Intelligence & National Security Discussion

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Rahul M
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Rahul M »

abhijitm wrote:guys,
Just a thought brings chill in my brain. What is the possibility of nukes are already smuggled in India, as a second strike option for Pak? If 10 people can get into Mumbai so easily, how big deal is to smuggle a nuke and hide in Mumbai somewhere. When time comes, just wait for a signal and then BOOOM.

chalo, abhi smuggle nahi kiya hai but future main karana kitna mushkil hai? Pak doesnt have to build missiles to strike deep into India.
rather a question of when rather than if.

and more than second strike, a terror strike is the more likely scenario.

only two factors have stopped such an eventuality so far,
a)nukes being a precious and rare commodity in pakistan TSPA can't just trust any old jehadi with one
b)fear retribution from India amongst the RAPEs.
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Nikhil T »

X posting from Multimedia thread
"We the people" on NDTV.
60 Min Video LINK

Participants: (moderator : Barkha Dutt)
Brajesh Mishra
Ajit Doval (ex-IB)
G Parthasarthy (ex-High Commissioner to Pakistan)
Abhishek Singhvi (Cong)
Harinder Baweja (Journo)

Asab Durrani ( ISI ex-Chief )
Imran Khan (Tehreik-e-Insaf)

I posted this in the Intelligence thread because Parthasarthy at one point gave a specific example of the complicity of the ISI with the Afghan trouble. In a very recent incident, Gilani (the PM) went to Washington to meet with Bush (where Hayden , the CIA Chief was also in attendance). Gilani proudly claimed that he had used the military to destroy/bomb the "Haqqani" madarsa (probably this guy) which the US had asked Kayani to do. The irony is that, Bush and Hayden already knew that someone in the ISI had tipped off the madarsa about the impending attacks one day before the said military action. This is after the installation of Zardari/Gilani duo as Head(s) of State.
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by abhijitm »

Rahul M wrote: rather a question of when rather than if.

and more than second strike, a terror strike is the more likely scenario.

only two factors have stopped such an eventuality so far,
a)nukes being a precious and rare commodity in pakistan TSPA can't just trust any old jehadi with one
b)fear retribution from India amongst the RAPEs.
may be. I remember long time back when Mushi was prez he said something like "..god forbid but if time comes then pakistan has second, third strike ability..". I didnt take him seriously that time. But today after mumbai terror attack, I am thinking from a Pakistani angle and I ask myself "If I was pakistan, what will I do for the second strike?" and the only credible answer I get is to smuggle and hide nuke in India, no matter how precious it is for me because that is what it is meant for, isnt it?

And again from paki point of view, why will I employ a jehadi for this mission? I am having professionally trained ISI agents at my disposal.

Talking about retribution. First if india finds the nuke, pak is not going to claim its a gov act. They have AQ Khan racket and Al Qaeda for their alibi. And then they will use it for second strike, which means the war would have been alredy escalated too far and the situation would be like die and take enemy with you.

I simply cant get this out of my head. If I am Pak, I will take a chance with one nuke and see if I can hide it. Nobody involve in this mission will ever know that they are actually handling a nuke (possible? I am not sure, but lets assume, if not then there can be ways for workaround). I will keep it in a safe. I will send some trained agents in India, just to settle down. They wont know each other and the purpose. Then time goes by. Its like a time bomb ticking under my foot.

sounds like a movie theme.....
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by KiranM »

abhijitm wrote:
Rahul M wrote: rather a question of when rather than if.

and more than second strike, a terror strike is the more likely scenario.

only two factors have stopped such an eventuality so far,
a)nukes being a precious and rare commodity in pakistan TSPA can't just trust any old jehadi with one
b)fear retribution from India amongst the RAPEs.
may be. I remember long time back when Mushi was prez he said something like "..god forbid but if time comes then pakistan has second, third strike ability..". I didnt take him seriously that time. But today after mumbai terror attack, I am thinking from a Pakistani angle and I ask myself "If I was pakistan, what will I do for the second strike?" and the only credible answer I get is to smuggle and hide nuke in India, no matter how precious it is for me because that is what it is meant for, isnt it?

And again from paki point of view, why will I employ a jehadi for this mission? I am having professionally trained ISI agents at my disposal.

Talking about retribution. First if india finds the nuke, pak is not going to claim its a gov act. They have AQ Khan racket and Al Qaeda for their alibi. And then they will use it for second strike, which means the war would have been alredy escalated too far and the situation would be like die and take enemy with you.

I simply cant get this out of my head. If I am Pak, I will take a chance with one nuke and see if I can hide it. Nobody involve in this mission will ever know that they are actually handling a nuke (possible? I am not sure, but lets assume, if not then there can be ways for workaround). I will keep it in a safe. I will send some trained agents in India, just to settle down. They wont know each other and the purpose. Then time goes by. Its like a time bomb ticking under my foot.

sounds like a movie theme.....
Abhijit, I would recommend you read the book 'The Fourth Protocol' (there is a movie as well by the same name inspired by the book; but I would recommend the book first). It highlights the very scenario you outline. The details, in the book, of how a nuke is smuggled into a target country looks pretty realistic.
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Div »

^^ Excellent book. Huge Frederick Forsyth fan!
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by sum »

Not sure if posted earlier. Bit dated but very good read.
What’s the score on India’s covert operations?
From: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070815/a ... 195501.asp
By Jyoti Malhotra

In an unusual display of openness early this year, the Research & Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency, invited Shashi Tharoor, a much-publicized face of India abroad and a rank outsider, to deliver the first R.N. Kao memorial lecture in Delhi.

It was an impressive gathering for which a variety of former spymasters had flown in from across the country. It was presided over by the national security adviser, M.K. Narayanan. Tharoor spoke about “India and global security: leveraging soft power’’, arguing that the culture of debate and discussion that comes naturally to Indians should be extended to the intelligence agencies, even if secrecy is their preferred weapon of action.

By all accounts, Kao would have liked the idea. India’s top spymaster was made the first head of R&AW by Indira Gandhi after it was separated from the Intelligence Bureau in 1968. In his time, spies did not merely collect and analyse information, they had a chameleon-like ability to identify with both the oppressor and the oppressed. They spoke multiple languages. They built relations with the CIA and the KGB and the Afghan mujahedin, all at the same time. Spying didn’t take place at the speed of 24-hour news channels, nor were spy stories grist for the media’s mill.

Instead, spying was an intimate, time-consuming process, where the spy staked out his potential victim or source with the patience of someone in love. If you were collating information and analysing it, you pursued the maze and didn’t rest until it cleared. You had a sense of history. You couldn’t be a good spy if you didn’t know your weaknesses.

Most Indians, among them former cabinet secretary, Naresh Chandra, believe that R&AW’s finest hour was the break-up of Pakistan in 1971 and the liberation of Bangladesh. Considering this happened a mere three years after Kao’s creation of R&AW and allowed Mrs Gandhi to emerge as one of the most powerful leaders in the world, the event also set the stage for a muscular foreign policy.

The liberation of Bangladesh was clearly Mrs Gandhi’s finest hour. The manner in which Bangladeshis rose to take charge of their country — albeit with the help R&AW provided to their Mukti Bahini — has no parallel in world history.

Back home, the 1971 events allowed Kao to create the psychological warfare (Psywar) division, which kept the international spotlight on brutalities committed by the West Pakistanis. Indira Gandhi’s tour of the major nations, including the US, to sensitize them about the situation in the subcontinent — millions of refugees from East Bengal were pouring into India — was a perfect prequel to the brahmastra that followed. Pakistan cracked up like a brittle pancake. It continues to vent much of its angst by unleashing terror in Punjab, Kashmir and now, in the rest of India.
Even as it covertly aided the Mukti Bahini, R&AW raids into the Chittagong Hill Tract in the Northeast simultaneously destroyed sanctuaries and training camps of the Mizo National Front as well as the Nagas. Phizo had, in fact, been in touch with the ISI since 1956, and later leaders like Isaac Swu, Muivah and Mowu Angami (who was later killed) had travelled via the Kachin state of Burma to Yunnan, a southern Chinese province for arms training. Mizo leaders like Laldenga, too, were in touch both with the ISI and the Chinese, seeking arms training and financial assistance. The Chinese agreed to train the MNF if they could reach Yunnan on their own.

R&AW’s decision to smash insurgent sanctuaries in the CHT, killing both Nagas and Mizos, played a big role in partially ending the Naga insurgency. As for Laldenga, he fled to West Pakistan, via Rangoon, but later got fed up with his ISI handlers. He escaped from Pakistan and reached Geneva in 1975, where a joint R&AW-IB team began talks with him. But Mrs Gandhi was soon to impose Emergency, and to lose power in 1977. The Mizos had to wait for her to return in 1980 before Kao — and the next R&AW chief, Gary Saxena, as well as the late G. Parthasarathi, Mrs Gandhi’s trusted adviser — could pick up the threads. Peace returned to Mizoram only in 1985, when Laldenga became its chief minister.

B. Raman, a former R&AW spy, who has just written a book about his former organization called the Kaoboys of R&AW, points out that one of R&AW’s major drawbacks has been “a lack of man management…especially in the later years, where R&AW should have been blended into a team, there’s a clear absence of an esprit de corps.’’

One clear example of the lack of coordination between R&AW, IB and the West Bengal state police occurred during the Purulia arms drop in 1998. Peter Bleach, an ex-pilot of the Royal Air Force who was hired to fly the plane to Purulia, is supposed to have gone to the headquarters in the UK and told them what he was going to do. Subsequently, clear and pointed intelligence was given to R&AW, but it didn’t pass it on.

The failure to detect the Pakistani incursion into Kargil until May 1999, when one IB alert a year before had picked up unusual activity across the border in Baltistan, must count for another failure of the R&AW’s high-profile Aviation Research Centre. It was left to the nomadic Gujjar shepherds, who roam the hills, to pick out the aliens in the Kargil hills.

However, Naresh Chandra feels that R&AW’s picking up of the conversation between General Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad and his colleague General Muhammad Aziz Khan, in Beijing during the Kargil war (when Aziz said to Musharraf in crude Urdu, “Uski (India) tooti mere haath main hai’’), was one of R&AW’s best moments. Asked if the release of the conversation transcript did not compromise both technical and human intelligence, Chandra said, “Releasing the transcript was a political decision, R&AW did a very good job.” That transcript was one element in the diplomatic battle that finally persuaded Bill Clinton to force Nawaz Sharif to order his forces back behind the LoC.

India’s intelligence-gathering efforts have largely focussed on Pakistan, the US, China and the neighbourhood. Through the Eighties and the Nineties, including after the Mumbai blasts in 1993, Delhi tried hard to get the US to label Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism with little success. Delhi argued that a lot of CIA arms were being siphoned off by the ISI to be used in Punjab and Kashmir — but the argument fell on deaf ears.

Under Rajiv Gandhi, Delhi sought to pursue a multi-dimensional strategy on Pakistan. That is, cooperation with its people, covert action where possible (as in Sind, which provoked Benazir Bhutto to tell her ISI chief, “Give up your Sikh card and India will give up its Sind card”) and maintaining good relations with both the pro-Pakistan Afghan mujahedin as well as with the Tajik opposition-leader, Ahmad Shah Masood. With the fall of the taliban after 9/11, Delhi moved quickly to establish consulates in Herat, Jalalabad and Kandahar in order to prevent Pakistan from regaining strategic depth in southern Afghanistan.

Unlike Bangladesh, though, India’s Sri Lanka intervention has been a mixed bag. Covert assistance for the LTTE in the early Eighties ordered by Indira Gandhi enabled the government to meet aspirations of the Sri Lanka Tamils, but by the time Rajiv Gandhi signed the Indo-Sri Lanka accord, the tables had been turned completely. Once again, different agencies of the government didn’t know what the other was doing. General Sundarji is said to have promised Rajiv Gandhi that it would take a month to accomplish his mission to disarm the LTTE. Ultimately, V.P. Singh ordered the IPKF back after three years, without completing the job it had set out to do.

Still, as Shashi Tharoor put it at the R&AW tea-party in January, the Eighties were a grand decade, with Delhi helping a large num-ber of African countries like Uganda (Milton Obote invited R&AW in after Idi Amin chased the Indians out) and Ghana set up intelligence agencies, besides providing key support to the African National Congress in South Africa and SWAPO in Namibia.

Analysts like B. Raman point out that for an argumentative society, Indians have largely refused to ask questions or debate failures. Lieutenant General Henderson-Brooks and Brigadier Baghat wrote a report on the failure of the Sino-Indian war in 1962, while the Subrahmanyam committee went into a detailed look at the Kargil conflict, but Parliament has either not been shown the reports or allowed to discuss it.

Meanwhile, there remains the question of a cover-up in the Rabinder Singh affair, the R&AW double agent who escaped, via Kathmandu, to the US in 2004. The matter shook the agency as well as India, but an investigation into the counter-insurgency failure doesn’t seem to have cleaned out the cobwebs, especially since a number of those allegedly involved in the fiasco are posted in key countries today.

So what’s the score on India’s covert operations in these 60 years? Johnnie Walker, the ultimate Bollywood comedian, has a memorable line in one of his films: “Fifty-fifty”, he says, with regard to the happiness-ever-after formula. It could easily apply to Delhi’s report card since independence.
Posted by bdfact at 5:20 PM
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ramana
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by ramana »

Looks like an article based on insider info. Wonder why now?
B. Raman, a former R&AW spy, who has just written a book about his former organization called the Kaoboys of R&AW, points out that one of R&AW’s major drawbacks has been “a lack of man management…especially in the later years, where R&AW should have been blended into a team, there’s a clear absence of an esprit de corps.’’
I think the IPS on deputation link has to go. Once you join RAW you have to become part of RAS and not revert like its a picnic. The reversion stunts the RAS cadre as the IPS guys come for a few years and revert to their home state and at fag end of their career comeback to become chiefs. This effectively denies the hope of any RAS person to become chief of RAW. And with a mish mash of permanaent and temporary folks how can an espirti d'corps develop? It develops when one nows its jeena yahan, marna yahan. You have to live and die here. The deputation thing in essence means that the govt is not serious and thinks its an adhoc solution.

Indian servcies are based on seniority and not like US which can pick anyone to be their chief intel officer. However by same token the RAS folks have to become more professional and ensure they strictly follow the law and dont do hera pheri like line their flats etc.
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Aditya G »

ramana wrote:Lookslike an article based on insider info. Wonder why now?

I think the IPS on deputation link has to go. It stunts the RAS cadre as the IPS guys come for a few years and revert to their home state and at fag end of their career comeback to become chiefs. THis effectively denies the hope of any RAS person to become chief of RAW. Indian servcies are based on seniority and not like US which can pick anyone to be their chief intel officer. However by same token the RAS folks have to become more professional and ensure they strictly follow the law and dont do hera pheri like line their flats etc.
The articles gleans most of the information from Kaoboys of R&AW, till the 1980s.

The influence that IPS (positive or negative?) has over the direction India has taken over the last 1-2 decades needs to be looked into. Not only RAW, but other intelligence agencies and all CPMFs save for AR and RR and dominated by the IPS. We should pull more officers from the armed forces instead. Outstanding officers like Ajit Doval and Prakash Singh are hard to come by.
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by rajkumar »

Aditya G wrote:
ramana wrote:Lookslike an article based on insider info. Wonder why now?

I think the IPS on deputation link has to go. It stunts the RAS cadre as the IPS guys come for a few years and revert to their home state and at fag end of their career comeback to become chiefs. THis effectively denies the hope of any RAS person to become chief of RAW. Indian servcies are based on seniority and not like US which can pick anyone to be their chief intel officer. However by same token the RAS folks have to become more professional and ensure they strictly follow the law and dont do hera pheri like line their flats etc.
The articles gleans most of the information from Kaoboys of R&AW, till the 1980s.

The influence that IPS (positive or negative?) has over the direction India has taken over the last 1-2 decades needs to be looked into. Not only RAW, but other intelligence agencies and all CPMFs save for AR and RR and dominated by the IPS. We should pull more officers from the armed forces instead. Outstanding officers like Ajit Doval and Prakash Singh are hard to come by.
No while we may question the IPS link what cannot be questioned is that members of the police forces have much more experience of extracting information from sources than any other bracnch of the state and this is applicable to every society on this earth. A good Station House Officier in India or for his/her equivalent elsewere knows more about what goes on in his patch than anyone else. What you need to do is to get the mixture of experiences right.

Armed forces officers do not always make good intelligence officers simply because the officer like qualties which the armed forces have does not always translate into good intel officers.
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Philip »

The level to which Chinese cyberwarfare has reached and its scale of ops.

Is Someone in China Reading Your Emails?

By Maura Moynihan, AlterNet. Posted January 12, 2009.


http://www.alternet.org/audits/119064/i ... ls/?page=2

China has a vast human intelligence gathering operation of Chinese citizens recruited to spy on and hack into US computers. Tools

Without a Change of Course, Afghanistan Will Become the U.S.' Next Great Disaster in 2009
Bill Scheurer

On December 16th 2008, Time Magazine announced the annual People Of the Year List. Barack Obama topped the list, and one runner-up was China's Zhang Yimou, the epic filmmaker and Olympic impresario, for creating "arguably the grandest spectacle of the new millennium," the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics Games, which "showcased the rise of China as a world power."

The bland celebration of China’s version of Leni Riefenstahl dodged the uncomfortable truth that the Olympics enabled the Chinese Communist Party to expand their intelligence operations within the corporations and governments who flew to Beijing for a sports party. China is now flexing its post-Olympic power with an aggressive new cyber-espionage campaign, targeting government, military and civilians with equal force. If you use Windows, the Chinese Communist Party to knows how to hack into your laptop. If you have friends and associates in China, they're reading your emails.

The Pentagon, the State Department and the US Congress have been monitoring China’s cyber intelligence campaigns for years. The Congressional Record has a long list of hearings on the matter. In 2008 press statements, the Pentagon report that Chinese cyber espionage has “increased dramatically” before and after the Olympic Games.

During preparations for the Olympics, China installed massive new surveillance and security systems with the generous assist of the U.S. corporations Honeywell, General Electric, United Technologies and IBM. Throughout the Olympic gold rush the Bush administration routinely sidestepped the 1990 law stipulating that high-tech must not benefit the Chinese military. After all, the People's Republic of China was a paying customer and owns a majority share of U.S. Treasury Bills.

The craven posturing of the Olympic Committee and their corporate sponsors allowed Beijing party bosses to break every pledge to improve human rights, duly sworn when they lobbied for the contract. And what has the result been of this blind quest for corporate profit? On November 20, 2008, the bipartisan U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission sent its annual report to the United States Congress. It states: "China is targeting U.S. government and commercial computers for espionage (and) is stealing vast amounts of sensitive information from U.S. computer networks."

The website of an independent research consortium infowar-monitor.net provides updates on China's web infiltration methods. One alarming new report describes tracking devices carefully affixed into computers manufactured in China that route information to the Chinese Communist Party's Public Security Bureau. Cyber intelligence is linked into a vast human intelligence gathering operation of Chinese citizens recruited to spy for the Motherland known as "a thousand grains of sand." This network involves tourists, businessmen and some of the over 100,000 Chinese students who study overseas each year. Every one is questioned by intelligence officers before and after their foreign tour and offered lucrative rewards for valued intelligence.

China's military academies are also diligently training thousands of young workers in computer hacking. Larry M. Wortzel, the author of a 2007 US Army War College report on China's cyber campaigns said: "The thing that should give us pause is that in many Chinese military manuals they identify the U.S. as the country they are most likely to go to war with. They are moving very rapidly to master this new form of warfare." Two Chinese army hackers produced a "virtual guidebook for electronic warfare and jamming" after studying dozens of US and NATO manuals on military tactics.

Chinese cyber hackers have made numerous incursions into classified US networks. In November 2006, Retired Air Force Major General Richard Goetze, a Naval War College professor, said the Chinese "took down" the entire Naval War College computer network -- an operation that prompted the U.S. Strategic Command to raise the security alert level for the Pentagon's 12,000 computer networks and 5 million computers. In June 2007, 150 computers in the $1.75 billion computer network at the Department of Homeland Security was quietly with programs that sent an unknown quantity of information to a Chinese-language Web site. Unisys Corporation, the manager of the DHS computers, allegedly covered up the penetration for three months.

Do a brief web search and you will find a long list of U.S. educated, high level Chinese-born agents serving time in U.S. prisons for spying and stealing military secrets for their homeland. Last fall FBI agents warned the Obama and McCain campaigns that Chinese networks were monitoring their computers. In June 2008, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA.) revealed that computers in the House International Relations Committee had been hacked by Chinese agents. "These cyber attacks permitted the source to probe our computers to evaluate our system's defenses, and to view and copy information," said Wolf. "My suspicion is that I was targeted by Chinese sources because of my long history of speaking out about China's abysmal human rights record."

On Feb. 15, 2006, representatives of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems were summoned before the House International Relations Committee to defend what Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) called a "sickening collaboration" with the Chinese government that was "decapitating the voice of the dissidents." The web executives defended their dealings with the Chinese government on the grounds that China is a global market.

The global market provides endless opportunities for cyber-espionage. A February 2005 report from the Defense Science Board states "a significant migration of critical microelectronics manufacturing from the United States to other foreign countries has [occurred] and will continue to occur." America's defense systems are based on "trusted and classified" microchips. The February 2005 Defense Science Board report said, "Trust cannot be added to integrated circuits after fabrication; electrical testing and reverse engineering cannot be relied upon to detect undesired alterations in military integrated circuits."

After Deng Xiaopeng took Chairman Mao to the shopping mall, Wall Street analysts proclaimed that China's Maoists were different from Stalin's Bolsheviks, and that Coca Cola would magically engender democracy within a totalitarian state. China's Maoists were supposedly different, making the economy work without dismantling state surveillance and control.

The financial tsunami that gushed out of Wall Street this fall forced the closure of over 30 Chinese factories, the ones that make the plastic Santas, socks and other such junk available at Walmart. But plenty more Chinese factories are churning out computers, digital chips, satellites, and rockets for the high-tech universe that China has staked out as the next frontier of world war. Let's hope that the only thing “Made in China” next Christmas is a plastic Santa not spyware in our computers, where Big Brother, wearing, a Mao cap, is shifting through our cyber profiles.
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Avinash R »

ramana wrote:About MAC from Pioneer, 14 Jan., 2009

Please x-post in the Intel thread..
NATION | Wednesday, January 14, 2009 | Email | Print |


With MAC around, intelligence sharing gets a leg-up

Rakesh K Singh | New Delhi

With the Multi Agency Centre (MAC) functioning on a 24x7 basis from January 1 this year for countering terrorism and related threats, coordination and inputs sharing between different Central and State intelligence agencies is expected to improve qualitatively.

The Union Home Ministry, through an executive order, has made MAC a nodal body for all matters relating to gathering, analysis and sharing of intelligence pertaining to terrorism and devising strategies and tactical measures to counter it. The body functioning under the Intelligence Bureau will act as a National Centre for Counter Terrorism as advised by the Second Administrative Reforms Commission.

The Multi Agency Centre (Functions, Powers and Duties) Order, 2008 empowers it to be the centre to coordinate all activities pertaining to terrorism and terrorist threats and has begun working round the clock in shifts.

The order tasks MAC to gather, collate, store, analyse, share, disseminate and do any other thing or act that may be necessary in respect of intelligence pertaining to terrorism, terrorist threats and terrorist offences. The order also mandates MAC to develop, improve and enhance the capacity of the Government to deal with terrorism and terrorist threats. The MAC is further obliged by the order to devise strategic and tactical measures to counter terrorism, terror threats and terrorist offences.

The MAC has been authorised with the power to seek information, including documents, reports, transcripts, cyber information and information of every other kind in whatever form, from the agency furnishing or obliged to furnish such information.

The organisation will share intelligence and assessment of that intelligence with the State Governments, Union Territories and any other agency or agencies to which the inputs may be relevant and useful for purposes of dealing with terrorism. Likewise, all the agencies of State Governments and Union Territories charged with the responsibility of gathering intelligence will have to share the inputs and assessments related to terrorism and terror threats to MAC.

The Intelligence Bureau, whose Director will control and exercise general superintendence over MAC, is obliged to establish adequate means of communication and connectivity between MAC and other Central and State intelligence agencies. The executive order was issued following national outcry following the Mumbai terror attacks and recognition by the Centre of lack of coordination between different intelligence agencies.

Besides, MAC in its earlier avatar (according to the Union Home Ministry's instructions dated December 6, 2001) could not fully achieve the objectives for which it was established by the then NDA Government.

“While a database has been built, other aims of MAC have not been achieved……despite MHA's instructions….., practically no data relating to terrorist activities are received from the Central and State security forces and agencies,” says a 7-page classified office memorandum issued by Special Secretary (Internal Security) Raman Srivastava on December 31, 2008. A Group of Ministers that reviewed the intelligence systems in the aftermath of the Kargil conflict in 2001 had recommended the establishment of MAC in the IB for better handling of tasks related to counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence.

The 2001 order had mandated the MAC “to centrally process all operational and actionable intelligence and disseminate them….for real time action, develop an institutional mechanism for validation, rejection, value addition and conversion of raw intelligence into actionable intelligence.”

Interesting that the earlier MAC did not function despite orders issued on recommendation of the GOM and KRC report! Wonder why? Did other Central agencies and State govts refuse to share the info or what? Why will they share now? Which part of the GO makes it compulsory to share with MAC? And why was it not there in NDA issued GO? Was the UPA diligent in making sure that MAC was working under Patil or was he sleeping on the job there too?

Also I see no powers to arrest have been given to MAC so how will it deter and prevent terrorist acts? By calling local police?

its still not enough.
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Yusuf »

Rahul M wrote:
abhijitm wrote:guys,
Just a thought brings chill in my brain. What is the possibility of nukes are already smuggled in India, as a second strike option for Pak? If 10 people can get into Mumbai so easily, how big deal is to smuggle a nuke and hide in Mumbai somewhere. When time comes, just wait for a signal and then BOOOM.

chalo, abhi smuggle nahi kiya hai but future main karana kitna mushkil hai? Pak doesnt have to build missiles to strike deep into India.
rather a question of when rather than if.

and more than second strike, a terror strike is the more likely scenario.

only two factors have stopped such an eventuality so far,
a)nukes being a precious and rare commodity in pakistan TSPA can't just trust any old jehadi with one
b)fear retribution from India amongst the RAPEs.
A second retaliatory strike will come only if their is a first strike. India has a stated no first strike policy. So the excuse of a second strike doesnt arise.
Nukes falling in the hands of terrorists is an issue of top international concern and a lot has been said about it right from US special forces seizing the nukes to an Israeli operation like Orsirak with tacit support from India in providing logistics and intel.

Smuggling in nukes and storing it for later use as second strike is not a possibility as it will be detected. There are surveillance satellites that will pick up the radiation.
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by KiranM »

^^^^

Not really.. Satellites that can detect nukes/ WMD are few and far between. Besides, they cannot maintain 24X7 surveillance. To do their limited surveillance they will need complementary info like target location (suspected sites where nukes will be developed, etc). Hence, satellites will have to be supported by HUMINT. Not an easy task.

All a scum needs to do is smuggle a nuke into a place nearby a civilian nuclear power station, so as to mask its particulate emmission from satellites or other sensors.
Yusuf
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Yusuf »

Although its a real possibility and a threat, it is far more difficult to smuggle nuclear bombs than we think. If it was easy, then the hundreds of those unsecured bombs from the former Soviet Union would have been long sold in the international terror market.
Right now the source of such a bomb is only Pakistan. With the eyes of the CIA, Mossad, MI6, FSB besides RAW on it, it will be a pretty stiff task to sneak out a nuke from Pakistan. Besides the question is if Pakistani elements can store a bomb for future use, that will surely get caught. But yes an immediate use of a nuke as a first strike is not ruled out. And thats what the whole world is worried about.
shyamd
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by shyamd »

shyamd wrote:Okay folks, this is debka's take on the aftermath of the attacks. It exposes again the incompetence of MMS, and is from the Israeli perspective. The article is quite old now, I think roughly a month, but nevertheless throws up different views on the attack that are quite credible and do make sense.

Pakistan's ISI Drags India into Afghan-Pakistan Imbroglio to Disrupt Obama's Plans

The rogue elements of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence service are more than an agency within an agency; during the regime transition period in Islamabad, they grew into a state within a state. Their covert give-and-take intrigues with Al Qaeda, associated jihadi groups and Taliban have empowered them and transformed them into the covert prime movers in the Afghan war and the affairs of the subcontinent.

By sending Lashkar e-Taibe terrorists on a rampage in Mumbai, they managed to manipulate India and Pakistan close to an armed confrontation and generate a crisis for testing the incoming US president Barack Obama before he sits down in the Oval Office in January.

The two heavyweights Washington sent over Wednesday, Dec. 3 to hold India and Pakistan back from a military showdown found their mission doomed from the start. The ground was already burning.

In Delhi, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice saw Indian intelligence input showing that fresh rounds of Islamist Pakistan-based terror were on the way – first against three international airports, Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai, by infiltrators originating from Pakistani or Afghanistan; next focusing on American, British and Israeli tourists at popular resorts like Goa and Puna in the New Year holiday season.

In Islamabad, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saw a president, Asif Ali Zardari, who had not yet found his feet and certainly lacked the clout to round up the list of 20 ISI-protected suspects handed him by New Delhi for extradition.



Spiking Obama's plans for Afghanistan troop surge


Focusing on India as the injured party, Washington had prepared to underpin the Rice-Mullen mission by leaks to the media showing that New Delhi had been forewarned as early as mid-October about the impending attacks on Mumbai but neglected to alert Mumbai's security authority and the Indian Navy to a potential attack "from the sea against hotels and business centers in Mumbai."

(More about how this intelligence collaboration worked in a separate article in this issue.)

Prime minister Manmohan Singh was being warned that if he continued on the path of military brinkmanship, Washington would release another spate of embarrassing leaks exposing his government's incompetence.

The American plan did not work. The rogue ISI elements, which none of our counter-terror sources in Washington, London, New Delhi or Jerusalem doubts was behind the attack, had progressed too far toward their goals to be stopped.

They enumerate six:

1. To change the course of the Afghan war by spiking Obama's plans for sending more troops to Afghanistan and helping to settle the quarrels dividing India and Pakistan. The US president-elect hoped those steps would ease the military obstacles confronting NATO forces in Afghanistan and pave the way to resolving the Afghan and Kashmir conflicts, thus robbing al Qaeda and Taliban of victory.

2. To bring the long-simmering Indian-Pakistani issues to boiling point: President Zardari and prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani would then have to divert the 100,000 Pakistani soldiers fighting al Qaeda and Taliban in the tribal border areas with Afghanistan to the Indian frontier, as Zardari threatened to do this week.

3. Once Pakistani military pressure was lifted from the al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuaries in the tribal lands, they could concentrate wholly on bludgeoning American and NATO forces in Afghanistan and getting set for a major spring offensive in April 2009.



Obama national security team back to drawing board

The Mumbai terrorist rampage has altered the state of play by dragging India into the imbroglio. The onus is now on the incoming US administration's national security team – secretary of state Hillary Clinton, defense secretary Robert Gates and the next national security adviser Gen. James Jones – to come up with a new plan to defeat the radical Islamist bloc and the ISI's schemes. This task has evaded the Bush administration for eight years.

4. Another goal of ISI schemers was to deepen the rift between the Pakistani president and prime minister and the army command to undermine and eventually unseat president Zardari.

5. By the violence they staged in Mumbai, ISI elements sought to prove to their jihadist allies that nothing in their close collaboration had changed as a result of a change of command at the top of the intelligence service. Following a demand from Washington, Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha was appointed ISI head and four regional department heads were replaced.

The rogue elements in Pakistani elements stood by their deal to support al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan as long as they backed ISI operations against India, such as the suicide attack Taliban staged against the Indian embassy in Kabul five months ago, killing 60 people including the Indian military attaché.

New Delhi accused the ISI of masterminding the attack and was supported by Washington.


ISI challenges British intelligence and Mossad

6. In Mumbai, Pakistan intelligence factions settled scores with the British MI5 domestic intelligence and its MI6 spy service as well as the Israeli Mossad.

For three years, the pro-al Qaeda sympathizers in the ISI have been conducting an undercover running contest with British intelligence for control of the British Pakistan community and the medressas where some of their children are sent to be educated. The British were shocked by the July 2005 suicide attacks on their home ground on London transport. When their counter-terror agencies launched aggressive operations against the radical mosques in Britain and medressas in Pakistan, the ISI began fighting back.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's counter-terror sources report the ISI regards the Pakistani medressas, long seen in the West as hothouses for breeding terrorist recruits, as its exclusive turf and source of power.

Even al Qaeda has no say in governing these academies for jihad – least of all British intelligence. Entry is strictly regulated by Pakistani intelligence guards on their doors to keep unwanted visitors out. (my comment: this is going a bit too far)

But when England put British Pakistanis on trial for plotting to blow up 10 transatlantic commercial flights with liquid explosives in August 2006, the ISI declared war, even through no British jury found enough evidence for convictions. The prosecution's claim that the liquid bomb technology originated in Pakistan was enough to convince the belligerent ISI elements that their grip on the medressas was threatened.

On instructions from those elements, the Lashkar e-Taiba gunmen sought out holders of British as well as American passport holders as soon as they landed in Mumbai on Nov. 26.


Israelis singled out for brutal treatment

The Pakistani clandestine group's reckoning with the Israeli Mossad is less complicated.

Indian-Israeli defense cooperation covers multi-billion arms sales, including drones, sophisticated surveillance systems and border-monitoring equipment, as well as specialist anti-insurgency and anti-terrorist training and techniques. The Mossad external intelligence service maintains extensive ties with its Indian counterpart – RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) for combating ISI operations in Kashmir and other parts of the subcontinent.

Their horrendous attack on the Chabad Center in Mumbai, home from home for Israeli and Jewish visitors who were tortured before being brutally executed, was intended as a blow to Israeli-Indian military and intelligence cooperation. The ISI was also warning Israel to stay out of Southwest Asia or expose Jewish and Israeli targets to more attacks.


Mumbai Terror – II
Pakistani Intelligence Lays a Red Herring – or Two


Indian intelligence did take note of a US warning about an impending terrorist attack on the landmark Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, which was ravaged last month by Islamist terrorists in Mumbai. The date on the warning was September and when it failed to materialize by the end of the month, New Delhi decided the attack had been abandoned.

According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence sources, the second half of October and first half of November went by without any further mention of Mumbai on the Islamic networks. US intelligence did not cancel its original alert but refrained from following it up by nagging the Indians to find out if they were still on guard for a major terrorist attack.


In fact, US intelligence was itself put off guard by a trick.

The National Security Agency (NSA), which is responsible for collecting and analysis of foreign signals intelligence, had been monitoring Lashkar e-Taiba phone calls through the Abu Dhabi-owned Thuraya satellite system, which as a primary source of clandestine data on violent Islamic extremist organizations.

Suddenly, in the first week of October, Lashkar e-Taiba operatives stopped talking about Mumbai over their phone conversations.

At the same time as this was noted by the NSA, the Indian spy agency RAW (the Research and Analysis Wing) also stopped hearing references to a Mumbai operation in the Lashkar e-Taiba conversations monitored on their channels. A week after the terrorist rampage which left 174 dead and 350 injured in Mumbai, both agencies realized they had been hoodwinked. The coordinated hush which should have set off alarm bells, put them off guard.


No tip-off to fellow counter-terror agencies

Leading Western authorities on Pakistan, speaking to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources, were surprised that neither the Americans nor Indians picked up on the abrupt disappearance of Mumbai references from Lashkar e-Taiba discourse, or showed any curiosity. Instead, they took it for granted that the Mumbai terrorist plot had been abandoned, breathed a sigh of relief and let it ride.

An Israeli intelligence officer who works with US and Indian spy agencies remarked to this publication that neither had bothered to tip off fellow counter-terror agencies in the region like, for instance, the Israelis or Brits, when they first discovered that the ISI-backed terrorist group had planned to land by sea and attack western and Israeli locations in Mumbai.

Had the first alert been shared with Jerusalem or London, someone there may have smelled a rat and suggested looking more closely into the sudden Lashkar e-Taiba silence on the Mumbai conspiracy before deciding it was off.

If the Israeli official sounded peeved, it is because in the last six months, the close intelligence collaboration between Israel and Indian slackened as Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh tried cultivating friendly ties with president Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari. This climate generated more harmony between Indian intelligence and the ISI elements fighting extremist Islamic groups. Although neither side fully trusted the other, Israel found itself demoted as New Delhi's senior partner in matters of security.




The trick worked like a charm



Plans for the Mumbai attack, as it turned out later, proceeded smoothly with the help of messengers instead of sat phones, unbeknownst to NSA and RAW analysts who failed to take this into account. Here, the Achilles heel of both agencies came to the fore: Never so far in the eight-year war on terror has either peen able to penetrate al Qaeda, the Taliban, or such extremist terrorist groups as the Lashkar e-Taiba. Western intelligence is therefore totally dependent on signals intelligence and when that dries up, the door is shut on the extremists' inner workings and plans.

After the event, US and Indian intelligence concluded that Lashkar operatives were advised by their ISI buddies to spill general information about their planned Mumbai attack over their satellite phones three months before it was launched for the benefit of American and Indian eavesdroppers. Then, six weeks ahead of the operation, they were to stop mentioning it in order to lull the Americans and Indians into assuming it had been cancelled.

The trick worked like a charm.

The Mumbai atrocity plunged the Singh government into hot water. It is caught between strained relations with Pakistan, popular demands in India to punish their neighbor and domestic fury over the politicians' intelligence and security lapses. The Indian police and commando are lambasted for taking 72 hours to overcome 10 terrorists.



Zardari fuels anti-Pakistan fury in Delhi – as per ISI plan

Singh has been trying to navigate the shoals. Monday, Dec. 1, New Delhi demanded the extradition of Lashkar e-Taiba leaders and Indian fugitives associated with them from Pakistan.

On the list were Dawoon Ibrahim, a Mumbai crime boss blamed for serial bombings in Mumbai in 1993 which left at least 250 dead; Maulan Masood Azhar, a Muslim cleric freed from Indian jail in exchange for passengers of a hijacked plan in 1999; and Hafiz Saeed, head of the Jamaat-ud Dawa group as well as founder and spiritual leader of the Lashkar e-Taiba.

At the same time, India refused Islamabad's demand for evidence against the men on the list.

No intelligence agency will part with information that can blow its undercover sources. RAW will certainly not surrender leads to informants in Pakistan or expose its intelligence-gathering methods in that country and other parts of Asia.

In any case, New Delhi fears that sharing intelligence with Islamabad, some of it relayed from US sources, would touch off a second round of terrorist outrages against India – partly to render that intelligence irrelevant.

The next day, president Zardari rejected India's extradition demands out of hand. He said that if evidence were provided, the suspects would be tried in Pakistani courts and if found guilty, punished under Pakistani law.

His reply further fueled the anti-Pakistan fury boiling up in New Delhi and India, exactly as the ISI intended.
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Mumbai Terror – III
Indian Retaliatory Raids inside Pakistan Impending


Furious preparations are under way in New Delhi for raids in Pakistan in reprisal for the Pakistan-based terrorist assault on Mumbai on Nov. 26. They are directed by defense minister A.K. Antony and chief of army staff Gen. Deepak Kapoor, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources reveal.

Prime minister Manmohan Singh gave visiting US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice a mixed message when they talked in New Delhi on Wednesday, Dec. 3. He assured her that his government would do its best to prevent a war flaring up with Pakistan. But he also made it clear that India would have to retaliate militarily for the Mumbai outrage – not by a one-off operation but a string of raids against extremist Islamic terror groups operating from Pakistani bases. Among them were Lashkar e-Taibe, which is accused of the Mumbai assault, and Jaish e-Mohammed. Both are linked both to rogue elements in the ISI and al Qaeda.

Any further terror escalation, Singh stated, would be met with still stronger Indian military action

Foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee underlined this point after the American secretary's departure when he said that Indian officials are in no doubt that the Mumbai assailants came from Pakistan.

Singh also made it clear to his American visitor that India did not mean to hit government or military targets in Pakistan, but he refrained from offering any commitments on three points:


India prepares commando drops, air strikes, missile barrages


1. Should information be received of any Pakistani military installation harboring Islamic terrorists or providing them with logistic support, the Indian army would strike those installations unhesitatingly.

2. The Indian army would not limit its operations to any particular area but strike where it saw fit.

3. The Indian government offered no undertaking to notify Washington in advance of an operation or even share the intelligence prompting an incursion into Pakistan territory.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources have procured an outline of the tactics for these operations drawn up by India's strategic planners:

A. Indian special forces raiders will be flown in and dropped over terrorist command posts and sanctuaries inside Pakistan. Large-scale commando and air contingents will secure the raiders on missions against terrorist locations embedded in urban districts against local intervention.

B. Aerial bombardment of terrorist sites, even at the risk of dogfights with the Pakistani air force.

C. Missile barrages on bases and training installations of terrorist groups similar to the 1998 twin American attacks on al Qaeda installations in Afghanistan and Sudan.


New Delhi is in a hurry


It is hard to imagine president Asif Ali Zardari and prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani letting a missile blitz go by without ordering the Pakistani army to hit back; chief of army staff, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, would not stand for it and he would no doubt go ahead with a counter-attack in defiance of the politicians.

Already, our sources report that Zardari, Gilani and Kayani are at loggerheads.

The general disputes the government line which leans toward cooperating with the Indian investigation of the terrorist attacks. He wants Islamabad to stand up to New Delhi, flatly deny allegations of ISI implication and confront India with a troop buildup on their border. India should realize, he contends, that any military action would meet with armed Pakistani resistance.

D. Indian special marine forces would make seaborne landings at terrorist locations on the Pakistani coast, possibly by submarine.

E. Drones would use laser-guided missiles like the American Predators striking terrorist sanctuaries on the Pakistani-Afghan border.

F. Covert Indian death squads would liquidate high-profile terrorist leaders in Pakistani cities.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report that India's political and military leaders know that time is not on their side. They cannot afford to wait to go after Pakistan until after they have corrected the glaring blunders and failings revealed in the operation against the terrorists who held Mumbai to siege for three days because the public is too angry to brook delays. India is therefore preparing to go full ahead full tilt with military reprisals - even at the risk of igniting a major war conflagration with Pakistan.

Commando units expanded six fold

For now, India's war planners are focusing on the rapid, large-scale expansion of commando units until they have enough to carry out deep incursions into Pakistan while also defending the home front against more terrorist attacks. A six fold expansion has been approved.

Under consideration is a separate air wing on permanent standby for counter-terror forces to improve their mobility.

Also planned is an armed coastal defense force to seal India's shores against terrorist landings like the seaborne terrorist incursion of Mumbai. This is a vast enterprise given the length of India's coastline – 7,516 kilometers.

New Delhi is looking at two examples: the US Coast Guard, which protects American shores and ports but cannot seal them hermetically, and Israel, whose navy uses missile vessels and coastal radar to seal its shores.

India is also planning a new intelligence system after its Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) failed to sound the alarm of the coming assault on its financial capital.

All these projects demand many billions and time counted in years before a national security machine is standing and fully coordinated.

Fact box


India's special forces have six arms:

Para Commandos, an elite unit of the Indian Army;

The Marine Commando Force (MCF), special forces of the Indian Navy;

The planned campaign of retaliation against Pakistan will speed up the establishment of a blue-water intervention force capable of conducting covert operations and specialized warfare outside Indian borders. The framework is present but it is too small to meet India's post-Mumbai requirements;

Garud Commando Force, special Indian Air force units trained mainly in Special Forces tactics, Combat Search and Rescue, Counter Insurgency Operations and emergency responses to terrorist threats to airfields;

The National Security Guards (NSG), rated as one of the most professional units of its kind in Asia.

It fills the following functions: neutralization of specific terrorist threats to vital installations in any given area; handling hijack situations involving air or land piracy; engaging and neutralizing terrorists; and the rescue of hostages in kidnap situations;

The Special Frontier Force (SFF), an elite guerrilla unit originally composed mainly of Tibetan refugees trained to conduct covert operations behind Chinese lines in the event of another Indo-China war. It has since been converted to covert cross-border operations on any front as needed;

The Special Protection Group protects Indian VIPs, like the prime minister. Recruits include NSG commandos and police who receive similar training to that of the American Secret Service.
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sum
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by sum »

Interesting article but:
India prepares commando drops, air strikes, missile barrages


1. Should information be received of any Pakistani military installation harboring Islamic terrorists or providing them with logistic support, the Indian army would strike those installations unhesitatingly.

2. The Indian army would not limit its operations to any particular area but strike where it saw fit.

3. The Indian government offered no undertaking to notify Washington in advance of an operation or even share the intelligence prompting an incursion into Pakistan territory.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources have procured an outline of the tactics for these operations drawn up by India's strategic planners:

A. Indian special forces raiders will be flown in and dropped over terrorist command posts and sanctuaries inside Pakistan. Large-scale commando and air contingents will secure the raiders on missions against terrorist locations embedded in urban districts against local intervention.

B. Aerial bombardment of terrorist sites, even at the risk of dogfights with the Pakistani air force.

C. Missile barrages on bases and training installations of terrorist groups similar to the 1998 twin American attacks on al Qaeda installations in Afghanistan and Sudan.


New Delhi is in a hurry


It is hard to imagine president Asif Ali Zardari and prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani letting a missile blitz go by without ordering the Pakistani army to hit back; chief of army staff, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, would not stand for it and he would no doubt go ahead with a counter-attack in defiance of the politicians.

Already, our sources report that Zardari, Gilani and Kayani are at loggerheads.

The general disputes the government line which leans toward cooperating with the Indian investigation of the terrorist attacks. He wants Islamabad to stand up to New Delhi, flatly deny allegations of ISI implication and confront India with a troop buildup on their border. India should realize, he contends, that any military action would meet with armed Pakistani resistance.

D. Indian special marine forces would make seaborne landings at terrorist locations on the Pakistani coast, possibly by submarine.

E. Drones would use laser-guided missiles like the American Predators striking terrorist sanctuaries on the Pakistani-Afghan border.

F. Covert Indian death squads would liquidate high-profile terrorist leaders in Pakistani cities.
There has been no sign of any of these happening leading me to wonder if this is usual Debka BS?
sum
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by sum »

Is there any official/unofficial list of our agents(RAW/IB/xxx) being killed in action anywhere (like the CIA maintains a star for each KIA in their HQ lobby) ?

I only remember a report 5-6 years back where a IB official was assassinated using a bomb in a busy Srinagar road(of course, there was a article few months later stating that the perpetrators of that bombing were hunted down and hallaled at a different place).

Other than that, i do not remember any other incident/mention of any Indian operative KIA.
Aditya G
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Aditya G »

sum wrote:Is there any official/unofficial list of our agents(RAW/IB/xxx) being killed in action anywhere (like the CIA maintains a star for each KIA in their HQ lobby) ?

I only remember a report 5-6 years back where a IB official was assassinated using a bomb in a busy Srinagar road(of course, there was a article few months later stating that the perpetrators of that bombing were hunted down and hallaled at a different place).

Other than that, i do not remember any other incident/mention of any Indian operative KIA.
Thats a good question to ponder upon. Adding to that - do we have a record on which RAW/IB personnel have received a gallantry medal - during peace or war? IIRC Ajit Doval is recipient of Kirti Chakra ....

AFAIK Indian Army website's Vikas Regiment KIA list is the closest thing we have.
HariC
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by HariC »

take this with a bag of salt - long time ago i read a story about an indian RAW helicopter (ARC?) sent to rescue Mujib-Ur-Rahman of Bangladesh the day before his assasination, but a bomb placed in it exploded and it crashed killing the pilot. I remember the story was by an indian writer and the title went like 'tale of two helicopters' or something.
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Anabhaya »

The then PM had indeed sent a senior diplomat to warn Mujibur of an assasination attempt. The latter did not take it seriously I think.
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by somnath »

The then PM had indeed sent a senior diplomat to warn Mujibur of an assasination attempt. The latter did not take it seriously I think
Not a "senior diplomat". R N Kao, disguised as a sari seller(!) was sent to warn Mujib off - he didnt listen.. :cry:
sum
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by sum »

somnath wrote:
The then PM had indeed sent a senior diplomat to warn Mujibur of an assasination attempt. The latter did not take it seriously I think
Not a "senior diplomat". R N Kao, disguised as a sari seller(!) was sent to warn Mujib off - he didnt listen.. :cry:
:shock:

Thats why i put the Q on BR. IF all the info the veterans have is put here, almost 90% of our operatives will be covered,IMO!!!

Note: Evn the killing of the IB agent i had mentioned had come as an obscure article when it occurred stating that a shopkeeper was killed in a bomb blast in a shop. However, a few months later, a article appeared stating that the team behind the bombing on xx road in Srinagar which killed a IB man was eliminated. Hence, all news on our operatives is very,very obscure and can be noticed only if eagle eyed. I feel that the people who gave up their lves undercover need to be recognized(atleast in BR).
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by shyamd »

DNW analysis. Very interesting info about the undercover operation.
India Probes Mumbai Attack
Double Agents and SIM Cards

What happens when an Indian undercover agency, the Indian Intelligence Bureau - which fields only 400 counter-terror agents in a population of 1.1 billion - is out of sync with External Indian Intelligence RAW (India's equivalent of the America CIA) and another twelve or so services operating in India and abroad?

Not surprisingly, the result is a mess, such as the one that surfaced on Dec. 5, when Mukhtar Ahmed Sheikh, 35, originally from Indian-controlled Kashmir, was detained in Delhi.

Another man, Tausif Rehman, 26, was picked up in his home town of Kolkata (Calcutta), capital of West Bengal, earlier that day. Both were on the run.

Ahmed was accused of procuring mobile phone cards for Lashkar e-Taiba, the Islamist group accused of staging the bloody 60-hour Mumbai siege which left 171 dead.

His arrest might have been celebrated by the undercover agency as a big coup, except for a fly in the ointment: Ahmed turned out to be an undercover agent who had penetrated the Laskhar e-Taiba for the Jammu and Kashmir police. He had been handing out phone cards to terror operatives, so enabling Indian security forces to tap their conversations.

Ahmed did his best to explain this to the New Delhi police. They refused to check with their Jammu and Kashmir colleagues. Instead, they broke his arrest to the media as a success story. The agent's cover was blown as a result, his family jeopardized and Indian intelligence lost a valuable asset.



Phone cards planted on terrorists

The next police discovery was that suspects arrested in Kolkata had bought at least 22 of the planted phone cards under forged identifies and sent them to Pakistan.

So far, investigators of the Mumbai attack have traced five of the SIM cards said to have been used by the gunmen who perpetrated it.

Jawed Shamim, Kolkata's police commissioner said: "Our unconfirmed reports from sister agencies tell us that one of the SIM cards has been found in Mumbai. The cards enabled the gunmen to communicate with each other and their controllers in Pakistan, without giving away their identities or whereabouts."

The two suspects, according to Indian police, were confederates. Rehmen was Ahmed's Kolkata contact and logistical supplier of Lashkar e-Taiba. As such, he sold his Kashmir friend the SIM cards which Ahmed later handed round to its members for the police to monitor.

When Rehman realized the West Bengal police were on to him, he fled, alerting Ahmed on the way. After he was caught, he agreed to help the police trap Ahmed who had meanwhile reached Delhi. Following police instructions, Rehman called Ahmed, said his wife was desperately ill and he needed the money still owed him for the 22 SIM cards. He said he was sending two friends to pick it up and asked for Ahmed's address.

The friends who knocked on the Kashmiri's door were police officers.

But then came more questions.

Mukhtar Ahmed Sheikh was found by the arresting officers in the Jammu and Kashmir government's guest house in Delhi. With him was a J and K police sub-inspector. It was then confirmed that the arrested man was a counter-insurgency undercover agent whose contacts with terrorist organizations, particularly the Laskhar e-Taiba, had been useful for planting the SIM cards on its members.

As the police investigation unfolded, the identities of the two suspects began to emerge.

One double agent, one shady entrepreneur

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence and counter-terror sources were told that, notwithstanding vigorous Indian denials, Ahmed did indeed turn out to be a double agent who infiltrated Lashkar e-Taiba to help the Kashmir police's counter-terror effort, whereas Tausif Rehman was on the face of it an entrepreneur who turned a profit by flogging SIM cards to terrorists, intelligence agents, police, mobsters - or anyone with the right price.

The intelligence value of his phone cards depended on their place of origin. If they prove to have come from outside India, Rehman may not have been a small fry just making a buck after all, as the Indian police claim, but a more sinister cog in the terror machine.

The Times of India of Dec. 10 hinted as much in an article captioned: "City SIMs offer greater cover, say investigators. Why do terrorists across the country favor SIM cards from Bengal?

"This question has security agencies baffled," an Indian police officer confided to the newspaper: 'It helps to evade detection. Millions of local calls are made every hour and it is nearly impossible to keep tabs on them unless there is specific information about numbers that need to be monitored. In comparison, STD or ISD calls are fewer and may be under the scanner when there is an alert.

'Add to this the ease with which information can be passed if local SIMs are used. Anyone can walk into a PCO and make calls, Even if tapped, it would be impossible to nab the caller. He would be miles away before police reached the PCO,' said the officer."

The article ends with this telling paragraph:

"It has also come to light that authorities are on the lookout for details of a particular SIM that was obtained by Tausif Rehman who has been arrested for procuring a large number of SIMs in Kolkata in December 2006 in the name of his dead uncle Ashraf Numani. The SIM was procured from an outlet in Phears Lane and activated by a distributor on Sarat Bose Road on December 22, 2006. While other SIMs in Numani's name have been accounted for, this one has not been traced…"


Voice-over device keeps phone calls "under the scanner"

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources add: This and other leads have caused the Indian police and intelligence to look into the possibility of Rehman having been in contact with the terrorist group as early as two years ago, possibly through Ahmed. His cooperation with them may have extended beyond the sale of phone cards and given him access to Lashkar's plans, including the Mumbai attack.

According to some Indian sources, New Delhi's intelligence services monitored members' phone calls through the SIM cards and would therefore have been forewarned of the prospective siege of Mumbai.

Not necessarily, because of another twist to the mobile phone saga.

Nine of the cell phones found in the terrorists' possession after the attack were shown to have been rigged with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) devices. This gadget uses complicated digital codes to make calls harder to trace and tap by traditional listening technology.

It is too sophisticated for the rank-and-file jihadi to fit on his mobile. It was installed either by a professional undercover service such as Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), for the purpose of jamming Indian monitoring technology, or by professional technicians at Indian cell phone companies, who were sympathetic to Lashkar e-Taiba and willing to help the terrorists keep their communications "under the scanner."

One such company could be located in Bengal. It would answer the question posed by the Times of India: "Why do terrorists across the country favor SIM cards from Bengal?"

The Indian Mumbai investigation is meandering rather than pushing forward in a straight line because the intelligence and counter-terror bodies involved are often as much at pains to slide over their lapses as to expose the truth.

Aware of this
, Indian home minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, speaking in parliament Dec. 11 was moved to promise that measures would be pursued to fix the intelligence lapses and "logistical weakness" which were exposed by the Islamist terrorist siege of Mumbai.
[/quote]
Kumar_I
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Kumar_I »

I read this article today
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KA21Df02.html

i find it disturbing

I am intrested in the guy who wrote it Siddharth Srivastava a New Delhi-based journalist with email sidsri@yahoo.com

I found bio for this guy http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/_ds ... authID=821

can anyone share some info.
ramana
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by ramana »

You should post this in the Indian Non Response thread and not here.

Anyway to put you at ease. IA not ready to fight is a CBM to US about TSP being under no threat from India.
So relax its not real. The IA was not ready to fight as it never was asked to.
Kumar_I
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Kumar_I »

ramana wrote:You should psot this int eh Indian non Response thread and not here.

Anyway to put you at ease. IA not ready to fight is a CBM to US about TSP being under no threat from India.
So relax its not real. The IA was not ready to fight as it never was asked to.
I dont doubt IA, I want to know why Indian journalist writing such stories in Chinese site. Is he for real and Credible
Nikhil T
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Nikhil T »

New Rule:Govt. can requisition private aircraft during emergencies.

This puts protocol issues at rest for any future NSG operations. Good to see the move after nearly 2 months of the attack. Seems like PC is really getting the files moved in the Home Ministry.
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by k prasad »

nikhil_t wrote:New Rule:Govt. can requisition private aircraft during emergencies.

This puts protocol issues at rest for any future NSG operations. Good to see the move after nearly 2 months of the attack. Seems like PC is really getting the files moved in the Home Ministry.
Hadn't NSG been given this clearence long ago, after Akshardham??? I do remember them having been given authority to commandeer aircraft if need be.
sum
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by sum »

http://www.rediff.com/news/2009/jan/24k ... -chief.htm
K C Verma likely to be new R&AW chief

January 24, 2009 21:26 IST

K C Verma, currently advisor on security issues to Home Minister P Chidambaram [Images], is likely to be appointed as the next chief of the Research and Analysis Wing, also known as Secretary (R).

The development comes as a surprise, as it was earlier believed that the competition to head India's external intelligence agency after its current chief Ashok Chaturvedi retires on January 30 was between P V Kumar, the senior-most officer of the organisation after Chaturvedi, and Sanjeev Tripathi, another senior officer.

K C Verma is a 1971 batch IPS officer. Throughout his career, Verma served the country's internal intelligence agency (Intelligence Bureau). However, he is also a heart patient and not keeping perfect health.
So, the Chaturvedi stranglehold on RAW is broken?

Is Mr Verma a Gandhi loyalist since he seems to have served in the IB throughout(maybe in the political wing) and the supreme leader of India(Madame SG) is rewarding him like MKN was rewarded?
VinodTK
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by VinodTK »

Cross posting the question/clarification from the nuclear thread:

As Indian PM has under gone hart surgery and in the hospital who is in-charge of India's nuclear command?
What are the processes in place to pass on the required information and codes to his successor? Specially with
current standoff with Pak since the Bombay tragedy?? As far as I know this is the first time since India has openly declared itself as a nuclear power the PM of the country is incapacitated
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Nikhil T »

VinodTK wrote:Cross posting the question/clarification from the nuclear thread:

As Indian PM has under gone hart surgery and in the hospital who is in-charge of India's nuclear command?
What are the processes in place to pass on the required information and codes to his successor? Specially with
current standoff with Pak since the Bombay tragedy?? As far as I know this is the first time since India has openly declared itself as a nuclear power the PM of the country is incapacitated
Ram Bharose. A responsible Govt/Pol Party would have had a succession plan but Mrs. Gandhi with her strong anti-Pranab bias can't see him emerge as a power centre. She utilizes him in all-back channel diplomacy and negotiations but can't give him the formal powers. So now you see
*Vice-Prez Ansari getting the bravery award functions
*Pranab getting to head the Cabinet Committee on Pol Affairs and the Finance Min (note:just because the Vote on Account is due and number crunching is required)
*Defence Min Anthony getting to preside over R-Day (should've been the seniormost minister ! Cong's excuse is that R-Day is a defence function!! -wow, I thought it was a national holiday ...In that case what is the Kazakh Prez coming for??).
*Anthony and Pranab to be at Amar Jawan Jyoti

If only Mrs. Gandhi was still in Italy...sigh...
Muppalla
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Muppalla »

K C Verma likely to be new R&AW chief

K C Verma, currently advisor on security issues to Home Minister P Chidambaram [Images], is likely to be appointed as the next chief of the Research and Analysis Wing, also known as Secretary (R).

The development comes as a surprise, as it was earlier believed that the competition to head India's external intelligence agency after its current chief Ashok Chaturvedi retires on January 30 was between P V Kumar, the senior-most officer of the organisation after Chaturvedi, and Sanjeev Tripathi, another senior officer.

K C Verma is a 1971 batch IPS officer. Throughout his career, Verma served the country's internal intelligence agency (Intelligence Bureau). However, he is also a heart patient and not keeping perfect health.
Vikram_S
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Vikram_S »

Anabhaya wrote:The then PM had indeed sent a senior diplomat to warn Mujibur of an assasination attempt. The latter did not take it seriously I think.
mujib was wolf in sheeps clothing so no big loss
Vikram_S
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Vikram_S »

nikhil_t wrote: If only Mrs. Gandhi was still in Italy...sigh...
biggest disaster for india has been this unscruplous woman getting control of grand old party of india, INC party and treating it like own property :(
Vipul
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Vipul »

currently advisor on security issues to Home Minister P Chidambaram [Images], is likely to be appointed as the next chief of the Research and Analysis Wing
Sigh the practise of the Mantri appointing his favorite Bureaucrat to important department continues....

he is also a heart patient and not keeping perfect health
The more the things change,the more they remain the same (No where is the saying more true then in India).
Yogi_G
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by Yogi_G »

http://www.dailypioneer.com/152231/Adva ... lysts.html

Advani meets security experts and analysts

PTI | New Delhi

Lack of modernisation of armed forces due to non-procurement of equipment, need for proactive diplomacy to counter Pakistan and lacunae in intelligence gathering were some of the major issues discussed in the meeting between senior BJP leader LK Advani and leading security experts and analysts on Saturday.

"Many participants expressed serious concern at equipment deficiencies in the armed forces and the long and tardy procedures followed for procurement of equipment and stores," BJP General Secretary Arun Jaitley told reporters.

The experts felt that controversies raised in recent years had further compounded the problem. It was suggested that a procurement set-up should be devised "which is immune from political pressures and take decisions based on holistic considerations".

Today's meeting was the third of such kind that Advani is holding with experts from different fields. The earlier meetings were with captains of industry and farmers' leaders.

The meeting was attended by top retired defence personnel like Air Chief Marshal AY Tipnis, Air Chief Marshal Krishnaswami, Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi, Admiral Arun Prakash, Lt Gen JFR Jacob, Air Marshal DC Dhyani, former IB director Ajit Doval, former Punjab DGP KPS Gill, former RAW Chief CD Sahay and defence expert Brahma Chellani.

It was also suggested in the meeting that a "one-command structure" should be installed for quick reaction against attacks like 26/11 before the Crisis Management Group takes over.
sum
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by sum »

Link
Pranab to control the 'nuke button' till PM recovers

A day before PM got admitted into AIIMS, he gave the Nuclear Command Authority powers to Pranab Mukherjee.

New Delhi: A day before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh got admitted into AIIMS for his heart-bypass, he signed a document delegating the vital Nuclear Command Authority powers to External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee. Besides, the PM appointed Mukherjee as the Finance Minister till he is fully recovered to take the charge back.

Contrary to reports, the so-called nuclear button was handed over to Pranab as soon as the decision to go for surgery was taken by the PM. However, the decision to put Mukherjee as head of Finance was taken after discussions with Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
ASPuar
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by ASPuar »

Another ATS case. Seems an IPS officer turned drug dealer. Caught with 12 Kilos of heroin in Mumbai.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Citi ... 030366.cms
Senior cop held with 12 kg heroin


25 Jan 2009, 1748 hrs IST, IANS

MUMBAI: The Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Sunday arrested an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer from the Jammu and Kashmir cadre with over 12 kg of heroin, a top official said.

Shajji Mohan was nabbed early Sunday with the drug consignment, estimated to be worth Rs.1.20 million in the domestic market and over Rs.120 million in the international market - from a posh location near Raheja Classique, in Oshiwara, a north-west Mumbai suburb, Mumbai ATS chief K.P. Raghuvanshi told mediapersons.

Mohan was arrested following a tip-off given by a constable of Haryana police, Rakesh Kumar and one Vicky Oberoi. The duo was arrested Jan 17 with 1.50 kg heroin by the ATS, the official said.

Their interrogation revealed that a large consignment of drugs was expected to be delivered by "a senior officer" soon in the same area.

"Acting on the information, ATS sleuths posed as customers and successfully managed to nab Mohan," Raghuvanshi said.

"Apart from the drugs consignment, police have also recovered a laptop and some CDs from Mohan," he said.

Belonging to the IPS batch of 1995 in the Jammu and Kashmir cadre, Mohan was the zonal director - Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Chandigarh. He was transferred recently to Mumbai as deputy director in the Enforcement Directorate, Mumbai.

Raghuvanshi said that when Mohan was the ZD-NCB Chandigarh, he had seized around 30-35 kg of heroin. He had manipulated the figures of the seizure and attempted to siphon off the narcotics in the open markets.

Mohan was produced before a magistrate this afternoon and remanded to police custody till Jan 30, Raghuvanshi said.

About the larger ramifications of the case, Raghuvanshi said: "We will investigate whether Mohan and his accomplices are linked to drug cartels in Mumbai and elsewhere, and the whereabouts of the remaining quantity of the missing drugs."
sum
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by sum »

Why is the ATS involved in Narcotics investigations?

Does their charter include Narcotics tracking( since it might involve terrorist funding)?
VinodTK
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Re: Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Post by VinodTK »

sum wrote:Link
Pranab to control the 'nuke button' till PM recovers

A day before PM got admitted into AIIMS, he gave the Nuclear Command Authority powers to Pranab Mukherjee.

New Delhi: A day before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh got admitted into AIIMS for his heart-bypass, he signed a document delegating the vital Nuclear Command Authority powers to External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee. Besides, the PM appointed Mukherjee as the Finance Minister till he is fully recovered to take the charge back.

Contrary to reports, the so-called nuclear button was handed over to Pranab as soon as the decision to go for surgery was taken by the PM. However, the decision to put Mukherjee as head of Finance was taken after discussions with Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
This is very odd. one would think proper protocols would be in place and the PM would have to
follow them, rather then signing a document to hand over control. What if one of the PM's in the future do not want to give the
authority to some one else, thinking the they will be back to power in few days/hours.
Worst case would be the PM gives the control to whom he/she likes instead of a designated successor.
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