Pre-emptive strategy on terror needed
The current phase in India-Pakistan relations, with opportunities for improvement of trade ties between the two countries, should not lull us into complacency on the terrorism front. Recent events make it evident that the primary threat from international Islamist terrorism to this country is not necessarily linked to the ups and downs in our interactions with Pakistan. Nor does this threat bear a direct correspondence with the state of affairs in Jammu and Kashmir which has been relatively quiet for some time. It is well to appreciate that terrorists target India as a whole, not a particular part of it. Indeed they also target Indian interests everywhere, as the recent case of the full-scale alert against the Indian embassy in Paris suggests.
The French media revealed last Thursday that Mohammed Merah, the Al Qaeda Islamist and French “jihadist” of Algerian extraction who was killed after a 32-hour stand-off in Toulouse two months ago, had the Indian embassy in his cross-hairs. He was assigned to attack the embassy by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which had earlier tasked David Coleman Headley, the Pakistan-origin American terrorist who was a vital part of the planning for the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, to hit the office of a Danish newspaper. This suggests the scale of planning and resources the TTP — like other Pakistan-based terrorist outfits such as the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba — commands. Fortunately, French intelligence had tipped off the Indian embassy about Merah’s plans and security mechanisms were fortified. Merah would tell French intelligence afterward that he had found it hard to breach the embassy’s defences.
It is not so well known that prior to his arrest in Kandahar (where Merah fought alongside the extremists) in 2008, the French Islamist had sought to obtain a visa from the Indian consulate in that southern Afghanistan city. This confirms that Al Qaeda affiliates everywhere are always scheming to hit Indian interests where they can. In light of this, India needs to take precautionary measures at all its diplomatic missions, especially in countries where Al Qaeda may be suspected of operating.
As US troops exit Afghanistan by 2014, and India seeks to “stand by Afghanistan”, Al Qaeda and its affiliates may be expected to seek to target this country with greater vehemence. That calls for a clear-headed pre-emptive strategy.
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