The Third Eye: Terror attack in Pahalgam calls for a new strategic response

New Delhi: The massacre of 26 Hindu tourists and injuring of many others at Pahalgam on April 22, by a group of 4 Pak-directed terrorists - three from Pakistan and a local- who appeared from the adjoining jungle wearing army fatigues and carrying automatic rifles, compel a review of the counter-terror strategy of India to make it a multi-prong response that would create an effective long-term deterrent for Pakistan.

An ex-soldier of Pakistan is said to be the head of the group that carried out the Pahalgam carnage. The publicised environment of improved security in Kashmir in which tourists were encouraged to visit Kashmir on one hand and the palpable rise of tension in Indo-Pak relations on the other- with India reiterating that the only agenda on J&K was to complete the unfinished part of liberating the Pak-occupied Kashmir and integrating it with the Indian state and the Chief of Pak Army Gen. Asim Munir announcing once again that Kashmir was the ‘jugular vein’ for Pakistan that his country would fight for till the end, provide the backdrop to the Pahalgam killings.

In an extremely communal outburst recently, the Pak General raked up the ‘two nation’ theory by declaring that ‘we are not Hindus’ and thus not only voiced his hatred against India but in an unspoken way showed his determination to get the Pak ISI to carry out a covert offensive to demolish the Indian claims of improvement in Kashmir.

The crowd of tourists at Pahalgam was an easy target for the terrorists who owned responsibility for the act identifying themselves as members of The Resistance Front (TRF ) -an offspring of Pak-based Lashkare Toiba(LeT) that had appeared in the Valley in the period following the abrogation of Art 370 by India.

The planned terror attack directed from Pakistan saw the attackers identifying the Hindu targets by name before shooting them in the head and at least in one case telling the wife that she was being spared to tell the government about why her husband was killed.

The Pahalgam killings are a reminder of how in 1990, the Pak ISI-directed militants forced the ouster of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley as Pakistan wanted to strengthen its claim on the territory on communal grounds.

The army once again controls Pakistan and it has tried to position itself differently in a geopolitical sense to deal with the repercussions of its inimical actions against India.

Pakistan is now strategically aligned with China- the Pak Army Chief Gen. Asim Munir made a significant visit to Beijing in 2023 to strengthen cooperation in Defence- while Indo-US relations have stalemated with President Trump categorically denouncing ‘Islamic terrorism’ and ordering visa curbs on countries and regions known to be fostering it.

Pakistan would have noted that many top appointees in the Trump administration took pride in their Hindu ancestry including Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, Kash Patel, Chief of CBI and the Second Lady, Usha Vance herself.

On the other hand, Pakistan having played a role in reinstalling the Taliban Emirate at Kabul in 2021, managed to bring about a ‘give and take’ arrangement between Taliban and China whereby China would extend its Belt & Road Initiative(BRI) to Afghanistan for the economic betterment of the latter and Taliban would maintain silence on the issue of treatment of Muslim minorities in China particularly in Xinjiang next door.

Since radical Islam does have a place in the spectrum of faith, Pakistan has been able to harness Islamic radical forces for its covert operations against India.

Way back in 1993, following the success of Afghan Jehad- for which the US-led West gave a lot of credit to Pakistan- the Pak Army-ISI combine made a bid to replicate it in Kashmir and sent in Harkatul Ansar(HUA) which had Taliban as its primary component, to step up a revivalist campaign in the valley.

Islamic radicals carry the historical memory of the 19th century ‘Wahhabi revolt’ against the British who exemplified the Western encroachment on ‘Muslim lands’ and this is the reason why HUA targeted Western tourists visiting Kashmir, took them hostage and killed many of them before a rescue operation could be launched.

The mainstream of militants used for cross-border terrorism against India however, comprised the ISI-harboured groups like Jamaate Islami’s Hizbul Mujahideen (HuM)and Saudi-financed Lashkar-e-Taiba, which had the legacy of being on the right side of the US. This is what produced the strange phenomenon of American policymakers drawing a line between ‘good terrorists’ and ‘bad terrorists’ for some time before wise counsels prevailed.

The US went after the radical forces of Taliban and Al Qaeda during the ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan and Iraq. This ‘war’ produced a new competitor of Al Qaeda in Iraq- Syria belt called the ISIS that remains a formidable force even today, long after Osama bin Laden Leader of Al Qaeda, was eliminated in a midnight American SEAL team operation near Abbottabad where he was being sheltered by Pakistan in 2011.

Both Islamic radicals as well as the Jamaatis -the latter considered by the US as a representative of ‘moderate’ Islam -want an Islamic state for Muslims but the radicals want to strictly revive the puritanic Islam of the period of the four Pious Caliphs whereas the JeI line is that an Islamic State could live ‘in competition not conflict’ with the West. It may be recalled that JeI had become the main instrument for late Gen.

Ziaul Haq established, what he called, Nizami Mustafa in Pakistan and it went on to lead the anti-Soviet armed campaign in Afghanistan much to the liking of the US. For India, all streams of Islamic extremism are equally harmful for they create the danger of communal militancy giving way to Islamic terrorism.

Developments in the Middle East must be particularly noted for the indicators they provide of how geopolitical alignments are affecting the Muslim world. Pakistan’s position has become increasingly ambiguous.

The Islamic radical forces of Iran and Hamas, inimical towards the US have joined hands and shifted to the China-Russia camp. All of them consider Israel-an ally of the US- as their first enemy. Leading Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, UAE and Lebanon are with the US and even inclined to favour Abraham Accord with Israel.

Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan are the territories where Islamic radical forces have their strongholds even today. India has done well to maintain an even bilateral relationship with the three major players in the Middle East-Saudi Arabia, Israel and Iran- and welcomed peaceful coexistence in the region. It has unequivocally condemned terrorism of all kinds and spoken against it at all international forums.

Biden Administration seemed to ignore the Pak- Afghan region, perhaps out of some comfort distance but fortunately, President Trump makes no bones about his utter disdain for Islamic terror. Both the US and Russian President have condemned the Pahalgam killings and this strengthens India’s hands in taking appropriate action to eliminate terror bases beyond its borders, in one go.

On the domestic front, India needs to put down with heavy hands all forums and leaders that subverted the Indian Constitution by demanding special ‘political’ rights for any religious minority beyond the implementation of ‘one man one vote’ and grant of full freedom to practice faith.

The pro-Pak elements claiming leadership of Muslims need to be curbed in Kashmir and elsewhere as they facilitated the adversary’s work of creating ‘sleeper cells’ on our territory. While JeI members should be specially screened in this context, Darul Uloom Deoband- established by the protagonists of the failed Wahhabi Jehad, in 1876- deserves a close scrutiny. The institution claimed a nationalist profile on the ground that it had participated in the anti-British campaign but at the root of that fight was the belief that the Muslim rulers of India lost to the British because they had adopted un-Islamic practices and deviated from the path of pristine Islam that had to be restored.

Deobandis are taught a communal doctrine of supremacy of Islam in all spheres- personal, socio-political and even economic- and this has to be effectively countered. There are groups in the minority community that are not taken in by the ‘religious exclusivism’ promoted by certain leaders and who believe in communal harmony- they should be patronised by the democratic state.

National security has to be protected in these critical times not merely by show of force by uniformed men in the troubled border states-which has its own importance-but by strengthening the security and intelligence set up in a manner that makes it possible to watch the agents of the adversary in lanes, localities and forest inhabitations, even in peace times.

Local Intelligence Units(LIUs) have acquired unprecedented importance. This perhaps is the most important learning from Pahalgam. The country should also move towards granting the Intelligence agencies a certain action-taking capability so that the gap between ‘information’ and ‘action’ was minimised.

It is reported that there was an intelligence warning about suspicious activity in Pahalgam suggesting a possible targeting of tourists flocking there-it would be important to know what action was initiated on it by the Lt Governor who heads the Union Territory with special powers as also by the elected Chief Minister at Srinagar.

Security often fails not due to the absence of information but due to a lack of adequate action on available intelligence. It is a universal principle of Intelligence that whatever little becomes known should be regarded as the proverbial ‘tip of the iceberg’ and acted upon in that light.

(The writer is a former Director Intelligence Bureau)

--IANS

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