By: Seema Sirohi
Counter terrorism cooperation just moved to the top of the India-US agenda with the announcement of a new al-Qaeda wing in the Indian subcontinent and the continuing brutalities of ISIS.
The upcoming meeting of President Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi later this month will be a good time to talk honestly and establish a deeper trust on the subject. The enormity of the challenge leaves no other choice.
Whether the two leaders can strike a real chord is irrelevant. What’s important is to talk shop, especially the new terrorist ones that need to be monitored and ultimately shut down.
Fortunately, Obama is coming out of his cerebral world to deal with the gritty one where marauding terrorists keep women as slaves and behead innocents. Whether he can steer this new world disorder to a safer place is a big question.
Secretary of State John Kerry is travelling to Jordan and Saudi Arabia this week to discuss the ISIS threat. The key would be for the royal kingdom to make a serious effort to block private donations from the region to al-Qaeda related groups in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Rest are empty words.
India should consider joining the evolving coalition of countries in some capacity to help in the effort.
Nine nations, mostly western, have formed a "core" group to try to defeat the ISIS. An Indian presence would ensure that "all" terrorist groups are targeted and not just those who threaten the West.
The growth and inter-linkages – obvious to those who suffered before 9/11 but not to the Americans and British – demand a comprehensive strategy.
Modi-speak might help, especially about where a big part of the problem actually lies. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda chief, who threatened jihad in India via a tape released last week, is believed to be in Pakistan. But somehow US drones haven’t found him.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA expert on South Asia, has written several articles over the last three years referring to Zawahiri living under Pakistan’s protection programme.
In his most recent, published last week, he minces no words: "Zawahiri made the tape in his hideout in Pakistan, no doubt, and many Indians suspect the ISI is helping to protect him. Zawahiri has longstanding links to LeT and to (Hafiz) Saeed."
This is the key – al-Qaeda lives and thrives in Pakistan. Osama bin Laden wasn’t found in Switzerland but in a Pakistan army town. He was protected by a network of jihadi outfits sponsored by the ISI.
Zawahiri’s "I-am-still-here" announcement has elicited two analytical responses: a) an aging, losing jihadi group is trying to counter the lure of ISIS, the new murderous kid on the block, and b) Indian Muslims cradled by democracy are unlikely to answer the call in worrying numbers.
While both assessments are correct, they unwittingly diminish the seriousness of the threat because they ignore the fact that the most-favoured terrorist rest stop is India’s neighbour to the West. A largescale attack on India can’t occur without logistical support and guidance by Pakistan’s ISI and its terrorist proxies.
Zawahiri’s "vistarvad" of a new franchise targeting India, Bangladesh and Myanmar works as a ruse to give Pakistan deniability and dull the ISI fingerprints and its assorted band of jihadists if they launch an attack.
Riedel advocates "threatening to place Pakistan on the State Department list of states sponsoring terrorism" to deter any future planning. But no such resolute step is imaginable today in Washington.
No doubt, the US intelligence has been helpful to its Indian counterparts in years following the 2008 Mumbai attacks. There is always scope for more sharing of information in real time. On the Indian side, we need a more honest conversation about the lure of jihad, not the self-satisfied insistence that it can’t infect our secular fortress.
(The writer is a Washington based analyst)
