Pakistan – The Global Terrorism Monster!

The writing is on the wall – Taliban has made its home in our neighbourhood and its perpetual tenancy has been grudgingly acknowledged by the landlords – the Government of Pakistan. That country will be living in a Fool’s Paradise if it were to think that this is merely a transit accommodation because the Taliban has not just come to stay, but to devour. Pakistan is now due for a renaming – “Talibanistan”.

The issues in this article concern this metamorphosis of Pakistan in to Talibanistan and a sensitivity analysis of the impact of the same on India and rest of the world.

1. Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities will fall in to the hands of a global terror network consisting of the Pakistan based Taliban, the Al Qaeda, the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the like working in tandem with Pakistan’s state agencies of Inter-Services Intelligence {ISI} and the military. Hamas in Palestine, the Hezbollah in Lebanon and last but not the least, the leadership in Iran may also be drawn in to a coalition with this network because of commonness in objectives, which possibility the author will explain in the forthcoming discussion.

2. The existence of an objective of formation of a Global Islamic Caliphate more particularly on the Al Qaeda’s agenda is common knowledge. The fact that Al Qaeda has a global presence in more than hundred countries in the world should suggest a wide subscription to its agenda.

There is a substantial belief, more particularly in the Shiite community of the Islamic fold, that one day, Allah’s Promised Savior called Al Mahdi will make his presence known on the earth to lead an army of God’s faithfuls in a decisive war against the unrighteous to restore the God’s Law. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejed is on record of declaring this belief publicly both in his first speech in United Nations and also in his subsequent address to the Arab leaders at the Gulf Cooperation Council Meeting in Doha.

There is nothing wrong in this belief. All Faiths in this world talk of coming of their Promised Saviors. What is pertinent that the Iranian President intensely believes that he is one of the chosen ones who will assist the Mahdi in this task and under this self belief, he is mustering an army of martyrs for a Global Islamic War. In short, it is the security threat of a war that that may be perpetuated by the Iranian President’s belief in his role that requires attention.

That even Iran’s sworn enemy Israel does not perceive the threat in Ahmadinejed’s belief lightly, is borne by the fact that even its non government organizations devote good amount of time in holding seminars to educate its public about the security threat from Ahmadinejed’s Mahdism. This may in keeping with the Jewish belief that the rebuilding of their Third Temple will be preceded by a bitterly fought war and aggression.

3. There are two principal enemies in implementation of the above objective – United States and Israel. This is where one can expect support from the Hamas in Palestine and the Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both of them command significant influence and followership in their respective countries and stand common in one objective i.e. the elimination of State of Israel.

4. We have seen above that if there will be a global conflict, it will be obviously a ‘Religious War’ with United States and its NATO partners [ the countries constituting the Christian Community] as joined by Israel [the world centre of the Jewish Community] on one hand and the Islamic States on the other hand.

The present Islamic community is spread over 50 countries in the world i.e. the countries where Islam is either principally the State Religion or where the Islamic Community is in majority. Of this, about ninety percent is constituted of the Sunni community and about 10% profess the Sunni faith. As regards the Shiite community, the world leadership can be traced to Iran for the influence it commands. But, as regards the majority community in the Sunnis, it is Saudi Arabia that still has dominance due to its strategic possession of the Holy Sites and also the dependence of the poorer Sunni countries on Saudi funding.

Unless and until a majority of Sunni countries join the Islamic War against United States and Israel, the war fortunes may go against Islamic countries. Saudi Arabia, though one of the strongest critics of Israel, has deep military and commercial ties with United States, which ties it cannot wean out easily. In short, as long as United States can keep Saudi Arabia in its check, one cannot expect an effective Sunni participation in an Islamic war, no matter how much United States is hated by the people in Sunni countries.

5. This is where Pakistan can fill the void created by Saudi Arabia by offering a credible alternative leadership to the Sunni community in an Islamic War and believe me, Pakistan has the capabilities to do so for the reasons, I shall state here after.

Firstly, Pakistan has one of the largest Sunni Population amongst the Islamic nations.

Secondly, it is perhaps the only Islamic nation with handy nuclear capabilities in a global war situation. This may give it a peer status in an Islamic war.

Thirdly, its geographic location is also logistically suitable. It shares borders with Iran and also with China. China is the big brother of Pakistan and is the most reliable provider of nuclear technology and arms to Pakistan and from there, further safe passage of these items to Iran can also be facilitated. Its border with Afghanistan is also strategically important. Afghanistan is reported to contain reliable resources of uranium for nuclear feed. It is for this reason, Russia, United States and Pakistan had all through out harboured a disguised vested interest in this region.. An erosion in American military influence in this region will spell a boon to Pakistan and its partners, the Taliban and the Al Qaeda, to resume its operations there and access this uranium.

Fourthly, the present military leadership is still seething under the humiliating defeat it suffered in hands of India in the 1971 Bangladesh War and badly requires a boost to its sagging image. A global leadership of Islamic countries would be most compensating to its psyche. With a partnership with the Al Qaeda on its soil, it gets connectivity for its operations in an event of Islamic War to about hundred countries where the Al Qaeda has a presence.

6. We have seen above how Saudi Arabia today commands the world leadership in the Sunni nations. It will mean that Pakistan terror network will have to dislodge this leadership, if it has to wean the Sunni community to its side. There are two ways in which this can be done and has also tried to be done.

One, by showing to the Sunni community that it need not depend entirely on Saudi Arabia for leadership by offering a credible alternative leadership option in its own self in the event of an Islamic War. The other is by compelling Saudi Arabia to tow its line by subjecting it to so much pressure that it finally succumbs and align itself with it.

7. The first option was exercised by Pakistan Terror Network in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. There is very novel way in which it did this and this may surprise the readers a bit. All the evidence left behind in the Mumbai Terror Attacks pointed to involvement of Pakistan Terror Network viz. the nationality of the terrorists, the record of GPS conversations, the journey initiated from Karachi, Pakistani branded ammunition, Pakistani branded food stuffs etc.

The truth is that this evidence was ‘not just found’ but ‘deliberately left behind’. Readers, may note that unlike the Kargil war, Pakistan in Mumbai terror attacks, did not care to disguise its operations by giving it a ‘Kashmir liberation’ front or so. This is because this time, the terrorist leadership wanted to leave an important message in the evidence left behind to the Islamic community. The message is that it has capabilities to provide a credible leadership in an Islamic War against United States of America and Israel. For this reason, the terrorists had selectively killed American, British and Israeli citizens here. If the attack was only meant to be on India, why kill these foreigners and earn the ill will of their countries? This is because the terrorist leadership saw the Indians, the Americans, Britishers and Israelites as enemies in common after the signing of the 123 agreement.

8. Readers may wonder why the Pakistan terror network took a risk of killing American citizens when it was so sure that it may incur the risk of a serious retaliation by United States as it happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. The only answer to this could be that it bargained on the possibility of support from other Islamic countries in return. This support can only come from Islamic countries provided Israel is projected as the foe. That is why Israeli citizens, more particularly its Rabbi, were killed so as to solicit support of the Jew hating sections of the Islamic community. The sexual humiliation of the foreigners carried out by the terrorists was the sweet revenge for the sexual torture meted out by the Americans to Iraqi prisoners of war in Abu Ghraib prison.

In short, the manner in which the Mumbai terror attacks were conducted and the evidence left behind by the terrorist contain the message of the Pakistani terror network to the Islamic Community that it has leadership capabilities in an event of an Islamic War.

9. We have seen above that it is only when Israel is shown as foe that the Islamic countries will unite and this is exactly the support which the perpetuators of the GlobalWar would be looking for. The possibility that it has tied up with the Hamas, the Hezbollah and Iran under a global design may be tested from another angle. The timing of the Hamas breaking the truce with Israel by launching Qassam missile attacks on Israel from the Gaza strip coincides with the timing of the sea journey by Qasab and company from Pakistan to India to launch the Mumbai terror attacks.

The retaliation by Israel on the Gaza evoked brought strong world wide condemnation from the Islamic community.. This should be on the expected lines of the Pakistani terror coalition. Iran worked over time to canvass support to the Hamas. In fact, Iran is suspected of playing a pivotal role in supplying arms to the Hamas, which were smuggled across the Egypt border in to the Gaza through underground tunnels to escape the surveillance of the Israelis. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni issued a religious decree that anyone killed in Hamas ruled Gaza strip in Israeli attacks would be considered a martyr. As many as 3550 people were stated to register in a spontaneous response to volunteer to fight against Israel in any of three ways proposed– military, financial and propaganda. The Hezbollah also joined in the uproar inciting war against Israel. Saudi Arabia’s soil saw large scale outrage against Israel’s retaliation.

10. All this should stabilize in the minds of the readers that the possibility of a design for a Global War should not be ruled out.

11. At the time of writing this article, it seems that the fall of the civilian government in Pakistan is imminent. It will be a matter of time when this country will be completely taken over by the Terror Network. In fact, Times of India edition dated 7th April 2009 carried an article on the front page that one David Kilcullen, an U.S. anti terror expert and former adviser to United States military commander, has opined that the Pakistan should collapse in the hands of the terrorists in six months or so.

The issue for consideration is how the military and nuclear installation will be taken over, when the same are guarded by the Pakistan military. The Pakistan military leaderships however tacitly they may support the terrorist network would be shrewd enough not be left out in the take over of Pakistan. This will be most likely expectation from a military leadership which has a track record of ruling this poor country by dictatorship for ages.

If there was any fear in the military leadership that it would be marginalized in the take over of Pakistan, then the Pakistan military would have surely neutralized this terrorist network by its military capabilities. Admittedly, there is a difficulty here it may become hesitant to turn its guns on its own kith and kin because the terrorist leadership forcibly recruited a large number of the civilians to join its Islamic war.

But, the greater possibility lies in the political shrewdness that both the military and the Terror Network knows each other’s strengths and limitations and therefore, the military, the ISI and the terrorist networks must have already struck a deal much long ago about how the civilian government will be toppled and how the power will be shared. The Pakistan civilian government had no choice but to agree to the truce and cessation of hostilities in the Swat area because it must have realized that the military and the Taliban were not inclined to trade bullets between themselves. In fact, assuming that Global Islamic War is high on agenda, the new Pakistani leadership after the takeover by the Terror Network should be in all possibilities from the military cadre.

The timing of recent release of the Pakistani rogue nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, suggest that he is most needed at this hour for some design.. If terrorists in Pakistan suspected of being involved in the Mumbai Terror Attacks are also allowed to roam free – even this should not come as surprise. Any situation of political anarchy in the State will only facilitate the takeover of power from the civilian government.

What may appear as chaos in Pakistan may actually be an orderly sequence of planned events for takeover of Pakistan by the terrorists.

12, In India, the first and foremost response to all this should be in raising the level of preparedness in our minds. We must no longer see a threat from Pakistan as only restricted to random terror attacks. Nor should we should freeze our threat perception to a war restricted between these two countries. What we should realize is that we are now being forcibly dragged in to a World War. Accordingly, we should respond by this preparedness.

A World War will mean that every country will have to elect to join one of the two sides involved in the conflict not because of any professed hatred for the opposing side, but because of the lack of choice available to the country. A natural corollary of this proposition would mean that we may have land on the side of the American coalition because of compelling circumstances. That does not mean that we should mistake these Americans and Britishers as our reliable friends. These countries have a track record of making friends and ditching them as enemies according to their conveniences. United States’ interest in signing the 123 agreement with India was only to find a reliable ally in the Asian region after it noted that the China-Pakistan- North Korea-Iran nexus was working overtime to eliminate US influence in this region..

13. In such a war to come, we have only one friend i.e. ‘ourselves’. ‘Ourselves’ mean “we Hindus and we Muslims”. If, we are united, such war is half won for us.

While the opposing forces would be marketing their justification of the War on Islamic grounds, we in India should provide the effective counter ideology. The counter ideology is that both the ideology and the conduct of the terror networks runs counter to the basic tenets of Islam, the Holy Quran and the Hadith preached by the Holy Prophet. And this specialized task can only be done best by the Muslims in India by providing this effective counter propaganda in this regard.

Our Muslims dealt a deathblow to the expectations of the terrorist leadership behind the Mumbai terror attacks by raising a collective voice against the terror attacks and also by refusing burial facilities to the slain terrorists. In this manner, they showed the world that they are the best and the true followers of Quran, who will not be misdirected by the erroneous ideologies of the terrorists. In my view, Indian Muslims will play a pivotal role for India in the World War to come.

14. It is time we, as citizens, understand the power of our enemy rather than dismiss it as a figment which only our government and military is obliged to deal with. This is because we do not seem to have become wiser even after history has repeatedly taught us lessons. Prithviraj Chauhan, an Indian, defeated the foreign marauder Mohammed Ghori several times and ‘benevolently’ left his scot free each time. This foreigner, Ghori managed to defeat him only once at a time when, Prithviraj, the Indian, was non vigilant.. But Ghori did not reciprocate grandly as Prithviraj had done. Instead, he imprisoned Prithviraj, subjected him to humiliation and blinded him.

To commemorate this event, Pakistan has today cheekily named its medium range ballistic missiles as “Ghauri” to respond to our “Prithvi” missiles, even though the name of “Prithvi” meant “earth” and not “Prithviraj”.

So, also we left this Pakistan scot free after the Bangladesh War. At that time, the Pakistan Military had fully surrendered and we had a large functional segment of its army disarmed as our prisoners of war. Our battleship, INS Vikrant was pounding on its shores at that time. We should walked in to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and taken it in our charge. No, we did not do so. We listened to the ‘sob-sob’ story of Mr. Bhutto and signed the Simla Accord, thereby giving enough time for Pakistan to restructure itself in to a nuclear force.

This small ‘mice’ of a country had the nerve to seize our territory and positions in Kargil and even after defeating them at heavy cost, we granted safe passage to their soldiers who were trapped with all their exit routes closed.

We should have attacked the terrorist installations in Pakistan after the Mumbai Terror Attacks, but we did not do so because we listened to United States. United States required a military presence in Pakistan to protect its Afghanistan interests. Pakistan candidly told United States that their troops may not be able to protect its Afghanistan border from Taliban intrusions as they have to relocate to the Indian side in the event of a war. In the end, United States prevailed on us not to attack Pakistan,

It is now time to be our own boss on our own terms and exercise the right of ‘first strike’ against Pakistan and permanently dismantle its terrorist apparatus once for all rather than wait for it to attack and then defend. If, we do so, we may be cutting the head of global terrorism monster once for all and doing the world a good turn. The pressure on the Indian leadership must come from us citizens.

15. It is unfortunate that our media has failed to perceive the subtle lurking of the World War behind the terrorist attacks. This World War will not be fought merely on conventional lines with bulky hardware as in the earlier two World Wars. It will be combined with ‘high impact- low cost’ warfare of suicidal bombings, biological and chemical attacks at multiple civilian installations by enemies in sneak positions on our own soil. The target will not just be the military, but preferentially the civilians. In short, this is not a War confined to borders and one should expect it even to enter one’s drawing room through the window.

16. Dear Readers, if you believe in what I am saying, tell me one thing. At the time of writing this article, elections are around the corner in our country,. Do you see any political party addressing itself to the threat of such a War in any of its manifestos, when the same should have been on the top of the agenda ?

While the need of the hour today is a two-national parties system to take quick and bold decisions to respond to a World War situation, our political system is fragmenting in to multiple regional party system circus.

17. A World War will sweepingly change security perceptions across the globe. Relationships amongst countries will change overnight. Whereas our once friendly countries may get posted on our enemy side, our erstwhile enemies and the least expected friends may turn up as bosom pals due to commonness in threat perceptions. Chanakya’s doctrine of ‘enemy of enemy is friend’ will be the simple thumb rule.

Businessmen in India will have difficulty in re-aligning their trade relationships with external countries. It may become more secure to keep ones’ investments and trade within ones’ own borders rather than indulge in cross border transactions which will be logistically riskier.

Countries, which Indians now find as safe heavens for residence, studies and tourist locations, may turn out to be unsafe when a World War clouds looms overhead there. One should expect a large influx of non residents Indians [ more particularly the labour force] back in to our country.

18. Friends, see how dedicated the enemy is dedicated to plot your destruction? The terrorist leadership is ever in meditation about killing you and its soldiers even think it is their blessed duty to do so. Do we spend even five minutes a day thinking of this threat perception ? Do we spend even two seconds praying for the welfare of our motherland, when we pray for ourselves? Religion being an important medium of instruction in our lives, our spiritual leaders can play some role by elaborating on patriotism as an important component of religion. After all, only if our land is safe, our temples are safe.

Let us know that training in Disaster Management should be of prime importance today at all levels- government offices, private organizations, educational curriculums and even household levels.

The major anti terrorist response should come from the citizens and non governments organizations because quite often an attack is targeted at places where government assistance expected will be minimal or delayed. It is the alert citizen and non government organizations who should supply the police information about suspected enemy movements in localities. This is more particularly so because the enemy has already filtered in to our country and is lying low in sleeper modules.

19. My professional friends. Know that when this enemy will strike, it will do so without giving you and me any prior notice. At that time, all the rules we have read about principles of natural justice will not come to our use. It is only our own response systems built on training in disaster management, faith in God and patriotism that will come to our rescue.

I have given to you a proposition that the transformation of Pakistan in to Talibanistan is an advancement of the Third World War. I want you, my dear readers, to ponder over it seriously. God be with all of you.

See Also: Mumbai Terror Attacks – Mere Terrorism or something else? by CA Anant N. Pai ‘Indian’