<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The opposition Congress and civil rights groups reacted sharply to the governmentâs decision, accusing it of targeting Muslims on the pretext of fighting terror.
âIf any person is anti-national then he or she should be expelled, but the BJP government is trying to implement its communal agenda with the aim of deriving political mileage,â state Congress chief Dr C.P. Joshi said. âThe BJP is trying to exploit a tragedy.â
Why do terrorists choose soft targets like Jaipur? Can the possibility of terror strikes be eliminated? How do we detect and neutralise terrorist sleeper cells? India's foremost counter-terrorism expert answers these and other questions
Soft targets are those not subject to special protection that are frequented by the people, which could be local nationals or foreigners. Attacks on such targets cause many human fatalities and demonstrate the capability of the terrorist groups to operate without being detected by the intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies. Destruction of - or damage to - economic or other capabilities is not the primary aim of such attacks. The primary aim is to kill human beings, though destruction or damage of capabilities may also result from such attacks.
For such attacks on soft targets, a long period of preparations such as keeping a surveillance on the target, etc, is not required. All that is needed is the creation or infiltration of a sleeper cell to undertake such attacks and reaching to the cell the weapons or explosive devices to be used.
A sleeper cell is a small group of operatives specifically raised to undertake a terrorist strike. The cell generally consists of persons who will undertake the strike with the help of weapons or improvised explosive devices, and some others, who will provide the logistics such as smuggling in the weapons or explosives, storing them safely till the time for the strike comes, providing a hideout for those who will undertake the strike if they come from outside the area and facilitating their get-away after they have carried out the strike.
Those who carry out the strike are particularly trained in the handling of weapons and putting together IEDs. Those who help in the logistics need not be specially trained, but they should support the ideology and objectives of the terrorist organisation which undertakes the attack and should enjoy its confidence.
Those who carry out the strikes are generally from outside the area where a target is chosen for attack. A resident of the area may develop qualms of conscience about killing people whom he has known and with whom he has grown up. Moreover, his absence from the area after the terrorist strike makes the identification of the perpetrators by the police easier. An outsider is unlikely to have such qualms of conscience and his get-away may not attract attention. Those providing the logistics back-up could be from the same area or from outside. Thus, a sleeper cell could consist of outsiders infiltrated into the area of intended operation or could be a mix of outsiders and residents of the area. These are called sleeper cells because its members are specially trained or have a natural aptitude for maintaining a low profile and are able to lead a normal life as students or in some occupation without attracting attention to themselves.
In the case of the Mumbai blasts of March 1993, the perpetrators were easily identified by the police because many of them, except Dawood Ibrahim, were residents of Mumbai and not from outside. Their get-away from Mumbai after the explosions attracted the suspicion of the police.
A new modus operandi for attacks on soft targets noticed in recent years is the use of unsuspecting bombers by the sleeper cells so that the explosions cannot be easily traced back by the police to the real perpetrators. The ULFA in Assam has been periodically using this method by paying unsuspecting individuals for leaving bicycles fitted with IEDs in markets and other crowded areas. Al Qaeda is reported to have used this method in Casablanca in May 2003, and in Baghdad on February 1, 2008. In Casablanca, an unsuspecting individual was asked to carry a package containing a remote-controlled IED to a third person. As the carrier was walking in front of a restaurant, the IED was activated through remote control. In Baghdad, two mentally disturbed women, who used to beg in the market place, were fitted with IEDs and these were exploded through remote control. The Chechens, too, had used this modus operandi.
There are various reasons for which terrorists periodically attack soft targets in widely dispersed areas. First, they want to demonstrate their reach. They want to show that they can operate in any part of the country in the case of indigenous organisations and in any part of the world in the case of the pan-Islamic jihadi organisations. Outside Jammu & Kashmir, the pan-Islamic jihadi organisations have struck at soft targets in places such as Mumbai, Delhi, Varanasi, Lucknow, Faizabad,Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Coimbatore. Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda outfits have struck in places such as Bali (twice), Jakarta, Mombasa, Casablanca, Istanbul, Madrid, London and Sharm-al-Sheikh.
Second, they want to discredit the intelligence agencies, the police and other security agencies in the eyes of the people by demonstrating their capability to strike despite the vigilance of these agencies. In their calculation, this could result in a gradual loss of faith of the people in the efficacy of these agencies.
Third, they want to make the police and the security agencies over-react in response to their successful strikes. Such over-reactions often come in the form of largescale arrests of the members of the community from which the terrorists have arisen and the alleged use of harsh methods to interrogate them. This creates animosity towards the police and the Government in the victim community and adds to their sense of alienation. Such over-reactions could also create a divide between different communities, thereby resulting in the flow of more recruits to the ranks of the terrorists. Anger resulting from over-reactions facilitates their recruitment.
Fourth, attacks on soft targets are also undertaken in reprisal for perceived wrongs allegedly committed by the Government or the police towards the members of the community from which the terrorists have arisen or even towards the terrorists themselves. If they are not able to retaliate against hard (well-protected) targets, they retaliate against soft targets. The LTTE in Sri Lanka often resorts to such attacks on soft targets in retaliation for the Government's strikes against it. Such retaliatory attacks are meant to intimidate the security forces into going slow in their counter-terrorism operations.
Reprisal attacks on soft targets may also be directed against foreign nationals, though local nationals may also die during the strikes. The two explosions in Bali in October 2002 and October 2005 by the Jemmah Islamiyah were directed mainly against Australian tourists in reprisal for Australia's co-operation with the US in the so-called war against terrorism. Many Indonesian nationals, too, died during the strikes, but the possibility of such deaths of local nationals did not deter the terrorists from exploding IEDs in places crowded by Australian tourists.
During the subsequent trial of the perpetrators, they apologised in public for the deaths of fellow-citizens and fellow-Muslims, but did not regret their action in carrying out the strikes. Similarly, Al Qaeda's attack on a hotel in Mombasa in November 2002 and in the Egyptian tourist resort of Sharm-al-Sheikh in July 2005 targeted Israeli tourists in reprisal for Israeli's policies towards the Palestinians, but many local citizens also died.
The three explosions outside courts in Lucknow, Faizabad and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh on November 23, 2007, were also reprisal strikes against soft targets to protest against the perceived harsh sentences awarded to some of the accused in the Mumbai blasts of March 1993 by a Mumbai court and against the alleged failure of the Government of Mumbai to act against certain police officers, who were blamed by an enquiry commission for allegedly committing excesses against Muslims during the communal riots that followed the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992. An anonymous e-mail received by some television channels on the day of the explosions alleged that the criminal justice system in India was unfair towards Muslims.
While these are essentially tactical strikes, certain kinds of strikes against soft targets have a strategic purpose. Strikes in certain places of economic importance such as stock exchanges, crowded market places, offices of business companies and tourist resorts have the objective of disrupting the economy and discouraging the flow of foreign investments by creating a feeling of nervousness about security conditions in the minds of potential investors. The Mumbai blasts of March 1993 and the Delhi blasts of October 2005 would fall in this category.
Strikes in places of religious significance - whether holy cities or places of worship - are meant to create a communal divide in the long-term interests of the terrorist organisation. The blasts in Varanasi in March 2006, in Malegaon in Maharashtra on September 8, 2006, in Hyderabad on May 18, 2007, and in Ajmer Sharif on October 11, 2007, would fall in this category.
Soft targets do not have the benefit of protection of physical security measures by the Government, though some of them such as places of worship, business establishments, etc, may have their own physical security measures. There are hundreds of thousands of potential soft targets of terrorists across the country. It will be impossible for the Government to provide them with physical security. One cannot totally eliminate attacks on soft targets, but one can reduce them by effective intelligence capability and policing in order to detect and neutralise sleeper cells before they go into action, educating the people in matters such as looking out for suspicious-looking persons and objects, close police-community relations and close liaison between the police and those in charge of security in those cases where soft targets have their own security arrangements.
While there have been successful instances of sleeper cells being detected and neutralised in time by the intelligence agencies and the police acting in tandem, there are many other cases where the sleeper cells managed to evade detection and carry out the strike. Every successful terrorist strike on a soft target is due to the failure of the agencies and the police to detect the sleeper cell responsible. The agencies and the police do face difficulties due to the fact that the terrorists operate in a vast area and keep moving from State to State in order to attack. They operate like the old 'criminal' tribes, who used to keep attacking in different places in different times in order to make it difficult for the police to detect them.
The only way of effectively countering this is through effective co-ordination of the police in all the States, the creation of a national data base to which the police of different States can have direct access and the quick sharing of the results of the inquiries and investigations through this data base. The creation of a Federal Counter-Terrorism Agency patterned after the FBI of the US, with powers to investigate all terrorism-related cases occurring in any part of the country, will facilitate action and prevention, but there continues to be strong resistance from the States to proposals for the creation of such an agency.
The ease with which the terrorists have been operating in different parts of the country is also due to a deterioration in the quality of policing in the urban as well as rural areas. Normal tasks, which the police are expected to perform such as making inquiries about suspicious-looking persons in hotels, inns, railway stations and airports, making a random background check of arrivals from outside, etc, no longer receive the required attention. Similarly, intense police-community relations, which encourage the people to share with the police information, which could have a bearing on terrorism, are increasingly neglected. The people will come forward to share information only with a police officer whom they know and in whose discretion they have confidence.
Close interactions between the police and the security officers of private establishments is more an exception than the rule. Sometimes, I am invited to address gatherings of such security officers in different urban areas. Almost all of them complained of a lack of accessibility to senior police officers and the reluctance of the police to keep them briefed on developments having a bearing on terrorism. They complained that it was rarely that police officers took the initiative in briefing them when the media carried sensational stories about the plans of the terrorists. When they asked for a briefing, they were asked to meet junior officers, who often were not in a position to brief them adequately and did not have the required self-confidence to be able to answer their questions. It is important that senior police officers interact with the security officers of important private establishments - particularly those from abroad - at least once or twice a year as a matter of routine and also on other occasions, when there is a need for it.
Senior police officers cannot be expected to interact with the private security officers of all establishments - big or small, important or unimportant. However, such interactions should take place with the private security officers of large establishments, which play an important role in our economy. Perceptions of police indifference towards them could have a negative impact on the investors' confidence in India's security environment.
-- The writer's new book, Terrorism: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow, will be released later this month.
NEW DELHI: When India's intelligence czar himself sounds the alarm, it is time to get worried. Lack of coordination between the Centre and states, poor unactionable intelligence, fuzzy and imprecise inputs, dearth of a dedicated pool of officers and patchy information on foreign sources of terror is crippling India's war on terror.
Briefing the Cabinet on Friday on the terror strikes on Jaipur, national security adviser M K Narayanan painted a grim, if accurate, scenario. There was no clear indication that a terror strike on the pink city was imminent. On the investigations, the NSA said the cycles used to plant bombs and a video clip released by email by an entity called Indian Mujahideen had provided leads that were being followed.
<b>The NSA's briefing to the Cabinet will cause some concern to the political leadership as it indicates a dulling of security reflexes due to bureaucratic lethargy and absence of both a culture of accountability and security consciousness.</b> These concerns were highlighted in a front-page series by TOI in August-September last year in the wake of the attack on Hyderabad.
<b>IB sleuths surprised by NSA remarks</b>
There is also a sense of surprise amongst security and intelligence professionals over Narayananâs "confession" as the NSA â as the intelligence czar â has pretty much had the run of way in top appointments in Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Intelligence Bureau. He also straddles the National Security Council.
His position in PMO and the equity he enjoys with 10, Janpath should give him the powers to set the house in order. Certainly, to tide over the problem of lack of coordination. <b>But if Indiaâs top spook canât fix things, it speaks of the enormity of the challenge as well as the the continued corrosion of the security apparatus.</b> The NSA went with the current RAW secretary Ashok Chaturvediâs appointment despite serious misgivings. His predecessor, P K Hormis Tharakan, was hand-picked by the NSA. IB, of course, has been home ground for the ex-IB chief.
On a wider canvas, the issues raised by a possibly distraught NSA are not terribly new. TOI had looked at all aspects of terrorism. "India loses more lives to terror than any other country in the world except Iraq" (August 27, 2007) looked at the toll of terror. "Itâs terror, no use denying it" (August 28, 2007) examined the cost of denial. In "Political meddling trips up terror probes" (September 3, 2007), TOI argued that agencies were made to bow to political masters and "What other nations are doing to curb terror: Lessons for us" (August 31, 2007), looked at how mature democracies reacted to 9/11.
The essential issue relates to the options the government is prepared to consider. Having taken the political position that it is against special laws like POTA â having rolled it back with much fanfare â the Manmohan Singh government has come under sustained pressure with 10 major blasts in three years. <b>Even after the Jaipur blasts, the PM reiterated the argument that POTA had not prevented the attacks on Akshardham temple and Parliament. But the argument seems to grow weaker with each successive terrorist strike. To counter the "weak-on-terrorism" charge, agencies need to be given enough room while ensuing an end to the turf battles they frequently have. </b>
Special laws have been enacted by countries like US to ensure coordination between banks and financial institutions to choke off terror funding, increase in border security and investigators, easier sharing of data banks, video surveillance, centres for tracking foreign terrorists and above all, fast trials and tough sentences.
<b>Security agencies as well as ordinary police forces tend to follow political signals closely. So stop-start policies with regard to naxals and ULFA, failure of the joint mechanism on terrorism with Pakistan have only added to the problem of corruption and political inteference which have slowed down police. Despite bearing the brunt of terrorism, Indiaâs security apparatus neither has the wherewithal nor has been been given the clear mandate that it requires to take on the forces of global terror. </b>
So it has only been a few days since the blast happened. Let's look at what happenings figure into the Indian's top 3 list (top 3 most watched videos on IBN)
1. Exclusive: SRK, Ganguly on the business of cricket
2. King Khan takes Aamir's blog in good humour
3. IPL star Praveen Kumar involved in a brawl
Maybe its a sign of times, but shows useless mentality of Hindus.
<b>Rajasthan to expel illegal Bangladeshi workers</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Thousands of Bangladeshis, most of them Muslims, illegally enter India every year looking for jobs, a charge Bangladesh denies.
Some experts estimate as many as 20 million Bangladeshis are in India illegally, working as unskilled construction laborers or domestic helpers.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We have to see how fast commies and Moron Singh come against this idea. This will wake up Moron Singh and her bibi.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->It is sad to see that some people do not have guts to face the enemy but they have guts to attack Indian muslims.
Thos muslims participating in terror enfranchise against India are not Indian muslims. They are either Paki or BD muslims. Just because a muslim is living in India, it does not make him an Indian muslim. An Indian muslim is one who has taken the oath to defend the constitution of India just like Indian Hindus or Indian Sikhs or Indian christians, etc. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Was looking at forum and found this gem of a post from someone named <b>Karan Dikshit</b>. This is the attitude that prevails amongst Indians.
Sketch released by Inyaan police -
<img src='http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44661000/jpg/_44661478_suspectsketch466.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Pandyan,
They belongs to those category who luckly never had faced terrorsim. These kind of people are always in denial. Sometimes when reality hits home, these kind of people gets message.
I believe in Bush doctrine.
Weekly had warned of threat to Jaipur
18 May 2008, 0013 hrs IST,Soumittra S Bose,TNN
NAGPUR: In what now appears to be a forewarning, a weekly Hindi newspaper published from Mominpura in the heart of the Orange City had claimed in its March 28 edition that Jaipur had become "a hub of terrorist activities after being infested by the Wahabi group who believe in violence in the name of religion".
The article had also warned that the presence of this group may trigger a major operation in the Walled City soon.
The newspaper â Iman Ki Awaaz â is published by the Indian Muslim Association-Noori (IMAN) which claims to be the unofficial mouthpiece of a moderate group among the minority community. Itâs registered in Nagpur and claims to have a circulation of around 15,000 across the country.
The editor of the newspaper, Mohammed Hameed, told TOI that copies of the newspaper were circulated to all important personalities of Jaipur, including the chief minister, state director general of police and the city police chief. "Our local IMAN cadre had personally handed over the edition to the Jaipur CP," said Hameed.
"We had also sent the copies to all the police stations of Jaipur city and most of the SP offices in Maharashtra. The central agencies were also intimated and so were the offices of several vital ministries," he added.
However, TOI could not confirm if the copies of the newspaper had reached these offices and if they were read by the persons concerned.
The report also pointed to the growing factionalism among the two groups of the local Muslim community in Jaipur.
"Some of the terrorist outfits are trying to wrest control of religious institutions and educational bodies by using pressure tactics. They are not infiltrators but are local groups that are carrying out sabotage activities in the country under various banners. This is what my newspaper learned," said Hameed.
Significantly, Indian Mujahideen, the hitherto obscure group that has claimed the responsibility for Jaipur blasts, has attacked those Muslims who call Islam a religion of peace and argue for peaceful ties and accommodation with Hindus and other "infidels".
In the email that the group sent to media a day after the blasts, the Indian Mujahideen lists several events â from demolition of Babri Masjid and Gujarat riots to cooperation with US in the international arena â as instances of how Muslims in India have been "tortured for the past 60 years".
In its "Declaration of Open War Against India", the outfit vowed revenge, mentioning "Islamic rulings on when and how to kill the polytheists and when to spare them", using the idiom that is associated with the fanatics among the Wahabi sect that the Nagpur paper talked of.
Rejecting the interpretations that diverge from their script, the Indian Mujahideen invoked Quran and Hadiths to assert that Muslims have the "right to take full revenge on infidels in spite of condemnation from the Ulema who say that âIslam is a peace loving religion and there is no place for terrorism in it"â.
The declaration cites Mujahideenâs interpretation of Quran to further say, "compromise is only between Muslims if they quarrel among themselves. Otherwise, there is no existence of compromise between believers and non-believers".
According to Mohammed Hameed, the Wahabis are also spreading their wings in other parts of India, trying to assume leadership at various places of worship and religious institutions to propagate their idealism of terrorism. Besides, the movement is not restricted to metros; small towns are being targeted too, he said.
"The terror groups are trying to use the Indian coastline to their advantage. Receiving money from outside the country and sending men for training to foreign locations are easier for them using the international seaways where they manage to evade the enforcement agencies," said Hameed.
Why terrorists attack soft targets by B. Raman
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A new modus operandi for attacks on soft targets noticed in recent years is the use of unconscious bombers by the sleeper cells so that the explosions cannot be easily traced back by the police to the real perpetrators.
The United Liberation Front of Asom in Assam has been periodically using this modus operandi by paying unsuspecting individuals for leaving bicycles fitted with IEDs in markets and other crowded areas. Al Qaeda was reported to have used this modus operandi in Casablanca in May 2003, and in Baghdad on February 1, 2008.
In Casablanca, an unsuspecting individual was asked to carry a package containing a remote-controlled IED to a third person. As the carrier was walking in front of a restaurant the IED was activated through remote control. In Baghdad, two mentally disturbed women, who used to beg in the market places, were fitted with IEDs and these were exploded through remote control as they were begging in the markets. The Chechens had also used this modus operandi.
There are various reasons for which terrorists periodically attack soft targets in widely dispersed areas. Firstly, they want to demonstrate their reach. They want to show that they can operate in any part of the country in the case of indigenous organisations and in any part of the world in the case of the pan-Islamic jihadi organisations.
Outside Jammu and Kashmir, the pan-Islamic jihadi organisations have struck on soft targets in places like Mumbai, Delhi, Varanasi, Lucknow, Faizabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Coimbatore. Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda organisations have struck in places like Bali (twice), Jakarta, Mombasa, Casablanca, Istanbul, Madrid, London and Sharm-el-Sheikh.
Secondly, they want to discredit the intelligence agencies, the police and other security agencies in the eyes of the people by demonstrating their capability to strike despite the vigilance of these agencies. In their calculation, this could result in a gradual loss of faith of the people in the efficacy of these agencies.
Thirdly, they want to make the police and the security agencies over-react in response to their successful strikes. Such over-reactions often come in the form of large-scale arrests of the members of the community from which the terrorists have arisen and the alleged use of harsh methods to interrogate them. This creates animosity towards the police and the government in the victim-community and adds to their sense of alienation.
Such over-reactions could also create a divide between different communities, thereby resulting in the flow of more recruits to the ranks of the terrorists. Anger resulting from over-reactions facilitates their recruitment.
Fourthly, attacks on soft targets are also undertaken in reprisal for perceived wrongs allegedly committed by the government or the police towards the members of the community from which the terrorists have arisen or even towards the terrorists themselves. If they are not able to retaliate against hard (well-protected) targets, they retaliate against soft targets.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
.....because they are soft. Are these the kind of people who staff RAW? No wonder we get hit left and right, while they play Monday morning quarterback.
Great analeeshesh from B. Raman. I remember him, he's the same guy who said India should not raise objections against the policies of a country that India maintained "friendly relations" with. This was regarding Tamil Hindu rights fiasco in Malaysia. Useless.
I lost respect of B.Raman, as soon as BJP lost power, B.Raman cameout with three days of continous bashing of NDA policy on terrorism. Till date, not a single strong language against UPA. He is biased, user and anaylsis is always off. I want to meet him again and really want to give my peace of mind to him. (I have met him twice)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Citing a string of recent terror strikes in different states, she emphasised the need for the Centre and the states to come together and share intelligence. Recalling that the RCOCA Bill has been pending with the Centre for two years which also refused to re-introduce POTA, she said the states needed something to deal with terror with an âiron handâ.
âIf the Centre had no problem with similar laws in Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh, why not Rajasthan and Gujarat? You have to give a level-playing field, especially because Rajasthan and Gujarat have not witnessed such incidents in the past,â she said. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In India, we don't catch terrorists<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We treat them like hero. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b>Patil links Afzal to Sarabjit; BJP says 'nonsense'</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->New Delhi, May 21: Stoking the Afzal Guru row and linking it with that of Sarabjit Singhâs release, the Home Minister Shivraj Patil said,<b> âIf you are asking for Afzalâs hanging how can you ask pardon for Sarabjit.</b>â He said that the attack on Parliament was a personal blow to him but one particular community canât be blamed for everything while saying that âwe will do whatever is appropriate according to law.â
Afzal Guru had been ordered to be hanged till death by the Supreme Court.
Reacting to it, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said that his statement was complete nonsense and said that while Sarabjit Singh's case was one of mistaken identity, Afzal Guru had been punished by the highest court in the country.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Go and kill Indians and we will pardon you. Why they treated Beant Singh differently?
I read somewhere now he is called as "My Girl", whenever Queen needs Airforce ride, he joins her, because he is entitled not queen. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I think it was Offstumped termed Patil "UPA's Item Girl". Flying queen bee around the nation is a higher priority than solving a few open terrorist cases for this guy.
I hope Raje shows middle finger to those who are more interested in GE. She should go after those involved even it means knocking doors in Azamgarh, Meerut or Old Delhi.
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->