Punishment Terrorism

Questions & answers on terrorism by one of India's foremost intelligence experts. Updated.

Updated on: 2 April 2002 12:00 am

Punishment Terrorism
Questions & answers on terrorism by one of India's foremost intelligenceexperts. Updated April 10.
B. Raman

Whatis retributive punishment terrorism?
What kindof terrorist groups resort to punishment terrorism?
Whatare the major examples of punishment terrorism by religious groups?
What are theexamples of punishment terrorism carried out by non-religious groups andindividuals?
Isthere really an organisation called Al Qaeda and why are the Al Qaeda and theother organisations associated with it in the International Islamic Front ForJihad Against the US and Israel considered the most dreaded of the punishmentterrorism organisations?
Does itmean that the Al Qaeda and the International Islamic Front are not as dangerousas they are projected by the US to be?
What is catastrophicor new terrorism?
What is thesignificance of the terrorist strikes of September 11,2001, in New York andWashington DC?
Was theinternational coalition led by the US right in the manner in which it hit backat the new breed of punishment terrorists with overwhelming use of militaryforce?
What is the set-up ofbin Laden like?
How come bin Laden'sAl Qaeda has not so far mounted any major act of punishment terrorism againstIsrael?
How comeAl Qaeda has similarly not mounted any major act of retributive punishmentterrorism in Jammu& Kashmir and in other parts of India, either againstIndia or against Israel or against the USA? What explains its concentrated angeragainst the US, apart from the Palestine issue?
Does itmean that India does not have to fear any major act of retributive punishmentterrorism?
What provoked Osama bin Laden's terrorist strikes of September 11, 2001?
Was bin Laden directly involved in the planning and execution of the attack on USS Cole and of the September 11 strikes in the US?
What provoked the punishment terrorism against Daniel Pearl, the journalist of the Wall Street Journal of the US, who was kidnapped on January 23, 2002, and killed subsequently?
Was it the Al Qaeda itself which carried out his kidnapping and beheading?
Has Musharraf told the USA the complete truth about the Pearl case?
Did Aziz alert Musharraf and Lt.Gen.(retd)Moinuddin Haider, the Interior Minister, who was co-ordinating the investigation, about the surrender of Omar Sheikh immediately after it took place? If so, did Musharraf immediately inform the US authorities about it and associate them with the interrogation?
Why has Musharraf resisted US pressure to extradite Sheikh Omar?
What provoked the grenade attack on a church congregation in Islamabad on March 17?
Who was responsible for the attack?
How did the assailants come to know of the real identity of Milton Green?
What are the positive results so far of the US-led war against terrorism?
What are the negative results of Operation Enduring Freedom so far?
What are the disturbing indicators which don't bode well for the future?
What are the mid-course corrections that are called for?
What are the future possibilities of punishment terrorism?
Presuming bin Laden is still alive, what would be his likely targets and what modus operandi (MO) is he likely to follow keeping in view the tightened security apparatus in most countries?
What is the likelihood of the use of WMD in an act of punishment terrorism?
What are the pre-requisites for effective prevention of terrorism?

Whatis retributive punishment terrorism?

Punishment terrorism is an act of terrorismconsciously committed to punish a wrong-doer, who may be a State, a society, acommunity, a religious group, an economic organisation,an individual etc. It isretributive in nature and does not have any other objective or demand to beachieved beyond the act of retribution. It is the use of terrorism as a weaponto give vent to anger and not to achieve any strategic objective or tacticaldemand. Whereas objective or demand terrorists generally identify themselves(example: Hamas, the various terrorist groups in Jammu & Kashmir) and claimresponsibility or credit for their acts of terrorism, punishment terroristsdon't. Objective or demand terrorists want that their followers, their communityand the international public opinion should know that they were behind the actof terrorism. For them, terrorism is one way of creating an awareness of theirobjective and demand. Objective terrorists too undertake punishment terrorism,but they look upon it as retaliatory in nature and not retributive.

Whatkind of terrorist groups resort topunishment terrorism?

Generally, religious terrorist groups, butexamples are not wanting of ideological, ethnic and other non-religious groupsand even individuals resorting to punishment terrorism.

Whatare the major examples of punishmentterrorism by religious groups?

The blowing up of the Kanishka aircraft of the Air India off the Irish coast,
the explosion at the Narita airport in Tokyo and the synchronised transistor radio explosions in New Delhi, all in 1985 by Sikh terrorists as acts of retribution for the alleged sacrilege of descecration of the Golden Temple in Amritsar by the Indian Army in June,1984;
the World Trade Centre explosion in New York in February, 1993, by some Muslim extremist elements who felt aggrieved over what they perceived as the betrayal by the USA's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) after having used them to achieve US objectives against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan;
the synchronised explosions in Mumbai (Bombay) in March, 1993, by Muslims associated with Dawood Ibrahim, the mafia leader, as retribution for the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December, 1992, and for the alleged massacre of Muslims that followed in Mumbai without the Police protecting them;
the explosion in the RSS office in Chennai in August,1993, allegedly by elements close to the Al Ummah again because of anger over the demolition of the Babri Masjid;the explosions on many railway trains in North India in December,1993, allegedly by elements belonging to the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) to mark the first anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid;
the explosions outside the US barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996 by unidentified elements;
the synchronised explosions in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu in February, 1998, allegedly by the Al Ummah as a retribution for police excesses against the Muslims the previous year; the explosions outside the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in August, 1998, allegedly by the Al Qaeda of Osama bin Laden;
the attack on the US naval ship "USS Cole" in Aden in October, 2000, possibly by the Al Qaeda; the terrorist strikes against the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC on September 11, 2001;
the kidnapping and the beheading of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist of the "Wall Street Journal", by terrorists associated with bin Laden in January-February, 2002;
and the grenade attack on a church congregation in Islamabad on March 17,2002, suspected to be by fundamentalist elements in the Pakistan Army to punish the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA of the USA.

It is alleged that Milton Green, who was injuredin the grenade attack, was the head of an NSA team attached to the US Embassy inIslamabad for intercepting the communications of the Al Qaeda, the Taliban andPakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and that his wife Barbara, who waskilled along with their daughter, was an officer of the CIA attached to thePersonnel Department of the US Embassy.

What are theexamples of punishment terrorism carriedout by non-religious groups and individuals?

The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, former IndianPrime Minister, by the LTTE in May,1991; the assassination of two CIAofficers in Langley, Washington DC, by Mir Aimal Kansi of Pakistan inJanuary,1993, who felt angry over the CIA's failure to keep up its promise toget him the US citizenship and a lucrative job in return for the servicesrendered by him against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan; and theexplosion at the federal office building in Oklahoma in 1995 by Timothy McVeigh,who felt angry against the Federal Government for various reasons. Theblowing-up of a Pan Am aircraft off Lockerbie in 1989 is viewed as an actcarried out by the Libyan State as a retribution for the US bombing of Libya in1986.

Isthere really an organisation called Al Qaedaand why are the Al Qaeda and the other organisations associated with it in theInternational Islamic Front For Jihad Against the US and Israel considered themost dreaded of the punishment terrorism organisations?

It is doubtful whether bin Laden calls hisorganisation Al Qaeda, as alleged by the USA. The name Al Qaeda, which means"The Base", does not figure in any of the fatwas, documents orstatements known to have emanated from bin Laden. In their telephone andInternet communications, the followers of bin Laden use the domestic codes"al Qaeda", the "company", the "corporate house",the "CEO" etc while referring to him without mentioning him by name inorder to conceal his identity. From this, the CIA seems to have come to theincorrect conclusion that bin Laden's organisation is called "Al Qaeda",that it has a cor[orate-like structure, that he runs it like a CEO etc.

It is believed that bin Laden has not given anyname to his Saudi-centric organisation just as Carlos had not given any to his.He only uses the title International Islamic Front which he has given to hisUnited Front of like-minded Islamic groups again just as Carlos called hisUnited Front the International Front of Revolutionaries. During its war againstInternational Communism, the CIA disseminated a large number of fabricateddocuments purporting to come from Moscow.

Similarly, it has been disseminating a largenumber of fabricated documents purporting to be from the Al Qaeda. A typicalexample is the so-called training manual of the Al Qaeda.It has been fabricatingdocuments, planting them in different places in Afghanistan and letting them bediscovered by journalists in order to give them an air of seeming credibility.The Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) has similarly been using ostensiblyindependent think tanks allegedly funded by it and the "academics"working for them for carrying on a disinformation campaign about the Al Qaedaand other organisations associated with it.

Doesit mean that the Al Qaeda and theInternational Islamic Front are not as dangerous as they are projected by the USto be?

No. It would not be correct to say so. The AlQaeda or by whatever name bin Laden calls his organisation and his associates inthe International Islamic Front are the most ruthless terrorist organisations inthe world today, which practise retributive punishment terrorism. But, reportsabout the extent of their penetration in various countries, particularly inSouth-East Asia, their organisational set-up, training methods etc being spreadby the CIA and the DIA with the help of compliant US journalists andacademics need to be carefully verified before acceptance. The USA seems to beusing such stories spread by it as a means for the return of the US troops tothe South-East Asian region on a permanent basis.

What iscatastrophic or new terrorism?

There is no commonly accepted definition ofcatastrophic or new terrorism. However, there is growing convergenceamongst professional counter-terrorism experts that catastrophic or newterrorism has one or more of the following components: Use of or threat to use aweapon of mass destruction (WMD); use of or threat to use a weapon of massdisruption such as a computer virus or hacking (WMDIS); capture of orthreat to capture an installation dealing with WMD such as a nuclear powerstation in order to cause mass panic; and use of or threat to useconventional weapons or instruments in an unconventional manner to cause fatalhuman casualties of 1,000 or more.

What is thesignificance of the terrorist strikes ofSeptember 11,2001, in New York and Washington DC?

Firstly, it was the first act of catastrophicpunishment terrorism in recent history;

secondly, it was the first use of a conventionalinstrument ( a commercial airliner) in a hitherto unthought of unconventionalmanner to cause human casualties of catastrophic proportions;

thirdly, it was successfully carried out in USterritory despite the commonly-assumed competence of the US intelligence andsecurity apparatus;

fourthly, it demonstrated the ease with whichdetermined punishment terrorists have managed to penetrate the State despite itspowerful security apparatus as compared to the difficulty which the State facesin penetrating the terrorist apparatus;

fifthly, it demonstrated dramatically to thepublic the frightening mix of irrationality and rationality (mental lucidity)which is the defining characteristic of all terrorism and particularlypunishment terrorism; sixthly, it was a catastrophic act of terrorism watchedlive by millions of TV viewers all over the world, which posed a visiblechallenge to the credibility of the State, whether the State be in the US,Russia, China, India, Singapore, Australia or elsewhere and called for anequally visible and ruthless State response with all the might that the State iscapable of in order to restore its credibility in the eyes of the people.

The irrationality of the punishment terroristswas seen in their willingness to kill thousands of innocent people to give ventto their anger without worrying about the revulsion which it might causein the minds of the public or without asking themselves whether their act ofretribution was in proportion to their anger over the perceived wrong-doingagainst them. Their rationality or mental lucidity was frighteningly seenin the manner in which they planned and carried out their act of terrorism in aprecision-like manner. It showed a mass destruction mindset, which wasable to think of new ways of mass destruction or mass disruption that do notoccur to a normal mindset and is prepared to carry them out whatever be thecosts involved.

It made the world realise that what it isconfronted with is not a new or catastrophic terrorism, but a new breed ofterrorists for whom terrorism is their viagra, which gives them a feeling ofpotence, of power, of invincibility. The normal counter-terrorism methodologywhich involves equal attention to the political, economic, social, religious andsecurity aspects of terrorism would not work against them. Even if all thepolitical and other non-security aspects are dealt with, the new breed ofterrorists would still indulge in their punishment terrorism, if they had theopportunity and the motivation, using some pretext or the other.

Wasthe international coalition led by the USright in the manner in which it hit back at the new breed of punishmentterrorists with overwhelming use of military force?

Initially, in a series of articles,this writer had been critical of this overwhelming military response. Now,in retrospect, he has concluded that there was no other option available to the civilised world if the credibility of the State was to be restored and preservedin the eyes of the law-abiding people.

But after six months of this waragainst terrorism, the time has come for the coalition to examine themethodology followed so far since October 7, 2001, to see what mid-coursecorrections are called for and to implement them. The most positiveoutcome of September 11 was the realisation by the international community thatterrorism is an absolute evil and has to be combated as such, whatever be theobjective of the terrorists and whether they were domestic or internationalterrorists.

Another positive outcome was therealisation that the world cannot effectively deal with this new breed ofterrorists without effective international co-operation. The networking ofthe terrorists has to be confronted by an equally determined networking of thepolitical leaderships and professional experts of the civilised world.

One has seen the emergence of suchnetworking, but one is yet to see this axis of the civilised world being givenan appropriate shape and structure so that it is able to deter effectivelyfuture acts of punishment terrorism.

What is theset-up of bin Laden like?

(For the sake of convenience, the writer willcontinue to call Osama bin Laden's organisation "Al Qaeda" as he hadbeen doing in the past, even though bin Laden himself does not use this name forhis organisation and has been using "Al Qaeda" purely as a domesticcode)

Before answering this question, one has to goback to the Afghan war of the 1980s to understand what is happening since 1998.The success of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 and the internationaljihad against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan promoted by the covert actiondivision of the USA's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), with the help of theInter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan, then ruled by Gen.Zia-ul-Haq, ledto many negative consequences, which ultimately contributed to thePakistan-Afghanistan region emerging as the epicentre of punishment terrorism ofthe most ruthless kind motivated by pan-Islamic ideas.

Firstly, the emergence of the Sunni extremistSipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), which was funded by the intelligenceagencies of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia,Iraq and the USA -- each for its own reason.Pakistan and Saudi Arabia backed it to counter the increasingly assertive Shias.Iraq assisted it to create disaffection amongst the Sunni Balochis of Iran. TheCIA backed it to use it against Iran as well as the then USSR.

Secondly, the large flow of Saudi money intoPakistan and the encouragement of the pan-Islamic Deobandi groups by Zia as wellas the CIA led to the mushrooming of Wahabi-Deobandi madrasas all over Pakistanand the marginalisation of the more tolerant and soft Barelvis who, despitebeing in a numerical majority in Pakistan, found themselves without politicaland financial influence.

Thirdly, to rally round the Muslims of the worldagainst the USSR, the CIA consciously encouraged religious fanaticism andpan-Islamism. The intelligence agencies of the US and the West Europeancountries encouraged jobless Muslims in many countries to go to Pakistan,undergo military training in the newly sprung-up Wahabi-Deobandi madrasas andjoin the Afghan Mujahideen. Between 6,000 and 10,000 Muslims, the majority ofthem Arabs, went and fought against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan, with SaudiArabia funding them, the ISI training and motivating them and the CIA and otherWestern intelligence agencies equipping them. Osama bin Laden, then a blue-eyedboy of the CIA, played an active role in the training and motivation of thesemercenaries and led them to battle against the Soviet troops. In addition to theArabs, jobless Muslims from the Jammu & Kashmir State of India, Bangla Desh,the Arakan area of Myanmar, Southern Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia werealso encouraged by the CIA to join this mercenary brigade.

Fourthly, faced with the increasing difficultiesencountered by its Slav troops in countering the CIA-instigated pan-Islamicmercenaries, Moscow started sending to Afghanistan the Muslim members of itsArmed Forces recruited from the Central Asian Republics (CARs), Chechnya andDagestan. These troops got infected by the pan-Islamism of the CIA'smercenaries.

Fifthly, a number of new pan-Islamicorganisations of Wahabi-Deobandi-Ahle Hadith orientation sprang up in Pakistanisoil and these were given the leadership role by the US for leading themercenary brigade to battle. The most important amongst them were theHarkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-Al-Islami (HUJI) and theLashkar-e-Toiba (LET). The HUM and the HUJI were born out of the SSP and sharedits anti-Shia orientation. All these organisations were favoured by Ziaand his ISI. The HUM, which produced some of the best fighters of the Afghanwar, was favoured by the CIA and got the lion's share of the Stinger missiles,explosives and other equipment. Towards the end of the 1980s, the HUM and theHUJI merged to form the Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA) and separated again in 1998 afterthe USA designated the HUA as a foreign terrorist organisation under a 1996 lawin October,1997. The Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) was formed in the beginning of 2000by a split in the HUM.

Sixthly, after the withdrawal of the Soviettroops in 1988, the USA lost interest in Afghanistan and left the mercenarybrigade in the lurch. Promises made to these jobless Muslims at the time oftheir recruitment that after the war in Afghanistan was over, they would behelped to re-settle in the USA with lucrative jobs were not kept up. Some ofthese mercenaries went back to their country of origin and joined thefundamentalist groups in fighting against their Governments (examples: Algeria,Tunisia and Egypt). Others stayed behind and were diverted to J&K by the ISI.

The HUM and the HUJI were used by the ISI torally round the dregs of the war of the 1980s and divert them to India. They didso very successfully. But, at the same time, they promoted jihad in Chechnya andDagestan in Russia, Xinjiang in China, in the newly-independent CARs, inBangladesh, in the Arakan area of Myanmar and in the Southern Philippines. TheHUJI took over the leadership of the jihadi elements in Bangladesh and the HUMin the rest of the world, including the USA. HUM cadres fought actively againstthe US Marines in Somalia.

Not having learnt any lessons from the sequel toits policy of encouraging fanaticism and pan-Islamism in Afghanistan and despitethe humiliation inflicted on the US troops in Somalia by the HUM in 1993, theCIA asked the ISI to divert part of the dregs of the HUM and the HUJI to Bosniato assist the Muslims there in their fight against the Serbs. The transfer toBosnia was funded by the Saudi Intelligence, the arms and ammunition were givenby the Iranian Intelligence and the leadership and motivation were provided byserving and retired officers of the ISI and the Turkish intelligence.

Omar Sheikh, who masterminded the kidnapping ofDaniel Pearl of the "Wall Street Journal", had his jihadi inoculation in Bosnia just as bin Laden had his in Afghanistan. From Bosnia, they werediverted to Kosovo by the CIA and thereafter again left in the lurch after theyhad done the USA's hatchet job in the Balkans. After the withdrawal of theSoviet troops from Afghanistan, bin Laden had spent some time in Saudi Arabiaand then took up residence in Khartoum in the Sudan from where he was asked toleave in the beginning of 1996 by the Sudanese Government under USpressure. He approached Burhanuddin Rabbani, the then President of Afghanistan,to permit him to move over to Afghanistan. Rabbani persuaded Benazir Bhutto, thethen Prime Minister of Pakistan, to let bin Laden shift to Afghanistan. Sheagreed to this after consulting Washington DC and bin Laden flew to Peshawar andtook up residence in Jalalabad. Gen.Pervez Musharraf, her Director-General ofMilitary Operations, supervised the transfer.After the Taliban capturedJalalabad and Kabul in September, 1996, it shifted him to Kandahar. He gatheredaround him all the dregs of the Afghan war of the 1980s as well as the newjihadis from Chechnya, Dagestan, the CARs, Xinjiang and the southern Philippinesand formed in 1998 his International Islamic Front For Jihad Against the US andIsrael.

The USA was aware of the presence and activitiesof bin Laden in Afghan territory since July 1996, but did not move vigorouslyagainst him as long as it was hopeful of getting the assistance of the Talibanfor the construction of the oil and gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistanthrough the Herat area of Afghanistan by UNOCAL, the powerful American company.It moved seriously against bin Laden only after UNOCAL withdrew from the projectand after he had formed the International Islamic Front and issued in 1998 hisfirst fatwa against the US, which was signed, amongst others, by Fazlur RahmanKhalil of the HUM.

bin Laden wears two hats. He is the head of theAl Qaeda,which is an exlusively Arab and Saudi-centric organisation, with astrength of not more than 500 to 600 hard-core members, as well as of theInternational Islamic Front, which is a united front of five pan-Islamicorganisations from Pakistan (the HUM, the HUJI, the LET, the JEM and the SSP),three from Egypt, two from Uzbekistan, one from Xinjiang, the Abu Sayyaf of theSouthern Philippines and the Taliban. Other nationalities, which have beenfighting in Afghanistan such as the Chechens, the Rohinga Muslims of Myanmar,the Bangladeshis, the Malaysians and the Indonesians fight as members of the HUMor the HUJI and not as separate components of the International Islamic Front.

The Front has a total of about 20,000 plustrained cadres at its disposal in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region as well asoutside.Of all the pan-Islamic organisations of Pakistan, the HUM has had a veryactive networking relationship with the jihadi elements in South-East Asiathrough the Abu Sayyaf as well as the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) of Pakistan, whichhas been periodically sending Tablighis to South-East Asia, ostensibly to teachthe Holy Koran and to train the Ulema.

To maintain effective internal security in the AlQaeda and its 055 Brigade, bin Laden does not allow non-Arabs into it. Itperforms the following tasks: it ensures the personal security of bin Laden; itprevents the penetration of bin Laden's set-up by foreign intelligence agencies;deputes Arab instructors to the training camps of the HUM, the HUJI, the LET,the JEM and the SSP as well as to those of other components of the InternationalIslamic Front; plans and carries out all the anti-US operations of bin Laden,taking local help from the other components of the Front where necessary.However, the other components are not taken into confidence regarding thedetails of the Al Qaeda operations.

The organisations associated with bin Laden sharethe following characteristics: extra-territorial loyalty; recognition of onlythe borders of the Ummah and not of national borders; and willingness to acquireand use weapons of mass destruction (WMD), if considered necessary to protectIslam.

How come binLaden's Al Qaeda has not so far mountedany major act of punishment terrorism against Israel?

The Palestine Liberation Organisation of Yasser Arafat and its allied groups realise that the PLO would not be able toultimately achieve its objective without the backing of the US. They,therefore, feel that any impression that they have been taking the help of theAl Qaeda might prove counter-productive and harm their cause. At the sametime, it needs to be underlined that the Israeli factor had influenced hisselection of some of the targets. He chose Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam forhis terrorist strikes of August,1998, partly because of his assessment that theintelligence and security apparatus there was weak and partly because of thelong years of co-operation of the local intelligence and security agencies withtheir counterparts in Israel. He has not forgotten the role allegedlyplayed by Kenya in facilitating the Entebbe raid of the Israeli securityagencies in the 1970s to release the Israeli passengers of a hijacked Air Franceaircraft. Similarly, his interest in organising a terrorist strike inSingapore is not merely due to the visible US corporate and naval presence there and the frequent visits of US naval ships to Singapore, but also because of thereports of the close co-operation of the local intelligence and securityagencies with those of Israel.

Howcome Al Qaeda has similarly not mountedany major act of retributive punishment terrorism in Jammu& Kashmir and inother parts of India, either against India or against Israel or against the USA?What explains its concentrated anger against the US, apart from the Palestineissue?

Four of the components of bin Laden'sInternational Islamic Front are active in J & K and other parts ofIndia--the HUM, the HUJI, the JEM and the LET. They are essentiallyPakistani organisations and are responsible for most of the cross-borderterrorism in India. Even they have not so far mounted any major act ofpunishment terrorism due to the following reasons:

Firstly, like the Palestinians,the indigenousKashmiri groups, whose local support is necessary for a major terrorist strike,feel that they cannot achieve their objective without US support and ,therefore, do not want any Al Qaeda operation against the US or Israel in Indianterritory. The Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), presently the most activeindigenous Kashmiri group, has scrupulously kept away from the Al Qaeda and theTaliban. The latter too do not like the HM because of its past associationwith Gulbuddin Heckmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami.

Secondly, to be able to mount a successfulterrorist strike against the USA or Israel in other parts of India, Al Qaedawould need local support. In Pakistan and other Islamic countries,particularly of West Asia, the political, military and intelligenceestablishments had generally been pro-USA, but large sections of the populationhave been anti-American. The reverse is the case in India. Thirdly,the non-Pakistani components of the International Islamic Front from Egypt,Uzbekistan, Xinjiang and the Philippines do not look upon India as anti-Islamdespite the anger of the Indian Muslim community over the demolition of theBabri Masjid and the alleged massacre of Muslims in Mumbai inDecember,1992, and in Ahmedabad in February-March, 2002.

Because of this, past attempts of the Pakistanicomponents to have the Front re-named as the International Islamic Front ForJihad Against the US, Israel and India did not succeed despite the support ofbin Laden for such a move. Foreign Muslims note that despite the largecasualties suffered by India in J&K since 1989 (nearly 14,000 innocentcivilians and 3,500 security forces personnel killed), India had not resorted toair strikes, destroyed or damaged mosques, madrasas and the Holy Koran, forciblyshaved off the beards of arrested terrorists, seized their copies of the HolyKoran due to fears that they might be using them as secret code books andsubstituted them with Holy Koran printed by the Army, prevented the Muslimdetenus from praying in a group, or tried them in camera before militarytribunals as, according to them, the USA has been doing in Afghanistan. They also note that during the recent massacre of Muslims in Ahmedabad, it isthe Indian print and electronic media and large sections of the Indian elite,including Hindu leaders, who highlighted the massacre and went to the help ofthe Muslims.

In contrast, since October 7,2001, practicallythe entire US elite, including its academics, have been observing a strangesilence over what the Muslims regard as the atrocities committed by the UStowards those arrested in Afghanistan. They compare the active role playedby the US media and academic elite in bringing to light the atrocities committedby the US troops against the Vietnamese in the 1960s and 1970s with itsconscious inactivism since October 7,2001, and allege that this inactivism isbecause the victims now are Muslims for whom the US society as a whole feels nosympathy.

Doesit mean that India does not have to fearany major act of retributive punishment terrorism?

No. It would be incorrect to come to suchconclusion. There is considerable anger against the Government of India amongst the dregs of the second Afghan war over its alleged support to theNorthern Alliance. Past anger amongst Indian Muslims over the demolitionof the Babri Musjid has been aggravated by the recent massacres in Ahmedabad. There had been massacres of the members of the minority communities (Sikhs andMuslims) during communal riots in the past too, but what, in the perception ofthe Muslims, distinguishes the recent happenings in Ahmedabad from thoseof the past is the total insensitivity of the local administration to thefeelings of the Muslims and what they regard as its conscious inactivism and theabsence of even a modicum of effort by the Government towards a healing touch. There is, therefore, a strong possibility of a major act of retributivepunishment terrorism in Gujarat in the coming months. It need notnecessarily come from bin Laden's outfit. There is a greater possibilitythat it would come from enraged sections of the local Muslims. An encoreof Mumbai--March 1993 is on the cards.

The September 11 terrorist strikes as well as theattack on the US naval ship USS Cole in October, 2000, were viewed by binLaden's set-up as direct retribution for the US Cruise missile strikes ofAugust, 1998, on a factory allegedly owned by bin Laden in the Sudan which wasdescribed by the US as a chemicals factory and on the training camps of the AlQaeda in Taliban-controlled territory in Eastern Afghanistan. Bin Laden's set-upstrongly denied that the bombed factory in the Sudan was producing chemicalweapons and claimed that it was actually manufacturing anti-malaria tablets forthe Sudanese people.

The Pakistani media reported that terroristtraining camps belonging to Pakistani organisations such as theHarkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) etc were destroyedby the Cruise missile strikes, but there was no serious damage to the Al Qaeda'sinfrastructure. The HUM and other components of bin Laden's InternationalIslamic Front For Jihad Against the US and Israel, however, claimed that whatwas destroyed were madrasas being run by these organisations for teaching theHoly Koran to Afghan and Pakistani children. They alleged that the US strikesdestroyed four mosques, severely damaged another and destroyed 200 copies of theHoly Koran kept in the madrasas. They described this as an act of sacrilege bythe US against Islam and as marking the beginning of a new Crusade. Duringsermons in mosques and madrasas in Afghanistan and Pakistan, they warned thatthis act of sacrilege would not go unpunished, that they would pay the US backin the same coin and attack the US wherever they could, including in the USitself.

In the forefront of the orchestrated demand foran act of retributive terrorism against the US to punish it for the August,1998,missile strikes was the HUM, which has a presence in the US and had trained atleast 16 Afro-American Muslims in the past in order to carry the jihad to USterritory.

No definitive evidence is available with regardto the attack on Cole, but with regard to the September 11 strikes, it is clearfrom the vidio recording of a conversation of bin Laden with his lieutenantsafter September 11, which was given to the USA's Central Intelligence Agency(CIA) by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and which was subsequentlyreleased by the US to the media, that bin Laden had an active role to play inthe conceptualisation and planning of the strikes in the US.

For security reasons, bin Laden does notgenerally come into direct contact with those trained in his camps. He used toleave the training, motivation, tasking, briefing and debriefing to MohammedAtef (since dead in November, 2001) and Ayman-al- Zawahiri. It was also hisstyle to avoid too much of centralised guiding, planning and execution. Thosechosen for suicide missions used to be told the adversary to be attacked, whereand the type of targets to be attacked, but the actual selection of the targetand the manner of execution of the plan used to be left to the discretion andjudgement of a ground co-ordinator, assisted by one or more persons.

The ground co-ordinator and his staff, as in thecase of the LTTE, used to be different from those who actually carried out thesuicide mission. The LTTE employs two teams for each operation. The first teamselects the target, recees it, studies the security measures in and around thetarget, draws up the plan of operation, carries out sand model exercises anddiscussions to satisfy itself that the plan would work and then trains thesecond team of suicide volunteers, briefs it and sends it on the mission.

On the other hand, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) andthe Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), both members of bin Laden's International IslamicFront, which have carried out 43 suicide missions in Jammu & Kashmir and NewDelhi, use only one team. It is the suicide squad which does all the work fromthe initial selection of the target, receeing to final execution of the plan.This should explain the less spectacular successes of the JEM and the LET, ascompared to those of the LTTE and the Al Qaeda.

From the video recording mentioned above, it wasapparent that bin Laden was involved in the details of the September 11 strikes,but it is not clear whether he employed a two-team or one-team modus operandi(MO). But from the precision planning and execution of four synchronisedhijackings and strikes, of which three were successful and the fourth failed dueto unexpected reasons of resistance from some of the passengers, one could inferwith reasonable accuracy that the two-team modus operandi (MO) must have beenfollowed.

There must have been another team of groundcontrollers and co-ordinators, who knew all the 19 persons involved in the airstrikes and co-ordinated their planning and execution. This team must haveconsisted only of Arabs since bin Laden did not depend upon non-Arabs for suchoperations designed to have spectacular surprise and impact and any assistancetaken from the non-Arab components such as the HUM sleepers in the US must havebeen of a logistics nature without the non-Arabs knowing any details of theoperation. This team of ground controllers and co-ordinators is still at largeand has managed to evade arrest. It is unlikely that it is still in the US. Itmust have dispersed to other countries, most probably to Pakistan.

Firstly, the perception (right or wrong, one doesnot know) in the jihadi circles in Pakistan and in Pakistan'smilitary-intelligence establishment that the WSJ was pro-India andanti-Pakistan.

Secondly, the fact that he was operating fromMumbai (Bombay) in India, where he was based as the head of the South AsianBureau of the WSJ. Pakistani jihadis and military-intelligence circles look withsuspicion on India-based foreign journalists visiting Pakistan as probablyhaving contacts with the Indian intelligence.

Thirdly, the fact that he was Jewish and that hisparents were Israeli citizens based in the US. This made the jihadis andmilitary-intelligence circles suspect that he was also working for the Mossad,the Israeli external intelligence agency. It is alleged that while the US mediadid not reveal his Jewish background till after the confirmation of his deathand the departure of his wife from Pakistan, some Israeli newspapers wereindiscreet and irresponsible and revealed his Jewish background and the Israelicitizenship of his parents immediately after his kidnapping and before hisdeath.

Fourthly, he was investigating not only thesuspected contacts of Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, withorganisations in Pakistan, but also the contacts of Gen.Pervez Musharraf andGen.Mohammed Aziz Khan, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee,with Osama bin Laden and making enquiries regarding the whereabouts of bin Ladenand Mulla Mohammed Omer, the Amir of the Taliban. This set off alarm bells inthe jihadi circles and the military-intelligence establishment, who suspectedthat he was being used by the CIA to smoke out bin Laden and Mulla Omer.

After his excution, while talking to the mediaduring the SAARC Information Ministers' conference at Islamabad in March, 2002,Musharraf accused Pearl of being over-intrusive in his investigation methods andinsinuated that this invited the terrorists' wrath on him. Jihadi andmilitary-intelligence circles have been alleging that a New Delhi-basedcorrespondent of the USA Today has been similarly over-intrusive in hisinvestigation methods. There is anger over his reported attempts to investigatethe links between bin Laden's set-up and Gen.Mohammed Aziz Khan, Chairman of theJoint Chiefs of Staff Committee.

There is so far no evidence to show any directinvolvement of the Al Qaeda. The Musharraf Government had from the beginningbeen claiming that this was an operation by the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), whichwas designated by President Bush as a foreign terrorist organisation inDecember, 2001, and which was banned by Musharraf on January 15, 2002, but thekidnapping and murder bore the signature of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) andthe Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), both members of bin Laden's InternationalIslamic Front since its inception in February,1998.

The HUM, in particular, specialises in kidnappingand in the brutal treatment of its victims. It cuts their throat, lets thembleed to death and then beheads them. That is what it did to the Norwegiantourist kidnapped by it under the name Al Faran in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K)in 1995. When it hijacked an Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar in December,1999, it slit the throat of Rupen Katyal, a newly-married Indian who wasreturning from a honeymoon in Kathmandu with his young wife, and let him slowlybleed to death in the business class of the aircraft while the HUM hijackers sataround him and read from the Holy Koran. That is what it did to Pearl.

All foreign terrorist organisations trained bythe HUM or HUJI such as the Abu Sayyaf of the Philippines and those of Chechnyasimilarly specialise in kidnapping and treat their victims brutally. Allavailable evidence shows that Pearl was kidnapped, his throat slit and he wasbeheaded by a HUM group led by Sheikh Omar, presently under trial in Karachi andwhom the military regime has refused to extradite to the US lest he tell his USinterrogators about his involvement, at the instance of the ISI, in theterrorist strikes on the J&K Legislative Assembly on October 1, 2001, on theIndian Parliament on December 13, 2001, and on the security personnel outsidethe American Centre in Kolkata (Calcutta) on January 22, 2002, and about hislinks with bin Laden with the knowledge of the ISI, including his priorknowledge of the plans for the September 11 terrorist strikes which he hadconveyed to the ISI.

The Pakistani military-intelligence establishmenthas been desperately trying to steer the investigation away from the HUM and theHUJI, both of which and particularly the latter have many supporters in theArmy. The HUJI, which had plotted with its supporters in the Army led by Maj.Gen. Zaheer-ul-Islam Abbasi to capture power in 1995 and proclaim Pakistan as anIslamic Caliphate, had envisaged making Musharraf the head of the newdispensation. The plot was discovered in time by the Benazir Bhutto Governmentand crushed.

Amongst those with whom Pearl was in contactbefore his kidnapping were Sheikh Omar, who belonged to the HUM and not to theJEM, Arif alias Hashim, a member of the HUM, and Khalid Khawaja, a retired AirForce officer who had worked in the ISI and who is related to Sheikh Mubarak AliShah Gilani, leader of the Jamaat-ul-Fuqra (JUF), a terrorist organisation witha wide presence in the USA and the Caribbean and with a large following amongstAfro-American Muslims. It was reportedly Pearl's desire for an interview withGilani which landed him in the trap laid down by the HUM.

In its issue for February, 2002, the Newsline,the prestigious monthly of Pakistan, reported as follows: "During his stayin Islamabad, Pearl also contacted Khalid Khawaja, a retired Pakistani Air Forceofficer, who had worked with the ISI in an effort to get an interview withGilani. Rabidly anti-American, Khawaja is related to Gilani through marriage. Hedeveloped a close affinity with Islamic militants during his intelligence work.Khawaja was detained a few days after the kidnapping. A bearded man who lives ina sprawling house in Rawalpindi, Khawaja fought as a mujahid besides Osamaagainst the Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s. That brought him in closecontact with various Islamic militant groups in volved in the jihad inAfghanistan and Kashmir.

In an interview with CBS News in July last year,Khawaja said: "America is a very vulnerable country. The White House is themost vulnerable target. It is very simple just to get it." Khawaja isbelieved to have strong Islamic views as many of his former colleagues in theISI had. In an interview in October, he told a journalist that the war inAfghanistan was just the beginning of an international jihad. Pearl spoke on thephone to Khawaja several times, but never met him in person."

Well-informed Pakistani sources say that Khawajahad kept Gen.Mohammad Aziz as well as Lt.Gen.Ehsanul Haq, the DG of the ISI,informed of his telephonic discussions with Pearl and of the latter's plans tomeet Gilani.

According to the Pakistani authorities, SheikhOmar was arrested at Lahore by the local Police on February 12 after Musharrafhad reached the US on his bilateral visit, but Sheikh Omar reportedly told theKarachi court that he had himself voluntarily surrendered to the Lahore militaryauthorities on February 5, three days before Musharraf left Islamabad for theUS, to prevent the harassment of his wife and baby son by the Lahore Police.

Independent reports indicated that the LahorePolice had rounded up all his relatives except his wife and child in order toforce him to surrender. When he did not do so, they issued a warning that theywould detain his wife too, thereby leaving the baby with nobody to look afterit. He thereupon surrendered himself to a retired Army officer living in Lahorewho had worked under Aziz in the ISI. He did not want to surrender to the LahorePolice due to fears of torture. This officer reportedly informed Aziz inIslamabad who had intitially Sheikh Omar questioned by officers of the ISIbefore handing him over to the Police on February 12. It is speculated that Azizwanted to make it certain that Sheikh Omar would not tell the Karachi policeduring his interrogation about the contacts of Musharraf and Aziz with binLaden.

No definitive answers are available. Either way,l'affaire Daniel Pearl and Sheikh Omar tends to confirm India's perception ofMusharraf as an untrustworthy person. If Aziz had informed him on February 5itself and Musharraf had deliberately kept the US in the dark, it shows him asperfidious. If Aziz had kept Musharraf in the dark, it shows Musharraf as not ineffective control of the military-intelligence establishment in Pakistan.

The answer to this is found in a report carriedby the "News" of Islamabad on February 18, 2002, which said:"Claiming that his "brothers" were making their presence felt andwill continue to do so "on every inch of Indian landscape", Omar hasshocked his investigators by narrating his role and that of his "Jihadicolleagues", in the bomb explosion outside state parliament building inSrinagar in October last and shooting incidents in the compound of Indianparliament in New Delhi and outside the American Centre building in Kolkata inDecember and January last.

"While speaking to various police officialshere (Karachi) and in Lahore over the past one week, Sheikh Omar not onlybriefed his police interrogators on his role in the Pearl Kidnapping case and onthe terrorist strikes in India, but also provided police officials specificdetails of his travel to Afghanistan "a few days after September 11"to have a personal meeting with Osama bin Laden near Jalalabad.

"Omar doesn't hide, police officials said,his ties with several other Arab associates of Osama. Several independentreports and interrogation of two other suspects in Daniel Pearl Kidnapping casehave independently confirmed Omar's deep connections in Taliban leadership andhis status as a guerrilla warfare instructor in one of the key trainingfacilities in Afghanistan.

"Salam Saqib and Sheikh Adil, two keysuspects who had played the central role in sending two e-mails attached withthe photographs of the kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter, have told thepolice that Sheikh Omar was widely respected in Afghanistan and was considered arole model even for the most famous warriors in the Pakistani Jihadi community.

"Sheikh Omar provided police withunsolicited specific details about his connections and relationship with AftabAnsari — chief suspect in Kolkata shooting case. Giving details of hiscommunications with Aftab Ansari to police investigators, just a few days beforethe shooting incident in Kolkata, Sheikh said he had cultivated Ansari, whilethey were both jailed in Tihar prison in New
Delhi in late nineties.

"Discussing the shooting incident inside theIndian parliament building which had left 17 people including five unidentifiedattackers killed on December 13, Sheikh Omar is understood to have offeredpolice officials the real identities of the Kashmiri militants who had stormedthe Indian parliament with an aim at making Indian parliamentarians hostage toseek the release of all Kashmiri freedom fighters from Indian prisons.

"Sheikh Omar said the militant who gave hislife while exploding a bomb-laden car just outside the state parliament buildingin Srinagar on October 2 was "more than a brother to me". Omar saidthe deceased suicide bomber was a Pakistani who had devoted his life to thefreedom struggle in Kashmir.

"Throughout his interrogation Sheikh Omarcontinued to repeat that "thousands of people were now ready in India andPakistan to sacrifice their lives to free Kashmir from India and to turnPakistan into an ideal Islamic state."

"In a remarkable coincidence, Pir MubarrakAli Gillani, who was earlier thought to be a suspect in the Pearl kidnappingcase, had recounted his services for the state security services before beingreleased by the police in Karachi.

"Omar feels that Mansur Hasnain alias Hyder-- who was also involved in the hijacking of Indian airliner in the end ofDecember 1999 may only have definite information about the present whereaboutsof the dead or alive Daniel Pearl," the report concluded.

The ISI exercised pressure on the Editor of thenewspaper not to publish this , but he rejected their pressure and published it.The ISI then pressurised the owner of the newspaper to sack the Editor, who hasrun away to the US fearing a threat to his life from the ISI. It also forced theofficers of the Karachi Police to deny that Sheikh Omar had made any suchconfessions.

It was an anti-American and not an anti-Christianattack. The principal target of the attack was Milton Green, who is believed tobe from the USA's National Security Agency (NSA). He was the head of an NSA teamattached to the US Embassy in Islamabad, which was responsible for interceptingthe communications of the Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the ISI. He escaped withinjuries, but his wife Barbara, who is stated to be a CIA officer attached tothe Personnel Division of the US Embassy, was killed along with their daughter.It is believed that many of the 10 other Americans injured in the attack werealso either intelligence officers or related to intelligence officers. It was anact of retribution for the role of the NSA and the CIA in Afghanistan andparticularly in the death of Mohammad Atef, bin Laden's chief of operations whowas in charge of his personal security too, in November, 2001.

Till now, the needle of suspicion points to lowerlevel officers of the military-intelligence establishment who were close to theHUJI. The Musharraf regime is trying to divert the suspicion away from the HUJI. There has been no progress in the investigation.

According to Pakistani sources, only Musharrafhimself, Mohammad Aziz, Lt.Gen.Ehsanul Haq, DG, ISI, his principal staff officerwhose name is not known, and Maj.Gen.Rasheed Quereshi, the press spokesman ofMusharraf, knew the real identity of Green as from the NSA. The suspicion isMohammad Aziz tipped off the terrorists.

What are the positive results so far ofthe US-led war against terrorism?

Firstly, the Taliban has been replaced by a modern-minded, forward-lookinginterim administration led by Hamid Karzai.
Secondly, the command and control of the Al Qaeda and the other components ofthe International Islamic Front are in disarray. They are no longer in a position to co-ordinate theiroperations outside the Afghanistan-Pakistan region as effectively as before.
Thirdly, the training and logistics infrastructure of the InternationalIslamic Front in Afghan territory has been severely damaged, if not destroyed.
Fourthly, effective action against terrorist funding by all the UNmember-countries except Pakistan under the UN Security Council Resolution No 1373 has dried up the flow oflegitimate funds for the terrorist organisations, but not clandestine funds.
Fifthly, the effective networking of the intelligence and counter-terrorismagencies of the coalition has led to the unearthing of hitherto not-so-well-known networks of theInternational Islamic Front all over the world and particularly in West Europe and South-East Asia.
Sixthly, there has been a greater flow of actionable intelligence than beforeOctober 7, 2001, from the interrogation of captured terrorists and documents recovered during the operationsin Afghanistan.

What are the negative results ofOperation Enduring Freedom so far?

Firstly, out of the 42 members of the brainstrust of the Al Qaeda, only sixhave been killed so far and four others captured. The remaining 32, including possibly Osama bin Laden, are atlarge and have found new sanctuaries not only in the bordering tribal areas of Pakistan such as Balochistan,the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA, but also even inPunjab as was demonstrated by the arrest of Abu Zubaida, stated to be bin Laden's No.3, and 19 other Al Qaedamembers (but not members of its brainstrust) in Faislabad on March 28 and 29, 2002.
Secondly, at least 14 of the principal leaders of the Taliban, including itsAmir Mulla Mohammad Omar, are still at large---again sheltered by the tribals on the Pakistani side of thePakistan-Afghan border.
Thirdly, while about 8,000 trained cadres of the Pakistani components of theInternational Islamic Front were killed or captured, about 20,000 plus are still at large and are presentlyregrouping in Pakistani territory. They played an important role in the battle against the Americans in theShahi-Kot area of Eastern Afghanistan (Op ANACONDA) in March, 2002, which was not such a success for theAmericans as they made it out to be. The Pakistani components are the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), theHarkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the Sipah-e-SahabaPakistan (SSP).
Fourthly, while it is not possible to quantify the casualties suffered by theAl Qaeda and the Taliban and the surviving cadres still at their disposal, OP ANACONDA showed that the moraleand motivation of the surviving dregs of the AL Qaeda, the Taliban and the other components of theInternational Islamic Front remain high despite the reverses suffered by them since October 7, 2001. Whiletheir capability for co-ordination outside the Afghanistan-Pakistan epicentre of punishment terrorism has beendamaged, at least temporarily, due to the damage to their command and control, they continue to exhibitsurprising co-ordination within the epicentre.
Fifthly, there has been no major recovery of arms and ammunition by thecoalition, thereby indicating that the International Islamic Front had successfully cached their weaponholdings in secret hide-outs in Afghanistan and Pakistan beyond the reach of the coalition forces.
Sixthly, there has been no significant destruction of the heroininfrastructure in Afghan territory, no major killing or capture of the Pakistani heroin barons who wererunning this infrastructure and no major capture of heroin stocks. Before October 7, 2001, there was generalagreement amongst professionals that the Pakistani heroin barons had a secret reserve of at least two years'market requirement of heroin cached in Afghanistan. It is believed that between September 11 and October 7,2001, most of these reserves were moved largely into Pakistan and, in a smaller measure, into the CentralAsian Republics (CARs). With these reserves still available to them, the terrorists should be able to maintaina high level of activity despite the freezing of their bank accounts.
Seventhly, there are disturbing reports from reliable sources in Afghanistanthat this marked lack of success in the heroin front is due to the fact that the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA) of the USA, which encouraged these heroin barons during the Afghan war of the 1980s in order to spreadheroin-addiction amongst the Soviet troops, is now using them in its search for bin Laden and other survivingleaders of the Al Qaeda, by taking advantage of their local knowledge and contacts. These Pakistani heroinbarons and their Afghan lieutenants are reported to have played an important role in facilitating theinduction of Hamid Karzai into the Pashtun areas to counter the Taliban in November, 2001. It is alleged thatin return for the services rendered by them, the USA has turned a blind eye to their heroin refineries andreserves.
Eighthly, the nexus between Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment andthe various components of the International Islamic Front, including the Taliban and the Al Qaeda, remains asstrong as ever. Gen.Pervez Musharraf's ostensible co-operation with the coalition has been far fromstraightforward. While pretending to co-operate with the coalition, he has, at the same time, been helping thesurviving dregs in whatever way he can.

What are the disturbingindicators which don't bode well for the future?

Firstly, the inability of Hamid Karzai to win the respect and support of largesections of the population. His writ still does not run outside Kabul. Even in Kabul, his control over theGovernment is tenuous. He is largely viewed as the USA's mascot. His ambition to have himself continued inpower after the end of the initial six months of the interim administration, with the USA's support, has notbeen well received. He has been spending more time travelling around the world than doing his job in Kabul.Since taking over as the head of the interim administration in December, 2001, he has moved out of Kabulinside Afghanistan only on three days for hit-and-run visits to places such as Herat, Kandahar and Jalalabad.Despite being a Durrani Pashtun himself, he does not command the support of even the Pashtun tribes.
Secondly, the brutal murder of Dr. Abdul Rahman, the Minister for CivilAviation, at the Kabul airport earlier this year, the reported attempt to murder Muhammed Qasim Fahim, theTadjik Defence Minister and successor of Ahmed Shah Masood as the leader of the Northern Alliance, atJalalabad on April 8, 2002, the arrest of over 150 persons in Kabul, described as supporters of the anti-USGulbuddin Heckmatyar, in the beginning of April, 2002, on charges of plotting against the Government, and thedeath of eight opium farmers due to police firing in Helmand on April 8, 2002, show the worseningunder-current of instability. According to Professor Mohiuddin Dareez, from Kabul University's Department ofPolitical Sciences, the attack on Fahim's convoy was likely to have been a protest against foreign presence inAfghanistan. "The attack can more likely be attributed to those who are against the US military presenceand this US-backed government, rather than ethnic or factional reasons," he said in an interview on April8, 2002.
Thirdly, there is no sense of gratitude in the Pashtun areas in Southern andEastern Afghanistan and in the adjoining Pakistani areas of Balochistan, the NWFP and the FATA over theremoval of the Taliban by the US. The liberation of Kabul from the Taliban was greeted by the local populationwith wild scenes of jubilation, but there were so such scenes when the Taliban was driven out of the Pashtunareas of the South and the East. On the contrary, the anger against the US is more than it was before October7, 2001. Amongst the factors which have contributed to this anger are the large civilian casualties anddamages to mosques due to the US air-strikes and reports of lack of respect for Islam as evidenced by theactions of US troops such as forcibly shaving off the beards of arrested Al Qaeda suspects, seizing theircopies of the Holy Koran due to fears that they may be used for coding and decoding and replacing them withHoly Koran printed by the US Army, preventing the detenus from praying in a group, not permitting them toclean themselves and cover their head during the prayers etc. The image of the "Ugly American" fromthe days of the Vietnam war has been resurrected. The Bush Administration might be able to deny or concealsuch perceived anti-Muslim excesses from the rest of the world with the help of the CNN and other compliantsections of the American media, but it cannot conceal them from the population of the affected areas inSouthern and Eastern Afghanistan, who are seething with anger. It is from such angry people that the newrecruits to the Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other components of the International Islamic Front are coming andit is this added anger which would generate new acts of retributive punishment terrorism. Surprisingly andinterestingly, this redoubled anger is directed mainly against the US and not against the other members of thecoalition. Not even against the UK despite the active role played by Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister,to rally support for the war against terrorism. The lack of any critical comments in the non-governmentalsections of US society over the way the US has been handling the war has made the angry elements see the USsociety as a whole as anti-Islam and as accomplices in the commission of acts of sacrilege against Islam. Thedesire for revenge against the US has acquired added force.
Fourthly, in Pakistan, there was always a strong sense of anti-Americanism inthe public mood despite the pro-US policies of past leaderships--political or military. This anti-Americanismhas been given added fuel by the surviving dregs of the Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the other components of theInternational Islamic Front who have taken shelter in Pakistan and by the uncritical support of Washington DCto Musharraf and its silence in the face of his blatant violations of the Pakistan Constitution in order tocontinue in power. The USA is misreading the situation in Pakistan as badly as it misread the situation inIran before the public outburst against the Shah of Iran in 1978-79 led to his being driven out of power. Ithas convinced itself, more wrongly than rightly, that there is no alternative to Musharraf if it has to winthe war against terrorism and prevent the terrorists from getting hold of Pakistan's weapons of massdestruction (WMD). Consequently, its policy has become Musharraf, right or wrong. It does not seem to realisethat under the pretext of co-operating with the US in the war against terrorism, he has been perfidiouslyundermining it.
Fifthly, the evidence of the spread of anti-Americanism and pan-Islamismamongst sections of the Muslim population of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. bin Laden hasno ideology. His actions are motivated by sheer anger. The ideological underpinnings of his InternationalIslamic Front come not from his brain, but from the brains of the five Pakistani components of his Front, whoadvocate a new Islamic Caliphate consisting of three Islamic confederations--one in South-East Asia, thesecond in South Asia and the third in Central Asia. It is they who have been projecting for years Pakistan'satomic bomb as the Ummah's and advocating the right and the religious obligation of the Muslims to acquire WMDand to use them, if necessary, to protect their religion. bin Laden's language and rhetoric are not his own.Those have been ingrained in him by his long association with these Deobandi-Wahabi pan-Islamic organisationsof Pakistan.

What are the mid-course correctionsthat are called for?

Firstly, a shift away from the overt military response, which was initiallyjustified, to a more covert response. Counter-terrorism is a fight against the invisible force of theterrorists, who act with stealth and cunning. To be effective, the State's response has to be equallyinvisible, with equal stealth and cunning. How counter-productive an over-reliance on an overt militaryresponse can be could be seen from the Israeli actions in Palestine.
Secondly, a realisation that in order to make terrorism wither away, it has tobe denied not only funds, arms and ammunition and sanctuaries, but also---and more importantly--new reservoirsof fresh recruits. Its motivation has to be diluted. The greater the anger in the community from which theterrorists have arisen, the greater the flow of new recruits and the stronger the motivation. It is,therefore, important to ensure that the way counter-terrorism operations are conducted does not add to thealready existing anger. Counter-terrorism is a fight of the civilised force of the State against theuncivilised force of the terrorists. If the unwise actions of the State make the community perceive it as nodifferent from the uncivilised force of the terrorists, half the battle against the terrorists is alreadylost. bin Laden does not go round looking for recruits. Enraged elements in the Islamic world go to Pakistanand Afghanistan looking for bin Ladens and their ilk to help them in giving vent to their anger appropriately.
Thirdly, greater pressure on the military-intelligence establishment inPakistan to cut off its links with terrorists of various hues and to effectively co-operate with thecoalition, instead of merely making a pretense of doing so.
Fourthly, insistence on the Pakistani military regime adhering to itscommitment to restore democracy in Pakistan and going back to the barracks instead of taking advantage of whatit looks upon as the post-September 11 dependence of the US on its co-operation for prolonging the militaryrule. Whenever an elected political leadership was in power in Pakistan, the activities of the pan-Islamicforces were less than under military rule. All the existing pan-Islamic organisations of Pakistan were broughtinto existence by Zia-ul-Haq with the help of Musharraf and Gen. Mohammad Aziz Khan, Chairman of the JointChiefs of Staff Committee, for using them to undermine the non-religious political parties and particularlyBenazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and as a strategic weapon to achieve Pakistan's strategic objectivesvis-a-vis Afghanistan and India. It would, therefore, be naive and futile to expect Musharraf, the jointcreator of these organisations, to really help the US in putting an end to them. Since 1971, there have beenseven hijackings of Indian aircraft by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists. All of them took place when the Army wasin power. There was not a single hijacking when an elected political leadership was in power. The effectiveantidote to extremism and terrorism is genuine democracy and not prolonged military rule. All the militaryrulers of Pakistan have used religious fanaticism to serve their own purposes and never acted against them.Musharraf is and would be no exception.

What are the futurepossibilities of punishment terrorism?

As worrisome as before October 7, 2001.

September 11, 2001, marked the culmination of the uncontrolled activities ofthe surviving dregs of the first Afghan war of the 1980s. The kidnapping and brutal murder of Daniel Pearl,the journalist of the Wall Street Journal, in Karachi marked the beginning of a new wave of terrorism arisingfrom the dregs of the second Afghan war, which started on October 7, 2001. The world will be seeing more andmore acts of international terrorism, largely directed against the US and deriving their inspiration from binLaden, dead or alive, and the surviving dregs of the Pakistani pan-Islamic organisations. The pre-September 11wave of international terrorism originating from the Pakistan-Afghanistan epicentre was largely the work ofthe Arab dregs of the first Afghan war, assisted by their Pakistani supporters. The post-September 11 wave ofterrorism will be largely the work of the Pakistani dregs, reinforced by the Arabs and the angry elements fromSouth-East Asia, which could emerge as the new epi-centre of international terrorism. bin Laden and his ilkwill operate against the US wherever they think objective conditions for their success exist in the form of aweak intelligence and security apparatus and inadequate counter-terrorism capability.

Presuming bin Laden is stillalive, what would be his likely targets and what modus operandi (MO) is he likely to follow keeping inview the tightened security apparatus in most countries?

His priorities would be another attack on a US naval ship, particularly on a USaircraft-carrier and a September 11-like strike in US territory itself. The MO likely to be used could includeuse of a microlite aircraft filled with explosives, his men joining a flying club, taking off on a trainingflight and crashing on the target and infiltrating his men into the crew of commercial airliners and corporatehouses owning aircraft and crashing the aircraft on to the target. The use of the first two MO had in the pastbeen examined by the LTTE, but not actually used. The second one had been suggested to the Sikh terrorists byPakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the early 1990s. It had asked them to join the Mumbai (Bombay)flying club, take off on a training flight and crash the aircraft on to the Bombay High off-shore oilproduction facilities. They did not carry it out since they did not believe in suicide terrorism.

What is the likelihood of the use ofWMD in an act of punishment terrorism?

One cannot rule out the possibility. The Al Qaeda and the Pakistani componentsof his International Islamic Front have, in the past, stressed upon the right and the religious obligation ofMuslims to acquire and use WMD to protect their religion, if necessary. They have been trying to acquire a WMDcapability, but there is no evidence of their having succeeded so far. One of the Al Qaeda cadres arrested in2000 had reportedly spoken about training lessons in the use of pottasium cynaide mixed with a strong acid forproducing poisonous fumes to kill and spread panic.

What are the pre-requisites foreffective prevention of terrorism?

Firstly, an effective security apparatus which, through effective physicalsecurity measures, would be in a position to frustrate the plans of the terrorists even in the absence oftimely intelligence.
Secondly, an effective intelligence apparatus to collect timely strategic andtactical (preventive) intelligence. This is easier said than done. While technical intelligence (TECHINT) hasbeen an important source of preventive intelligence, TECHINT alone would not be sufficient in many cases.Human intelligence (HUMINT) is necessary. Preventive HUMINT requires an ability to penetrate a terroristorganisation, either by recruiting an outside person and motivating him to enter the inner core of a terroristorganisation or by recruiting a person who is already in the inner core. Such penetration poses ethicalproblems since it involves conniving at an act of terrorism by the intelligence officer in order to enable therecruit win the confidence of the leader of the organisation. In view of such difficulties, there would alwaysbe gaps in HUMINT and this has to be kept in mind while strengthening the physical security measures.
Thirdly, an effective analytical and assessment machinery. Terrorism is anunconventional war. Conventional tools of analysis would not suffice. Every intelligence collection andassessment organisation should have a set of officers, who are able to place themselves in the position of aterrorist and think, analyse and assess the various possibilities as an angry and irrational terrorist woulddo instead of merely as a calm and rational being would.
Fourthly, a good linguistic capability---particularly in Arabic, Urdu andPashtun. It is important to closely monitor all newspapers in these languages, which often carry more news onterrorism-related developments than the English media.
Fifthly, a capability for a thorough monitoring of the World Wide Web, whichis increasingly and effectively used by the terrorists for propaganda, motivation, interaction and clandestinecommunication purposes.
Sixthly, constantly updated database on various aspects of terrorism.
Seventhly, an effective and alert crisis management machinery to deal withacts of terrorism when they take place despite the best preventive efforts of the intelligence and securityapparatus.
Eighthly, a well-informed and lucid political leadership.