Author:
Publication: newsinsight.net
Date: July 23, 2003
URL: http://www.newsinsight.net/fulldebate.asp?recno=684
The government shows no resolve
to fight Pakistani terrorism.
It is astonishing that a section
of government and strategic writers still push for sending Indian troops
to Iraq when terrorism remains uncontrolled in our own frontyard, Jammu
and Kashmir, and is growing. After the killing of Vaishnodevi pilgrims
on Monday, an army camp was attacked yesterday. A brigadier and seven jawans
died, and the Northern Army commander, the XVI corps commander, and the
10th divisional commander became almost fodder to a hidden terrorist who
escaped the first round of combing and blew himself up when they showed
up. Not since terrorists tried to storm the XV corps headquarters in Srinagar
in 1999 has the Indian Army dropped its defences so completely. Until the
army gets back its dominating position in J & K, no requests should
be entertained about the Iraq deployment. Which begs the questions: Why
is the army unable to stop the violence against itself, and why are the
attacks continuing despite the US pressure on Pakistan? There are the familiar
excuses that Pakistan is cheating on the US, that the army is being attacked
by reprisal squads for the Sarp Vinash operation, and that India must reconcile
to a minimum threshold of violence. But they are, by their nature all,
defensive explanations. They are the outcome of the holding operation the
army is forced to conduct in Jammu and Kashmir with no option of hot pursuit,
disadvantaged by terrain, and handicapped by the superior motivation of
a suicide terrorist whose life is inconsequential to him. It is ultimately
a confrontation between a professional soldier and a dead man walking,
and the contest will be unequal unless conventional forces are allowed
unconventional tactics and strategies. One unconventional tactic
that originated in the early-to-middle Nineties when the former army chief,
General S.Padmanabhan, was XV corps commander was to use surrendered militants
against Kashmiri ones, but its advantages declined with the decline in
Kashmiri militancy, and the arrival of Pakistani terrorists. Then the Special
Task Force and Special Operations Group were set up within Jammu and Kashmir
Police, and their staggering success was the result of information provided
against terrorists by the local people. The SOG particularly hit at the
support lines of Lashkar-e-Toiba, Harkat-ul-Ansar and Jaish-e-Mohammad
terrorists, preempting their attacks sometimes, and sometimes leading to
bigger fish. The SOG would have continued to be effective, since no terrorist
group can survive without some local support, although the LeT and JeM
have become self-sufficient over time, but it was disbanded for alleged
human-rights violations, and the security forces can no longer see in the
dark. The iron law of counter-terrorism is that the source of terror must
be attacked, because terrorism is hardest to combat at the cutting edge.
The primary source of J & K terrorism is located in Pakistan, secondary
sources in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and tertiary sources in Jammu and
Kashmir. The SOG and STF, so to say, were attacking the tertiary sources,
thereby providing some reprieve from terror. The cutting edge was being
impossibly handled by the army. That filter is now gone. Human intelligence
is at a minimum, since Central intelligence agencies cannot achieve the
level of penetration that locally-commanded local operatives can. The Intelligence
Bureau cannot match the motivated networks of the J & K Police, and
army and paramilitary intelligence cannot spread underground as well. The
result is a highly contaminated environment which makes nonsense of counter-insurgency
claims. But even attacking tertiary sources won't ultimately suffice, unless
the battle is carried to the Pakistani and PoK nerve centres of terrorism.
The lesson from Punjab's terrorism is that nothing less succeeds. No democratic
government will have the stomach to order the retaliatory killing of innocent
civilians, and therefore there are few takers for Pakistan's theory that
RAW engineered the Quetta mosque bombing that killed fifty Hazara Shias
recently, but the LeT and JeM headquarters, and LeT and JeM terrorist leaders,
are legitimate combat targets, especially since they murder non-combatants
like Amarnath and Vaishnodevi pilgrims, and women and children. A low-intensity
war is a war, and its prosecutor must be punished. The Kargil War was an
escalation of the low-intensity war under a nuclear overhang because India
did not retaliate adequately to the low-intensity war. Only the United
States prevents Pakistan from prosecuting Kargil II, and the window of
opportunity may open again when Washington tires of fighting terrorism
or becomes weary of the Kashmir dispute. India's failure to raise the cost
of terrorism for Pakistan lies at the heart of India's inability to contain
the terror in Jammu and Kashmir. Peace cannot be made at the end of a smoking
gun. Pakistan is not serious about peace because India is not serious about
fighting terrorism. Pakistan will sue for serious peace when it is seriously
damaged by terrorism, which is how peace was restored in Punjab. The Delhi-Lahore
bus service is good, Fazlur Rehman is welcome, and baby Noor's surgery
was terrific, but it must be understood that people-to-people contacts
cannot replace the hard task of punishing Pakistan's terrorist policies.
In the long run, people-to-people contacts won't survive Pakistani terrorism.
Peace will work itself out once the government girds itself up to attack
the primary and secondary sources of terror, and revives the SOG to eliminate
the tertiary sources. Imagine the situation if the Northern Army commander,
the XVI corps commander, and 10th divisional commander had not been so
lucky with their lives.
