Indian Investigative Reporter Exposes RAW's Covert Ops Against Neighbors

In a new book titled "RAW: A History of India’s Covert Operations", Indian investigative journalist Yatish Yadav has essentially confirmed some of what India's neighbors have suspected for a long time. Yadav has added to the revelations contained in a earlier book titled "Mission R&AW" written by ex Indian spy RK Yadav.

Indian RAW in Afghanistan:

Yatish Yadav has revealed that Indian intelligence recruited three top Afghan leaders, including Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Masood, in 1990s. Two other leaders, not named by Yadav, are still active in Afghan politics. The Americans knew about RAW's activities in Afghanistan.  Although it is not clearly stated in the book, it appears that Indian intelligence continues to have its assets at the highest levels of the government in Kabul. One of India's Afghan assets that is still active but not been named is most likely Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan's current "Chief Executive". Abdullah has close ties with New Delhi. Members of his immediate family live in India.

Here's an excerpt of the book about Afghanistan:

"R&AW also created immense goodwill in many countries; it helped a top Afghan politician and former warlord to escape the Taliban and even got his relative a job in Turkey. R&AW spooks relentlessly bribed, cajoled and blackmailed India’s enemies".

RAW Vs Pakistan:

Yatish Yadav confirms what is already well known: India had carved Bangladesh out of East Pakistan.  Indian intelligence continued its covert actions in Bangladesh after its creation. Here's an excerpt of the book, as published in the Indian media:

"Set in the turbulent ’70s to the ’90s, R&AW spooks toppled dictators like General Ershad in Bangladesh and Fiji’s Colonel Rabuka by organising public protests and trading loyalties of people in their inner circles respectively.

Although the book makes no reference to it, Indian agent Kulbhushan Jhadav's arrest in Balochistan has confirmed that  RAW agents, based in Afghanistan and Iran, are actively carrying out violent covert ops in Pakistan.

There are 4,000 Indians working in Chabahar, Iran, according to Indian journalist Karan Thapar. Some of them, like Kulbhushan Jadhav, work undercover for Indian intelligence agency RAW.  It is hard to believe that the Iranian intelligence is not aware of the presence of undercover Indian agents among the 4,000 Indians working in Chabahar. After all, Jadhav had two passports, one in his own name and another in the name of Hussein Mubarak Patel. The Indian Express and Asian Age, both Indian publications, suggest that Jadhav had links with Uzair Baloch who has been convicted by for working for the Iranian intelligence in Pakistan.  Kulbhushan Jadhav has confessed to orchestrating deadly terror attacks in Balochistan and Karachi. He has said that India's RAW funneled money through Indian consulates in Jalalabad, Kandhar (Afghanistan) and  Zahidan (Iran) to BLA and TTP for terror attacks in Balochistan and Karachi. Targets of terror attacks included people, mosques, roads, port and Balochistan's Hazara Shia community.

RAW in Sri Lanka:

The book claims that RAW fueled the conflict in Sri Lanka by playing both sides. Here's an excerpt:

"In Sri Lanka, R&AW played a double game, helping the Sri Lankan Army to destroy the LTTE while protecting Indian assets against the Tigers and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s hit men. According to a R&AW spymaster in Colombo, MEA bungled and allowed the Chinese to get a foothold in the island. Avinash Sinha arrived at Colombo Fort Café on the morning of 3 December 2005, looking forward to what he had been told was the best Sri Lankan breakfast in the city. Avinash, a R&AW operative, perhaps a few autumns younger than Kosala Ratnayake, had returned to Colombo that October after three years. He had recruited Kosala, a top functionary in the Sri Lankan government, over several wet evenings in January 2002. That was when the Sri Lankan regime had been seriously engaging with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for peace talks".

Summary:

Indian investigative reporter Yatish Yadav's "RAW: A History of India’s Covert Operations" confirms what many of India's neighbors and long known and experienced: Indian intelligence agency RAW sabotages and subverts governments through its proxies and its assets in neighboring countries. India promotes and exacerbates local grievances to overthrow governments and break up nations. Yatish Yadav says "R&AW spooks relentlessly bribed, cajoled and blackmailed India’s enemies".

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Comments

Riaz Haq said…
#India's ex National Security Advisor M. K. Narayanan on ties with #China: "We cannot completely block off all relationships with China economically. At least, that’s the way I see it, because we need to progress" #Modi #Hindutva #Ladakh #economy #trade https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/04/india-china-tensions-new-delhi-cannot-fully-cut-off-economic-ties-with-beijing.html

The border clash soured public sentiment in India toward Chinese brands, leading to calls to boycott Chinese businesses. The bilateral relationship is currently skewed in China’s favor in areas of trade, investment and technology, data showed.

New Delhi has introduced measures in recent months that either sidelined or banned Chinese companies from one of the world’s largest consumer markets. They included restricting Chinese investments into India even before the border face-off occurred.

India also recently banned several dozen Chinese apps including the highly popular short video-sharing app, TikTok. Existing contracts with Chinese vendors were also canceled and there were reports suggesting Chinese telecom companies Huawei and ZTE might eventually be excluded from India’s 5G development.

In most of those decisions, India did not specifically name China but, rather, justified the moves on national security grounds, according to a note from consultancy Eurasia Group.

“We’re not enemies, but I think there’s always a problem about being friends,” Narayanan said. “There is a competition between the two civilizations.”

Narayanan explained that India needs to focus on managing its economic relationship with China rather than shutting it down completely.


He referred to India’s refusal last year to be part of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which would form a major trading bloc involving Asia’s top economies, including China, and cover nearly a third of the world’s GDP. Some saw India’s presence in RCEP as a counterbalance to China.

“We left the field practically open for China,” he said. “I think India cannot afford to step back. India needs to be in the economic arena, the economic space. I think India’s drive in recent years has been such that I think we can fulfill that objective.”

Analysts have said that recent tensions between the two neighbors could potentially push India to establish closer ties with the United States and countries like Japan and Australia.
Riaz Haq said…
#AyodhyaRamMandir is the twilight of the first Republic. #QuaideAzam MA Jinnah was very prescient: #Hindu nationalism has been the bedrock of the #Indian polity. Nehruvian #secularism was the fringe. #Modi #BJP #Islamophobia_in_india #Muslim #Pakistan
https://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/ayodhya-marks-the-twilight-of-the-first-republic/story-QGXeiHufgM31X5zgjeg8hP.html

By Prof Abhinav Prakash Singh

The first Republic was founded on the myth of a secular-socialist India supposedly born out of the anti-colonial struggle. However, the Indian freedom movement was always a Hindu movement. From its origin, symbolism, language, and support base, it was the continuation of a Hindu resurgence already underway, but which was disrupted by the British conquest. The coming together of various pagan traditions in the Indian subcontinent under the umbrella of Hinduism is a long-drawn-out process. But it began to consolidate as a unified political entity in the colonial era in the form of Hindutva. The Hindutva concept is driven by an attempt by the older pagan traditions, united by a dharmic framework and intertwined by puranas, myths and folklore, to navigate the modern political and intellectual landscape dominated by nations and nation-states.

Hindutva is not Hinduism. Hindutva is a Hindu political response to political Islam and Western imperialism. It seeks to forge Hindus into a modern nation and create a powerful industrial State that can put an end to centuries of persecution that accelerated sharply over the past 100 years when the Hindu-Sikh presence was expunged in large swaths of the Indian subcontinent.

India’s freedom struggle was guided by the vision of Hindu nationalism and not by constitutional patriotism. The Congress brand of nationalism was but a subset of this broader Hindu nationalism with the Congress itself as the pre-eminent Hindu party. The Muslim question forced the Congress to adopt a more tempered language and symbolism later and to weave the myth of Hindu-Muslim unity. But it failed to prevent the Partition of India. The Congress was taken over by Left-leaning secular denialists under Jawaharlal Nehru who, instead of confronting reality, pretended it did not exist.

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Hindu nationalism has never been fringe; it is Nehruvian secularism that was the fringe. And with the fall of the old English-speaking elites, the system they created is also collapsing along with accompanying myths like Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb and Hindu-Muslim unity. The fact is that Hindus and Muslims lived together, but separately. And they share a violent and cataclysmic past with each other, which has never been put to rest.

Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb was an urban-feudal construct with no serious takers outside a limited circle. In villages, whatever unity existed was because the caste identities of both Hindu and Muslims dominated instead of religious identities or because Hindu converts to Islam maintained earlier customs and old social links with Hindus like common gotra and caste. But all that evaporated quickly with the Islamic revivalist movements such as the Tabligh and pan-Islamism from 19th century onwards. It never takes much for Hindu-Muslim riots to erupt. There was nothing surprising about the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protests and widespread riots. As political communities, Hindus and Muslims have hardly ever agreed on the big questions of the day.
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What we are witnessing today is twilight of the first Republic. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is but a modern vehicle of the historical process of the rise of the Hindu rashtra. In the north, Jammu and Kashmir is fully integrated. In the south, Dravidianism is melting away. In the east, Bengal is turning saffron. In the west, secular parties must ally with a local Hindutva party to survive.
Riaz Haq said…
#Pakistan’s belt and road offer to #SriLanka stokes #India’s worries. Indian strategists say #Colombo using #Gwadar could be problematic for India’s security, as about 70% of the goods that Sri Lanka’s ports now handle are transhipped to and from India https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3123851/pakistans-belt-and-road-offer-sri-lanka-stokes-indias-china?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=share_widget&utm_campaign=3123851


Pakistani leader Imran Khan has urged Colombo to participate in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
‘Most worrying’ aspect for New Delhi is proposal for Colombo to use Gwadar port, which analysts say could threaten India’s trade and security

Pakistan’s offer to Sri Lanka to join its multibillion-dollar trade and infrastructure scheme with China under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative has raised concerns in Indian policy circles, as New Delhi seeks to secure its influence in a region where China’s presence is growing.
On a two-day visit to Colombo last week, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan urged Colombo to participate in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which comprises railways, power plants and the deepwater Indian Ocean port of Gwadar. The CPEC is aimed at offering China a major overland route from its western frontiers to the world but critics have accused it of being a debt trap for Islamabad.
India has kept a close watch on the visit but has not commented on it.

“My visit is aimed at strengthening the bilateral relationship [with Sri Lanka], especially trade and economic ties through enhanced connectivity,” Khan said, adding that the CPEC could offer Sri Lanka better connectivity with the rest of Central Asia, through the Gwadar port.

Indian strategic affairs observers said a proposal for Colombo to use Gwadar could be problematic for India’s security, as about 70 per cent of the goods that Sri Lanka’s ports now handle are transhipped to and from India, according to data from the independent Indian think-tank Observer Research Foundation. In 2014 Sri Lanka had allowed a Chinese submarine and warship to dock at the Colombo harbour, raising serious objections from India.

Former Indian diplomat Rajiv Bhatia, who was ambassador to Myanmar and also looked after New Delhi’s ties with South Asian countries, described it as the “most worrying aspect” of the visit, which comes as Islamabad tries to expand its influence in a region traditionally dominated by India.
Bhatia, now a distinguished fellow at the Mumbai-based think-tank Gateway House, said: “The facet to explore is whether Pakistan and Sri Lanka are planning to enhance maritime or naval connectivity under Chinese inspiration. If so, this should worry New Delhi.”

Riaz Haq said…
Genesis of the Taliban in #Afghanistan: Thread.

King Zahir Shah was the Monarch and absolute ruler of Flag of Afghanistan from 8 November 1933 to 17 July 1973. His rule was underlined by peace and stability on #Afghanistan's borders and within. He left for medical treatment in Italy in 1973...

https://twitter.com/schaheid/status/1417909577421631490?s=20

While the King was getting medical treatment, his cousin Muhammad Daud Khan plotted to overthrow him. On 17th July 1973, Daud Khan backed by elements of Afghan Army and Communist leaning People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, He mounted a successful Coup and took over Flag of Afghanistan.

Daoud hosted General Secretary of National Awami Party Khan Abdul Wali Khan, Ajmal Khattak, Juma Khan Sufi, Baluch militants, and others. Khan's government and forces also commenced training Pakhtun Zalmay and young Baluchs to conduct militant action and terrorism in Pakistan.

Between 27th - 28th of April 1978, communist sleeper cells inside Afghan Army were activated by PDPA leader Hafizullah Amin who had been under house arrest on Daud's orders. In "Saur Revolution" coup that followed, Daud Khan along with most members of his family were massacred.

On 30th April 1978, communist leader Nur Muhammad Taraki took over the Presidency and the control of the communist party. He quickly developed feud with fellow communist Hafizullah Amin who plotted to overthrow him because of disagreement over the power sharing formula.

On 14th September 1979 as Taraki returned from his Moscow trip, he was imprisoned on Hafizullah Amin's orders, who had him executed by suffocation while in captivity - and formally took over the Presidency.

Between 14th Sept to 27th December 1979, Hafizullah Amin tried to hang on to power, but he quickly lost confidence of his KGB handlers. KGB believed him to be a double agent of CIA due to his overtures to Washington, a mistake that would prove to be fatal.

By early 1979, 25 out of Afghanistan's 28 provinces were unstable because of armed resistance against the Amin regime. On 29th of March 1979, the Herat uprising began; the uprising turned the revolt into an open war between the Mujahideen and the communist Afghan government.

By 1979, the KGB had lost patience with Amin & KGB Gen Yuri Drozdov approved plans to have him assassinated. 2 attempts were made on his life by the KGB's which failed, so they decided to have him executed in a bloody coup to take place at Tajbeg Palace.

By early-to-mid December 1979, the Soviet leadership had established an alliance with Babrak Karmal, who was to take over after Amin had been assassinated. On 27th Dec 1979, Amin and most of his family were massacred by KGB, Spetsnaz in an operation codenamed: Storm-333.

Babrak Karmal enjoyed complete backing of the USSR when he took over the Presidency on the same day Hafizullah Amin was executed by KGB. For the next 6 years he would oversee the scorched earth campaign of the 40th red Army in his own country, killing over 2m Afghans.

As the Soviet 40th Army intensified its brutal campaign in #Afghanistan, a joint "Operation Cyclone" was launched by the CIA and the ISI. Over the next 6 years, the Mujahideen would bring the 40th red Army to its knees along with its communist Afghan military allies.

As the war in #Afghanistan turned into "Soviet Vietnam", the KGB recommended overthrow of their blue eyed Babrak Karmal and replace him with the Chief of Afghan Intelligence KHAD, Major Gen Mohammad Najibullah, who deposed Babrak in a bloodless party coup and finally took over;

The Presidency on 30th Sept 1987. Najibullah was a bona fide KGB agent and enjoyed full confidence of KGB Chief Yuri Andropov. As the head of KHAD, Najibullah oversaw the industrial scale torture and murder of Afghan prisoners. KGB saw him as a "strongman" they needed.
Riaz Haq said…
Why India must restructure RAW, recruit agents from different backgrounds
Like the US, India should have a wall of honour for agents who sacrifice their lives to ensure there is no war with Pakistan, writes Jay Desai.

https://theprint.in/yourturn/subscriberwrites-why-india-must-restructure-raw-recruit-agents-from-different-backgrounds/702161/

So now it is high time that the RAW starts recruiting people from different educational backgrounds. This will increase efficiency in a great manner which is badly needed. Another problem is that RAW has no website of its own. For example, the CIA has its own website. The CIA website includes the literature relevant to a scholar. On the CIA’s website, one book is notable, called ‘The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives’. It is a book by the journalist Ted Gup.

The book basically talks about these CIA operatives who died in action while defending the interests of the USA. In CIA headquarters at Virginia, there exists a wall of honour, a marble wall with black stars engraved, where each represents a fallen CIA agent and in a bullet proof glass case is kept ‘the book of honor’.

The book does consist of a list for each year. It is the year on which a CIA officer fell, where more than 50% cases of anonymous stars are present to conceal identity. There was an Indian national, Ravindra Kaushik, RAW agent in Pakistan, who penetrated the Pakistani Army and became a Major, during years of service to the nation; he saved the lives of 20,000 Indian soldiers. In 1983, he was caught and subsequently incarcerated. He died at a Pakistani jail in November 2001.

Why should not there be something in India similar to a wall of honour for such people who became martyrs? After all, these individuals make the supreme sacrifice acting as India’s first line of defence to ensure no war takes place between India and Pakistan. True, Kaushik was only a source and not an employee of the RAW. But that should not be the criteria by indicating that we will never acknowledge fallen sources like him (including many sources similar to Kaushik). Arthashastra does recommend that a spy should be rewarded for his or her service to the nation.

RAW has increased India’s influence across the world. The birth of Bangladesh from East Pakistan, growing influence inside Afghanistan, adding Sikkim in 1975 to the Indian State, security of the Indian programme on nuclear weapons, success of African liberation movement have all been the big success stories of RAW. On 22 October 2020, the RAW chief made a visit to Nepal. He arrived on a special aircraft of the Indian Air Force and met then-PM K.P. Sharma Oli as well as the avowed opposition Communist leader, former PM Baburam Bhattarai.

In India’s strategic imagination, Nepal is very important. Nepal, with the high Himalayas between India and China, is critical for India to get right as part of the neighborhood. India-Nepal relations are through open borders and from a security perspective it should never be forgotten that the Pakistanis used Kathmandu to hijack the Indian commercial flight IC814. So this plane ultimately landed in Kandahar, Afghanistan; Government’s hard time.

So a stable, peaceful Nepal is vital which is not vulnerable to external forces that are inimical to Indian interest, for example China. If Nepal is unstable, its institutions are weak, then it has every possibility of becoming a fertile ground for external forces.
Riaz Haq said…
#India’s #Modi’s deepening love affair with #Israel . When #Indian intelligence agency #RAW was established in 1968, its first spy chief RN Kao was asked by PM Indira Gandhi to establish ties with Israel’s #Mossad. #Hindutva #Zionism #Islamophobia
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/9/9/indias-deepening-love-affair-with-israel


Under Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, the strategic, military, and ideological ties between Israel and India are growing stronger.


The revelation that Pegasus – spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO – was used to surveil opposition politicians, activists, public officials and journalists in India, has once again confirmed that the right to privacy, freedom of speech and expression and freedom of the press are threatened under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

Dismissing the controversy, a member of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Basavaraj Somappa Bommai, declared, “It is a conspiracy involving foreign press where these kinds of misinformation campaigns have been done against India … Using digital platforms, they try to destabilise different countries. Now, the eyes are set on India.”


However, opposition politicians have accused Prime Minister Modi of “treason”. And, the Press Club of India (PCI) described this as an unprecedented attack on the Indian democracy. The PCI tweeted, “This is the first time in the history of this country that all pillars of our democracy – judiciary, parliamentarians, media, executives and ministers – have been spied upon.”

But it is not mere happenstance that technology developed by an Israeli company was used by the Hindu nationalist leadership in India. Over the years, the two countries have developed a robust strategic, military and technology partnership. Furthermore, there has long been an ideological alliance between the BJP and Israel that helps further the ambitions of both parties.

History of a fraught relationship
Relations between Israel and India have not always been as friendly as they are today. In 1938, Mahatma Gandhi had famously said, “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French.”

Jawaharlal Nehru – who eventually became the first prime minister of independent India – expressed his sympathies for the Jewish population facing persecution in Europe. However, Nehru also insisted that “fundamentally the problem of Palestine is a nationalist one. The Arabs are struggling against imperialist control and domination. It is a pity, therefore, that the Jews of Palestine instead of aligning themselves with this struggle have thought it fit to take the side of British imperialism and to seek its protection against the inhabitants of the country.”

India remained invested in the idea of Arab freedom in Palestine in the lead up to its independence in August 1947 and thereafter. It was an elected member of the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). And, in September 1947, it was one of only 13 countries that voted against the United Nations’ Partition Plan for Palestine.

In a statement against the partition plan, the Indian representative and member of UNSCOP, Sir Abdur Rahman, said, “The people of Palestine have now admittedly reached a stage of development where their recognition as an independent nation can no longer be delayed. They are in no way less advanced than the people of the other free and independent Asiatic countries.” Rahman added that the failure to grant independence to Palestinians would lead to continued violence in the region.
Riaz Haq said…
#Indian #intelligence #RAW agent, who spied on #Pakistan, lives a miserable life in #India. Daniel served a 4-year sentence in Pakistan. He was promised money & government job. Now he drives a rickshaw while his wife works as a maid washing dishes. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2321560/raw-agent-who-spied-on-pakistan-lives-a-miserable-life-in-india

About the tasks assigned to him, he said he was asked to gather information about the location of various army units, their movement and said at times he was tasked to make friendly contacts with Pakistani working or retired military personnel and try to get any type of information.

Daniel said he and his other fellow agents also used to lure some Pakistanis to work for RAW and in those days since only the Indian side was fenced they faced no problem in smuggling people, as the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) always facilitated them.
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Indian agents working for the notorious Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) feel dejected and abandoned by their parent spy agency, forcing them to live the rest of their lives in squalid conditions.

For people like Daniel, who served a four-year sentence in Pakistan, life has become miserable as now he has to drive a rickshaw while his wife works as a maid washing dishes, to earn some livelihood, an Indian news channel Pro Punjab said.

In an interview, Daniel, a Christian, who lives in an Indian Punjab village bordering Sialkot and Narowal area, claimed that he worked for his country’s spy agency RAW, on lucrative promises of money and a government job, and was smuggled into Pakistan in 1992 to carry out the dirty work.


“We used to feel very proud while working for RAW,” he said to a question, however, felt disheartened that his agency had abandoned him.

Daniel said he travelled back and forth across the border 10 times in a year, till he got caught in 1993 in Lahore. When questioned about his arrest, he said he did not utter a single word about being tasked by RAW to gather information from Pakistan, during the tough interrogation.

He said they were told to pose as smugglers or act like someone who crossed over to the other side by mistake. He said he was shifted from various jails and eventually released from Kot Lakhpat jail Lahore.

The former spy went on to say that in one of his earlier ventures into Pakistan, he barely escaped arrest and hid under a culvert as a Rangers team patrolled the area. ”We hid there for over an hour till it was clear to move in the dark.”
Riaz Haq said…
Taliban has never been India’s enemyInterview/ Adrian Levy, author

https://www.theweek.in/theweek/cover/2021/08/19/taliban-has-never-been-india-enemy.html

Levy recently co-authored Spy Stories: Inside the Secret World of the RAW and the ISI, published by Juggernaut, with author-journalist Cathy Scott-Clark.



On India’s role in Afghanistan, he said that Delhi had been busy nurturing its relationship with the national government, forgetting that there was an Afghanistan beyond Kabul. Excerpts from an interview:

What role do you see for Delhi in Afghanistan?

India did many things in Afghanistan. It pumped in cash and resources and created a relationship, but perhaps its biggest failing was that it was late in [reaching out to] the other side (Taliban). Kabul is not equivalent to Afghanistan; India put too [much trust] in the US mirage there. It went late to Doha. Its reach mirrored the US’s. We must remember that the Taliban is not India’s enemy. It never was.

As much as Indian intelligence agencies like R&AW want to build a narrative that Pakistan will be the biggest worry again, there is evidence to suggest that groups that have decamped as a result of constant purging by Pakistan are now operating in the lawless lands across the Durand Line. Elements of the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba are forming deadly battle-hardened groups inside southern Afghanistan and will attack anyone, including Pakistan.

What are the other worries in Afghanistan?

First, it is the chaotic space created in places in Afghanistan by insurgents who fled Waziristan and FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas), where terror groups are deeply entrenched inside communities. They will continue to spark tension around the Durand Line and beyond. Second, there are spoilers like Iran, which has funded sections of the Taliban to hamper the US; and Russia, which had previously lost in Afghanistan, and is engaged in a contest with Washington. There is Turkey, which is deep into Pakistan, rivalling Saudi, and wants to be seen as a regional power. So, the failed state and the spoilers together pave the way for a breeding ground for evil forces and dangerous groups to thrive.

In 20 years, there have been some changes. The Pakistan army has come through 18 years of war for the better, and Rawalpindi has spent a lot of money to fortify the Durand Line with fencing and tech. What is far from clear is how and whether adventurist elements within the military and the intelligence establishment have now been enabled, too, to prosecute their old anti-India project.

In the book, you draw links between the 2019 Pulwama attack and Afghanistan.



Jaish-e-Mohammad plotted Pulwama inside Afghanistan. They had occupied compounds alongside Al Qaeda and other terrorist outfits. While the public statements and perception were completely different, that the ISI and the Pakistan military establishment were to blame, the facts suggested that the command and control structure was inside Afghanistan. If you look at the aetiology of forensics, a similar device was used in the 2008 bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad. Aluminium powder was used to create enormous heat. So, what you have are Al Qaeda engineers, Jaish leaders and even men trained by the now dead [Al Qaeda] commander Ilyas Kashmiri, who targeted Pulwama. What we see is how few people are needed to spill blood and create the architecture of terror. But what happens afterwards, despite the evidence, is that India lambasts Pakistan. The political project takes over.

So are you saying that R&AW is good at perception management?

India has had great success in projecting itself as benign. It is a masterful thing done through soft and hard power, where you gather a cloak around yourself to disguise all hot actions and instead portray yourself as being the patient, perpetual victim of Pakistan terror. Good play, as ISI would say. There has been Pakistan-backed terror and insurgency. But that is all we see.

Riaz Haq said…
Taliban has never been India’s enemyInterview/ Adrian Levy, author

https://www.theweek.in/theweek/cover/2021/08/19/taliban-has-never-been-india-enemy.html

Levy recently co-authored Spy Stories: Inside the Secret World of the RAW and the ISI, published by Juggernaut, with author-journalist Cathy Scott-Clark.

In the book, you describe Kulbhushan Jadhav as an asset and not an officer. What is the difference?

In Jadhav, Pakistan spotted an opportunity. India required a new facility post 26/11; there was a need to step up and deploy assets that had access deep inside Pakistan and neighbouring countries to illuminate operations by Jaish, LeT and Al Qaeda. Given that actions by these groups had been switched down to only a simmer in Kashmir, they re-formed in Karachi and elsewhere looking for new routes to attack India. All agencies in India needed to reset around this thesis, be it the Indian Navy, the Intelligence Bureau or R&AW.



India worked hard to make connections through assets in Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and [among] Baloch nationalists, as well as seeking influence in places like Iran’s Chabahar Port, which was the natural competitor to Gwadar Port. So, there is China and Pakistan in Gwadar and R&AW and Iran in Chabahar. What we have are two ports of extreme strategic importance in Central Asia. And then there is Kulbhushan Jadhav working in Chabahar, but also able to traverse Pakistan and India. The man has at least two forms of official identity, mis-describing his religion and an actual address in Mumbai that the ISI learns is linked to a former senior police officer. The ISI sees a perfect opportunity to trap India. To build Jadhav from a roving itinerant—a roving ear—into being seen as an Indian master spy.

Are you saying Pakistan’s claim on Jadhav is real?

What cops do is detect crimes and put them through the criminal justice system, but what spymasters do is latch on to a crime and let it run as long as possible to see what the man is up to. They germinated an idea—in this case a conspiracy to attack a Pakistan air force base—and thrust upon him plans for the base, making him a party in a serious criminal conspiracy. They waited to see whom he would contact. Would he find a Baloch national? All along, in the background, they know he is a family man with kids. So, Jadhav gets jammed between spy wars of two sides.

In spy wars, enemy's enemy is your friend. How true is it for India?

Agencies like R&AW and Intelligence Bureau are using forces and assets and officers of every kind against Pakistan. This is classic intelligence work and this is what R&AW should be doing and is doing, while shielding its actions. It did that with MQM, when it was divided and its leader took asylum in London - recruiting inside MQM. The agency does this in London, Vienna, Geneva and other safe European havens and not within the theatre which is Pakistan. It does this with other outfits in Kashmir and along the Durand Line.

Riaz Haq said…
Taliban has never been India’s enemyInterview/ Adrian Levy, author

https://www.theweek.in/theweek/cover/2021/08/19/taliban-has-never-been-india-enemy.html

Levy recently co-authored Spy Stories: Inside the Secret World of the RAW and the ISI, published by Juggernaut, with author-journalist Cathy Scott-Clark.

Did you see a rivalry between the R&AW and IB?

The IB became frustrated by not only the monopolisation of technical resources by the R&AW after 26/11 especially but also the scope of their operations. Although India is the theatre of action for IB, its officers told us that since the terror plans are brewed abroad, they too wanted operations tracking and eavesdropping outside India. That's also where a man like Jadhav comes in.

What we see - and more specifically what ISI might see - are only glimpses.

What are the ills plaguing the R&AW?

The organisation hollowed out after partition and became quite communal. The senior R&AW officers wanted and want to remove the IPS recruitment system and rigid promotions structure and start recruiting across religions, communities and languages. Some others want to involve the diaspora which speaks all languages. But, even today, hardly any Muslim officer has made it to the top in intelligence agencies.

But these are struggles the MI5, MI6, CIA, FBI have all had - becoming more like the societies they have to operate in. Relying on technical intel is not enough. RAW also desired a conditional role and a charter but these have been denied by many different governments that have resisted reform so that the intel agencies can continue to be political tools.



R&AW is suspected to be behind the Pegasus snooping scandal. Your comments.

We must look at the sequence of events. After 2001, the coming together of US and Pakistan enraged India which felt that the old abusive relationship was back on again and they tried to smash it and undermine it and colour it. They were successful in portraying Pakistan as the harbinger of terror, advancing bogus theories that, for example, 9/11 was funded by the Islamic Republic. They even projected a powerful false conspiracy involving an assassination threat to US secretary of state Colin Powell where Ilyas Kashmiri was said to have plotted to kill him in Rawalpindi using one of the CIA's missing Stinger missiles.

By 2004, under US secretary of state Condoleeza Rice, the US slowly began to repoint its relationship with India having acknowledged the rise of China. A series of military and security deals, that led to the civil nuclear pact, followed. By 2009, there was an attempt at high-level technical intelligence sharing (which initially struggled to get off the ground because of leaks in India) and the coming together of various agencies, United Kingdom Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the United States National Security Agency (NSA) inducting India into high-level groups. India began to centralise its technical eavesdropping facility and then bought into German spyware in ousting FinFisher that could access Blackberry and Android but could only pry into jail-broken Apple phones. It was used by spy agencies around the world to listen in to journalists and political dissidents, creating a scandal in which India was also accused. What replaced it, it seems, was Pegasus, supplied to in a country-to-country deal by Israel’s NSO, likely in 2018 and the Pegasus trials started running in 2019 which have exploded into the public arena with the leak of 2021.

But R&AW and the intel services have shown great initiatives on the Techint side since the East Pakistan war and especially during Kargil when Pervez Musharraf was eavesdropped exposing his plans. The intention and skill was there, but the full capabilities would come after 2009. By when these capabilities outpaced the legislature and, remember, oversight also is practically non-existent.
Riaz Haq said…
Fidato
@tequieremos

In 1980, India and Israel collaborated a joint attack against Pakistan's nuclear plant in Kahuta. The nuclear program was still in the embryonic state. Plus there were no F-16 aircrafts with the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to counter such a strike. A squadron of Israeli aircraft...


https://twitter.com/tequieremos/status/1447977997177442310?s=20


https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/48288/did-india-plan-to-get-pakistans-nuclear-facility-destroyed-by-israel-in-the-mid


The timing of Khan’s outpourings could not have been worse. Reagan was due in Beijing. The aid package to Pakistan was up for renewal on Capitol Hill. In New Delhi, too, there was anger at Khan and at the US. The talk was that Washington had betrayed India’s secret plans to strike at Pakistan’s nuclear project. K. Subrahmanyam, chairman of India’s joint intelligence committee, picked over the Khan interviews. “We knew we were being challenged by Islamabad,” Subrahmanyam recalled. “Our intelligence people also had evidence of the Pakistan air force increasing their levels of readiness, further proof, if any more were needed, that our covert intentions to hit Kahuta were not secret any more.”

But what made India’s joint intelligence committee livid was that it had been sitting on the plan to strike KRL for a year. A committee of soldiers and intelligence people had first come together to discuss what became known as “the Osirak contingency” in 1981, after Lieutenant General Krishnaswami Sundarji had published his Pakistan war-gaming manual. Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi had consented and placed Air Marshal Dilbagh Singh, chief of air staff, in charge of the operation. He had ordered Indian Air Force Jaguar squadrons to practice low-level flying, simulating runs with 2,000-lb bombs.

In February 1983, with the strike plan at an advanced stage, Indian military officials had travelled secretly to Israel, which had a common interest in eliminating Khan, to buy electronic warfare equipment to neutralize Kahuta’s air defenses. On 25 February 1983, Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi had accused Pakistan of “covertly attempting to make nuclear weapons,” and three days later, Raja Ramanna, director of India’s Bhabha Atomic Research Center, had revealed that India, too, was developing a uranium enrichment facility. Suspecting something was brewing, the ISI sent a message to their Indian intelligence counterparts in RAW that autumn, and as a result Munir Ahmed Khan of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission met Dr. Ramanna at the Imperial Hotel in Vienna. He warned Ramanna that if India were to strike at Kahuta, Pakistan would hit India’s nuclear facilities at Trombay. It lay downwind from the teeming Indian city of Mumbai and an attack would result in the release of “massive amounts of radiation to a large populated area, causing a disaster.”


— Adrian Levy & Catherine Scott-Clark: "Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the global nuclear weapons conspiracy", Walker Books, 2010.
Riaz Haq said…
EH
@ejazhaider
FINALLY, ISPR comes up with a pro forma, perfunctory statement on the Kech attk, hours AFTER i wrote my analysis. but missing from all this is a simple fact: BLF, for years, has used Iran's soil for mounting attacks in southwest Balochistan. why are we afraid of that discussion?

https://twitter.com/ejazhaider/status/1486776348223979528?s=20


EH
@ejazhaider
in my public debate with
@mosharrafzaidi
i constantly favoured a proactive CT policy. why wait for attacks on our soil; why not take the war to the enemies in Afghanistan and Iran? i can tell you we have the capability; not sure if we have the balls.

EH
@ejazhaider
ps: are we more engrossed in the Islamabad power politics shit than securing our interests? as i said on
@ZarrarKhuhro
's programme last night, state with balls could take out Mohsin Fakhrezadeh south of Tehran. you wanna deal with Tehran, deal from a position of strength.


Riaz Haq said…
Clear evidence of India carrying out terrorist activities in Pakistan: Rana Sanaullah



https://www.dawn.com/news/1726154


“Naveed was a labourer in the Middle East and was in jail because he could not pay his fine. A RAW agent approached him and told him that he would pay his fine, but then, Naveed would have to engage in terror activities against Pakistan,” Mehmood said in the press conference.

He added that as soon as Naveed was arrested, several terror activities were thwarted. “When we arrested Sami ul Haq, Naveed was unaware of his arrest. Sami ul Haq told us that he was about to meet Naveed on May 10. We were then able to apprehend Naveed as well.”

As the investigation continued, Mehmood said, more RAW agents were uncovered.

“We also found out that close to a million dollars of terror financing was done through India to spread terrorism in Pakistan through different channels,” he revealed, adding that all the arrested persons have been sentenced to death three times by the court.


-----------

HOW AN INDIAN STATE-SPONSORED TERRORIST RING WORKS 🧵

On the 23rd of June, 2021, #India’s external intelligence agency #RAW conducted a #terrorist attack in the suburbs of Johar Town, Lahore, #Pakistan leading to the death of 3 civilians, and injuring 22 innocent citizens.

https://twitter.com/INTELPSF/status/1602631458698526722?s=20&t=fL8UKCnmKUNbyc0Q5vLhUA

The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
The VBIED (Vehicle-Bourne Improvised Explosives Device) has 200 kilograms of explosives and destroyed 7 residential houses and 12 vehicles.
The plan was hatched in New Delhi somewhere in 2020, and after approval from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was put into action.

The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
It was not the first time that India would be conducting a major terror attack inside Pakistan, and would not be the last.
R&AW, Indian intelligence, was given the task. They initially recruited one Bablu Srivastava, a criminal running an extortion and kidnapping-for-ransom ring


The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
out of Bareilly Jail in Uttar Pradesh under the patronage of RAW.
He became the mastermind behind this terrorist attack. Sanjay Kumar Tiwari, RAW operative in the UAE was the supervisor of this operation. He was aided by Aslam Khan (alias), also a RAW agent operating out



The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
of Nepal and Maldives. He was financed by two brothers, both working with RAW, namely Zaheem and Saheem Sheikh (both based in the UAE). They were also assisted by one Ali Budesh, who runs RAW’s gold-smuggling network in the Middle East.


The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
What follows is a chilling account of how India’s state machinery organised a ruthless terror operation against civilians, using underworld criminals as a nexus.

In mid-2020 Naveed Akhtar, a Pakistani national imprisoned in the UAE due to visa problems and non-payment of fines

Riaz Haq said…
Clear evidence of India carrying out terrorist activities in Pakistan: Rana Sanaullah


https://www.dawn.com/news/1726154

----------

The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
is approached by Saheem Sheikh, an Indian RAW operative.
After some time, Saheem discloses his affiliation with Indian intelligence, and offers to get him out of jail and a large financial sum to solve his problems. Mr. Akhtar agrees after some persuasion.

https://twitter.com/INTELPSF/status/1602631500440256515?s=20&t=fL8UKCnmKUNbyc0Q5vLhUA



The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
His fines are paid, and he travels back to Pakistan, now a RAW informant.
Mr. Akhtar is then introduced to Bablu by Saheem Sheikh who informs him of the attack plan.
Mr. Akhtar is asked to rent a hideout near the target location.


The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
Mr. Akhtar shifts his family to the hideout to mask his real intentions. He then is instructed to travel to Maldives to meet with RAW operatives, who give him $50,000 and order him to meet RAW’s Afghani execution team in Pakistan who will conduct the attack. After retuning to


The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
Pakistan,he deposits 3.3 million rupees into two of his accounts and buys a car Toyota license plate number LEA-10-3200. After reconnaissance of the target location for the terrorist attack, Mr. Akhtar sends a video message to Bablu (RAW frontman and operator).
Riaz Haq said…
Pakistan blames India for 2021 bombing near militant’s home
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - 12/13/22 9:21 AM ET

https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-international/ap-pakistan-blames-india-for-2021-bombing-near-militants-home/


Pakistan’s interior minister on Tuesday accused neighboring India of orchestrating last year’s car bombing in Lahore, near the residence of a militant leader suspected of orchestrating deadly attacks in Mumbai in 2008.

Rana Sanaullah Khan said at a news conference that several Pakistani suspects had been arrested, prosecuted and convicted by Pakistani courts in recent months over their links to the June 2021 bombing, which killed three people. The explosion went off near the home of Hafiz Saeed, who is the founder of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba group.

The interior minister said Pakistan, with the help of INTERPOL, will seek the arrest of Indian intelligence operatives they suspect of being behind the attack near Saeed’s home. Saeed, a Pakistani, is serving a jail term in Pakistan on charges of financing anti-India militants. He said Pakistan had solid evidence about India’s role in the bombing.

The Indian External Affairs Ministry couldn’t be reached for comment.

Saeed had been designated a terrorist by the U.S. Justice Department after the 2008 bombing and has a $10 million bounty on his head. Saeed’s Lashkar-e-Taiba was active for years mainly in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is split between Pakistan and India and is claimed by both in its entirety.

In the Indian-controlled sector of Kashmir, rebels have been fighting against Indian rule since 1989. Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebel goal that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
Riaz Haq said…
Clear evidence of India carrying out terrorist activities in Pakistan: Rana Sanaullah


https://www.dawn.com/news/1726154

----------

The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
is approached by Saheem Sheikh, an Indian RAW operative.
After some time, Saheem discloses his affiliation with Indian intelligence, and offers to get him out of jail and a large financial sum to solve his problems. Mr. Akhtar agrees after some persuasion.

https://twitter.com/INTELPSF/status/1602631500440256515?s=20&t=fL8UKCnmKUNbyc0Q5vLhUA



The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
His fines are paid, and he travels back to Pakistan, now a RAW informant.
Mr. Akhtar is then introduced to Bablu by Saheem Sheikh who informs him of the attack plan.
Mr. Akhtar is asked to rent a hideout near the target location.


The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
Mr. Akhtar shifts his family to the hideout to mask his real intentions. He then is instructed to travel to Maldives to meet with RAW operatives, who give him $50,000 and order him to meet RAW’s Afghani execution team in Pakistan who will conduct the attack. After retuning to


The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
Pakistan,he deposits 3.3 million rupees into two of his accounts and buys a car Toyota license plate number LEA-10-3200. After reconnaissance of the target location for the terrorist attack, Mr. Akhtar sends a video message to Bablu (RAW frontman and operator).
...
Riaz Haq said…
Pakistan blames India for 2021 bombing near militant’s home
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - 12/13/22 9:21 AM ET

https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-international/ap-pakistan-blames-india-for-2021-bombing-near-militants-home/


Pakistan’s interior minister on Tuesday accused neighboring India of orchestrating last year’s car bombing in Lahore, near the residence of a militant leader suspected of orchestrating deadly attacks in Mumbai in 2008.

Rana Sanaullah Khan said at a news conference that several Pakistani suspects had been arrested, prosecuted and convicted by Pakistani courts in recent months over their links to the June 2021 bombing, which killed three people. The explosion went off near the home of Hafiz Saeed, who is the founder of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba group.

The interior minister said Pakistan, with the help of INTERPOL, will seek the arrest of Indian intelligence operatives they suspect of being behind the attack near Saeed’s home. Saeed, a Pakistani, is serving a jail term in Pakistan on charges of financing anti-India militants. He said Pakistan had solid evidence about India’s role in the bombing.

The Indian External Affairs Ministry couldn’t be reached for comment.

Saeed had been designated a terrorist by the U.S. Justice Department after the 2008 bombing and has a $10 million bounty on his head. Saeed’s Lashkar-e-Taiba was active for years mainly in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is split between Pakistan and India and is claimed by both in its entirety.

In the Indian-controlled sector of Kashmir, rebels have been fighting against Indian rule since 1989. Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebel goal that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

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