TERM PAPER (S6024): LASHKAR-E-TAIBA, THE NOVEMBER 26th ATTACKS ON MUMBAI AND INDIA'S RESPONSE

The Lashkar-e-Taiba (translates: Army of the Righteous) is a major terrorist outfit, based out of the city of Muridke near Lahore in Pakistan. The unit is known to operate on the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism and is one of the most active terror groups in South Asia because it aims to pursue several causes like the freedom of Kashmir from India. It is also persistent in bringing down Western targets in the region, because it operates in collusion with other major terror organizations like Al-Qaeda.

Because of the role the Lashkar has played in conducting major terrorist attacks in the region (like the guerrilla-style operation on the city of Mumbai in India for over 60 hours, beginning 26th of November 2008 that killed 183 people 1) and its involvement alongside the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, another dreaded terrorist outfit in the region, in attacking India's seat of government the Parliament in New Delhi in 2001 that led to one of the region's largest military standoffs between India and Pakistan. In effect, one of the Lashkar's major objective has always been to provoke India into a major war with Pakistan that can offset the country's economic rise and curb its clout in the region. Being the only liberal democracy in a volatile neighbourhood, India remains in the top tier of the listing of targets of various terrorist organizations, both external and internal.

The Lashkar was founded by three men Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam and Zafar Iqbal in the Kunnar province of Afghanistan in 1990 2. Of these, Hafiz Saeed is credited with

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A Dossier of proof made public by India http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/world/asia/07india.html?_r=1 Reference: South Asian Terrorism Portal: Profile of Lashkar-e-Taiba http://satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/jandk/terrorist_outfits/lashkar_e_toiba.htm

being the standout leader under whose guidance the Lashkar undertakes it's missions. It has several other commanders like Abdul Rehman Makki (believed to be second in command, as of today) and Zaki-ur-Rehman-Lakhvi who is believed to be chiefly responsible for organizing the Mumbai attacks of 2008. It is believed that most of the Lashkar's leadership is based out of the Punjab province in Pakistan and runs state-of-the-art militant camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir where the organization posts radicalized young men for advanced terrorist training.

Most Lashkar camps operated in mainland Pakistan but were eventually re-located to Azad Kashmir (a term used for PoK by the leadership of the Lashkar) to direct energies towards the liberation of Kashmir (the Kashmir jihad) from what the Lashkar's leadership terms as the wrongful occupation of the state by India. This has, however, not deterred the Lashkar from also retaining focus on attacking Western targets in the region, primarily those of the United States. It is believed the Lashkar's activities in the region are largely successful because it enjoys complicit state support and also maintains strong ties with Pakistan's intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The Western world and India have responded to the Lashkar's threats by imposing international and national bans on the organization. The United States, the United Nations, India, Pakistan and the European Union have all declared the Lashkar as a major terrorist threat and have banned the organization. The United States Treasury has imposed sanctions on Lashkar's leaders and the Government of Pakistan froze its assets in 2002 after international pressure following the attacks on the Parliament of India 3. While this is official public knowledge, doubts remain over the Pakistan government's actions against the LeT simply because of the influence that the Pakistan Armed Forces and the ISI have over the democratic civilian government. It is impossible for any terrorist

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The National Counter-Terrorism Center's Calendar Of Terrorism 2012 http://www.nctc.gov/site/pdfs/ct_calendar_2012.pdf

organization to operate with the kind of freedom the Lashkar does, without state support.

There are further complications involved in taking countermeasures against the Lashkar as it often functions under the shadow of it's public charity and humanitarian relief organization, the Jamaatud-Dawa. The complicit state support, together with the distractions of the JuD which has in effect been involved in several humanitarian relief campaigns in Pakistan following natural disasters, makes it immensely challenging for even powerful states like India and the United States to take decisive action against Lashkar. This is also to say that states, especially India, are vastly guilty of irresolute action against the LeT themselves, despite being influential in the region politically and carrying the powers afforded to them by their liberal democratic setups. India has largely failed to tackle the threat of these groups, and it is immensely significant for India to do this even outside the purview of specific terrorist attacks.

While countermeasures taken against terrorist groups in terms of bans can be effective in terms of issuance of global alerts, prohibition of sale of arms/weaponry and freezing/blocking of funds through international banking corporations that enable them to undertake their operations, it is possible for these groups to emerge with new nomenclature but retain the ferocity and intensity of the pursuit of their causes. For example, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa was banned by the United States and the United Nations but was later tracked to have emerged under the name of 'Tehrik-e-Tahafuz Qibla Awal (TTQA)'. It is worth assuming that an organization as accomplished as the Lashkar-eTaiba can foresee actions like imposed bans, given the fact several terrorist outfits before them have been banned by international organizations and influential world powers in the past. The formal term used for banning terror organizations is 'proscription'.

Countries like the United Kingdom have in accordance with anti-terrorism acts in their Law have detailed proscription and believe that terrorist groups are eligible to be proscribed if they 1) participate in a terrorist act 2) They are known to prepare for terror strikes 3) They encourage terrorism in public and 4) involved in terrorism in any related form. If these criteria are met, the country looks deeper into specifics involving groups in conducting terror acts within the mainland or on citizens of the country outside the mainland 4. There are further categorizations of terror groups, as many terror groups can be front organizations (like the JuD for the LeT) and not necessarily be directly involved in terror attacks.

It is naive to believe that these actions can break terror groups down, because there is always the possibility of state support which makes much of the above actions taken meaningless because of sovereignty of states. Hence, many countries like the United States have believed in direct military action and elimination of terrorist training camps which are located through detailed studying of areas in regions like Pakistan and Afghanistan that are suspected to be guilty of basing these camps.

India has taken no decisive military action against the Lashkar-e-Taiba, largely because of its long-term policy of strategic restraint. India believes in engaging in military action only in selfdefence (like flushing out the terrorists that occupied several Mumbai landmarks during the attacks in November 2008) and also imposing the Rule of Law on captured terrorists. However, this is not necessarily a positive because many a times plans of action are held back due to the rigours of India's coalition politics in its stable but chaotic democracy. Hence, like all major countries and4 United Kingdom Home Office http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/counter-terrorism/proscribed-terrorgroups/proscribed-groups?view=Binary

international unions listed above, India has resorted to imposing structural bans on the Lashkar-eTaiba and other terrorist groups. These actions were taken under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967 5.

It is worth mentioning that India has had one legislation aimed at taking stricter action against captured terrorists or suspected terrorist organizations and sleeper cells of organizations based outside India. This is the Prevention Of Terrorist Act 2002, which was enacted by the Parliament of India as response to but not only because of the attack on the Parliament which is suspected to have involved Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists. This act was issued under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government under Atal Behari Vajpayee. It was repealed in 2004 6 after the United Progessive Alliance (UPA) came to power under the Prime Ministership of Dr. Manmohan Singh.

The POTA does hold direct significance vis-a-vis the Lashkar because the High Court of Mumbai sentenced three Lashkar terrorists to death for their involvement in the twin taxi blasts in Mumbai in 2003 7. The three accused are Lashkar operatives Ashrat Ansari, Hanif Sayyed and his wife Fahamida Sayyed who were judged to be involved throughout the planning and execution of the attack. The death sentences were upheld in a recent ruling by the High Court 8. There has been no progress on this case since the confirmation of the death sentence.

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NIA website http://www.nia.gov.in/acts/The%20Unlawful%20Activities%20(Prevention)%20Act,%201967%20(37%20of%201 967).pdf PRS Legislative Research http://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/vikas_doc/docs/acts_new/1167485217_THE_PREVENTION_OF_TERRO RISM.pdf Times of India reporting on the death sentences. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-0210/india/31045354_1_india-and-zaveri-bazaar-ashrat-ansari-mohammed-hasan-batterywala The Asian Age reports the upholding of death sentences. http://www.asianage.com/mumbai/hc-confirms-death-3lashkar-612

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When the Lashkar-e-Taiba attacked Mumbai in November 2008, India's response was meek in comparison to the scale and severity of the attacks. India employed a policy of Strategic Restraint (a reflection of its historical military doctrine 9) in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks and chose to not initiate anything militarily, of the type the United States did following the September 11 attacks in 2001. India resorted to coercive diplomacy against Pakistan, which India believes is the origin of the attacks. This involved a lot of diplomatic pressure in terms of forcing Pakistan to act against terrorists. India's actions have shown little to no results because key Lashkar leaders like Hafeez Saeed have often been seen giving public speeches in major Pakistani cities like Lahore.

India also attempted to draw international attention to these facts and even made public the dossiers of proof of complicit state support from Pakistan to Lashkar. Internationalizing an issue has been a historical Indian way of conducting foreign affairs. This was a form of indirect action India took in a policy largely based out of wishful thinking that it may not need to escalate its response if Pakistan itself was willing to arrest and take significant action against those proven guilty of involvement in the attacks.

From the Indian side, the country's law enforcement did manage to capture one terrorist alive, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, who has since become the most illustrious face of the entire Mumbai operation with television visuals in national and international news media often picturing and quoting him. Upon interrogation of Kasab by Indian intelligence, it was further revealed that there was involvement from the ISI in the demeanour and logistics for the Mumbai attacks and it has also come to knowledge through intercepted audio recordings by Indian intelligence that the ISI

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Stephen Cohen & Sunil Dasgupta http://www.iias.nl/sites/default/files/IIAS_NL60_36.pdf

and Lashkar's commanders conducted the entire operation from Pakistan. The central planner is believed to be Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, who was part of the founding group of the Lashkar. He was aided by a mysterious 'Major Iqbal' 10, one of several clandestine Lashkar operatives considered to be involved in the attacks. Lakhvi is currently under the arrest of Pakistan's armed forces, but no decisive action has been taken against him and the Government of Pakistan has always asserted that he would be tried under Pakistani law and would not be handed over to India or for international trial at any cost.

A key Lashkar operative who engaged in important pre-attack reconnaissance missions to Mumbai is David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American citizen born in Washington D.C and based out of Chicago in the United States. Headley's role in the Mumbai attacks has been deemed far more complicated than that of the other operatives or even of those directly involved in the attacks. It is suspected that he could've been as much as a quadruple agent 11, having worked for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration before becoming involved with the Lashkar and the ISI and eventually becoming a key ingredient in the attacks on Mumbai.

While negotiations with Pakistan, interrogations of those captured/involved in Pakistan and India and international pressure from countries like the United States continue to remain the central responses from India in the post-Mumbai attacks scenario, it is fair to conclude that the attack was an out-and-out success story for the Lashkar-e-Taiba who combined two key aspects of any terrorist attack radicalized, well-trained, unflinching men driven to commit brutal murders and effective

10 Indian Express report on Major Iqbal http://www.indianexpress.com/news/major-iqbal-used-us-number-to-talk-toheadley-in-india/803542/ 11 Headley: A Quadruple Agent - South Asia Analysis Group http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers36%5Cpaper3552.html

penetration of fear in terms of both the number of people dead and those who survived or were witness to the audacity of the attacks. It is a characteristic of any terror attack that apart from the number of people dead in these attacks, there must be a significant settlement of fear around the city and the country which has been attacked. The Lashkar managed to accomplish all of this and key men behind the attack continue to live freely.

Another attack that were equally intense and effective, with exception to the number of people dead or injured (12 in the case of this attack 12), was the joint attack on the Parliament of India in New Delhi in December 2001 by the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed. The JeM is yet another jihadi organization that operates in and is determined to free Kashmir from Indian administration. The attack on India's Parliament led to one of contemporary history's most intense military standoffs between India and Pakistan. The attack on the Parliament did have similarities in operation in terms of its fundamental idea armed gunmen opening fire in key places with an intention to inflict maximum damage in terms of lives and property lost. Several LeT and JeM operatives were tried and sentenced to prison terms while a key planner Mohammed Afzal Guru was sentenced to death. This attack can also be deemed a huge success as India's then NDA government did claim after the attack that intelligence failure was a major reason the attacks took place.

Hence, if we do assume at this point that both the Lashkar and India are two warring entities engaged in a sort of permanent conflict with each other, then it is fair to conclude that the Lashkar has managed to inflict epochal damage on India and in comparison, the fact that the Lashkar

12 BBC News Report on the Parliament Attack http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1707865.stm

operates successfully with the same organizational and military prowess in Kashmir and Pakistan today is nothing but a reflection of India's abysmal failure in tackling the largely underrated threat of an organization deeply committed to harming India in a variety of ways. There are several reasons for the Lashkar's success and India's failure in dealing with it, and both sets of reasons are manifestly interdependent.

The first of those reasons is India's incomprehensible failure to respond to both external and internal intelligence handing over key information about potential threats to central and state governments in India and its various law enforcement agencies. To deal effectively with determined terror outfits like the Lashkar, responses to threats of attacks have to be on par with responses to any attacks themselves. It is understandable that states have to be far more alert to terror attacks as terrorists are successful the moment they strike while states have to be on the guard on a permanent basis.

Secondly, India's domestic politics based largely on coalition dharma dampen responses. It is no secret that political resolve is a key factor in determining how a country responds to all threats, with terrorism being a key one particularly in the case of India. However, India's central government is largely dependent on smaller, regional allies that brought it to power in the first place and is often found distracted from its strategic goals. This can actually serve as added motivation for terrorist organizations and as is proof from the Lashkar's successes, they have indeed used these state weaknesses to their advantage.

A third reason is the effectiveness of the way the Lashkar-e-Taiba operates. As can be observed from the Mumbai attack, the Lashkar managed to send a boat carrying highly-trained men with much ease through India's coastal backwaters that harbour the Western states of Gujarat and

Maharashtra. From the Parliament attack of 2001, it can be observed that the Lashkar and the JeM had logistics and resources a terror 'cell' - in place in New Delhi that was used as a launchpad for the attack on Parliament. This points to an evident well-networked infrastructure in place at its headquarters in Muridke. This also points to India's failure at monitoring its large coastline effectively, despite possessing one of the world's strongest naval forces.

There are a variety of countermeasures available to any state for taking action against such wellorganized attacks, let alone India. Since it is the duty of a state to protect its people at any cost, India should have considered implementing a doctrine termed 'Cold Start' 13. The idea of the Cold Start doctrine is that India's armed forces will engage in military action against certain identified targets within hours of an attack on its mainland. The attack would happen in the form of small units of military forces, which would move to destroy targets with the utmost speed and efficiency and return to base. India officially denies possessing such a doctrine and it is also believed that the doctrine is aimed at dealing with a military threat from a state and not from a terrorist group. This is largely in keeping with the external aggression India faced from Pakistan during the Kargil War in Jammu & Kashmir in 1999. However, India's intelligence in collusion with its military can work out a limited action doctrine targeting known terrorist camps outside its territory. Even if action is limited, what it can do is send out a warning which can be effective because many of today's war doctrines are based on deterrence.

Apart from external action which should be minimal as it must not escalate into a full-fledged war with a rival state (especially a nuclear one like Pakistan), the attacked state can work to strengthen its own intelligence networks and appoint special committees with knowledgeable intelligence

13 A Cold Start For Hot Wars? http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/IS3203_pp158-190.pdf

experts to assess why the current setup failed. Guerrilla-style attacks like Mumbai in particular deserve serious introspection on why the current internal security setup failed to react when alerted about being attacked. It points to a lack of robustness in the current security agencies in dealing with threats and to an overall lack of strategy in dealing with terrorism. Modern terrorism is far too advanced to be dealt with bit-part methods as has been the trend with India's weak-kneed responses. Countries known to respond effectively to terrorism like the United States and Israel only do so because of having plugged every hole in their counter-terrorism setups. It is important for a state to even collaborate with other states' intelligence as globalized terrorism requires globalized intelligence coordination. Agreements with states standing to mutually benefit from sharing intelligence are a necessity.

The Government of Maharashtra, the state of India whose capital is Mumbai, appointed a high-level enquiry committee called the R D Pradhan Inquiry Commission to study the reasons why the attack was successful and determine actionable steps to avoid such a large-scale disaster in the future. While the entire contents of the report tabled by the Commission has not been made public by the state government, it has come to notice that state government setup that deals with intelligence is highly unprofessional 14, with senior government officials mostly leaving 'junior desk' officers to deal with intelligence reports that come through from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB), India's premier intelligence agency. The failure is even more piteous because the city of Mumbai is prone to terror attacks and has an excruciating history of having been targeted far more often than any other major city in India. It is hence clear that failure to learn from past terror attacks reflects poorly a country's counter-terrorism strategy and India has made little advances in that aspect of security policy.

14 Times of Indiahttp://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-12-02/india/28085705_1_control-room-intelligencereports-vinita-kamte

As a response to India's failures in both preventing the attacks to take place and responding to them after they've taken place, India's Parliament passed a National Investigation Agency Bill in December 2008 15. The National Investigation Agency, an agency similar to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States in it begin a central investigative agency was set up in 2009 to deal with investigating large-scale terrorist attacks. India's other major legislation under the UPA government, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act was also further strengthened with the idea of tackling terrorism. It is difficult to offer an affirmative assessment of the success of these attacks largely because the findings of the committee appointed to assess its impact having not been made public, but since 'Mumbai 26/11' (the misnomer now often used in research papers, national and international media) garnered international attention because of it having been essentially a multipronged attack on India with further aims to take lives of maximum Western nationals (particularly those of the United States and Israel) since Mumbai is a major cosmopolitan hub.

The attacks on India's Parliament in 2001 and in Mumbai in 2008, undertaken by the Lashkar-eTaiba, are largely deemed as successful by the international media because they involved the loss of several lives, damage to property, further escalation of volatile tensions between India and Pakistan, were foreseen by intelligence interceptions but not acted upon, sparked international condemnations from most countries in the world including influential states like the United States, United Kingdom and China, and most importantly evoked emotions of fear and panic in a large population. It is imperative of a country's establishment to respond to and pre-empt further strikes so as to avoid continual state failure in dealing with determined terrorist organizations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and several others operating out of India's neighbour to the West.

15 Rediff News http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/17mumterror-nia-bill-passed-in-lok-sabha.htm

The Lashkar itself continues to operate by itself and through its front organizations like the JuD with the same vehemence and tenacity that saw it successfully oversee such large-scale terrorist strikes and its leaders are active in their communities, hence asserting the fact that the jihadi network in Muridke and the Kashmir region is ever-present. It calls for strategic vision, enhanced and well-equipped military forces, well-networked intelligence and political resolve to comprehensively deal with an organization like the Lashkar. It is also highly likely that an organization like the Lashkar-e-Taiba will only make further gains in the jihad based out of Kashmir and more dangerously, make strides in the direction of Al-Qaeda's global jihad.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Storming The World Stage: A Story Of Lashkar-E-Taiba by Stephen Tankel The Caliphate's Soldiers: The Lashkar-e-Taiba's Long War by Wilson John Lashkar-e-Taiba: From 9/11 to Mumbai by Stephen Tankel http://www.ps.au.dk/fileadmin/site_files/filer_statskundskab/subsites/cir/pdffiler/Tankel_01.pdf National Counterterrorism Center http://www.nctc.gov/site/map/index.html

US Department of State Country Report on Terrorism http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2011/195549.htm A Strategic Framework for Countering Terrorism and Insurgency http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/notes/2005/N3506.pdf