High-level sources have indicated that an US alert sent out last week based on chatter picked up by American snoops listening in on conversations of Taliban operatives had picked up indications that a major naval base would be attacked and that like 26/11, the attack could come from the sea.
The US, fearful of another 26/11 and of the firm belief that India would be unable to hold off from retaliating if such an attack were to happen, had tipped off Delhi, which led India to put its western naval command facilities on high alert. Ports in Gujarat were believed to be a target. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack on Naval Station Mehran, only a few hundred nautical miles up the coast in the Pakistani port city of Karachi.
India used the opportunity presented by the Taliban’s 16-hour attack on one of Pakistan’s most well-guarded naval-cum-airbases to spell out India’s no-first use nuke policy.
“If attacked, let nobody be in any doubt, India will retaliate in case of any nuclear attack. Rest assured, there will be massive retaliation, “ an official source said.
Indian officials said that repeated attacks on Pakistan’s military installations were “extremely worrying”, as concerns grow over Pakistan’s ability to safeguard its growing arsenal of nuclear weapons and its recently augmented stockpiles of plutonium.
India has also noted Taliban’s concerted effort to take out assets that they see as affecting them directly as in Mehran where two front line P3C Orion US acquired maritime spy planes were torched during the brazen 16 hour siege, particularly the ability of militants to enter such facilities with apparent ease, as “Pakistan further loses internal coherence.”
Official sources said while nuclear weapons were not necessarily like AK-47s and Kalashnikovs and, therefore, did not constitute an immediate threat, what was more worrying apart from “Pakistan’s incoherence,” was the “reliability of the guardians of the nuclear weapons, the ones who hold the keys. Who will guard the guardians that is the real risk,” implying the deep sympathies for the Taliban within Pakistan’s military and ISI. Karachi itself is a home to several Al Qaeda operatives.