OSAMA BIN LADEN: An Update
B.Raman
The New Delhi Police announced on January 19,1999 the arrest of Syed Abu
Nasir, a Bangladeshi national, who is allegedly a member of the Lashkar-e-Toiba
(the Army of the Pure), the armed wing of the Pakistan-based Markaz Dawa
Al Irshad (Centre For Preaching), and recovery from him of two kgs
of RDX explosive and some detonators.
He was reported to have told the Police that he had entered India from
Pakistan via Bangladesh in October,1998, along with 6 others—4 from Egypt
and one each from the Sudan and Myanmar—to organise explosions outside
the US Consulates in Calcutta and Chennai around January 26,1999.He
gave the names of the Egyptian nationals as Mustafa, Ibrahim al Hazaraa,
Ismail and Zainul Abideen, of the Sudanese as Lui and the Myanmarese
national as Hafeez Mohammad Saleh.
According to the Police, Abu Nasir (apparently an assumed name) said that
all of them first reached Calcutta from Bangladesh and then proceeded to Chennai. Abu Nasir alone thereafter came to New Delhi leaving behind
the others in Chennai. The Police are searching for them and, at the time
of the recording of this update, there is no news of their arrest.
Press reports of the Police version have also alleged that the suspects
“are believed to be close associates of Osama Bin Laden” and that they
had “ active assistance and guidance from the ISI to blow up the US consulates.”
The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is the military-controlled Pakistani
external intelligence agency.
The Washington correspondent of “The Hindu” of Chennai (January 22), quoting
a US State Department spokesman, has reported that US security experts
are already in India for discussions with their New Delhi counterparts
and for gathering more facts.
Media reports indicate that while US security experts are taking the development
seriously, they are at the same time skeptical of insinuations of
ISI involvement. The Pakistan Government has also strongly repudiated the
insinuations.
It would have been better for the New Delhi police to collect more facts
and verify them instead of rushing to the media with their conjectures
and theories which, if proved wrong by subsequent investigation, could
add to the doubts in the minds of international security experts about
our professionalism and credibility.
Claims of ISI involvement do not stand to reason unless it is the involvement
of some rogue elements in the ISI without the knowledge of their superior
officers and the political leadership. All indications from Pakistan are
that the Pakistani political leadership as well as senior levels of the
Pakistani security bureaucracy are themselves seriously embarrassed
by and concerned over the activities of Bin Laden and would be happy to
be rid of him.
At a time when Pakistan is badly dependent on the US support for a rescue
package from the IMF to prevent an economic collapse and trying to persuade
the US to resume its past military supply relationship with Pakistan, it
would be foolhardy for its political leadership or security bureaucracy
or both to get involved in any projects directed against US lives
and property.
All indications from Pakistan are that the Nawaz Sharif Government, while
overtly maintaining that the Bin Laden affair is a matter between the US
and the Taliban of Afghanistan in which Pakistan has no role to play, is
covertly co-operating with US security experts in their efforts to have
Bin Laden smoked out of Afghanistan.
What is significant about the development is the indication of the suspects
belonging to the Lashkar of the Markaz Dawa Al Irshad. The Markaz and its
Lashkar have had a close relationship with Bin Laden for over a decade
and have been supporting his campaign against the Saudi ruling family for
allowing Western, particularly US, troops into Saudi Arabia, thereby allegedly
desecrating the Muslim holy land.
In the past, Bin Laden had financially helped the Markaz and the Lashkar
and financed the construction of a mosque and a guest house inside the
complex of the Markaz at Muridke in Pakistani Punjab.
Of the various Islamic organisations of Pakistan, the
Markaz, its Lashkar,
the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (formerly known as the Harkat-ul-Ansar), and the
Sipah-e-Sahaba have become members of Bin Laden’s International
Islamic Front For Jihad Against the US and Israel, formed in May,1998.
The Sipah-e-Sahaba is a purely Pakistani Sunni organisation with
no foreign cadres. Its activities are confined to Pakistan and Afghanistan
and mainly directed against the Shias. While being verbally critical of
the US and supportive of Bin Laden, it has not so far indulged in any ground
activity against the US.
The Markaz, its Lashkar and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen have an international
cadre of Jihadists with experience of ground operations in Afghanistan,
Tadjikistan, Xinjiang, Chechnya,Bosnia, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar
and the Southern Philippines. Possibly in Thailand too, but one is
not certain.
In India itself, the presence and experience of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
have till now been confined to Kashmir and possibly Himachal Pradesh. Indications
till now are that of all the Pakistani organisations forming part of Bin
Laden’s Islamic Front Against the US and Israel, only the Markaz
and its Lashkar have cadres and experience of terrorist operations in other
parts of India too.
Before May 1998, the Markaz and its Lashkar had designated India and Israel
as the principal enemies of Islam, but after the US bombings of Afghanistan
in August,1998, they have included the US also in their enemies’ list and
have been calling for a jihad against the US too in which they have called
upon the Muslim citizens of the US too to join.
Addressing the annual congregations of the two organisations at Muridke
( November 4 to 6,1998), Prof. Mohammed Saeed, their Amir, said that all
evil in the world emanated from the White House which would be blown up
by the Muslims. He expressed the determination of his organisations to
have the flag of Islam planted in New Delhi, Tel Aviv and Washington.
Thus, if the Markaz and its Lashkar want to plan an operation against US
interests, either on their own or at the instance of Bin Laden, India could
very well be their first choice as suitable terrain.
Worrying from the point of view of counter-terrorism experts of not only
the US , but also other countries should be recent indications that the
Taliban, which had imposed certain restrictions on the movements and activities
of Bin Laden after the US bombings, has since lifted them. He has again
been allowed to travel to other parts of Afghanistan, give interviews
to foreign journalists uttering threats against the US, acquire agricultural
land for fruit cultivation and start business ventures for the export of
olives and other fruits grown in his orchards in the Jalalabad area of
Afghanistan.
Thus, the Taliban seems to be determined to defy pressure from Pakistan
and Saudi Arabia to at least control his activities and from
the US to hand him over to the US authorities for trial.
In January every year, the Counter-Terrorism Division of the US State Department
prepares and submits to the President its report on the patterns of global
terrorism in the previous year, with its recommendations regarding any
revisions in the list of State-sponsors of international terrorism. The
report with the President’s decision is then placed before the Congress,
generally when it re-assembles after Easter.
An important thrust of this year’s report is likely to be the activities
of Bin Laden from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s support to him. Important
questions for presidential decision would be: Should the US declare Afghanistan,
whose Taliban Government it does not recognise, as a State-sponsor of international
terrorism or should it confine itself to declaring the Taliban as a terrorist
organisation without any action against the State of Afghanistan? Should
the US, in addition, declare the Markaz and its Lashkar too as terrorist
organisations?
With the recently reported withdrawal of UNOCAL, the US oil company, from
the consortium for the construction of an oil and gas pipeline network
from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan, a clear-cut US decision
on the subject would have been hopefully made easier.
22-1-99
(The writer is Additional Secretary (Retd),
Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and presently Director, Institute
For Topical Studies, Chennai.)
