Counter-terrorism in India: Do Lali

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

Yasin Bhatkal, in the bag

ANOTHER week, another arrest. On September 4th Indian security forces nabbed a commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, one of five militant groups at large in Kashmir, a region run by India but claimed by Pakistan. The commander, Talib Lali, has been active in the Kashmir valley for 15 years. He was taken with two others after a brief shoot-out.

A middle-sized catch, Mr Lali may spill details of the Islamist group’s local operations, especially how it raises and moves its cash. For India, it is handy propaganda, the latest in a string of summer successes against militants. Two earlier arrests made bigger headlines. On August 16th Indian authorities crowed that they had picked up Abdul Karim “Tunda”, a bomb-maker for the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba. He is said to have been behind over 40 bombings in India, but is believed to have kept out of the country. Officially, he was taken on the Indian border with Nepal, after clever police work. More probably, somebody handed him to the Indians at the frontier.

Then, on August 28th, India’s security agencies boasted of grabbing Yasin Bhatkal. Mr Bhatkal, the operational head of Indian Mujahideen, a dangerous home-grown terrorist group, is accused of a variety of terrorist attacks. Most striking, closed-circuit television footage in February 2010 appeared to show him placing a bomb at a German bakery in Pune in Maharashtra state. The explosion killed 17 people.

The official story is that Mr Bhatkal was found in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which borders Nepal, but that he had previously been living in Pokhara, a tourist town in Nepal where he had posed as a doctor. Credit for his capture may go to India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB), which has close links with Nepal. But, as with Mr Karim, help may also have come from farther afield, possibly the United Arab Emirates.

India’s two main intelligence bodies, the IB (mostly domestic) and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW, for foreign work), have limited capacity. Ajai Sahni, of the South Asia Terrorism Portal in Delhi, says that their resources are stretched thin. The IB has around 19,000 staff in total, and RAW about 12,000. If these numbers seem ample, they include everyone, from drivers to secretaries; and never forget the Indian bureaucrat’s genius for indolence and paper-pushing.

Yet the agencies are growing more effective. Mr Sahni points to over 850 arrests of militants since 2008, including more than 80 this year. Some success is due to better co-operation with foreign intelligence agencies. Mr Sahni mentions help from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, especially since the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 2008. Oman is now willing to deport suspects to India, whereas five years ago it was not. Behind the growing co-operation lies American pressure. Just as important, once-haughty Indians are more willing to ask for help, and to share intelligence of their own.

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