Terror Tactics: Why 'Saffron Terror' Is Not A Myth?

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

By shielding Hindu terror suspects, the Modi government is making a big mistake. It should learn from Pakistan’s blunders.

The National Investigation Agency recently decided to drop all terror related charges against the 2008 Malegaon blast accused, Sadhvi Pragya Thakur. The decision of the NIA to overlook earlier findings of investigative agencies against Singh has been along predicted lines under the Narendra Modi regime.

Hollowness Of India’s Anti-Terrorism Cooperation Agreements with Major Countries and Pakistan Exposed

By Subhash Raja

Mumbai's 9/11 in the last one month has in its wake spawned an intense debate on the failure of the Congress Government to effectively manage India’s internal security threats emanating from Pakistan, the failure of intelligence agencies and the utter lack of an effective governmental crisis response mechanism. Indian Government severely deserves the blame and culpability that is attendant on lack of effective counter-terrorism responses. What has not surfaced in public debate is the hollowness of India’s anti-terrorism cooperation agreements with major countries and not forgetting the infamous Havana Agreement on a Joint Anti-Terrorism Mechanism signed in 2006 by India’s Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh with General Musharraf of Pakistan.

Readers would be well advised to surf the Google website and discover the number of countries with which India has signed anti-terrorism cooperation agreements over the last couple of years. If these agreements were worth the cost of the papers on which they were written then India should have received at least some iota of an inkling that something like Mumbai's 9/11 was on the cards from Pakistan’s ISI sponsored terrorist organizations.

Only two thoughts come to one’s mind. The first is that the Indian Government did receive some inputs, maybe not precise, but yet providing some leads, that could have been followed, and that they were not followed to their ultimate culmination due to the recurrent malaise that afflicts our Governmental machinery.

The second thought that then comes to one’s mind is that no inputs were received from even a single country out of the innumerable countries with which India has signed anti-terrorism cooperation agreements. If that be so then should the Indian Government not review this entire process where it had become fashionable for the Indian Government to sign such agreements for forms sake after 9/11 for want of something better to agree upon.

The United States has a formidable intelligence presence in Pakistan and more so in areas known to be the hotbeds of Islamist terrorist organizations which operate under the control and directions of Pakistan’s ISI. With such an elaborate presence something should have come their way portending Mumbai's 9/11. Some media reports indicated that the United States had passed some inputs on this account two months prior to Mumbai's 9/11. If that be so then why did the Indian Government not follow it up?

If no such reports were received then what steps has the Government taken to take up the matter with the United States? Similarly, it is time that India takes up this aspect with other countries too with which India has signed such agreements.

Finally, it also needs to be examined and questioned as to what impelled our Prime Minister to sign the Havana Agreement with the Pakistani military dictator on a Indo-Pak Joint Anti-Terror Mechanism? Was our honest Dr Manmohan Singh so unaware and naïve that he was going to sign a formal Agreement with a Pakistani military regime whose main pre-occupation has been to indulge unceasingly in proxy war and state-sponsored terrorism against India.

Also answerable on this account are the National Security Adviser, the Foreign Secretary and others forming part of India’s policy establishment or was their advice ignored for reasons best known to the Prime Minister.

Mumbai's 9/11 should now at the very least prompt the Indian Prime Minister to abrogate this infamous Havana Agreement as a mark of respect to those two hundred innocent lives lost due to the negligence of their Government.

Focus: Why Pakistan Fails To Prevent Terrorist Attacks?

Terrorist attacks amounting to war crimes are increasing in Pakistan, with militant groups, including the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and some other banned outfits, operating with "virtual impunity".

With every incident, there is only one stereotypical response from the government, the media and the general public. At times, without committing to look within, foreign hand is also blamed.

India Papers Over its Security Cracks

By Sudha Ramachandran

The Indian government has finally awoken from its stupor and begun taking long-overdue steps to improve internal security. A little over a fortnight since terrorist attacks in Mumbai left almost 200 people dead, the cabinet has approved proposals to amend the anti-terror law and the setting up of a National Investigation Agency (NIA) to streamline all terror probes.

The cabinet decision comes close on the heels of Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram's announcement in parliament of a series of measures to overhaul the crumbling and creaking internal security system.

India has suffered many terrorist attacks in the past. The recent one in Mumbai, however, exposed as never before just how vulnerable the country is to terrorism. Less than a dozen terrorists were able to hold the city hostage for over 60 hours. Intelligence agencies failed to follow up on leads to prevent the attack, ill-equipped police were unable to take on the well-armed terrorists, and anti-terrorist squads were unable to respond effectively, with commandos taking over six hours to reach the city.

The government's inept handling of the crisis led to widespread public outrage. And with general elections due in April or May next year, the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) cannot afford to be seen as weak on terror.

The measures include training more commandos, improving the capacity of intelligence agencies, the setting up of a federal investigation agency, beefing up coastal security and strengthening anti-terrorism laws.

Chidambaram announced that the National Security Guard (NSG), the country's elite counter-terrorism force, would be strengthened. Commandos would be stationed in several regional hubs rather than located in one place - near Delhi - as they have been. They will be better equipped and provided with their own aircraft to improve logistics, he said. The government will also set up around 20 counter-terrorism training schools across the country to train commandos recruited from the state police forces.

In the light of the existing coastal security apparatus failing to prevent the terrorists' entry into India via the sea, the government plans a new coastal command under the Coast Guards to oversee the Coastal Security Scheme initiated by the Home Ministry in 2005. Steps will be taken to improve coastal surveillance, including the induction of over 100 advanced patrol vessels in the next five years.

An overhaul of intelligence and investigative agencies is also in the pipeline, Chidambaram promised, with the intelligence agencies equipped with the latest equipment and their manpower increased.

The measures have been widely welcomed, but several doubts are already being raised about how effective they will be. The proposed measures ignore an overhaul of the police force, which is in most cases the first to respond to terrorist attacks.

The police force in India is understaffed, ill-equipped and poorly trained. No overhaul of the security system will be effective without improving the capacities of the police force.

Security experts had said that expansion without first addressing the root problems in the system will only result in more of the inefficiency and lethargy of India's security apparatus.

The setting up of NSG hubs in several cities will no doubt enable the commandos to react quickly to crises, but before training more commandos, the government needs to address the multiple problems that beset the NSG.

The tactics the NSG used to flush out terrorists from the Taj Mahal Hotel were more akin to those used to combing mountains for terrorists, rather than modern hostage-rescue operations, Praveen Swami has written in The Hindu. This draws attention to the fact that from its style of functioning and tactics to the equipment and clothes of its commandos, the NSG is more like a conventional military unit than a crack commando force.

This is partly because the NSG is composed not of full-time special forces personnel but of soldiers deputed from the Indian army. "Flaws in the NSG's structure, approach and tactics have to be corrected before expanding the force or else we will end up spending a lot of money to train commandos who are incapable of tackling the kind of terrorism that hit Mumbai," a retired NSG commando told Asia Times Online.

As for the NIA, the agency will probe terrorist attacks across states as well as terrorism-related crimes like drug trafficking and counterfeit currency. Whether state governments, opposed to any incursion into their preserve (law and order is a state subject in India), will support this is another matter. There are questions too over where such a federal agency will fit in.

India has the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), which is in charge of external intelligence, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which is supposed to gather intelligence relating to internal security, and a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), its premier investigation agency. Then there is the National Technical Research Organization (NTRO), which collects technical intelligence from satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Besides, there are the intelligence units of the police, the armed forces and so on. But what will the National Intelligence Agency's relationship with these agencies be? From where will it draw its manpower? From the already understaffed IB and CBI? And how will it do things differently from the existing agencies?

The rot in the intelligence agencies is so deep that cosmetic changes will bring no benefits, said a retired IB officer. Intelligence officers are badly in need of training, and fierce inter-agency rivalry has resulted in reluctance to share information. There is also deep reluctance in RAW and IB to hire Muslims (the latter is said to be marginally more open to recruiting Muslims), weakening the agencies' intelligence-gathering in critical areas.

There is a need for more intelligence operatives. Intelligence agencies are woefully understaffed. IB for instance has a strength of 25,000 and a third of this consists of secretarial and support staff. It has only 3,000 field officers, most of whom are engaged in collecting political intelligence. Only around 400 operatives are assigned to keep an eye on terrorist activity; this in a country of a billion-plus that is among the worst victims of terrorist attacks in the world.

But while expansion of intelligence agencies is urgently needed, "an expansion in the absence of correcting the existing ills of the system, will only mean more of the same", ie more incompetent officers, said the retired IB officer.

Of all the proposed measures, amendments to the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) to strengthen it against terrorism could be the most challenging for the UPA government. On coming to power in 2004, it scrapped the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government had enacted earlier on the grounds that it was being misused.

The government will need to give the NIA and other agencies sufficient legal powers while at the same time avoiding POTA's mistakes. The cabinet has approved significant changes to the UAPA, including setting up of fast track courts. Law-enforcement agencies will also be given powers to detain suspected terrorists and their sympathizers for up to 180 days as against the current 90 days. Bail provisions are also being tightened.

The UPA government is in a difficult situation. On the one hand, it has to deliver immediately and secure people from more attacks. This requires quick steps. However, measures to overhaul the security system will take a long time to implement. Even if the NSG begins training today, it will be at least a year before the commandos will be ready to take on terrorists like those that attacked Mumbai. Building training infrastructure for commandos or preparing cops to take on terrorism will take time.

There is concern that authorities will try quick-fix solutions and adopt a palliative approach to the problem rather than address the rot in the system. After the Mumbai attacks, the then-chief minister of Maharashtra, the state of which Mumbai is the capital, announced the setting up of a state commando force. Around 500 commandos would be ready for action in four months, he promised grandly - but even basic training for the NSG commandos takes at least six months.

Experts are also pointing out that even the most sophisticated training and equipment for intelligence operatives, commandos, police and others in the security chain will not help unless the various agencies are headed by experienced professionals rather than those with political connections. Besides, there is a need to separate internal security from vote-bank politics.

Will the government go back to its slumber after having announced an overhaul? The coastal security scheme announced in 2006 amid much fanfare is yet to take off. One excuse touted is that there isn't enough money to implement the scheme. The grand plans announced by the Home Minister could suffer a similar fate and his promises to improve security of ordinary citizens in the face of terrorist attacks remain just that, promises.

Why UPA’s NCTC Is The Stupid National Security Idea?

By M H Ahssan / Hydrabad

In 2009, even as clean-up crews continued to sift through the debris of 26/11, then-home minister P Chidambaram was ushered into the throbbing heart of the United States’ war against terrorism, its super-secret National Counter-Terrorism Centre. He gazed intently, an aide recalls, at its giant, filmic video-walls, where information from across the world displayed in real time, and asked searching questions about the dozens of classified databases that feed them. He gathered reams of material—perhaps even the promotional video that’s now online.

Editorial: It's now Bijli, Sadak, Pani and Terror

By M H Ahssan

Driving through Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, just a few days before the terrorist attack in Mumbai, one got the distinct impression that bijli, sadak and pani (BSP) firmly remained the key issues impacting the assembly elections in both states.

More importantly, terrorism was not even remotely seen as an issue with the electorate, even though the BJP’s central leaders had tried their best to politicise the Malegaon terror episode. This may have changed after the Mumbai attacks. It is now emphatically bijli, sadak, pani and terrorism (BSPT), not necessarily in that order.

Congress party leaders admit privately that the terrorist strike could have instantly given the BJP the extra advantage in crucial states such as Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi which voted just after the black Wednesday. Of course, the full debate on terrorism will play out at the general elections five months from now.

By then things may look a bit different as some distance from the event brings greater perspective. The Congress still has time to demonstrate its seriousness in tackling the growing threat of terror. Five months, after all, is a long time in politics.

The BJP will also try to appropriate, as much as possible, the issue of national security in the context of terrorism. It will be somewhat constrained by the unwieldy manner in which it sought to communalise the terror issue — though L K Advani is now correcting his course saying that he was merely on the issue of how the Maharashtra ATS had tortured the sadhvi allegedly involved in the Malegaon bomb blasts.

The BJP is already going through its own contortions to explain away its earlier stand on Maharashtra ATS chief Karkare, who fell to the terrorist’s bullet.

There will be a much more nuanced play of the terror issue in the months ahead. Meanwhile, the results of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi will help in gauging how the Congress and BJP would evolve their campaign strategy for general elections.

Barely three days before the Mumbai terror attack, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Chouhan candidly admitted to some journalists who met him at his Bhopal residence that there was a lot of anti-incumbency working at the constituency level. He also conceded that national level issues such as terrorism were not a factor at all at that time.

However, the chief minister felt confident that his positive image, linked with a larger vision for the state would beat the anti-incumbency at the level of MLAs. The biggest factor working against the BJP at the MLA level was the absence of bijli and pani, the very slogan which helped the party throw the Congress out of power five years ago. On an average, across Madhya Pradesh, villages are getting electricity just about five hours a day. Sans power, farmers are unable to pump up ground water.

Chouhan was honest enough to admit that part of the failure was caused by the dependence of the state on hydel power from Narmada river which did not have much water this year due to low rainfall. “What was supposed to generate 2,200MW is now only giving 800MW”, Chouhan said.

Despite the odds, Chouhan is seen as a winning horse because of what many see as his ability to connect with the poor in the state. Put simply, he is a 24x7 grassroots politician.

Does Congress have one in Madhya Pradesh? It is interesting to note that Chouhan tries to model himself as a strong regional leader like Narendra Modi, who is seen as having a finger on the pulse of the people. One also saw in Madhya Pradesh shades of Modi’s Gujarat strategy. For instance, Chouhan has fielded a large number of fresh faces to beat anti-incumbency at the local level.

Of course, the Congress’s major criticism against the chief minister is that he has promised a lot and done little. Even if that were true, it might be difficult for the Congress to cover the massive deficit in the total vote share it suffered in the last assembly elections.

In 2003, the BJP cornered 42% of the total votes polled in Madhya Pradesh, with the Congress bagging only 31%. Other things remaining the same, the Congress needs a 5% plus swing away from the BJP to cover the vote deficit, which seems like a tall order. The terrorist strike in Mumbai a day before the polling in the state may have made things even more difficult for the Congress.

The Congress, it would appear, has a much better chance of exploiting the anti-incumbency factor in Rajasthan where it lags behind the BJP in vote share by just 3%. It needs a 1.5% plus swing in its favour to challenge the BJP chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia, who seems to be banking largely on her personal charisma, with not much help from the rest of the BJP leadership either at the state or central level. The party apparatus does not seem to have backed her to the hilt.

The Congress is somewhat better organised in Rajasthan this time and Vasundhara’s distance from her party leadership could help swing the state away from the BJP. Again, it is not clear how the issue of terrorism will play out in Rajasthan whose capital has been a target of major terror strikes in recent times. The voter turnout in Rajasthan, though, was quite high.

In Delhi, it seemed very clear that the sudden surge in voting after the Mumbai attack clearly reflected some anxiety among the urban middle class over the issue of national security. So, terrorism will certainly impact the outcome of the assembly polls.

The real test for India’s major political parties will come during the 2009 general elections. In many ways the Mumbai terror attacks may have already changed the discourse of national politics. Until recently, the view espoused by many political observers seemed to be that both the Congress and the BJP were in disarray and that a reinvented third front could emerge with Mayawati playing a key role.

The third front becomes a strong possibility if the Congress and BJP together fall well below the half way mark in the 545-seat Lok Sabha. At present the two main parties are a little above the half-way mark of 273 seats.

However, as national security and terrorism gain centre stage, as they are most likely to do, in the Lok Sabha elections, the electorate might prefer a coalition that is led by a stronger national party. This is an opportunity for both the BJP and the Congress. The contest to appropriate the national security plank should be quite engaging.

Editorial: It's now Bijli, Sadak, Pani and Terror

By M H Ahssan

Driving through Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, just a few days before the terrorist attack in Mumbai, one got the distinct impression that bijli, sadak and pani (BSP) firmly remained the key issues impacting the assembly elections in both states.

More importantly, terrorism was not even remotely seen as an issue with the electorate, even though the BJP’s central leaders had tried their best to politicise the Malegaon terror episode. This may have changed after the Mumbai attacks. It is now emphatically bijli, sadak, pani and terrorism (BSPT), not necessarily in that order.

Congress party leaders admit privately that the terrorist strike could have instantly given the BJP the extra advantage in crucial states such as Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi which voted just after the black Wednesday. Of course, the full debate on terrorism will play out at the general elections five months from now.

By then things may look a bit different as some distance from the event brings greater perspective. The Congress still has time to demonstrate its seriousness in tackling the growing threat of terror. Five months, after all, is a long time in politics.

The BJP will also try to appropriate, as much as possible, the issue of national security in the context of terrorism. It will be somewhat constrained by the unwieldy manner in which it sought to communalise the terror issue — though L K Advani is now correcting his course saying that he was merely on the issue of how the Maharashtra ATS had tortured the sadhvi allegedly involved in the Malegaon bomb blasts.

The BJP is already going through its own contortions to explain away its earlier stand on Maharashtra ATS chief Karkare, who fell to the terrorist’s bullet.

There will be a much more nuanced play of the terror issue in the months ahead. Meanwhile, the results of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi will help in gauging how the Congress and BJP would evolve their campaign strategy for general elections.

Barely three days before the Mumbai terror attack, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Chouhan candidly admitted to some journalists who met him at his Bhopal residence that there was a lot of anti-incumbency working at the constituency level. He also conceded that national level issues such as terrorism were not a factor at all at that time.

However, the chief minister felt confident that his positive image, linked with a larger vision for the state would beat the anti-incumbency at the level of MLAs. The biggest factor working against the BJP at the MLA level was the absence of bijli and pani, the very slogan which helped the party throw the Congress out of power five years ago. On an average, across Madhya Pradesh, villages are getting electricity just about five hours a day. Sans power, farmers are unable to pump up ground water.

Chouhan was honest enough to admit that part of the failure was caused by the dependence of the state on hydel power from Narmada river which did not have much water this year due to low rainfall. “What was supposed to generate 2,200MW is now only giving 800MW”, Chouhan said.

Despite the odds, Chouhan is seen as a winning horse because of what many see as his ability to connect with the poor in the state. Put simply, he is a 24x7 grassroots politician.

Does Congress have one in Madhya Pradesh? It is interesting to note that Chouhan tries to model himself as a strong regional leader like Narendra Modi, who is seen as having a finger on the pulse of the people. One also saw in Madhya Pradesh shades of Modi’s Gujarat strategy. For instance, Chouhan has fielded a large number of fresh faces to beat anti-incumbency at the local level.

Of course, the Congress’s major criticism against the chief minister is that he has promised a lot and done little. Even if that were true, it might be difficult for the Congress to cover the massive deficit in the total vote share it suffered in the last assembly elections.

In 2003, the BJP cornered 42% of the total votes polled in Madhya Pradesh, with the Congress bagging only 31%. Other things remaining the same, the Congress needs a 5% plus swing away from the BJP to cover the vote deficit, which seems like a tall order. The terrorist strike in Mumbai a day before the polling in the state may have made things even more difficult for the Congress.

The Congress, it would appear, has a much better chance of exploiting the anti-incumbency factor in Rajasthan where it lags behind the BJP in vote share by just 3%. It needs a 1.5% plus swing in its favour to challenge the BJP chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia, who seems to be banking largely on her personal charisma, with not much help from the rest of the BJP leadership either at the state or central level. The party apparatus does not seem to have backed her to the hilt.

The Congress is somewhat better organised in Rajasthan this time and Vasundhara’s distance from her party leadership could help swing the state away from the BJP. Again, it is not clear how the issue of terrorism will play out in Rajasthan whose capital has been a target of major terror strikes in recent times. The voter turnout in Rajasthan, though, was quite high.

In Delhi, it seemed very clear that the sudden surge in voting after the Mumbai attack clearly reflected some anxiety among the urban middle class over the issue of national security. So, terrorism will certainly impact the outcome of the assembly polls.

The real test for India’s major political parties will come during the 2009 general elections. In many ways the Mumbai terror attacks may have already changed the discourse of national politics. Until recently, the view espoused by many political observers seemed to be that both the Congress and the BJP were in disarray and that a reinvented third front could emerge with Mayawati playing a key role.

The third front becomes a strong possibility if the Congress and BJP together fall well below the half way mark in the 545-seat Lok Sabha. At present the two main parties are a little above the half-way mark of 273 seats.

However, as national security and terrorism gain centre stage, as they are most likely to do, in the Lok Sabha elections, the electorate might prefer a coalition that is led by a stronger national party. This is an opportunity for both the BJP and the Congress. The contest to appropriate the national security plank should be quite engaging.

Al-Qaeda spreads all over

By M H Ahssan

Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network is seizing a greater role behind the scenes in Afghanistan and Pakistan in an effort that could block the Barack Obama administration's stated goal of denying the terror network sanctuary in South Asia.

A three-month investigation of al-Qaeda's activities, from Nuristan in the north to Paktika in the southeast, suggests that bin Laden's terror network - working through Afghan and Pakistani partners - is present in almost every Afghan and Pakistani province along the fluid border areas between the two countries.

Interviews with US military commanders and American radio intercepts of Arab and Chechen fighters as well as confirmed captures or kills of foreign fighters inside Afghanistan bolster the findings.

More alarming to Western terrorism analysts and US commanders, however, is the recognition that al-Qaeda has succeeded in goading its regional partners into accepting the idea of a "two-front-war" against US-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan and the government in Pakistan. That war in turn guarantees bin Laden's network permanent safe havens along the porous border between the two nations, from which it can plan larger international terrorist attacks.

Unlike in Iraq, where al-Qaeda chose to participate directly in battles with its own frontline fighters and under its own brand name, bin Laden's al-Qaeda network in South Asia is increasingly content to play a role behind the scenes, influencing key players in the struggle and furthering its political interests, said Western terrorism analysts and Afghans.

American terrorism experts say that al-Qaeda's leadership has chosen the senior leader of Pakistan's Taliban, Baitullah Mahsud, as their point man. Uzbek and Chechen "trigger men", most of whom have been living opposite across the border in the North and South Waziristan tribal areas in Pakistan, have helped Mahsud, 34, consolidate his own authority up and down the border in the past year. In March, the US government offered a US$5 million reward for Mahsud, whom it says is a "key al-Qaeda facilitator", or ally, responsible for multiple suicide attacks.

Pakistani officials in Afghanistan and Pakistan said this week that Mahsud was using al-Qaeda's highly trained gunmen in the Pakistani Taliban's ongoing guerrilla struggle in the Swat Valley. Mahsud bullied his way into a position of leadership across most of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas earlier this year when a new coalition of insurgent groups confirmed him as their "supreme commander" in February.

American counter-insurgency efforts in Afghanistan are focused on building a bulwark against al-Qaeda, which the Barack Obama administration deems an essential part of the puzzle for peace in South Asia. But Mahsud and several of his deputies, who operate on both sides of the border, have created a strong bridge linking the Pakistani Taliban with the Afghan Taliban in a two-front war with a border that has proven impossible for US and Pakistani forces to control.

"Al-Qaeda is operating parasitically on the successes of the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban by providing them with critical services, including global media networks, resource mobilization and precious human capital," said Vahid Brown, an al-Qaeda analyst with West Point's prestigious Combating Terrorism Center (CTC).

An Afghan, working with Western forces in Afghanistan and who asked to remain anonymous, said he had monitored al-Qaeda radio traffic in a Paktika province district that is a stronghold of the Haqqani network, run by Sirajuddin Haqqani. "I set up a radio scanner two months ago and I picked up Chechens and Arabs talking regularly," he said. "At one point, we heard an Arab talking to a Chechen say, 'Hey, the money has come in, you can attack soon'." The Afghan said that an Afghan al-Qaeda figure, Maulvi Twaha, who he said he had personally seen shoot dead five Afghan students in 2001, was operating openly in the province, assisting foreign agents and fighters to enter and leave the region.

An American, embedded as a trainer with the Afghan National Army, confirmed similar radio traffic. "It sounds from radio chatter like they have more recruits coming in, including Arabs, Uzbeks, Turkmen and Chechen fighters," said US Army Major Cory Schultz, 37, from the San Francisco Bay Area.

A leading al-Qaeda propagandist and ideologue, Abu Yahya al-Libbi, an escapee from the US prison at Bagram in July 2005, claimed in a propaganda booklet released in mid-March that Pakistan's army should be treated as an occupying infidel army waging an offensive war on an invaded Muslim population. He told Pakistanis that it was incumbent on them, as "good Muslims", to fight their own government.

Al-Libbi has helped the Pakistani Taliban set up successful propaganda operations of their own with FM broadcast stations that operate through portable Chinese transmission boxes. "Abu Yahya al-Libbi translates the network's ideas to a popular audience" on both sides of the border, said Brian Fishman, also at West Point's CTC.

Al-Libbi maintains close ties to the "Tora Bora Front" in eastern Afghanistan, north of the White Mountains, and has been interviewed on the website of the front, which is the domain of Mujahid Khalis, the son of deceased mujahideen leader Younus Khalis, who welcomed bin Laden to Afghanistan from Sudan in 1996.

Al-Qaeda's proxy Mahsud has aligned his fighters closely with those of Mullah "Radio" Fazlullah, whose insurgents are fighting a protracted war with Pakistani forces well to the north of Waziristan and centered in the region of Swat in Pakistan.

In a 2007 interview with this correspondent, Fazlullah did not mince words in support of al-Qaeda's goals in neighboring Afghanistan and around the globe: "When Muslims are under attack in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have a duty to fight back against the American crusaders and their allies," he said.

Other leading insurgent groups led by Jalaluddin Haqqani's son, Sirajuddin, as well as Mullah Nazir, who operate along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border out of Waziristan, have been forced to agree to the new al-Qaeda-backed strategy for the two-front war, said Western terrorism analysts.

Though bin Laden remains the head of al-Qaeda, operational control and support for wars in South Asia is largely believed to be the work of his right-hand man, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, who lives in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Other leading American terrorism experts said al-Qaeda had made significant adaptations meant to enhance its own power base, albeit usually well hidden behind the scenes. "Al-Qaeda is acting as a force multiplier by providing funding, assistance in propaganda efforts using its print and video outlets, strategic planning ability and aid on tactics," said Seth Jones, an advisor to the US military and the author of the forthcoming book, Afghanistan: Graveyard of Empires.

Terrorism analysts believe that bin Laden has likely taken refuge in North or South Waziristan, or a large city well inside Pakistan's settled areas. They say his larger-than-life presence remains a thorn in the side of US efforts. "He is the head of the snake and he does matter," said Fishman, adding that bin Laden still likely takes part in the network's major decision-making.

West Point's terrorism analysts believe that al-Qaeda stands to gain from continued fighting and chaos on both sides of the border. "There has already been a significant movement of Pakistani Taliban leaders in the al-Qaeda camp into the settled areas of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province and their front for operations planning is spreading," said Brown. "Hundreds of thousands of additional internally displaced persons in Pakistan means lots of fresh blood for al-Qaeda's ranks."

Both US military and Afghan security officials confirmed a steady movement - by air from Dubai and other aerial hubs, by land across Iran and water from the Gulf - of international jihadis from the Middle East to South Asia. Many Arabs, Chechens and other foreign fighters recently completed tours of fighting in Iraq, where al-Qaeda suffered significant setbacks.

American military commanders say they are doing what they can to flush out known Taliban and al-Qaeda safe havens inside Afghanistan, but terrorism experts believe insurgents are planning fresh attacks in conjunction with an influx of 20,000 US and NATO forces this summer.

Colonel John Spiszer, 46, of Harker Heights, Texas, who commands US forces north of the White Mountains in eastern Afghanistan, acknowledged that one, Abu Ikhlas al Masri, an Egyptian al-Qaeda member, was contributing to the intense fight against his forces in the province of Kunar, not far from the Pakistani regions of Swat and Bajaur.

"The guys [al-Qaeda and other financiers] giving the insurgents money right now are doing it to survive and get fighters," he said. He added that his goal in pressing the fight along the border with Pakistan was to keep "facilitators and financiers" locked down in a battle near the border and keep them from further impacting the fight inside Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, the ties between al-Qaeda and leading insurgent groups go back to the days of bin Laden's own involvement in the fight against the Soviet Union. In the 1980s, he fought in eastern Afghanistan himself near Khost in the remote town of Jaji in Paktia province. Many of al-Qaeda's Arab operatives later took up residence inside Afghanistan as the Taliban rose to power in the late 1990s. Most of this crowd fled to Pakistan in the wake of the US invasion in 2001.

Leading Arabs and Uzbeks, in addition to plotting international terrorist actions, became successful in the cross-border trade of opium and heroin. Efforts of Pakistani and Afghan warlords to wrest more control of Pakistan's share of the regional drug trade from these same groups have failed, said Western analysts and Afghans.

Across from Khost in Pakistan, over mountains traversable by bicycle, al-Qaeda's own military trainers still work closely with strategic Taliban commanders at Haqqani command centers like the Manba Ulum Haqqania madrassa (seminary) in Northern Waziristan.

American unmanned Predator drones have repeatedly dropped bombs on or near the religious school, which is believed to maintain a number of secret bases across Waziristan. As a precaution against the US's aerial raids, al-Qaeda members in Waziristan rarely have tea in groups of more than three, said Afghans who travel to the region.

In addition, Taliban fighters, often working with al-Qaeda military trainers, have started to train indoors as well as in small mud-walled compounds, where they attract only limited attention from US aerial overflights and drone bombing runs.

Most Afghanistan-Pakistan insurgent groups, led by Mahsud and Mullah Omar's Afghan Taliban, have not officially adopted the "al-Qaeda" brand name, but they have essentially sworn their allegiance to bin Laden, say leading experts on the terror network.

They claim that al-Qaeda has learned from the mistake of going into business under its own name in Iraq and it prefers, instead, to remain behind the scenes, protected by local gunmen on the one hand, but capable of influencing the fight against US and foreign "infidels" in South Asia on the other hand.

Held To Ransom

By K Subramanyam

Attacks on supplies show up vulnerability of NATO troops

Yet another convoy carrying essential supplies to the US and NATO forces deployed in Afghanistan has been attacked near Peshawar. This is the second attack in the past week and took place close to the corps headquarters and the provincial capital. These attacks happened when successive visits by the US secretary of state, defence secretary, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and deputy secretary of state were taking place in Islamabad. It appeared as though it was being clearly demonstrated to the US at the highest levels how vulnerable the supply lines to the US and NATO forces deployed in Afghanistan are.

One wonders whether it is a coincidence that this message is being communicated to the US even as General Petraeus is preparing his plans for a surge in Afghanistan with additional US forces. It is possible that the US and international community are being told that they need the Pakistani army’s cooperation for their campaign against the Taliban and therefore there are limits to what the US and its NATO allies can do to curb international terrorism originating from Pakistani soil. Surges of forces and increased missile strikes by the US and NATO forces can be countered by strangulation of supply lines from Karachi port to Kabul. General Petraeus did not face similar problems while sustaining surges in Iraq.

If the US and NATO do not take adequate steps to respond to such devastating attacks on supply convoys it would have an adverse impact on the truck operators leading to further disruptions in the US and NATO logistics. It would also embolden the Taliban to step up its attacks. It would appear that the leadership of the Pakistani army and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) are testing the will of the incoming Barack Obama administration. The international crisis foreseen by vice-president-elect Joseph Biden within the first 100 days of Obama’s presidency may well prove to be Pakistani disruption of supply lines to US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistanis, as evidenced from the pronouncements of their defence minister, are sensitive to the consequences of their being branded as a terrorist state and its impact on their country’s already crippled economy. They should also have taken note of the fact that the resolution in the UN Security Council declaring the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) a terrorist organisation did not face any reservations from China and Russia. Even as the Pakistani government nominally accepted the Security Council resolution, the Pakistani army and ISI appear to be testing how the US and NATO would react to the disruption of convoys to Kabul.

The trap they set out to provoke India into a military confrontation on the Operation Parakram model has not worked and therefore they cannot use the Indian alibi not to fulfil their obligations to cooperate with the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. President Asif Zardari’s pathetic denial that the captured terrorist in Mumbai is not a Pakistani has been rebuffed by the Pakistani media itself. More evidence of Pakistani involvement in the Mumbai terrorist attack will be available not only from Indian but also from US and UK sources, largely from communication intercepts.

In these circumstances Pakistan may try to bargain for being let off the hook on terrorism against India, ask the US and the West to put pressure on India to make concessions in Kashmir and pledge continued large-scale military and civil aid to Pakistan in return for uninterrupted supply lines to Kabul to aid US and NATO operations. The Pakistani army’s interest is not in allowing an early military victory for US and NATO forces. Its interests are served by a prolonged war, which would provide Pakistan aid over a longer period of time. It would also tire US and NATO forces in Afghanistan compelling them to consider the withdrawal option. That will only lead a triumphalist al-Qaeda and its associates — such as the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba and JuD — to step up their Islamist jihad all over the world.

Terrorist cadres recruited for jihad believe that they are destined to win as a civilisation though individually they may become martyrs. The jihadi fanatic poses threats to Russia and China as well. The stabilisation of Afghanistan is in the interest of not just the US, NATO and India but also of Russia, China and Central Asian republics and most of the Islamic world. In this context, the war against terrorism — of which Pakistan is now the epicentre — has become a global war. The attacks on Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Hyderabad and other Indian cities fall into the same category as those on New York, Washington, Bali, Madrid and London and constitute a jihadi offensive against civilised nations and values.

A major mistake was committed in the global war on terrorism by attention being diverted to Iraq. The beneficiaries of this mistake are the supporters of jihadi terrorism. Obama has advocated that Afghanistan and its neighbourhood should receive primary attention in battle against terrorism. The crucial need today is for him to build a coalition including NATO, Russia, China, India and moderate Islamic countries to contain terrorism in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region and then lend global support to Pakistan so that it can salvage its much-mauled democracy.

Held To Ransom

By K Subramanyam

Attacks on supplies show up vulnerability of NATO troops

Yet another convoy carrying essential supplies to the US and NATO forces deployed in Afghanistan has been attacked near Peshawar. This is the second attack in the past week and took place close to the corps headquarters and the provincial capital. These attacks happened when successive visits by the US secretary of state, defence secretary, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and deputy secretary of state were taking place in Islamabad. It appeared as though it was being clearly demonstrated to the US at the highest levels how vulnerable the supply lines to the US and NATO forces deployed in Afghanistan are.

One wonders whether it is a coincidence that this message is being communicated to the US even as General Petraeus is preparing his plans for a surge in Afghanistan with additional US forces. It is possible that the US and international community are being told that they need the Pakistani army’s cooperation for their campaign against the Taliban and therefore there are limits to what the US and its NATO allies can do to curb international terrorism originating from Pakistani soil. Surges of forces and increased missile strikes by the US and NATO forces can be countered by strangulation of supply lines from Karachi port to Kabul. General Petraeus did not face similar problems while sustaining surges in Iraq.

If the US and NATO do not take adequate steps to respond to such devastating attacks on supply convoys it would have an adverse impact on the truck operators leading to further disruptions in the US and NATO logistics. It would also embolden the Taliban to step up its attacks. It would appear that the leadership of the Pakistani army and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) are testing the will of the incoming Barack Obama administration. The international crisis foreseen by vice-president-elect Joseph Biden within the first 100 days of Obama’s presidency may well prove to be Pakistani disruption of supply lines to US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistanis, as evidenced from the pronouncements of their defence minister, are sensitive to the consequences of their being branded as a terrorist state and its impact on their country’s already crippled economy. They should also have taken note of the fact that the resolution in the UN Security Council declaring the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) a terrorist organisation did not face any reservations from China and Russia. Even as the Pakistani government nominally accepted the Security Council resolution, the Pakistani army and ISI appear to be testing how the US and NATO would react to the disruption of convoys to Kabul.

The trap they set out to provoke India into a military confrontation on the Operation Parakram model has not worked and therefore they cannot use the Indian alibi not to fulfil their obligations to cooperate with the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. President Asif Zardari’s pathetic denial that the captured terrorist in Mumbai is not a Pakistani has been rebuffed by the Pakistani media itself. More evidence of Pakistani involvement in the Mumbai terrorist attack will be available not only from Indian but also from US and UK sources, largely from communication intercepts.

In these circumstances Pakistan may try to bargain for being let off the hook on terrorism against India, ask the US and the West to put pressure on India to make concessions in Kashmir and pledge continued large-scale military and civil aid to Pakistan in return for uninterrupted supply lines to Kabul to aid US and NATO operations. The Pakistani army’s interest is not in allowing an early military victory for US and NATO forces. Its interests are served by a prolonged war, which would provide Pakistan aid over a longer period of time. It would also tire US and NATO forces in Afghanistan compelling them to consider the withdrawal option. That will only lead a triumphalist al-Qaeda and its associates — such as the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba and JuD — to step up their Islamist jihad all over the world.

Terrorist cadres recruited for jihad believe that they are destined to win as a civilisation though individually they may become martyrs. The jihadi fanatic poses threats to Russia and China as well. The stabilisation of Afghanistan is in the interest of not just the US, NATO and India but also of Russia, China and Central Asian republics and most of the Islamic world. In this context, the war against terrorism — of which Pakistan is now the epicentre — has become a global war. The attacks on Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Hyderabad and other Indian cities fall into the same category as those on New York, Washington, Bali, Madrid and London and constitute a jihadi offensive against civilised nations and values.

A major mistake was committed in the global war on terrorism by attention being diverted to Iraq. The beneficiaries of this mistake are the supporters of jihadi terrorism. Obama has advocated that Afghanistan and its neighbourhood should receive primary attention in battle against terrorism. The crucial need today is for him to build a coalition including NATO, Russia, China, India and moderate Islamic countries to contain terrorism in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region and then lend global support to Pakistan so that it can salvage its much-mauled democracy.

Held To Ransom

By K Subramanyam

Attacks on supplies show up vulnerability of NATO troops

Yet another convoy carrying essential supplies to the US and NATO forces deployed in Afghanistan has been attacked near Peshawar. This is the second attack in the past week and took place close to the corps headquarters and the provincial capital. These attacks happened when successive visits by the US secretary of state, defence secretary, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and deputy secretary of state were taking place in Islamabad. It appeared as though it was being clearly demonstrated to the US at the highest levels how vulnerable the supply lines to the US and NATO forces deployed in Afghanistan are.

One wonders whether it is a coincidence that this message is being communicated to the US even as General Petraeus is preparing his plans for a surge in Afghanistan with additional US forces. It is possible that the US and international community are being told that they need the Pakistani army’s cooperation for their campaign against the Taliban and therefore there are limits to what the US and its NATO allies can do to curb international terrorism originating from Pakistani soil. Surges of forces and increased missile strikes by the US and NATO forces can be countered by strangulation of supply lines from Karachi port to Kabul. General Petraeus did not face similar problems while sustaining surges in Iraq.

If the US and NATO do not take adequate steps to respond to such devastating attacks on supply convoys it would have an adverse impact on the truck operators leading to further disruptions in the US and NATO logistics. It would also embolden the Taliban to step up its attacks. It would appear that the leadership of the Pakistani army and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) are testing the will of the incoming Barack Obama administration. The international crisis foreseen by vice-president-elect Joseph Biden within the first 100 days of Obama’s presidency may well prove to be Pakistani disruption of supply lines to US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistanis, as evidenced from the pronouncements of their defence minister, are sensitive to the consequences of their being branded as a terrorist state and its impact on their country’s already crippled economy. They should also have taken note of the fact that the resolution in the UN Security Council declaring the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) a terrorist organisation did not face any reservations from China and Russia. Even as the Pakistani government nominally accepted the Security Council resolution, the Pakistani army and ISI appear to be testing how the US and NATO would react to the disruption of convoys to Kabul.

The trap they set out to provoke India into a military confrontation on the Operation Parakram model has not worked and therefore they cannot use the Indian alibi not to fulfil their obligations to cooperate with the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. President Asif Zardari’s pathetic denial that the captured terrorist in Mumbai is not a Pakistani has been rebuffed by the Pakistani media itself. More evidence of Pakistani involvement in the Mumbai terrorist attack will be available not only from Indian but also from US and UK sources, largely from communication intercepts.

In these circumstances Pakistan may try to bargain for being let off the hook on terrorism against India, ask the US and the West to put pressure on India to make concessions in Kashmir and pledge continued large-scale military and civil aid to Pakistan in return for uninterrupted supply lines to Kabul to aid US and NATO operations. The Pakistani army’s interest is not in allowing an early military victory for US and NATO forces. Its interests are served by a prolonged war, which would provide Pakistan aid over a longer period of time. It would also tire US and NATO forces in Afghanistan compelling them to consider the withdrawal option. That will only lead a triumphalist al-Qaeda and its associates — such as the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba and JuD — to step up their Islamist jihad all over the world.

Terrorist cadres recruited for jihad believe that they are destined to win as a civilisation though individually they may become martyrs. The jihadi fanatic poses threats to Russia and China as well. The stabilisation of Afghanistan is in the interest of not just the US, NATO and India but also of Russia, China and Central Asian republics and most of the Islamic world. In this context, the war against terrorism — of which Pakistan is now the epicentre — has become a global war. The attacks on Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Hyderabad and other Indian cities fall into the same category as those on New York, Washington, Bali, Madrid and London and constitute a jihadi offensive against civilised nations and values.

A major mistake was committed in the global war on terrorism by attention being diverted to Iraq. The beneficiaries of this mistake are the supporters of jihadi terrorism. Obama has advocated that Afghanistan and its neighbourhood should receive primary attention in battle against terrorism. The crucial need today is for him to build a coalition including NATO, Russia, China, India and moderate Islamic countries to contain terrorism in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region and then lend global support to Pakistan so that it can salvage its much-mauled democracy.

Failure of Indian intelligence: The buck stops nowhere!

By M H Ahssan & John Wilson

The increasing failure of the intelligence agencies, both at the sate and the federal level, to prevent such attacks has emboldened the terrorists groups which have struck back, despite security measures...

Almost a dozen state police units and intelligence agencies were tracking down terrorist groups across India for the past two years but missed to detect the activities of the men who were involved in the Mumbai terror attack.

Though there were reports, based mainly on the interrogation of terrorists arrested in the recent past, about Mumbai being the next target, there were no specific leads about how the terrorists will strike.

The increasing failure of the intelligence agencies, both at the sate and the federal level, to prevent such attacks has emboldened the terrorists groups which have struck back, despite large scale arrests and security measures, at a frequency of two months in the recent past - Ahmedabad in July, Delhi in September and now Mumbai in November. These attacks were not carried out by the same group of terrorists but by a loose coalition of groups located in different parts of the country, activated and coordinated by a central command, likely to be outside India.

This singular inability is not caused by lack of information but a deep reluctance to share data and resources among the police and intelligence agencies and the pitfall of having a multiplicity of organisations, with separate command and control which, in essence, means the buck stops nowhere.


The most debilitating factor in the Indian intelligence war on terrorism has been the reluctance, and even refusal, to share information among the intelligence and security agencies. Along with an inept information-sharing architecture at the national level, this reluctance has proved to be the most critical flaw in counter-terrorism intelligence operations.

The problem came to the fore early this year when police in the Karnataka state of southern India arrested one Riyazuddin Nasir on charges of vehicle theft. Nasir would have been let out on bail for these minor charges but for a single intelligence official in New Delhi who decided to search the database for connections with terrorist activities. Nasir was found to be a Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami's (HuJI) operative and one of India's most wanted men.

It is not really difficult to see where the problem is: an intelligence structure which has yet to emerge from its debilitating colonial legacy and a complementary stranglehold of bureaucracy. The structure and operational philosophy of state police and intelligence units have not changed much since British days. They are mostly structured as agencies to protect law and order and spy on rivals rather than act as investigative and intelligence units. Criminal investigators are usually inserted into terrorism investigations only after an incident takes place. There are no independent anti-terror units carrying out both intelligence and investigations into terrorist groups at the state level.

At the top of the intelligence pyramid is the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), headed by an all-powerful, politically-appointed National Security Advisor (NSA), who often has much more than terrorism on his mind. Intelligence operations within the country are carried out by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and its wide network of officers and men, all reporting to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The ministry is headed by a cabinet minister and one or two ministers of state - besides a secretary and other senior officials - who often get tempted, at least close to the elections, to utilize the IB for assessing the electoral chances of their party while spying on their rivals. The IB is grossly under-staffed and the field operatives, numbering 3000, and analysts need to be updated on skills urgently.

External intelligence is the responsibility of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), working directly under the cabinet secretary but reporting to the NSA for all practical purposes. The RAW keeps a sharp eye on the activities of terrorist groups with bases in foreign countries. According to former IB joint director Maloy Krishna Dhar, RAW's reluctance to share information with the IB is legendary. There have also been instances where personality clashes have deterred effective coordination between the NSA and RAW chiefs. The RAW, for the moment, is riven with dissensions in the top rung and afflicted by unsavoury mud-slinging between various officers which have seriously affected its capability.

The second set of intelligence agencies are the military ones, led by the Directorate General of Military Intelligence (DGMI) with a network of field offices and forward posts in the border areas as well as representatives in diplomatic missions. Since the DGMI has been historically part of the army, the air force and navy have individual intelligence units collecting and collating information relevant to their operations and bases. The Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), created in 2002 to correct this anomaly, is entrusted with the task of coordinating the whole spectrum of military intelligence but is presently short-staffed, poorly funded and burdened with an ambitious and expanding circle of objectives.

Paramilitary organisations like the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Border Security Force (BSF) maintain their own intelligence units to support counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir and elsewhere. Their intelligence operations have often been stymied by the army's reluctance to share intelligence tapped from its wide network of informers and sources. Other government agencies providing physical security, like the Special Protection Group (SPG), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and National Security Guards (NSG), all maintain their own intelligence units.

At the bottom of the pyramid are the state police, whose intelligence networks remain the primary source of information and main agency for implementing action on the ground. The most critical element in this structure is the investigative branch of the local police forces. These go by various names, such as the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), the Special Branch or the Crime Branch. There is no uniformity in responsibilities or operational duties. Typically, these units carry out the investigation and prosecution of terrorist, and arms and counterfeit cases, placing them in the unique position of being able to detect the emergence of terror networks or coalitions.

Unfortunately, they remain the weakest link in the intelligence chain as these units carry the burden of acting as colonial-style law enforcement agencies and not as modern units capable of organising preventive measures based on intelligence collection. These forces are commonly afflicted with poor morale and problems related to accountability, pay and training. Even in metropolitan centres like New Delhi and Mumbai, the police-criminal nexus and pervasive corruption have rendered effective intelligence from federal agencies worthless.

There was clear intelligence available about terrorist attacks in Mumbai at least a month before the July 2006 commuter train blasts. This intelligence was not followed up on, nor were preventive measures put in place at railway stations. A week after the Mumbai bombings, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was quoted by the media as saying that "past responses have been inadequate in dealing with these problems which are of a different intensity, magnitude, scale and scope".

Of the several steps taken in recent years to overcome these outstanding difficulties, two held great promise. One was the creation of the National Technical Research Organization (NTRO), with a focus on collecting technical intelligence (TECHINT), cyber intelligence and cyber counter-intelligence. Beginning with RAW's Aviation Research Centre (ARC) assets, NTRO is rapidly expanding and strengthening its intelligence capabilities to fulfil this mandate.

On the other hand, the NTRO mandate adds one more agency to the mix, as the IB, RAW and the Indian Army's Signals Directorate will continue to maintain autonomous TECHINT units.

The second step was the establishment of a Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) and a Joint Task Force on intelligence within IB as a hub of India's counter-terrorism effort. The mission objective was to run an umbrella organization comprising state-level units called SMACs and the development of a national counter-terrorism database supported by state-level police-intelligence Joint Task Forces and inter-state Intelligence Support Teams. Conceived after the pattern of the US Central Investigative Agency's (CIA)Counter-Terrorism Center, the MAC was to be responsible for the joint analysis of intelligence flowing from different quarters and coordinating relevant follow-up actions.

Five years after MAC was approved, it is today composed of a skeletal staff and five SMACs, using a database hosted on a bare-bones computer system designed in-house, with no real-time links to state police forces or other intelligence agencies. There is no sign of the development of the comprehensive database on terrorists on which the entire counter-terrorism information grid was to be built. Senior intelligence officials have pointed out that the interrogation reports of 16,000 Islamist terrorists caught between 1991 and 2005 could prove to be a gold mine of actionable intelligence.

These inadequacies can be overcome by beefing up the present staff strength and widening the recruitment base to include the qualified technical personnel needed to develop, integrate and man the information grid. But progress is delayed due to unseemly bureaucratic wrangling over funding for an additional 140 positions at MAC. Added to this problem is the army's refusal to depute officials to the agency, citing disciplinary and administrative problems.

Difficulties like these and the tepid response of the state governments to a 2007 Supreme Court directive ordering improvements in the functioning of police and intelligence agencies continue to bedevil India's attempts to fashion an effective counter-terrorism strategy. Meanwhile, terrorist groups continue to display a marked advantage in adapting to newer technologies and modes of operation, allowing them to function more quickly and quietly than the Indian intelligence community.

FAKE CURRENCY MEANCE GRIPPING INDIA

By M H Ahssan

A country’s currency is one of its cornerstones. Its value against other currencies reflects the strength of its economy and is also a matter of national pride. What it buys is of great importance to its citizens. Consequently, its effective management is a great concern for any government.

Today this pillar of our country is under attack from an insidious and invisible enemy. A proliferation of fake currency over the last three years has grown to dangerous proportions.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, 2,204 cases of counterfeiting were reported in 2007. Small states like Sikkim, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh witnessed an average increase of 185 per cent in counterfeiting cases between 2006 and 2007.

Today this pillar of our country is under attack from an insidious and invisible enemyThere have been seizures of fake Indian currency in Colombo, Bangkok and Nepal. There are reports of fake currency notes now being dispensed by banks and ATM machines.

As India grapples with a financial downturn, the spread of counterfeit notes leads to greater uncertainty, undermining a country’s confidence in its financial system and the strength of its currency. Counterfeit currency has always been used to fund criminal activity, be it drugs or arms smuggling. Today it is being used by India’s enemies, namely by Pakistan’s ISI, to carry out what can only be called economic terrorism against our country.

Indian intelligence agencies have traced the routes used by counterfeiters, all of which lead back to Pakistan. The money is printed across the border, stocked in Dubai and then shipped out to our neighbours, from where it is moved into the Indian market through our porous borders. These fake notes spread through the economy and are also used to fund the operations of terrorist groups. Today it is estimated that eight or nine notes of every thousand in circulation in India are counterfeit.

HNN story on fake currency was put together by Senior Editor Malini Bhupta along with our correspondents from all across the country who spoke to officials at the Reserve Bank, private and public sector banks as well as intelligence sources. Bhupta found that the impact of the fake currency racket was being felt at all levels. Staff at a bank told her that they get about a dozen dud notes in a day. The owners of very small shops were investing in currency detection machines, tired of having their earnings destroyed by banks because the notes had turned out to be counterfeit. Our story tells you how to recognise a fake note from a real one and what to do if you happen to be given a counterfeit currency note.

Everyone in the Government understands just where this problem can lead. In the course of our investigation, we found that just like in our response to conventional terror, there was no co-ordination between various agencies involved in this case. It is an appalling state of affairs.

Our economy, the foundation of India’s strength and confidence, is under attack and this situation requires an intelligent and swift response. The currency notes may be fake but their consequences are very real.

Fake Currency: Terror’s Tool
When a thief enters a house the watchdog barks. If the inmates do not wake up, it barks again, and then again. If the inmates still do not awaken, should the watchdog stop barking? This scribe is facing a similar dilemma. According to official sources the threat of terror has reached new heights. The amount of fake Indian currency in existence today is huge. According to one national daily, in UP alone over Rs 40 crore is estimated to be in circulation.

The CBI has confirmed that two sets of currency notes with the same serial numbers have been seized in branches of nationalized banks. It has claimed that the fake notes were brought into India through Nepal by Pakistan's ISI. The CBI has also confirmed that the fake currency notes are of such fine quality that they are indistinguishable from genuine notes. That is why branches of the State Bank of India can pass off fake notes as genuine currency. But, all said, can this happen if some bank officials are not complicit with anti-national elements? Elements that use the fake currency for crime and terrorism?

Every single element of this information has been written about explicitly and repeatedly by this scribe: he wrote these facts in March 2000, in June 2000, in March 2002, in July 2004 and in August 2006. All this time, the fake currency racket was expanding, but had not reached its present dimension. It was pointed out that fake currency greatly facilitated terrorism – that it was masterminded by foreign powers. Indeed, it was pointed out that the sheer volume of fake currency, indistinguishable from genuine notes, could destroy India's economy without terrorism! It was pointed out, too, that the Reserve Bank's admission that it could not authenticate currency notes in a particular fake currency police case meant that, for all practical purposes, there was no legal tender in the country. Finally, it was pointed out that using the same machines to print currency notes and stamp paper was a procedure followed for both fake currency notes and fake stamp paper. The money thus generated in both scams was of course exploited by terrorists.

This scribe's involvement in the subject originated in 1995. A section of the bureaucracy made available to him information regarding the government's decision to purchase inferior and unreliable printing machines for manufacture of currency notes, thereby replacing machines of a tried and tested firm which had served the country well for over a hundred years. He filed public interest litigation against the RBI in the High Court of Judicature in Mumbai to prevent use of the new machines for printing currency notes. His plea was that the proven record of the new machines, Komori of Japan, endangered national security because fake notes not distinguishable from genuine notes could be easily manufactured for deployment by terrorists. To cut a long story short, the RBI accepted every single argument of the petitioner. It conceded that Komori machines presented "a risk factor" and "teething troubles". It admitted that the earlier machines, Giori of Switzerland, which printed currency for ninety per cent of the nations in the world, were markedly superior. It confirmed that the use of Komori machines in Russia had ended in disaster. The machines had to be abandoned for printing currency.

Despite these admissions, all on record, the court rejected the petition. RBI's main argument was that the monopoly of Giori needed to be ended! Without a thought for national security, and the facts marshaled by the petitioner's counsel, the court rejected the petition.

An eminent lawyer argued for RBI. This scribe was acquainted with him. The lawyer impertinently suggested that this scribe's petition was in some way linked to those who were contesting the award to Komori on behalf of its Swiss rival, Giori. When the national security angle was drummed into his ears he said: "Why did you not approach me earlier?" Had that been done would he have changed his view of the case? Was that all that the case meant to him – a clash of sordid commercial interests? My respect for him fell many notches. The judiciary and the legal fraternity failed miserably in this case.

The politicians fared no better. Even before the public interest litigation was filed, Parliament had discussed the government's proposal to buy these new untried machines for printing currency. Among the several MPs who criticized the government's move was Somnath Chatterjee. But once Komori got the award the MPs lost interest. It seemed that they were interested mainly in the commercial aspects of the case. A Kolkata based industrialist was rooting for Giori to get the award. Dr Manmohan Singh was the Finance Minister when Komori got the contract to print currency notes. He maintained silence throughout the controversy. When a few years later it transpired that fake notes with the same serial numbers as genuine notes could not be differentiated even by the RBI, rendering the notion of legal tender defunct, Yashwant Sinha was the Finance Minister. He too remained silent on this affair. So, regardless of party affiliation, the politicians as a class failed miserably in this case.

During the decade or so when this scribe fought the case in court and wrote about the danger of fake currency in the media, not one newspaper highlighted the scandalous manner of awarding the contract to Komori for printing currency notes, and how this endangered national security. This scribe personally phoned and requested colleagues better placed than him, and occupying key positions in the media, to take up the matter. Not one obliged. So, in this case the media also failed miserably in this case.

The National Security Adviser has revealed that there are over 800 terrorist cells operating in the country. With the kind of easy money floating around, should that cause any surprise? And with the easy attitude evident in the establishment to matters related to national security, as revealed by the fake currency scam, was not escalation of terrorism inevitable? The government took security steps to prevent exact replication of currency notes. These steps became effective after 2005. The fake currency notes therefore are dated before 2005.

Politicians, experts, retired bureaucrats and media pundits favor the enactment of tougher new laws to fight terrorism. They sound pathetic. Considering the approach to fighting terror revealed by the fake currency racket, do they seriously believe that new laws would help solve the problem of terrorism?

Fake currency notes, new mode of terrorism?
Barely weeks have passed since we lost hundreds of innocent lives in Ahmedabad and Bangalore terror blasts. In the recent days, several live bombs have been found in the ’diamond city of India’, Surat. Terrorism is changing its face; sometime, it’s in a radio, sometime it’s in a pressure cooker and sometime it’s on a bicycle.

Indians are being terrorised by such acts. People are killed and probes are done. Our economy is hoped to reach the eight to nine per cent growth. But, what will happen to an economy, which is being flooded by fake currencies? Somebody has termed as ‘economic subversion’ while others call it as ’economic terrorism’. When ‘legal tender’, the ‘fiat money’ of a country is quietly being replaced by good quality ‘paper’ but sometimes have the same numbers and series (as real one), who can question the ‘legality’ of those ‘papers’, which are in huge circulation in this country?

An estimate suggests that stupendous more than Rs 1,69,000 crores of fake currencies are in wide circulation in our country and out of which more than Rs 40 crores may be in Uttar Pradesh itself.

Recent acts of economic terror has been found in Abid, in Doomariaganj of UP where from a bank’s currency chest fake notes have been seized. Though quantum of currency note is officially seized is not more than Rs 5 lakh, the deadliest part of this seizure is the modus operandi of this conspiracy, which is having enough potential to derail our bugging economy.

Look, the serial numbers on the fake money lying in the currency chest of the bank were the same as that of genuine notes. This establishes the two facts, the gang members would have known the number of currency notes lying in the currency chest of the bank and at their ‘printing press’ these numbers would have been informed. Second fact is more dangerous that there must be collusion between these gang members and the bank officials handling cash of that branch. If the hands of terrorists are spread to an institution which is nerve of economy, the catastrophe may not be far away.

Apart from that it has been told that the quality of papers, the quality of printing are of such a fine quality that it is not possible to differentiate between a genuine and a fake one. It also highlights the facts that advanced technology is being used to print such fake notes.

The fake currency notes are certainly posing grave threat to the Indian economy and the government is also aware of these facts.

Fake Currency: A Threat
More than a quarter of the currency in the hands of the public in India currently may be counter-feit. Intelligence Bureau (IB) estimated that fake currency amounting to a mind-boggling Rs 1, 69,000 crore is floating in India. It appears that this fake currency is being pumped in through the official banking system. In Uttar Pradesh in the first week of August, fake currency amounting to nearly Rs 3 Crore was found stashed in chests of the SBI and ICICI Bank.

The banking system is now being used by insiders to circulate fake currency. This was corroborated by what the suspects held in Uttar Pradesh had told police. The central bank has been largely ineffective in monitoring the banking system to check the circulation of counterfeit currency. They have not been able to put in place any comprehensive mechanism to check the entry and spread of fake currency.

Intelligence inputs that Pakistan’s Infer Services Intelligence (ISI) pumps in over Rs. 13 crore annually to fund terrorist activities in Mumbai alone has startled the city police. The fact that this funding is being carried out by dumping fake India currency has put both the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) and the crime branch on alert. Obviously the ISI is cleverly fighting a proxy war in India, that too with Indian money, bleeding our financial system while spilling blood on the streets. The counterfeit currency smuggled in by air and land is handed over to local agents for distribution.

This money is used to finance terror-related activities and make payments to cadres of terrorist organizations and underworld outfits close to the ISI. According to the crime branch, small amounts of fake currency are smuggled in by Bangladeshi nationals through India’s porous eastern borders from places like Murshidabad and Bashirhat. The larger quantities arrive from Dubai, Kathmandu, Bangkok, Karachi and Kolkata.

The entire terrorist network is sustained using genuine currency acquired from within India. A key sector where intelligence and security officials believe that large amounts of fake currency have entered the system is the property market. Unless the property market is regulated it is very easy for an individual to pump a few lakh rupees into the official economy every few days. Many of the officials are now calling for immediate measures to flush out fake currency from the system. Random checks across India in currency chests and bank branches should be the first step. Simultaneously state governments have to put in place a system to curtail the movement of large amounts of cash into the system and from the system in the form of, say, property deals.

The amount of fake currency being pumped in overland has come down over the years. But the state is still to take strict action at sea. The Jhakhau and Mendhi stretches near Kutch are considered the most vulnerable sea routes. These counterfeit notes are hard to identify and come in handy for terrorists while arranging logistic like rented accommodation and vehicles for travel. The money is being pumped in from almost all over the country which is a big threat to the country and need to be checked.

Saudi Success in Combating - Terror Relevant to India

By Javid Hassan

In a major development that should be of interest to India, an expert committee set up by the Saudi government is vetting a draft law to punish those who threaten the national security of other countries.

The new law, which also deals with organized crimes and terrorism-related offences, will carry the maximum sentence of capital punishment for the convict, according to the Saudi media, which have quoted Interior Minister Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz, as saying. He described such crimes as “haraba,” a Qur’anic term meaning “sowing corruption and chaos on earth.”

Since both India and Saudi Arabia have been victims of terrorism, now is the time to share information on how they could combat this menace in their mutual interest. There are two broad areas of cooperation from India’s point of view. One is a Saudi proposal mooted by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for establishing an international centre on combating terrorism

The other one is the launch of an institute for training imams and khatibs (those who lead prayers in mosques or deliver sermons before the start of Friday prayers). Both these developments are significant, since there many poorly educated preachers who misinterpret Islamic teachings, emphasizing certain aspects and playing down others. They represent a growing trend that has seen preachers well versed in their own field but woefully lacking even basic knowledge of science.

On the issue of combating terrorism, King Abdullah had proposed the setting up of an international center during a major conference three years ago. The proposal met with a lukewarm response despite attempts to take it forward. Subsequent events since 9/11 have warranted the need for reviving this initiative with all the seriousness that it deserves.

The leaders of both countries, together with their experts, could work out the modalities of fine-tuning the proposal from the conceptual to the operational stage. The starting point of the exercise should be to arrive at a global definition of terrorism and the root cause of this phenomenon that has cost the international community trillions of dollars in cumulative damage with no end in sight.

What is important is to identify the various terrorist outfits, their modus operandi and how they indoctrinate the recruits. This is where the Saudi government’s strategy seeks to prevent extremist ideas from infecting immature minds. To this end, the government has drawn up a plan that will bring together religious scholars and social scientists on a common platform to explain the true teachings of Islam as a religion of peace and moderation. They will also explore the problem from a socio-economic perspective to get an overall picture.

In the Saudi context, which is equally relevant to India’s, terrorists draft recruits from the unemployed youth who are lured by monetary incentives. In fact, Prince Naif has urged all Saudi universities to fight terrorism at the academic level by conducting research on why and how some young Saudis fell into the trap.

The Interior Ministry recently launched a campaign in Hafr Al-Batin, a conservative stronghold in northeastern Saudi Arabia, where preachers and experts are working towards reforming individuals arrested on terror charges. They counter the influence of extremist teachings by emphasizing the sanctity of life in Islam, its stress on kindness, compassion, accountability for one’s acts of omission and commission on the Day of Judgment, etc.

At another level, imams and Friday preachers in the Kingdom’s mosques are instructed to be careful in their sermons. “A preacher should know that it is his religious duty to speak out against terror and misguided ideologies as he is aware of what the Shariah (Islamic law) says on the matter,” Minister of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Call and Guidance Saleh Al-Ashaikh said during an address at the Islamic University of Medina recently.

To this end, a Higher Institute for Imams and Khatibs has been set up at Taiba University, near Jeddah. The institute will graduate preachers who will be skilled not only in modern methods of communication but also moderate in their outlook. It will also strive to erase warped ideas among traditional preachers. Some 55 imams and preachers, besides several members from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (religious police) attended the course.

The need for such educated and moderate Imams could go a long way in weaning the Muslim youth away from the path of extremism. Many of these preachers, even if well-versed in Islamic teachings, lack even elementary knowledge of science. In one of Bangalore’s mosques, a preacher, who was extolling the spiritual and health benefits of zamzam water that pilgrims normally bring with them after performing Haj, explained how rich it is in ‘vitamins’ (sic)..

A nephew of mine, who has just landed a job in the UAE, narrated the case of a Pakistani expatriate working there. The latter, who happens to be his acquaintance, insists that this youth should attend all religious congregations, which should take precedence over everything else, including job. How can Muslims progress with such a mindset?

Saudi Success in Combating - Terror Relevant to India

By Javid Hassan



In a major development that should be of interest to India, an expert committee set up by the Saudi government is vetting a draft law to punish those who threaten the national security of other countries.



The new law, which also deals with organized crimes and terrorism-related offences, will carry the maximum sentence of capital punishment for the convict, according to the Saudi media, which have quoted Interior Minister Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz, as saying. He described such crimes as “haraba,” a Qur’anic term meaning “sowing corruption and chaos on earth.”



Since both India and Saudi Arabia have been victims of terrorism, now is the time to share information on how they could combat this menace in their mutual interest. There are two broad areas of cooperation from India’s point of view. One is a Saudi proposal mooted by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for establishing an international centre on combating terrorism



The other one is the launch of an institute for training imams and khatibs (those who lead prayers in mosques or deliver sermons before the start of Friday prayers). Both these developments are significant, since there many poorly educated preachers who misinterpret Islamic teachings, emphasizing certain aspects and playing down others. They represent a growing trend that has seen preachers well versed in their own field but woefully lacking even basic knowledge of science.



On the issue of combating terrorism, King Abdullah had proposed the setting up of an international center during a major conference three years ago. The proposal met with a lukewarm response despite attempts to take it forward. Subsequent events since 9/11 have warranted the need for reviving this initiative with all the seriousness that it deserves.



The leaders of both countries, together with their experts, could work out the modalities of fine-tuning the proposal from the conceptual to the operational stage. The starting point of the exercise should be to arrive at a global definition of terrorism and the root cause of this phenomenon that has cost the international community trillions of dollars in cumulative damage with no end in sight.



What is important is to identify the various terrorist outfits, their modus operandi and how they indoctrinate the recruits. This is where the Saudi government’s strategy seeks to prevent extremist ideas from infecting immature minds. To this end, the government has drawn up a plan that will bring together religious scholars and social scientists on a common platform to explain the true teachings of Islam as a religion of peace and moderation. They will also explore the problem from a socio-economic perspective to get an overall picture.



In the Saudi context, which is equally relevant to India’s, terrorists draft recruits from the unemployed youth who are lured by monetary incentives. In fact, Prince Naif has urged all Saudi universities to fight terrorism at the academic level by conducting research on why and how some young Saudis fell into the trap.



The Interior Ministry recently launched a campaign in Hafr Al-Batin, a conservative stronghold in northeastern Saudi Arabia, where preachers and experts are working towards reforming individuals arrested on terror charges. They counter the influence of extremist teachings by emphasizing the sanctity of life in Islam, its stress on kindness, compassion, accountability for one’s acts of omission and commission on the Day of Judgment, etc.



At another level, imams and Friday preachers in the Kingdom’s mosques are instructed to be careful in their sermons. “A preacher should know that it is his religious duty to speak out against terror and misguided ideologies as he is aware of what the Shariah (Islamic law) says on the matter,” Minister of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Call and Guidance Saleh Al-Ashaikh said during an address at the Islamic University of Medina recently.



To this end, a Higher Institute for Imams and Khatibs has been set up at Taiba University, near Jeddah. The institute will graduate preachers who will be skilled not only in modern methods of communication but also moderate in their outlook. It will also strive to erase warped ideas among traditional preachers. Some 55 imams and preachers, besides several members from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (religious police) attended the course.



The need for such educated and moderate Imams could go a long way in weaning the Muslim youth away from the path of extremism. Many of these preachers, even if well-versed in Islamic teachings, lack even elementary knowledge of science. In one of Bangalore’s mosques, a preacher, who was extolling the spiritual and health benefits of zamzam water that pilgrims normally bring with them after performing Haj, explained how rich it is in ‘vitamins’ (sic)..



A nephew of mine, who has just landed a job in the UAE, narrated the case of a Pakistani expatriate working there. The latter, who happens to be his acquaintance, insists that this youth should attend all religious congregations, which should take precedence over everything else, including job. How can Muslims progress with such a mindset?

Saudi Success in Combating - Terror Relevant to India

By Javid Hassan



In a major development that should be of interest to India, an expert committee set up by the Saudi government is vetting a draft law to punish those who threaten the national security of other countries.



The new law, which also deals with organized crimes and terrorism-related offences, will carry the maximum sentence of capital punishment for the convict, according to the Saudi media, which have quoted Interior Minister Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz, as saying. He described such crimes as “haraba,” a Qur’anic term meaning “sowing corruption and chaos on earth.”



Since both India and Saudi Arabia have been victims of terrorism, now is the time to share information on how they could combat this menace in their mutual interest. There are two broad areas of cooperation from India’s point of view. One is a Saudi proposal mooted by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for establishing an international centre on combating terrorism



The other one is the launch of an institute for training imams and khatibs (those who lead prayers in mosques or deliver sermons before the start of Friday prayers). Both these developments are significant, since there many poorly educated preachers who misinterpret Islamic teachings, emphasizing certain aspects and playing down others. They represent a growing trend that has seen preachers well versed in their own field but woefully lacking even basic knowledge of science.



On the issue of combating terrorism, King Abdullah had proposed the setting up of an international center during a major conference three years ago. The proposal met with a lukewarm response despite attempts to take it forward. Subsequent events since 9/11 have warranted the need for reviving this initiative with all the seriousness that it deserves.



The leaders of both countries, together with their experts, could work out the modalities of fine-tuning the proposal from the conceptual to the operational stage. The starting point of the exercise should be to arrive at a global definition of terrorism and the root cause of this phenomenon that has cost the international community trillions of dollars in cumulative damage with no end in sight.



What is important is to identify the various terrorist outfits, their modus operandi and how they indoctrinate the recruits. This is where the Saudi government’s strategy seeks to prevent extremist ideas from infecting immature minds. To this end, the government has drawn up a plan that will bring together religious scholars and social scientists on a common platform to explain the true teachings of Islam as a religion of peace and moderation. They will also explore the problem from a socio-economic perspective to get an overall picture.



In the Saudi context, which is equally relevant to India’s, terrorists draft recruits from the unemployed youth who are lured by monetary incentives. In fact, Prince Naif has urged all Saudi universities to fight terrorism at the academic level by conducting research on why and how some young Saudis fell into the trap.



The Interior Ministry recently launched a campaign in Hafr Al-Batin, a conservative stronghold in northeastern Saudi Arabia, where preachers and experts are working towards reforming individuals arrested on terror charges. They counter the influence of extremist teachings by emphasizing the sanctity of life in Islam, its stress on kindness, compassion, accountability for one’s acts of omission and commission on the Day of Judgment, etc.



At another level, imams and Friday preachers in the Kingdom’s mosques are instructed to be careful in their sermons. “A preacher should know that it is his religious duty to speak out against terror and misguided ideologies as he is aware of what the Shariah (Islamic law) says on the matter,” Minister of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Call and Guidance Saleh Al-Ashaikh said during an address at the Islamic University of Medina recently.



To this end, a Higher Institute for Imams and Khatibs has been set up at Taiba University, near Jeddah. The institute will graduate preachers who will be skilled not only in modern methods of communication but also moderate in their outlook. It will also strive to erase warped ideas among traditional preachers. Some 55 imams and preachers, besides several members from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (religious police) attended the course.



The need for such educated and moderate Imams could go a long way in weaning the Muslim youth away from the path of extremism. Many of these preachers, even if well-versed in Islamic teachings, lack even elementary knowledge of science. In one of Bangalore’s mosques, a preacher, who was extolling the spiritual and health benefits of zamzam water that pilgrims normally bring with them after performing Haj, explained how rich it is in ‘vitamins’ (sic)..



A nephew of mine, who has just landed a job in the UAE, narrated the case of a Pakistani expatriate working there. The latter, who happens to be his acquaintance, insists that this youth should attend all religious congregations, which should take precedence over everything else, including job. How can Muslims progress with such a mindset?