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| India-Pakistan |
| 'Despite crackdown, terror network intact' |
| 2008-09-28 |
| A massive crackdown on IM-SIMI activists and arrest of a number of them across the country for their alleged role in several recent blasts may have dented their capacity but a larger network remains in place and can be activated by a fresh leadership. Strategic think tanks and intelligence officials claim there are hundreds of activists who can be used for terror-related activities and who can still carry on with their covert war against India. "While the Indian authorities have arrested many of these people, there are still others, perhaps hundreds of them, still on the loose," says Stratfor, a leading US-based strategic think tank, also known as the "shadow CIA". The arrests of senior SIMI leaders do not appear to have affected the larger SIMI network's operational ability. It pointed out that in the immediate aftermath of the first round of arrests, the "tempo of militant activity seems to have increased following the arrests of Nasir, Nagori and others". Saturday's attack in Mehrauli, within two weeks of the serial bomb blasts in the national Capital that had killed 26 and left hundreds injured, reinforces some of these assertions. The desperation of jihadi outfits is such that they seem unmindful of being intercepted in busy market places, virtually dumping bombs amid high alerts. Some could be taking the help of local criminals in terms of logistics. The concerns were also reflected in a security review meeting, chaired by Union home minister Shivraj Patil, on September 14 (a day after the serial blasts in Delhi) when Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief P C Haldar himself explained as how it was difficult to reach each and every terror module of the outfit which enrolled a number of local people in every city having a substantial figure of Muslim population. Haldar is learnt to have mentioned that the modules of IM which were busted in the wake of the Ahmedabad blasts did not throw much light on other sleeper cells which might be there waiting to strike after getting command from top -- the structure (organizational) of which is still unknown. The modus operandi of terrorists is similar to Bangladesh-based outfits that employed similar tactics in 2005 when 400 bombs went off in a synchronised terror attack in that country. B Raman, former RAW official, says some terror groups like LTTE, Taliban, Kashmiri terrorist outfits, Maoists and Ulfa of Assam use both regular weapons and IEDs. Others like al-Qaida have tended to prefer IEDs and suicide bombers even as they do engage in fighting. |
| Posted by:Fred |