Author: Saurabh Shukla
Publication: India Today
Date: July 31, 2006
Introduction:
Despite assurances by Pakistan President Pervez
Musharraf and his public proclamations to end terrorism, Pakistan continues
to be a nursery of global terrorist groups. With close to 60 active training
camps (including those of Al Qaeda) in the country, Pakistani intelligence
agency ISI has now unleashed a new strategy to foment terror in India.
ISI'S NEW GAMEPLAN
* Intelligence inputs point to a fresh ISI strategy to mount a spate of terror
attacks on high-profile targets in India.
* The agency has entrusted LeT and JeM with
the task of bringing back phase one of terrorism in J&K and hit civilian
targets to create panic. The strategy is to target temples and financial hubs.
* The ISI has now handed over the primary
command to LeT militants who have been infiltrating in India in large numbers.
Overground workers (OGWs) and sleeper cells are being extensively used.
* While OGWs, which include even professionals
like doctors and engineers, are being used to avoid detection, local groups
like SIMI are used to give it a colour of indigenous attacks.
* Over 1,500 militants, being trained in 60
camps and launch pads functioning in Pakistan and PoK, are waiting to infiltrate
into India.
* ISI is extensively using Kathmandu and Dhaka
as hubs to control operations and Dubai and Saudi Arabia hawala channels are
being used to fund operations.
HAND IN GLOVE
* Though LeT is a banned terrorist organisation in Pakistan, its parent organisation
Jamaat-ul-Dawa has been fed and fattened by the Pakistan Government. Following
the 2005 earthquake, the JuD leaders have had a free run and they have been
spreading their jehadi agenda. There is a clear nexus between the Musharraf
regime and jehadi leaders like LeT ideologue Hafiz Mohammed Saeed. He has
been advocating jehadi strikes against India and the West.
* Just before the Mumbai blasts, on June 26,
2006, scores of senior Pakistani ministers attended the inauguration of new
hospital building at Shanwai Nala in Muzaffarabad. The function was also attended
by PoK Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan and other senior ministers.
* On May 21, 2006 Pakistan's Religious Affairs
Minister Mohammed Ijaz ul Haq shared the dais with Saeed, the JuD supremo,
who also figures on India's list of 38 wanted terrorists, given to Pakistan.
Haq also declared that the Pakistan Government would not impose any ban on
the JuD under external pressure. The function was organised shortly after
the US State Department added the JuD and its affiliate Idara-e-Khidmat-e-Khalq
to the list of global terrorist outfits.
* On March 18, 2006 Saeed was allowed to hold
a mass rally at Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore. The mammoth gathering at a major
Pakistani landmark couldn't have been possible without a clearance from the
Musharraf regime.
* A minister in Pakistani province of Punjab,
Rana Iqbal, besides senior Government functionaries, was present at the funeral
prayers for LeT leader Mohammed Shafique.
* On February 11, 2006 the ruling Pakistan
Muslim League president and former Pakistan premier Shujaat Hussain, along
with the League's secretary-general Mushahid Hussain, attended a meeting with
Saeed to demand a country-wide strike against the West in the wake of the
Danish cartoon controversy.
ISI has been hosting India's most wanted Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar
and global terrorist Dawood Ibrahim in its safe houses even though in May
2006 it refused to accept India's assertion that they were in Pakistan.
* In May 2006 a fundamentalist organisation
Pasban-e-Hurriyat held its Azam-e-Hurriyat conference in Muzaffarabad. It
was attended by various leaders of jehadi groups such as Syed Salahuddin of
Hizb ul Mujahideen, who's wanted by India. He also heads the United Jehad
Council, an umbrella organisation of top terrorist groups. The meeting was
attended by top militant leaders who vowed to continue jehad.
