US, UK should pressurise Pak to close terror camps:Chidambaram

London: Pakistan’s “friends” like the US and the UK should persuade it to close terrorist training camps operating there, Home Minister P Chidambaram has said.

In an interview to BBC, he also said that the civilian government in Pakistan has not moved towards reining in the ISI and likened terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba to al-Qaeda.

Chidambaram, on an official visit here, said things would be better “if there is a truly civilian government in Pakistan which can rein in the ISI and direct the army and the ISI to move in and dismantle their terror infrastructure”.

“The camps must be closed. Training must come to an end”, he said.

To a question whether he has seen any movement in that direction in Pakistan, Chidambaram replied “nothing so far”.

Asked what he believed would persuade Pakistan to do that, he said, “the UK, the US know the answer to that question better. Certainly, we have not been able to persuade
Pakistan. It is Pakistan’s friends, mutual friends, who would have to bring pressure on Pakistan.”

Chidambaram said it would be “naive” for Western countries to think that only India faces the threat from Pakistan-based terrorists.

“Once you allow these terror groups to train, recruit and be able to build capacity to strike, they can strike in India, they can strike in UK, they can strike in Denmark as they were planning out of the Karachi project”, he said.

“No country is truly safe….Don’t think that India alone is under threat. Every country is under threat from these groups and the Lashkar-e-Taiba today is like the al-Qaeda, a multi-country group”.

About his reading of what happened in Pune, Chidambaram said, “Pune was a case where it slipped through the cracks.

Pune was a target. There was specific intelligence shared by the Central government with the Maharashtra police and the government. The area, Koregaon park was under a security cover.

“Three times advisory was given to German Bakery and its manager’s acknowledged the advisory on every single occasion but they did nothing. They did not even take the minimum security precautions. So, it is an unfortunate case that I would say slipped through the cracks.”

He added, “As I said in Parliament, it’s a blot. But the lesson is that when there is intelligence, pointed intelligence and advisories are issued, people must cooperate.
shops, establishments, hotels, malls must take minimal security precautions.”

Asked what had he learnt from Pune about the connection to Pakistan, the Home minister said, “Nothing so far has been brought to my notice.”

To a question if he knew where the plot originated from, Chidambaram replied, “I don’t know. The investigation is on.
Unless it is complete, I can’t comment on it.”

Cyber attacks worry firms more than terrorism

When it comes to threats, natural or man-made, Indian companies have rated cyber security as a major concern. In the light of increased cyber attacks, over 42 per cent of enterprises perceive cyber crime as a bigger threat than terrorism, crime and natural disasters.

This was one of the findings of ‘2010 State of Enterprise Security Study,’ a global study carried out by Symantec Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd., where Indian companies from sectors such as telecom, hospitality, manufacturing, retail and technology participated.

“Indian enterprises are experiencing frequent cyber attacks and the losses incurred due to them are escalating. In the past 12 months, 66 per cent of the companies experienced cyber intrusions and 51 per cent of them reported repeated attacks, while 34 per cent have experienced high number of malicious hits. On the other hand, 31 per cent said there were internal attacks as well,” said Vishal Dhupar, managing director, Symantec Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd., at a press conference here on Tuesday.

Also, each cyber attack had a financial impact, as organisations reported loss of revenue. “Apart from financial loss, companies will have to put up with damaged brand reputation, loss of customer trust. The average revenue lost by companies due to the virtual attacks was recorded at Rs. 58.59 lakh in 2009.” Interestingly, with IT security becoming a daunting issue for enterprises, the study pointed out that implementation of enterprise security is turning into a difficult task.

“Enterprise security is understaffed and the most affected areas in organisations are network security, web security and data-loss prevention. To tackle the issue, companies need to secure their messaging and web environments and defending critical internal servers. They should also have the ability to back up and recover data and respond to threats rapidly.”

To overcome such threats, companies should develop and enforce IT policies to secure data breach in anyway possible. “By prioritising risks and defining policies, companies will not only be able to identify threats but also come up with remedies. Also, they should know the location of sensitive information and how it’s coming or leaving the organisation. Companies should be able to monitor and report their systems status and be ready for any kind of threat.”

India and Saudi Arabia to ink extradition treaty

Terrorism will be high on the agenda of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his three-day visit to Saudi Arabia from Saturday when the two countries will sign an extradition treaty.

Singh will be the first Indian PM to visit Saudi Arabia after 28 years, the last one undertaken by Indira Gandhi in 1982.

The Prime Minister will hold talks with King Abdullah on a number of bilateral and regional matters of mutual concern and also address the influential Shura Council.

The talks are also expected to focus on Palestine, besides the situation in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

With both countries concerned over the rise of extremisim and violence, security cooperation is likely to figure prominently during the talks.

Both India and Saudi Arabia are aware of the connectivity of extremist forces that have sanctuary and safe havens in the Af-Pak border area and are seeking to penetrate other countries of the region.

New Delhi is concerned about the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia is perturbed over the stepped-up al Qaeda operations from Yemen.

The two countries will sign an extradition treaty, a number of MoUs and agreements on transfer of sentenced persons, scientific and technological cooperation, peaceful use of outer space and cooperation in the IT sector.

http://www.quicoo.info/index.php?c=420

Role of IM not ruled out in Pune blast

Pune / Press Trust of India
Investigators were today piecing together clues to unravel the identity of terror group behind the Pune bomb blast and the role of Indian Mujahideen (IM) is not being ruled out, as India renewed the demand for access to US terror suspect David Headley.

No arrests have been made in the attack in which officials said the deadly RDX and Ammonium Nitrate were suspected to have been used.

Two foreigners – Italian woman and an Iranian male student – were among the nine persons killed in the first strike since the Mumbai carnage on November 26, 2008.

* Terror strikes Pune; 9 killed, 32 injured
* Headley link to Pune bakery blast
* Pune blast “significant terror” act: PC

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reviewed the situation with Home Minister P Chidambaram in New Delhi following the bomb blast at German Bakery yesterday and directed the Centre and the Maharashtra government to take coordinated and effective action to speedily investigate the matter. Chidambaram ruled out any intelligence failure in the attack.

When asked if IM was involved, Pune Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh said, “We can’t say anything right now.”

Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba has previously helped IM carry out some of the terror attacks in India.

Chidambaram visited the site of the attack after which he dismissed any “intelligence failure” and said the terrorists have hit a “soft target”. Maharasahtra’s Anti Terrorism Squad formed four investigating teams to probe the Pune blast.

He held a high-level meeting in Delhi to review the security situation following which a red alert was sounded in cities like Kanpur, Indore and the national capital.

The meeting also analysed the speech made by Hafiz Abdur Rahman Makki, leader of terror outfit amalgam Jamaat-ul-Dawah, at the Kashmir Solidarity Day conference held in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir on February 4 in which he had mentioned about attacks on Indian cities including Pune.

Chidambaram said India must be allowed to have a detailed interrogation of Headley, a Pakistani-American who is is in US custody for suspected involvement in Mumbai terror attack.

No comment on talks

Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna declined to comment on the fate of the February 25 Foreign Secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan in the wake of the Pune bomb blast.

“I am not going to talk about the talks right now. Let us wait for the report (of the investigative agencies) first,” Krishna told reporters in Chennai when asked whether the Pune blast would have any impact on the dialogue.

Terming the blast as “most tragic and unfortunate”, Krishna said, “We will resist the forces of terrorism resolutely and with firmness and determination.”

He said, “We are well aware that the dark forces of terrorism are against peace and amity between nations. It is most tragic and unfortunate that they have struck again leading to a loss of innocent lives.”

Chronology of terror attacks in India

New Delhi / Press Trust of India
Following is a chronology of some recent major terror attacks in the country:

Mumbai, Nov 26, 2008: Over 170 people died and several others injured in coordinate serial explosions and indiscriminate firing across Mumbai including the crowded CST railway station, two five star hotels – Oberoi and Taj.

Assam, Oct 30, 2008: At least 77 killed and over 100 injured in 18 terror bombings across Assam.

Imphal, Oct 21, 2008: 17 killed in a powerful blast near Manipur Police Commando complex.

Malegaon, Maharashtra, Sep 29, 2008: Five people died after a bomb kept in a motorbike went off in a crowded market.

Modasa, Gujarat, Sep 29 2008: One killed and several injured after a low-intensity bomb kept on a motorcycle went off near a mosque.

New Delhi, Sep 27, 2008: Three people killed after a crude bomb was thrown in a busy market in Mehrauli.

New Delhi, Sep 13, 2008: 26 people killed in six blasts across the city.

Ahmedabad, July 26, 2008: 57 people killed after 20-odd synchronised bombs went off within less than two hours.

Bangalore, July 25, 2008: One person killed in a low-intensity bomb explosion.

Jaipur, May 13, 2008: 68 people killed in serial bombings.

January 2008: Terrorist attack on CRPF camp in Rampur kills eight.

October 2007: 2 killed in a blast inside Ajmer Sharif shrine during Ramadan, in Rajasthan.

August 2007: 30 dead, 60 hurt in Hyderabad terror strike.

May 2007: A bomb at Mecca mosque in Hyderabad kills 11 people.

February 19, 2007: Two bombs explode on board a train bound from India to Pakistan, burning to death at least 66 passengers, most of them Pakistanis.

September 2006: 30 dead and 100 hurt in twin blasts at a mosque in Malegaon.

July 2006: Seven bombs on Mumbai’s trains kill over 200 and injure 700 others.

March 2006: Twin bombings at a train station and a temple in Varanasi kill 20 people.

October 2005: Three bombs placed in busy New Delhi markets a day before Diwali kill 62 people and injure hundreds.

Intelligence official: US believes Mehsud is dead

U.S. counterterrorism officials believe Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is dead following a missile attack last month, a senior intelligence official said Wednesday in the strongest signal that Washington has offered about the militant’s fate.

 Neither Pakistan nor the U.S. has officially confirmed the death of Mehsud, who commands an al-Qaida-allied movement that is blamed for scores of suicide bombings and is suspected in a deadly attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan late last year.

 Mehsud’s death would be the latest successful strike against suspected terrorists by the U.S. and its allies. The U.S. has recently stepped up attacks from unmanned aircraft in Pakistan, and a closer collaboration with Yemen has led to recent airstrikes there. President Barack Obama highlighted the increasing success of such attacks in his State of the Union address last week.

 The U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters, said the conclusion that Mehsud is dead represents the best collective information of U.S. intelligence agencies. Since the attack, authorities have said they were growing increasingly confident Mehsud was dead. The official would not say what evidence the U.S. had gathered.

 The statement came after days of posturing by Pakistani Taliban officials, who first said they would prove their leader was alive and well, then reversed course and said they saw no need to prove it.

 The attack by a U.S. drone came after Mehsud appeared in a video alongside the Jordanian suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees at a remote base in Afghanistan. The bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, said he carried out the attack in retribution for the death of former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in a U.S. drone strike last August.

 Baitullah Mehsud’s death gave leadership of the Pakistani Taliban to his deputy, Hakimullah Mehsud, a 28-year-old with a reputation as a particularly ruthless militant.

 He has taken responsibility for a wave of brazen strikes inside Pakistan, including the bombing of the Pearl Continental hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar last June and the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore earlier that year. There is a $590,000 bounty on his head.

 U.S. drones are piloted remotely and can be controlled from local bases or from the United States. Though the program is officially a secret, the attacks are well publicized. They are Washington’s only known military response to al-Qaida and Taliban militants along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

Recruitment of Americans by al-Qaeda sparks alarm in US

Three dozen Americans have converted to Islam in prison and have travelled to Yemen for possible terrorist training with al-Qaeda, raising alarm among U.S. officials.
The American administration is on “heightened alert because of the potential threat from extremist carrying U.S. passports and the challenge is in detecting and stopping home-grown operatives,” according to a new report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
These new moves of al-Qaeda profiled by the committee come as U.S. has designated Yemen-based Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) as a terrorist organisation and slapped sanctions on its leaders.
Two top leaders of the AQAP — Nasir al-Wahishi and Said al-Shihri — too have been designated as terrorists by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the State Department said.
The U.S. is also approaching the U.N. Security Council to slap sanctions on AQAP and its leaders.
Despite some heavy blows, al-Qaeda is not on the run, U.S. law enforcement officials told the committee. They said that al-Qaeda has expanded its recruitment efforts to attract “non-traditional followers and adopt its operation to new environment“.
Several of these new recruits have then “dropped off the radar for weeks at a time” and continue to carry U.S. passports and this radicalisation of individuals has alarmed officials.
The report said al-Qaeda’s recruitment pattern has changed from recruiting militants amongst Arabs, Afghans and Pakistanis and the group is now seeking to recruit American citizens to carry out terrorist attacks in the U.S., West and outside.
The document says there is also concern about another group of 10 Americans in Yemen who have converted to a fundamentalist form of Islam and married Yemeni women.
A top U.S. intelligence official referred to these men as “blond-haired, blue-eyed types” fitting the profile of Americans that al-Qaeda would like to recruit.
In a letter accompanying the report, the committee’s chairman Senator John Kerry said “these groups seek to recruit American citizens to carry out terror attacks in the U.S.”
Al-Qaeda forces in Yemen have emerged as a threat to the U.S. by the failed Christmas bombing of a U.S. airliner in Detroit and the shooting spree by a Muslim Army Major in Fort Hood Texas base.

Virginia varsity runs serial blog on 26/11

 

Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel guarding Mumbai’s Arthur Road jail where trial of the the lone survivor of the Mumbai attacks, Ajmal Kasab, is taking place

 

The four-part blog by a Virginia University alumnus, a multimedia journalist who covers conflicts around South Asia, on Virginia Quarterly Review (VQR) website would run through Thursday.

“Sixty Hours of Terror: Ten Gunmen, Ten Minutes”, a serial blog covering the Nov. 26 terror strike in Mumbai, has started running on a Virginia University website to mark the first anniversary of the worst terror attack in India.

The four-part blog by Virginia University alumnus, Jason Motlagh, a multimedia journalist who covers conflicts around South Asia, on Virginia Quarterly Review (VQR) website would run through Thursday.

Mr. Motlagh made multiple trips to Mumbai, interviewed survivors, pored over pages and pages of police records, reports in the Indian media and transcripts of intercepted phone communications between the gunmen and their handlers, and watched video from closed-circuit security cameras, VQR said.

“New journalism”

The online report is more than 19,000 words long and features 24 unpublished photographs of the attacks and aftermath. Mr. Motlagh’s work fills in the absence of “a single, thorough accounting of what exactly had happened on those fateful days”, editor Ted Genoways writes in the introduction.

Mr. Genoways said publishing Mr. Motlagh’s “amazing piece of original journalism” was a milestone for VQR.

“We soon hit upon the idea of something that would be closer to literary non-fiction than traditional journalism — or even ‘new journalism’ This would not be the story of Jason’s journey in the wake of disaster, but a straightforward narrative of what happened in Mumbai,” Mr. Genoways said.

The first instalment recounts the attacks at five sites in the city and describes the Lashkar-e-Taeba (LeT) or the “Army of the Pure” behind these and other fatal incidents where dozens of people have been killed and hundreds injured.

The Pakistan-based terror group claims it wants to “liberate” Kashmir from India and expand an Islamist state, including Pakistan.

VQR, a national journal of literature and discussion, was founded at the University of Virginia in 1925. Over the years it has published the work of such luminaries as H.L. Mencken, Bertrand Russell, Katherine Anne Porter and D.H. Lawrence.

Recent issues have featured essays, stories, poems and art by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Rita Dove, Cormac McCarthy, Adrienne Rich and Art Spiegelman, among others.

Seven security personnel among 17 killed in Pakistan violence

AP Pakistani rescue workers and police officers stand next to the wreckage of a rickshaw at the site of a suicide bombing in Peshawar, Pakistan on Monday.

Seventeen people, including six soldiers and a policeman, were killed on Monday when Taliban militants targeted security personnel with a suicide bombing, rocket attack and a roadside blast in restive north-western region, the officials said.

 

A suicide bomber blew himself up near a police post in Pakistan’s north-western city of Peshawar, killing at least three people.

A policeman, who had stopped a motorized rickshaw in which the attacker was travelling, was among the dead, Peshawar police chief Liaquat Ali Khan said.

Five people were wounded in the blast, which took place on a street leading to the main Ring Road in the capital of North-West Frontier Province.

The attack came a day after a suicide bomber killed an anti-Taliban mayor and militia leader and 12 other people at a cattle market on the city’s outskirts.

Peshawar has been hit by a string of attacks in recent weeks. More than 110 people were killed when a car bomb hit a crowded market last month.

The strikes were being seen as the Taliban’s response to Pakistan’s offensive against militants in the South Waziristan tribal district near the Afghan border.

The security forces were consolidating their position after expelling militants from their many strongholds, facing Taliban still offering resistance in some areas.

Four soldiers died and one was injured when the Islamist insurgents targeted a security post with rockets in Makeen. In retaliatory fire, eight militants died, said an Army statement on Monday.

With the latest killing casualties, the over-all death toll on the Taliban side in South Waziristan has reached 486, as against the 46 soldiers died in the combat.

The casualty figures cannot be verified independently because the conflict zone is closed to journalists.

Separately, an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) exploded near an Army vehicle in another tribal district of Bajaur, killing two troops.

One troop was also injured in the explosion that took place in Salarzai area of the district.

Al Qaeda training camps go mobile

 Washington: Under growing pressure from US missile strikes, the Al Qaeda terror network is relying more heavily on local insurgent groups along the Pakistan border to house training camps that are growing smaller and more mobile, according to counter terrorism officials.

 The changes in the terror group’s training operations – often hidden inside walled compounds deep in Pakistan’s mountains – have made them increasingly difficult to target by US intelligence forces as they have stepped up drone attacks over the past year.

 While the training still includes forays into deserted hillsides to practice planting and detonating explosives, al-Qaida trainers are now also taking their instruction on the road, moving temporary training operations from compound to compound, where fellow insurgents welcome them.

 The attacks on the camps, which have become an integral part of the Obama administration’s war against the terror group, also risk civilian casualties – which in turn have inflamed anti-American sentiment among the Pakistanis, critical allies in widening the anti-terror campaign.

 The camps took on a heightened profile in recent months as US investigators probed the case of accused New York terror suspect Najibullah Zazi. The Afghan emigre reportedly flew to Pakistan late last year and traveled to Peshawar, in the northwest frontier, where he received training on weapons and explosives.

 Counterterrorism officials estimate that Zazi is one of 100 to 150 westerners who have gone to the Pakistan border region for terror training in the last year.

Though transnational Al Qaeda remains based in Pakistan

Osama bin Laden led Al Qaeda though remains transnational, is basically based in the tribal areas of Pakistan from where it is plotting attacks against the America and its allies, a ex US navy official has said.

Not only this in another dangerous development, Al Qaeda has now teamed up with the Pakistani Taliban in recent attacks in Pakistan and India as well, said Rick “Ozzie” Nelson, a former Navy helicopter pilot with over 20 years operational and intelligence experience, including assignments at the National Security Council and the National Counterterrorism Centre.

“Al Qaeda remains intent on attacking the United States and our friends and allies across the globe.”

The organisation maintains transnational reach but is rooted in Pakistan’s semi-governed tribal areas,” Mr. Nelson said in his testimony before Congressional hearing on Afghanistan.

Mr. Nelson, currently is Senior Fellow, International Security Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies – a Washington-based think tank “On a more immediate level al Qaeda operatives in Northwest Pakistan are believed to have teamed with other militant groups including the TTP, in recent attacks in Pakistan and India.

“Al Qaeda off shoots remains active beyond South Asia.”

Al Qaeda in Iraq gained notoriety for its brutality during the early stages of the Iraq war. While its influence has subsided it still threatens regional stability in the Middle East.

Mr. Nelson said Al Qaeda, despite certain setbacks, remains global in scale and determined to attack the US.

“The epicentre of its power lies in Pakistan’s semi-governed tribal areas,” he said adding that it is important to appreciate how this fact relates to Afghanistan.

“We should require that the US invaded Afghanistan to defeat Al Qaeda, but asking one policy analyst why US and NATO forces remain in Afghanistan today and you’re likely to see a flurry of different responses.

Defeating the Taliban, stabilising the rebuilding of Afghanistan, and maintaining American credibility are just a few of several reasons given in addition to counterterrorism for our continued presence in the country, he said.

“These are all laudable goals, but the White House must ensure that combating global terrorism generally and Al Qaeda specifically remains a strategic anchor in Afghanistan.

Framing American interests in this fashion will lead us to ask important questions of the various strategies now being debated, he said.

Referring to the spate of terrorist attacks against Pakistan in the last one year, he termed it as dangerous and said FATA haven serves as a primary base for Al Qaeda’s global terrorist agenda.

“These developments are troubling, not just because they endanger a nuclear armed regime, but because the US is largely powerless to combat the threat without Pakistani support.

Virtually Pakistan’s military has just become a 30,000 troop – south in Al Qaeda and Taliban controlled territory south Waziristan, the type of campaign that US policy makers have long sought,” he said.

“As Pakistan confronts extremists Northwest, we must careful to ensure that any US troop increases do not push insurgents in Afghanistan across the border.

This would effectively heighten extremist activity in the FATA and make Islamabad’s mission even more difficult,” he said.

“Indeed, in meeting with General Petraeus and Senator Kerry earlier this week, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani asked the US and NATO Forces restrict militant infiltration from Afghanistan into Pakistan.

In the end any regional strategy which shores up Afghanistan while destabilising Pakistan will detract from our goals of combating terrorism,” Mr. Nelson said.