Guest Column | Chinks in the Armour

Radhavinod Raju

The United States, the United Kingdom and India are three democracies which have faced, and in our case, are continuing to face jihadi terrorism. There have been one odd individual acts of terrorism in the United States inspired by al Qaeda affiliated rabble-rousers like Awlaki, currently based in Yemen. Barring a few unsuccessful attempts in the US and United Kingdom, there have been no major terrorist attack since 9/11 and 7/7. However, in India it has been a different story. There have been two major attacks already, in Pune and Mumbai post 26/11, even though several concrete steps had been taken on ground to strengthen security and counter-terrorist measures following public outcry in the wake of 26/11. Let us try and identify some of the reasons for our vulnerability to jihadi terrorism vis-à-vis that of the United States and the United Kingdom. The ISI and the Pakistan Army are cooperating (at least, till recently) with their United States and British counterparts and helping them in neutralising threats in their respective homelands from the jihadists, especially inspired by al Qaeda. This has, however, not prevented the ISI from encouraging the Taliban factions, especially the one led by the Haqqani group based in North Waziristan, from attacking the International Security Assistance Force based in Afghanistan to protect its strategic concerns in Afghanistan. It is not known whether the attacks that killed President Karzai’s brother and the other deadly attack in Kabul recently, were carried out by this group to show Pakistan’s ire at being left out of the talks being carried on by the United States secretly with representatives of the Quetta Shura of the Taliban. If this indeed is correct, then more attacks can be expected till the Pakistanis find a way to be a part of the on-going talks, on which they have invested so much capital. These attacks could also have been mounted by the Taliban, led by the Quetta Shura, in retaliation for the Americans’ targeting of their middle-level leaders in recent battles with the Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

The Americans have the capability to twist Pakistan’s arms as none other; they can stop the flow of aid to the Pakistan Army which will have a strong impact on them. The recent arrest of Ghulam Nabi Fai, an American of Kashmiri origin who has been playing the ISI’s game vis-à-vis Kashmir in the United States, is another instance. The timing of the arrest would show that the Americans have decided to apply pressure on the Pakistanis in different ways to bring them to heel, after their high profile protests in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad and subsequent steps taken by their government at the behest of the army, to reduce American presence in Pakistan.

India unfortunately has no such leverage. W