Author: Indrani Bagchi
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: December 11, 2001
With terrorism emerging as top priority
among key nations in the world, the next India-US joint working group (JWG)
on terrorism will meet again in the early weeks of next year, in what sources
call an 'accelerated schedule'. The two countries will also work on expanding
the ambit of the co-operation to include a military component for the first
time in the talks.
While co-operation between the two
nations on combating terrorism has qualitatively increased in the past
year, a workshop held here last week between India and the US aimed at
strengthening India's own capacities and edifice to tackle terrorism, especially
terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction. The US team came in from
the office of counter-terrorism while the Indian team was led by an interagency
office of disaster management under the ministry of home affairs.
While the threat of chemical, biological,
radiological and nuclear explosives have intensified following fears that
Osama bin Laden might possess a radiological weapon, there was a general
feeling that India needed to fortify its capacities in the following areas:
intelligence and investigation (to prevent attacks); interdiction capabilities
and consequence management, in the event of an attack. Hitherto, the focus
of the interactions have been confined to anti-terrorist training of field
operatives, agencies, hostage negotiations etc. But the feeling was expressed
on both sides that the programme needed to evolve in its breadth and depth.
This was among the decisions taken during the last meeting of the JWG in
June in the US, where both sides agreed to enhance the cooperative process
by reviewing the training procedures for one of the most important aspects
of tackling terrorist attacks - in consequence management, because the
assessment is that despite the government's best efforts, there could well
be an attack or two that can slip through.
Consequence management is the most
complex coordination exercise as it involves the first responders, ie fire,
medical aid, investigation etc as well as the longer term response. The
forthcoming meetings will help India work out its own blueprint for action
response, provide training and equipment and enable Indian anti-terrorism
experts to review US' own facilities.
