ROUND THE WORLD

New Delhi, 19 May 2008

Transnational Terror Mounting

MAKING   IB  ACCOUNTABLE

By Dr. Monika Chansoria

(School of International Studies, JNU)

Terrorist bombings quivered India once again when the tourist city of Jaipur was rocked by a series of seven bombs that detonated a few minutes apart from each other on May 13, 2008. Killing at least 80 people and leaving scores severely wounded while transforming the ‘pink city’ into scenes of carnage. Wherein twisted debris and pools of blood on the streets narrated the ghastly act committed by the perpetrators of terror.

Although no particular terrorist group came forward and accepted responsibility for these blasts, however, a diminutively known group called the Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the terror attacks. It sent an e-mail declaring ‘open war’ against India in retaliation ‘for 60 years of Muslim persecution and for the country’s support of US policies.’ The group said it targeted Jaipur “to blow the tourism structure and demolish the faith” and further warned of more attacks in the country.

Nonetheless, the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Prakash Jaiswal swiftly stated, “One can’t rule out the involvement of a foreign power.” This statement manifestly referred to Pakistan and the Islamic militant groups that India accuses its neighbor of backing incessantly.

According to sources in the central intelligence agencies, apparently, the serial blasts in Jaipur bear the imprint of a well-coordinated strike with signs of the involvement of three transnational terrorist organizations — Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI), Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and possibly, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Importantly, the Jaipur explosions bear uncanny similarity to the sporadic bomb attacks in Faizabad, Varanasi and Lucknow in 2007 caused by explosives strapped to bicycles as also other parts of the country in recent months. Incidentally, the prime suspect HuJI, is also the primary suspect in the October 2007 blasts in the Sufi shrine city of Ajmer.

Recall, the HuJI, was established in 1992 with reported assistance from Osama bin Laden’s International Islamic Front. The group operates in Bangladesh from the coastal area stretching from the port city of Chittagong south through to the Myanmar border. Crucially, the HuJI cadres allegedly also infiltrate frequently into the eastern corridor of India to maintain contacts with other terrorist and subversive outfits of the region. Notwithstanding, the Bangladesh Government officially banning the HUJI in October 2005.

This Islamic terror group is also believed to be having links with Pakistan with the outfit’s ‘operations commander’ Mufti Abdul Hannan, admitting to having passed out of the Gouhardanga Madrasa in Pakistan after his arrest in October 2005. In addition, police records in Gopalganj district also state that Hannan was in fact, trained in Peshawar and subsequently sent to Afghanistan to fight the erstwhile Soviet Army.

Moreover, the HuJI maintains links with terrorist groups operating in India’s North-East, including the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). The HuJI is purportedly running some of ULFA’s camps situated in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh along the border of Tripura.

The US State Department labeled the HuJI as a foreign terrorist organisation (FTO) as recently as March 2008 and accordingly all the US financial institutions were required to freeze assets held by the HuJI. Washington previously put the outfit on the list of ‘Other Terrorist Organisations’ in 2003.

A press release to this effect by the US State Department said, “The leader of HuJI signed the February 1998 fatwa sponsored by Osama bin Laden that declared American civilians to be legitimate targets for attack.” Thereafter, HuJI has been implicated in a number of terrorist attacks in Bangladesh and abroad.

Furthermore, it was reported that the HuJI supplied grenades to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba to carry out attacks in India earlier. On his arrest, the HuJI leader Abu Zandal confessed that the outfit had sent several consignments of grenades to the LeT operating in India until 2004.

Therefore, the suspected involvement of HuJI does not entirely eliminate the Lashker-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) angle altogether. In that HuJI’s cadres have often been trained in terror camps across the border in Pakistan. The HuJI and Lashkar have scores of sleeper cells all over India ready to strike on direction from outside. Lately, the HuJI is said have established several sleeper cells across UP, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and even Rajasthan.

Transnational terrorism and transnational crime are being perpetrated largely by non-state actors across or beyond the political borders of a single State. Most Governments respond to international terrorism at a tactical level and resultantly, even after decades of combating terrorism, the conventional response of either eliminating or apprehending terrorists have not deterred terrorism.

This primarily could be attributed to the failure of the affected nations to obliterate the transnational support structures of terrorist groups. Transnational terrorist groups have established support infrastructures overseas where they are beyond the operational reach and domestic jurisdiction.

The need of the hour is to pull up the intelligence agencies since the Director  General of Police, A.S. Gill reprehensibly admitted, “There was no [intelligence] report of these attacks.” In addition, there has to be an advanced emphasis on intelligence sharing between the agencies so as to confront the transnational terror mechanism.

According to former Intelligence Bureau Joint Director and Chief of Police Intelligence in West Bengal Amiyo Samanta, “Until we modernize our intelligence gathering and hold it publicly accountable, we cannot win the fight against terrorism.” Evidently, India’s counter terrorism efforts need to be reassessed in that these attacks would witness just yet another inquisition. Time-bound accountability ought to be mandatory and the intelligence radar needs to be sharpened. 

The terror attacks in Jaipur are the latest demonstration of the fact that the wings of transnational terror are fast spreading throughout India and are not just concentrated in and around Kashmir. Notably, cross-pollination among various transnational terror groups makes it difficult to separate them and the latest attacks in Jaipur could well be a manifestation of the same. ---- INFA

(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)