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Crafty_Dog:
About time India gets its own thread!

We kick it off with a piece from today's WSJ:
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India's Counterterrorism Failings
By SADANAND DHUME
FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL ASIA
July 29, 2008

In recent years few countries have changed their public image as dramatically as India. But though pictures of starving peasants and rutted roads have given way to those of svelte supermodels and bustling call centers, in at least one respect India remains more a basketcase than a potential great power. As Friday's bomb blasts in India's software capital, Bangalore, and Saturday's in the industrial city of Ahmedabad show, India is singularly ill-equipped to deal with the scourge of terrorism.

 
Reuters 
Too little, too late: Forensic personnel inspect the site of a bomb blast in Ahmedabad on Sunday, July 27, 2008.
The Bangalore and Ahmedabad bombings, which killed one and 49 people respectively and cumulatively wounded more than 200, are only the most recent in a spate of attacks. In the past two years terrorists have targeted the northern city of Jaipur, the high-tech hub Hyderabad, the temple town of Varanasi and India's financial capital, Mumbai.

Officials have pinned the most recent attacks on Indian Mujahedeen, a homegrown group linked to the Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul Jihad-al-Islami and the banned Students Islamic Movement of India. Both Pakistan and Bangladesh -- carved out of British India to create a homeland for the subcontinent's Muslims -- give shelter and succor to terrorists. But the fact that the most recent attacks were carried out by a made-in-India group shows it's about time that India comes to terms with its own counterterrorism failings.

Among India's worst mistakes is that instead of uniting behind the minimal goal of providing security for all citizens, India's constantly bickering politicians have played football with counterterrorism policy. In 2004, one of the first acts in office of the ruling Congress-led coalition government -- at the time supported by Communist allies -- was to scrap a national terrorism law that allowed for enhanced witness protection and extended detention of suspects in terrorism cases. This had the twin effects of demoralizing law enforcement agencies and signaling to terrorists that the Indian state lacked fight. The paucity of arrests and convictions in the string of bombings that have followed have only strengthened this perception. For its part, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has stalled the creation of a much-needed federal antiterrorism force.

The problem is that India's counterterrorism effort falls between two stools. As a democracy, it cannot adopt the heavy-handed but effective measures favored by, say, Russia or China. At the same time, India lacks the sophisticated intelligence and law enforcement capacities that allow European countries such as France, Spain and, of late, even Britain to safeguard individual rights and yet uncover terrorist plots before they are executed.

Yet although this may be an explanation, it's hardly an excuse given that other countries have surmounted their own counterterrorism hurdles. Even Indonesia, a Muslim-majority nation where public sympathy for terrorism in the name of Islam runs deeper than it does in India, has done an infinitely better job of protecting its citizens. Thanks largely to Detachment 88, a special police unit equipped and trained by Australia and the U.S., it has been nearly three years since the last major terrorist strike on Indonesian soil.

Ultimately, though, terrorism is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The larger question is whether India's Muslims will embrace modernity like so many of their Turkish, Tunisian and Indonesian co-religionists, or reject it like increasing numbers of their militant cousins in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

On this front too India's leaders have failed to get to the heart of the matter. The country tends to exercise a hands-off approach to its 140-million-strong Muslim community. Unlike in Europe or America, Muslims in India are governed by Shariah law in matters such as marriage, divorce and inheritance. This parallel legal system slows integration into the national mainstream and perpetuates backward practices such as polygamy and the neglect of education for girls. The result has been a disaffected minority, largely lacking the skills to compete in a modern economy and susceptible to calls for violence in the name of faith.

If India is to live up to its potential -- and indeed to its hype -- it must embrace both the short-term goal of upgrading its counterterrorism capability and the long-term goal of modernizing and mainstreaming its Muslims.

India's Muslims have enriched national life in countless ways. The vast majority, like people of any faith, are nonviolent. But contrary to popular belief, Indian Muslims have not been immune to the rising global tide of orthodox practice and militant politics. Indian doctors played a role in last year's failed attacks in London and Glasgow. At home, Muslim groups have assaulted critics such as the exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen. A survey by the distinguished Pakistani scholar Akbar Ahmed revealed that most educated Indian Muslims view as role models the late Islamist ideologue Abul Ala Maududi, the 19th century Muslim supremacist Sayyed Ahmad Khan, and an influential Bombay-based cleric named Zakir Naik, who eulogizes Osama bin Laden and calls for Shariah for all Indians.

India's Muslims hardly have a monopoly on either violence or obscurantism. Nonetheless the challenges they face are particularly acute. Will the community be forward-looking, eager to seize new economic opportunities, and at peace with a rapidly changing world? Or will it forsake the future for an idealized past, foster a culture of grievance that condones violence, and view globalization as a mortal threat? Depending on the answer, the Bangalore and Ahmedabad bombings are either a passing event or a dark harbinger of things to come.

Mr. Dhume is a fellow at the Asia Society in Washington D.C., and the author of "My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with an Indonesian Islamist" (Text Publishing, 2008).

HUSS:

--- Quote from: Crafty_Dog on July 28, 2008, 05:33:39 PM --- Both Pakistan and Bangladesh -- carved out of British India to create a homeland for the subcontinent's Muslims -- give shelter and succor to terrorists. But the fact that the most recent attacks were carried out by a made-in-India group shows it's about time that India comes to terms with its own counterterrorism failings.


--- End quote ---

Do you see the trend here, the Bosnia, Philippines - new muslim home land in outer islands, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Jordan, Chechnya............ the list goes on.  Anyone catch the trend yet?

The trend is countries that never existed until muslims blew up enough innocent people that they were given a "home land", they have continued to blow stuff up be enough is never enough.

G M:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24091819-2703,00.html

Fear grows over India car terror

Bruce Loudon, South Asia correspondent | July 29, 2008

TWO cars packed with explosives and bomb-making equipment were found yesterday in the Indian city of Surat, where 92 per cent of the world's diamonds are cut and polished, as fears mounted that jihadis have begun a campaign attacking targets of international significance.

Bomb disposal experts dismantled both bombs in cars that had been abandoned in the city, but officials said there was intelligence showing extremists were "trying to cause as much chaos and bloodshed as possible to further the cause ofjihad".

Anti-terror squads swooped on an apartment in an upmarket part of Mumbai, pinpointed as the origin of a 14-page manifesto issued by an organisation known as Indian Mujaheddin following the bomb blasts in Ahmedabad, in Gujarat.

Police said the apartment was rented to two Americans who had denied any involvement in the email, which, "in the name of Allah", proclaimed "the terror of death" and was sent to several Indian news channels.

Investigators are looking at the possibility that the Americans' personal computers were hacked to send the incendiary document, which analysts say gives the clearest indication yet of the thinking behind the wave of bomb attacks.

The document, written in English, insists Indian Mujaheddin is a home-grown organisation, and asks the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba organisation, which is close to Pakistan's ISI spy agency and linked to al-Qa'ida, not to claim responsibility for bomb attacks carried out in its name.

Indian intelligence experts believe Indian Mujaheddin is the al-Qa'ida-linked Students Islamic Movement of India in a new guise, rebadging itself as Indian rather than a puppet of the ISI.

G M:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3307797,prtpage-1.cms

Al-Qaida tech used in Bangalore, Surat bombs
31 Jul 2008, 0021 hrs IST, Vishwa Mohan ,TNN


NEW DELHI: Al-Qaida may not have a presence in India but its footprint was visible in the bombs used in Bangalore and Surat, according to intelligence officials. ( Watch )

For the first time in India, Integrated Circuit (IC) chips were used to assemble bombs in Bangalore and Surat — a technique perfected by the Qaida-linked Indonesian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). Besides using the technique to bomb different places in Indonesia, JI — which aims to establish Islamic state in southeast Asia — has also exported it to Philippines where terrorists have used it effectively in a number of incidents. ( See Ninan’s cartoon )

Referring to the technique being put to use in India, intelligence officials said some local terrorists could have visited Indonesia for training via Bangladesh — a fact which the Special Task Force (STF) of Uttar Pradesh police had first got wind of during interrogation of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operatives last year.

"Links of LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) with Al Qaida is not a secret, and this leads to strong possibility of linkages of their Indian modules with JI in southeast Asia," said an official, adding that the IC explosive device — similar to the ones used by JI — found in Bangalore and Surat had only confirmed the suspicion.

While the jehadis were successful in their first attempt to use IC explosive devices in Bangalore on July 25, they could not make a similar impact three days later in Surat, where the chips used in the bombs had some fault.

None of the bombs in Surat exploded, averting another disaster. "It indicates origin of consignments from two different places for Bangalore and Surat — even though it could be the handiwork of a single group using different terror modules," said a senior official of the National Security Guard (NSG) which has sent its forensic experts to Gujarat.

The bombs in Ahmedabad were, however, of a different make. Timer devices were used there and the design was strikingly similar to those used to bomb courts in three UP cities — Varanasi, Faizabad and Lucknow — in November last year and in Jaipur on May 13 this year. Incidentally, a group calling itself Indian Mujahideen claimed responsibility for all three attacks by sending emails to media organisations prior to the blasts.

"Different modus operandi followed in these three cities and in Bangalore and Surat should not be misconstrued as it being the handiwork of different groups," a senior intelligence officer said.

He added that the timing of operations in Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Surat was an indication of meticulous planning and conspiracy by a single command structure from across the border which used different modules in different Indian cities comprising local contacts.

vishwa.mohan@timesgroup.com

G M:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/world/asia/01pstan.html?_r=2&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

August 1, 2008
Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul, U.S. Officials Say

By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have concluded that members of Pakistan’s powerful spy service helped plan the deadly July 7 bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to United States government officials.

The conclusion was based on intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack, the officials said, providing the clearest evidence to date that Pakistani intelligence officers are actively undermining American efforts to combat militants in the region.

The American officials also said there was new information showing that members of the Pakistani intelligence service were increasingly providing militants with details about the American campaign against them, in some cases allowing militants to avoid American missile strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Concerns about the role played by Pakistani intelligence not only has strained relations between the United States and Pakistan, a longtime ally, but also has fanned tensions between Pakistan and its archrival, India. Within days of the bombings, Indian officials accused the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, of helping to orchestrate the attack in Kabul, which killed 54, including an Indian defense attaché.

This week, Pakistani troops clashed with Indian forces in the contested region of Kashmir, threatening to fray an uneasy cease-fire that has held since November 2003.

The New York Times reported this week that a top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled to Pakistan this month to confront senior Pakistani officials with information about support provided by members of the ISI to militant groups. It had not been known that American intelligence agencies concluded that elements of Pakistani intelligence provided direct support for the attack in Kabul.

American officials said that the communications were intercepted before the July 7 bombing, and that the C.I.A. emissary, Stephen R. Kappes, the agency’s deputy director, had been ordered to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, even before the attack. The intercepts were not detailed enough to warn of any specific attack.

The government officials were guarded in describing the new evidence and would not say specifically what kind of assistance the ISI officers provided to the militants. They said that the ISI officers had not been renegades, indicating that their actions might have been authorized by superiors.

“It confirmed some suspicions that I think were widely held,” one State Department official with knowledge of Afghanistan issues said of the intercepted communications. “It was sort of this ‘aha’ moment. There was a sense that there was finally direct proof.”

The information linking the ISI to the bombing of the Indian Embassy was described in interviews by several American officials with knowledge of the intelligence. Some of the officials expressed anger that elements of Pakistan’s government seemed to be directly aiding violence in Afghanistan that had included attacks on American troops.

Some American officials have begun to suggest that Pakistan is no longer a fully reliable American partner and to advocate some unilateral American action against militants based in the tribal areas.

The ISI has long maintained ties to militant groups in the tribal areas, in part to court allies it can use to contain Afghanistan’s power. In recent years, Pakistan’s government has also been concerned about India’s growing influence inside Afghanistan, including New Delhi’s close ties to the government of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president.

American officials say they believe that the embassy attack was probably carried out by members of a network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, whose alliance with Al Qaeda and its affiliates has allowed the terrorist network to rebuild in the tribal areas.

American and Pakistani officials have now acknowledged that President Bush on Monday confronted Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, about the divided loyalties of the ISI.

Pakistan’s defense minister, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, told a Pakistani television network on Wednesday that Mr. Bush asked senior Pakistani officials this week, “ ‘Who is in control of ISI?’ ” and asked about leaked information that tipped militants to surveillance efforts by Western intelligence services.

Pakistan’s new civilian government is wrestling with these very issues, and there is concern in Washington that the civilian leaders will be unable to end a longstanding relationship between members of the ISI and militants associated with Al Qaeda.

Spokesmen for the White House and the C.I.A. declined to comment for this article. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, did not return a call seeking comment.

Further underscoring the tension between Pakistan and its Western allies, Britain’s senior military officer said in Washington on Thursday that an American and British program to help train Pakistan’s Frontier Corps in the tribal areas had been delayed while Pakistan’s military and civilian officials sorted out details about the program’s goals.

Britain and the United States had each offered to send about two dozen military trainers to Pakistan later this summer to train Pakistani Army officers who in turn would instruct the Frontier Corps paramilitary forces.

But the British officer, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, said the program had been temporarily delayed. “We don’t yet have a firm start date,” he told a small group of reporters. “We’re ready to go.”

The bombing of the Indian Embassy helped to set off a new deterioration in relations between India and Pakistan.

This week, Indian and Pakistani soldiers fired at each other across the Kashmir frontier for more than 12 hours overnight Monday, in what the Indian Army called the most serious violation of a five-year-old cease-fire agreement. The nightlong battle came after one Indian soldier and four Pakistanis were killed along the border between sections of Kashmir that are controlled by India and by Pakistan.

Indian officials say they are equally worried about what is happening on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border because they say the insurgents who are facing off with India in Kashmir and those who target Afghanistan are related and can keep both borders burning at the same time.

India and Afghanistan share close political, cultural and economic ties, and India maintains an active intelligence network in Afghanistan, all of which has drawn suspicion from Pakistani officials.

When asked Thursday about whether the ISI and Pakistani military remained loyal to the country’s civilian government, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sidestepped the question. “That’s probably something the government of Pakistan ought to speak to,” Admiral Mullen told reporters at the Pentagon.

Jalaluddin Haqqani, the militia commander, battled Soviet troops during the 1980s and has had a long and complicated relationship with the C.I.A. He was among a group of fighters who received arms and millions of dollars from the C.I.A. during that period, but his allegiance with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda during the following decade led the United States to sever the relationship.

Mr. Haqqani and his sons now run a network that Western intelligence services say they believe is responsible for a campaign of violence throughout Afghanistan, including the Indian Embassy bombing and an attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul earlier this year.

David Rohde contributed reporting from New York, and Somini Sengupta from New Delhi.

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