Out Through The Side Door

The report on the Patterns ofGlobal Terrorism during 2002, submitted by the Counter-Terrorism Division  of the US State Departmentto the Congress, was released to the media on April 30, 2003, at a press conference addressed by Gen. ColinPowell, US Secretary of State, and Mr.Cofer Black. Co-ordinator for Counter-Terrorism in the State Department.

The report follows the usual pattern with separate chapters devoted to an over-view of the terroristsituation in different regions of the world, activities of States declared by the US as State-sponsors ofinternational terrorism, activities of terrorist organisations designated by the US as Foreign TerroristOrganisations (FTOs) and other organisations not so designated, a summary of action taken by the US againstterrorist funding under the UN Security Council Resolution No. 1373 and a statistical review.  A newaddition this year is a chapter on the nexus of the Saddam Hussein regime with terrorism, one of the groundscited by the US for its military action to occupy Iraq.  The chapter is actually a reproduction of theallegations in this regard levelled by Powell during his intervention in the UN Security Council on February5, 2003.

What should be of interest to India  are the indications given in the report of how the US views thevarious terrorist organisations operating against India from Pakistani territory and the Pakistani support tothese organisations.

Between 1989 and 1993, Pakistan was relying essentially on indigenous Kashmiri terrorist organisations forachieving its objectives in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K).  As they were unable to make headway in theiroperations against the Indian security forces, it started infiltrating into the State Pakistani jihadiorganisations, which had fought in Afghanistan.  Since 1999, these organisations have assumed theleadership of the anti-Government of India movement and their trained cadres have been operating under theguise of Kashmiris. Certain indigenous Kashmiri organisations such as the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) of theJamaat-e-Islami (JEI) have also been active, but not on the same scale as the Pakistani organisations.

The Pakistani organisations are the  Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI),the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM). These organisations have, of late, been operatingunder different names, but I will continue to refer to them by their original names.  All the four ofthem along with the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), the Sunni extremist organisation, are members of Osama binLaden's International Islamic Front (IIF).  The activities of the LEJ are confined to Pakistaniterritory.

Till 1997, the annual reports of the Counter-Terrorism Division used to give an over-view of the terroristsituation in different regions, describe the activities of the State-sponsors of international terrorism andgive brief backgrounds of terrorist organisations, which were of concern to the US.  They did not followthe practice of designating any of these organisations as FTOs.

Following the New York World Trade Centre explosion of February,1993, in which Pakistani, Egyptian andother foreign nationals were involved, the US Congress passed a law to strengthen the powers of thelaw-enforcement agencies in their counter-terrorism operations.  This law called the Anti-Terrorism andEffective Death Penalty Act of 1996  required the Secretary of State to designate organisations, whichpose a threat to US nationals and interests, as FTO.  Till now, 36 organisations have been designated asFTOs.

This designation has three legal consequences: First, any US citizen or resident, who helps an FTO, commitsa crime.  Second, the leaders and cadres of these organisations are not entitled to visas to visit theUS.  Third, US financial institutions must freeze any accounts held in their banks by an FTO and reportthe matter to the Treasury Department.

Any State, which helps an FTO, risks being declared by the US as a State-sponsor of internationalterrorism, but this does not automatically follow.  Political considerations come into play as one hasseen repeatedly in the case of Pakistan, which has been spared the rod by the USA despite its agencies helpingFTOs such as the HUM, the LET and the JEM.

In October,1997, the US declared the HUM as an FTO under its then name of Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA).  TheLET, the JEM and the LEJ  were so declared last year.  The HUJI has not yet been so designated forreasons not clear.  In the report for 2001, the HUJI was placed in the list of other terroristorganisations, which did not warrant being designated as FTOs under the 1996 law. It continues to be in thesame list in the latest report too.

The latest report describes three of the indigenous Kashmiri groups -- namely, the Al Badr, the HizbulMujahideen (HM) and the Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen (JUM) -- the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), the political wing ofthe LEJ, and  the Hizbe Islami of Gulbuddin Heckmatyar  as terrorist organisations, without,however, designating themas FTOs.  None of these organisations figured in this list last year.

The Al Badr is the oldest of the jihadi terrorist organisations of South Asia. It came into being before1971 in the then East Pakistan as the militant wing of the JEI.  It recruited its cadres mainly fromPakistani Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), who were trained by Pakistan's militaryintelligence establishment and used against the Bengali nationalists. In 1971, before the liberation ofBangladesh, it was responsible for the massacre of a large number of Bengali intellectuals. When the IndianArmy entered the then East Pakistan in December,1971, the leaders and cadres of Al Badr escaped to the thenWest Pakistan.

They remained quiet till 1980, when the Zia-ul-Haq regime re-activated them and used them against theSoviet troops in Afghanistan, with money and arms and ammunition provided by the USA's Central Intelligence Agency(CIA).  After the collapse of the Najibullah Government in Kabul in April,1992, the Inter-ServicesIntelligence diverted the Al Badr cadres to J&K.  The HM is the militant wing of the JEI headed byQazi Hussain Ahmed, which is an important constituent of the six-party fundamentalist coalition called theMuttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) which came to power in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistanafter the elections of October last.

While the report does not explain why these organisations have been included in this second list this year,it should not be difficult to guess the reasons. First, their close association with the pro-Taliban, pro-binLaden and anti-US MMA. They have been participating actively in the various demonstrations organised by theMMA and other fundamentalist organisations against the US-UK occupation of Iraq and against the presence ofthe US armed forces and intelligence officers in Pakistani territory.  Second, their links withGulbuddin's Hizbe-Islami, which has joined hands with the Taliban and Al Qaeda for mounting joint operationsagainst the US and other Western troops in Afghanistan.

It would be illusory for New Delhi to think that this action has been taken by the US to show greatersensitivity to India's concerns over its failure to pressure Pakistan to stop the use of cross-borderterrorism against India. By including these organisations in the second list, but without designating them asFTOs, the USA has, knowingly or unwittingly, provided Pakistan with a loophole.  It could continue toassist them without falling foul of US law and there is no obligation on Pakistan to freeze the bank accountsof any of these Kashmiri organisations operating from its territory.

The US Treasury Department maintains another list of individuals and organisations, which are suspected tobe indulging in or assisting terrorist activities so that their assets in the US can be frozen under thePresident's Executive Order No.13224 issued after the 9/11 terrorist strikes.

While this list includes the names of many terrorist organisations of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chechnya inRussia, Xinjiang in China  and other countries and even the names of some Sikh terrorist organisationssuch as the Babbar Khalsa and the International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF), it does not include the names ofany of the indigenous Kashmiri organisations operating from Pakistani territory. 

This is indicative of the USA's kid glove approach towards these organisations unless they pose a threat toUS nationals and interests.  HUJI figures in a third list called  the Terrorist Exclusion List (TEL)issued under the USA Patriot Act, but none of the Kashmiri organisations. Under this Act, the members of TELorganisations can be denied entry into the US and any foreign resident of the US helping these organisationscan be deported.

The observations of Powell and his Counter-Terrorism Co-Ordinator and the questions posed to them by thejournalists covered in detail the support of Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba and North Korea toterrorist activities directed against the USA and Israel and North Korea's supply of missiles toState-sponsors of terrorism, but there was no reference to Pakistan's support to terrorism directed againstIndia and to its assistance to North Korea for the acquisition of a military nuclear capability.

The references in the report to Pakistan's role in helping the USA in the war against terrorism are evenmore positive this year than last year and the understanding of India's concerns is even more muted than lastyear.

The report says of Pakistan:

"In 2002, Pakistan remained a vital partner in the global Coalition against terrorism, playing a keyrole in the diplomatic, law-enforcement, and military fight to eliminate al-Qaida. Pakistan granted logisticsupport and overflight rights to support Operation Enduring Freedom, consulted extensively with the UnitedStates and the United Nations on ways to combat terrorist financing, and drafted anti-money-launderinglegislation.

In January, the Government of Pakistan arrested and transferred to US custody nearly 500 suspected al-Qaidaand Taliban terrorists, detained hundreds of extremists, and banned five extremist organizations:Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM), Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Tehrik-i-Jafria Pakistan (TJP),and Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i Mohammadi (TNSM). The United States has designated LT and JEM as ForeignTerrorist Organizations and also has designated them pursuant to Executive Order 13224.

US-Pakistan joint counter-terrorism efforts have been extensive. They include cooperative efforts in bordersecurity, criminal investigations, as well as several long-term training projects. In 2002, the United Statesand Pakistan established the Working Group on Counter-terrorism and Law-Enforcement Cooperation. The meetingsprovide a forum for discussing ongoing US-Pakistani efforts, as well as a means for improving capabilities andcooperation. Islamabad has facilitated the transfer of over 400 captured alleged terrorists to US custody, andPakistan remained ranked third in the world (behind the United States and Switzerland) in seizing terroristassets."

The only seemingly negative reference to Pakistan in the report is the following sentence:

"Extremist violence in Kashmir, meanwhile, fueled by infiltration from Pakistan across the Line ofControl, threatened to become a flashpoint for a wider India-Pakistan conflict during most of the year.

Last year's report did not refer to J&K as disputed territory. The latest report does. It says:"Like the United States, India faces a significant terrorist threat. Its primary source is the activityof militants opposed to continued Indian rule over the disputed province of Kashmir." While the reportrefers in passing to the continuing cross-border infiltration, it is muted on the role of the PakistanGovernment in sponsoring this.

A careful reading of the report shows that there is nothing much to gloat about it for India. 

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and convenor, Advisory Committee, Observer ResearchFoundation, Chennai.