5 January 2016

Pathankot terror attack: Too many holes in the intelligence-security ecosystem, say experts

http://www.firstpost.com/india/pathankot-terror-attack-too-many-holes-in-the-intelligence-security-ecosystem-say-experts-2569372.html
by Tarique Anwar Jan 4, 2016

New Delhi: Even as the government refuses to admit any lapse on the part of security and intelligence agencies in the terror attack at Punjab’s Pathankot airbase, doubts have started circulating over the fool-proofness of the intelligence-security ecosystem in the country. Defence experts and former top servicemen feel the attack is the result of the failure of the “entire system’’. Till news came in last, seven Indian security personnel had died in the attack and there’s still no clarity on whether more terrorists are holed up at the base.

The questions that are being raised are many: How can a pinpointed intelligence input – if any – be ignored? Why was the perimeter of the Pathankot airbase not secured despite warnings? How is it that the first information of the armed infiltration given by a Punjab Police officer who was abducted by the terrorists disbelieved? How is it that another infiltration takes place along the very same nullah by which the previous attack had come only recently? What was the Border Security Force doing? Where are surveillance equipment and night vision devices? Why was the National Security Guard (NSG) sent in when the Army has a crack Special Forces unit nearby at Nahan? Why was Delhi trying to micromanage when it clearly lacks the competence?

“India has not learnt any lesson from previous operations carried out by Pakistan against us. We shout for two days and then it is the business as usual. It is a shame,” Major General (retired) Satbir Singh told Firstpost.
How can this operation, he asked, be called a professional operation when the terrorists managed to come 25 km inside near the area where we have vital air assets and seven people were killed in 36 hours and 20 seriously injured. “It means our intelligence agencies are not working at all. There is no co-ordination. There is no actionable intelligence,” he alleged.

When reminded the Intelligence Bureau (IB) had given prior inputs, he replied, “The responsibility of the IB does not stop after merely issuing alerts. Its responsibility is to ensure that actionable intelligence goes all over. And mind you, I am not isolating military when I said it was the failure of all intelligence and executing agencies. The entire system has failed.”
The Army veteran refuses to accept the assault is a terror attack. He says it is a military operation by Pakistan. “The nation has been defeated by terrorists of Pakistan. So, they are not terrorists. It is a military operation against us by ISI and the Pakistan Army. You (the government) have permitted the terrorists to enter our territory and kill so many people,” he said.

Asked if he sees any trend in the recent attacks in Punjab, he added, “The visible trend is the Pakistani terrorists are shifting their target from the Valley to Punjab as they are finding it (the state) an easy target. They are finding laxity, lack of coordination and seriousness and ineffectiveness of local commanders.”

According to him, it is high time that there should be standard operating procedure that whenever such an attack takes place, the local command of all operations and forces in the sector should be automatically assumed by the senior most military officer. This operation should have come under the local Army GOC instead of New Delhi.

Air Vice Marshal (retired) Kapil Kak also shares the same opinion. “You (the government) had specific inputs 24 hours in advance that Punjab is going to be struck, why was security of vital installations was not beefed up? You did not coordinate well enough to prevent terrorists from getting inside the airbase. You got 24 hours. It takes only six hours to deploy a battalion around the perimeter. Had they been deployed in time, the terrorists would have never dared to climb the wall and cross the concertina wire and get inside. Had there been action in time, seven lives would have been saved,” he said.

The police, he said, had 24 hours after the terrorists killed a taxi driver Ikagar Singh on Friday and injured Rajesh Verma, the friend of Gurdaspur SP Salwinder Singh, in the morning hours of 1 January. Between 11:30 am and 1 pm, the terrorists spoke to their handlers. From 1 pm to 3 am next morning, they were around Punjab for full 15 hours in Army fatigues. “Where were the police? They knew the last position. So, the police and decision making at the highest level were below par because they had all the time, security forces to decide to protect the airbase. There could have been three-layer security. This is a disaster at the strategic level,” he further added.

He questioned the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s wisdom of sending the National Security Guard at Pathankot. “What are you fiddling around with the NSG; what is it going to and against whom? There is a brigade in Pathankot. Why were its battalions not used?” he asked adding “it is not the duty Air Force to protect it from outside. Their job is to see the place is secure, the aircraft are serviceable, and they can fly when required and to ensure infrastructure inside. They provide only security inside the airbase and for this purpose, they rely on retired Army jawans who constitute what they call Defence Security Corps (DSC) – which are not a counter terror force. They are like chowkidars (watchman) in uniform. They are not trained take on intruders and therefore, five of them were killed”.

Referring to Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehershi’s statements where he kept repeating that the IAF lost seven men. “See, Delhi does not even distinguish between one and the other. The fact is the IAF and the NSG lost their one officer each. Four DSC guards were apparently gunned down in their mess and one DSC jawan was killed after he killed a terrorist. A man who doesn’t even know the line up of our own forces is quite clearly not up to the job,” he added.

Adding that attacks after attacks are a worrisome trend, he adds, “We will have to now watch Jaish in the frontline. It is getting more and more active in Kashmir where Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen used to be earlier. “The attack in Kupwara sector was also their action. They then targeted military camp there and now airbase here. Gurdaspur attack also a handiwork of Jaish-e-Mohammad.”

Kak strongly disagrees with Maj. Gen. Singh who says the Pakistan Army and the ISI are involved in the attack. “The Pakistan Army or the ISI do not have a hand in this incident. Though it goes against the grains of public opinion in India, but I say it very openly and with firmness. I don’t say it in psychological or instinctive terms but in analytical term,” he said.

This, he says, is a very strange India-Pakistan cooperation on terror. This is not as a result of planning but as a result of threat they face. Pakistan faces threat of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which carried out a similar attack on PN Naval Base in Mehran in 2011 and subsequently on Kamra airbase in 2012. Fortunately, Jaish was not able to succeed here because there was some sort of coordination problem they had.

“Pakistan sits on fire when it says it has no control terrorists because it knows where Jaish founder Maulana Masood Azhar and his whereabouts in Bahawalpur. It knows where he stays and moves around. So, clamp down on Jaish which is also threatening you in collaboration with the TTP,” he added.

Ashok K Behuria, research fellow at Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, feels that the terror attack is aimed at unsettling the dialogue process between the two nations. “I would say that this was pretty much expected. One should not be surprised about this. What surprises me is the lack of preparedness on our part. I would have expected our authorities to be little more prepared for this kind of act. This spoiler act was very much on. In fact, the script had been written when the Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed Lahore,” he added.

“There is a very powerful constituency in the Pakistani military which does not want better relationship with India and it has become an existential charter of the Pakistan Army. It may not be thinking directly along this line that if we do this, Army will lose its power but this has become in a way very deemed of the Pakistani Army. The army is not happy with the efforts of civilian government led by Nawaz Sharif to engage in talks with India and that is what showing up. It has been shown earlier also. If you look at the trend right from November 2008 till date, a civilian government has taken a step forward and there has been a spoiler act. It was clearly visible in the way the Pakistan has behaved. If tomorrow somebody tells me that the LeT, Jaish. HuJI or any other terror outfit are acting on their own, I won’t believe because it is deliberate attempt by the Pakistan military to scotch the talks. So, there is no second thought about it,” added Behuria, who has expertise on Politics and Society in Pakistan, India-Pakistan Relations and Kashmir and Sectarian Diversity in Pakistan.

They are trying, he said, to take this war to different theatre because they know that Indian Army is better prepared in the valley. “I imagine it that they are doing it with twin purposes – it is a weaker area security point of view and it is easier to infiltrate into and indulge in acts of terror there. Second, there is parallel effort to resurrect Punjabi militancy. The diaspora Punjabi Sikh community are being wooed by the Pakistani intelligence agencies. So it could not be a twin effort or kill two birds with one stone, it could be kill three birds with one stone – one, demonstrate the weakness of the Indian military; two, hold the talks; and three revive or encourage the Sikh militancy in the state to gain grounds again. One thing remains very clear that in spite of this trend clearly visible in front of our eyes, we could have been a little wiser in anticipating such an attack and guarding against the act,” he added.

Prof Ajay Darshan Behera, coordinator for Pakistan Studies at the Academy of International Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia university, raises question on the ill-informed operation by the security forces. “Yesterday, there was news that all terrorists have been neutralised but today, the operation continued with so many casualties. I think there is something terrible in the way they have handled the entire operation as well as media management. Why so much information is being given out about the operation when you do not know what actually happened? It is a very sensitive case because the government is trying to move ahead with talks and you have a completely different picture of a terrorist attack,” he said.

The increasing infiltration is one of the reasons behind repeated attacks in Punjab. There are information that infiltrators are managing to enter the country through the routes taken by smugglers to cross the international border. Importantly, the infiltration is easier in Punjab than in Kashmir.

“But I also strongly feel that the attacks are planned and though through. They wanted some major damage like blowing up aero plane etc and therefore, they had chose Pathankot (which is considered India’s first line of defence against Pakistan),” he said.

Asked if such attacks are aimed at reviving insurgency in the state, he replied in no. “Any insurgency is very difficult to be revived until there is a cause. Therefore, it is nearly impossible to revive any movement in Punjab. Kashmir keeps on burning because there is some resistance and its infrastructure but in Punjab you do not have that kind of situation. Pakistan cannot really build a movement in Punjab,” he concluded.

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