Surgical plan for India to take out those behind Pathankot attack

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/pakistan-pathankot-attack-26-11-mumbai-hafiz-saeed-lashkar-isi-narenra-modi-nawaz-sharif/story/1/8324.html

It is time PM Modi re-orients our strategy to 'talks while we end terror'.

Shehzad Poonawalla 

In the wake of the dastardly attack on our airbase in Pathankot, which saw seven of our brave men being martyred, allegedly by terrorists and not mere "enemies of humanity", who evidently came from Pakistan - plotted and planned the operation on Pakistani soil, and were controlled by handlers sitting in Pakistan - it is time we act. 

Not because our emotions run high or because we were promised a "56-inch" response to every terrorist attack, not because it makes for a strong political posture, but simply because it is in the deeper national and strategic interest to take out those who have the audacity to attack us, threaten our homeland and who continually jeopardise any possibility of future peace in the region. 

We cannot afford a repeat. We cannot allow it to go unpunished. 

Most importantly, we have now over the decades extinguished any and all alternatives to deal with this problem. During the Vajpayee years, we were blackmailed into releasing dreaded terrorists in exchange for the IC-814 hostages, who have since continuously bled India and derailed larger engagements with civilian governments in Pakistan. We have tried dialogue in order to broker peace with Pakistan during those years and it blew up in our face with Kargil and Parliament attack- in every instance, the fingerprints of certain anti-India constituencies from Pakistan were evident and visible. 

These constituencies includes the Pakistan Army, the notorious ISI and certain "non-state actors" - all of which are out of the control of the Pakistani civilian government. We then tried talks in the hope of ending terror and we got 26/11 in return. Till date not a single perpetrator in Pakistan has been brought to book for their involvement in the Mumbai attacks. This is despite the fact that even the Americans, through testimonies from David Headley, know exactly who is responsible for so many deaths in India. 

America is not going to fight our battles. They have much bigger stakes and interests in Afghanistan. They need the ISI, the Pakistan Army and in the past it has been the US which has created, equipped and funded the Afghan version of these "non state actors" to stave off a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. They frankly don't care about our interests. We need to fight our own battles. 

PM Modi prior to elections had promised "no talks amidst terror". Frankly, he promised the moon and it was a myopic policy statement that only excited some right-wing BJP supporters. 

Today, except for a change in style, his policy remains the same as the one India has been pursuing for the last 16 years. It will amount to nothing. It can only lead to a Kargil like situation between the two nuclear powers followed eventually by a military coup in Pakistan, which will be counter productive to any lasting solution for peace. Modi should have never even made promises like "no talks amidst terror." It is time to re-orient that strategy to "talks while we end terror". 

Let me explain how it will work 

In 1972, Mossad carried out a covert counterterrorist campaign in retaliation for the massacre of Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympic games. Israeli Premier Golda Meir led a secret panel called Committee X that authorised the assassination of Black September terrorists involved in the Munich incident. This included any individual identified as either directly or indirectly involved in the planning or the execution of the terror attack in Munich. 

While I am no fan of Israeli policies in general and I find their brutal actions towards ordinary Palestinians repulsive and counter productive, I am only borrowing from the pages of history, a novel approach to fighting terror. One that involves systematic elimination of the leaders of terror groups who target India. By executing the leaders of terror groups that have struck India over the past few years, particularly in Mumbai and Pathankot, including the Jaish-e-Mohammad, the Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jamat-ud-Dawa, the Haqqani network and others we can throw these organisations in disarray and take them out of the India-Pak equation. 

There is no gain either for India or for Pakistan to keep people like Hafiz Saeed, Dawood Ibrahim and Lakhvi alive, only to be used by the deep state in Pakistan to kill innocent civilians. By now our agencies ought to know who are the handlers of the Pathankot attack. We know who planned, plotted, financed, trained and executed it. We know where the linkages are within the ISI and the Pakistan Army. It is time we take them out ourselves. Giving dossiers to the civilian government is only an empty ritual. I don't think the US government itself believes in this dossier business. For years, they have taken every step they felt necessary to protect their homeland and security interests- from engineering coups to pre-emptive strikes and alleged assassination attempts. They should be the last one's to sermon anybody. 

So here is how we need to take things forward. 

PM Modi must first send the NSA Ajit Doval to some far off state as Governor and keep him as far away as possible from Delhi. To mess up Pathankot the way we did with the intelligence bounty we had requires astonishing levels of incompetence. The new doctrine for counter terror I propose can neither afford incompetence nor a constant hunger to claim credit. 

Modi must then appoint a special advisor on counter terrorism. Somebody possessing expertise and credibility within the intelligence community, preferably from RAW, a "go-between" with diverse experience and understanding, who can tabulate and collate all the intel we have from various agencies about our potential "targets", draw up a "hit list" and identify the men and women from our covert agencies or even armed forces to carry out the mission, which would be run covertly by RAW. The special advisor can communicate the political objectives that need to be achieved but must not interfere with the tactics or strategy to achieve them. The operations part must be left to the highest levels of RAW and the field operatives tasked with the job, who should be insulated from bureaucratic wrangling. 

Even though these teams must be 100 per cent sure about their targets before executing them and should adopt a "no collateral damage policy" strictly, it goes without saying that neither the Indian government nor any of the Intel agencies themselves can ever acknowledge the presence of these teams, take any credit or responsibility for their actions or even recognise them in the event that they are caught in another country for any of their actions. There has to be a complete deniability of any such activity or of any such people. They must take learnings from the past experiences and failures of CIA and Mossad in this respect. 

Given the high levels of stress for the operatives they must be given short duration tasks and their information must be kept confidential. Their existence must not be common knowledge even amongst the intelligence fraternity. One assassination team must not know about the other or it's targets or its members. Once multiple assassination teams have been organised with members having different skills in arms, weapons, bomb making, poisoning, snooping, creative techniques of conducting precise executions of the enemy, they must be briefed, equipped, provided with necessary documents, funded with requisite sums of money through covert accounts and be allowed to trail their respective targets who were directly or indirectly involved in Pathankot or Mumbai attacks, to identify how easy or difficult it would be to finish them off and what should be the best method employed to take them out without drawing much attention. 

In the past some analysts have suggested surgical strikes in PoK on terror camps. This cannot be done without risking a full fledged war. Also, it would be impossible to have air strikes and then avoid civilian casualty which would be counter productive as it would weaken and undermine the civilian government and play into the hands of the the Pakistan Army. This option seems impossible. How would we cover our tracks if Indian airforce planes bomb PoK? The idea seems sound only to those who want to see innocent Kashmiris pay a price for the actions of those in the ISI and the Pakistan Army. 

Carrying out targeted, covert assassinations of terror group leaders and their handlers would take some time but it ought to be done. It will require political courage of the kind Golda Meir demonstrated from Modi. It will require placing national interest and national security above every political or electoral consideration. It will require diplomatic skills to keep the Pakistan civilian government engaged in a dialogue while we do this. But once we do this we will have sent out an unequivocal message to terrorists across the world that they would be hunted down. It would take out the biggest obstacles in the path of a long lasting India-Pak peace. 

Peace can only be brokered with a civilian government that represents the will of the Pakistani people - one that is insulated from pressure by the Pakistan Army, ISI and "terror groups". We must have talks and engage with the civilian government. We must have dialogue and confidence building measures. We must have bilateral trade and exchanges to create greater interests and stakes on either side of the border to reduce deep seated animosity and fear amongst our peoples, that is often exploited by hate-mongers in both countries, terror sponsors and the Army-intel-terror syndicate in Pakistan. 

Don't expect the Pakistani civilian government to end this syndicate. It cannot. The syndicate is self sustaining. It has its own existence independent of the Pakistani political class and civil society. If the Pakistani civilian government could indeed control them, it would have done so simply because it poses a big threat to them as well. Ask the Bhuttos. 

But we in India can't afford to wait anymore. It is time to give back an appropriate and proportionate response to the terrorists each time they hit us. It is time we avenge Pathankot and Mumbai.