorism,
it has simultaneously undertaken a thorough revamping of its homeland security
set-up in order to strengthen intelligence collection and assessment, immigration
and financial control, physical security checks etc in a co-ordinated and
effective manner.
While the USA's spectacular external
war against terrorism has kept the world engrossed, its internal "war"
to set right matters back home has not received much attention in India.
India is right in intensifying pressure
on Pakistan and the international community to put an end to Pakistani
sponsorship of terrorism in Indian territory. Its campaign is already yielding
some results in the form of the US designation of the LET (Lashkar-e-Toiba)
and the JEM as foreign terrorist organisations, arrests of their leaders
by Pakistan, freezing of their accounts etc.
These actions, however gratifying,
are not going to end terrorism. The JEM, the LET and the HUM (Harkat-ul-
Mujahideen) have already enough Pakistani cadres and weapons in India to
be able to operate autonomously at least for a couple of years more
unless our internal security is strengthened.
The surviving cadres of these organisations
returning from Afghanistan are likely to be infiltrated by Pakistan into
India in the coming months to add to the present strength of the sleepers
already in our midst. The freezing of bank accounts is a farce and is unlikely
to affect terrorist operations.
Terrorists largely depend on clandestine
money, mainly heroin money, for keeping their operations sustained.
Even if the US-led allies manage to end once for all the production and
smuggling of fresh heroin from Afghanistan, there is enough heroin in Pakistan
from previous years' production to keep terrorist activities sustained
at least for two years.
The very important aspect of identifying
the many weak points in our internal security apparatus and removing them
in order to smoke out the terrorists already in our midst is not receiving
the attention it urgently requires.
Putting a stop to Pakistani sponsorship
is important. Equally so is setting matters right in our internal security
apparatus.
