Jihadi Desperation

It is not for nothing that the army and paramilitary forces have sent out a red alert all along the border with Pakistan so that the designs of Pakistan-based jihadi terrorists to destabilize India could be thwarted on time. The new breed of terrorists, on a desperate infiltrating mode, comprises Talibanic elements too, who now form an indistinguishable admixture with groups that are specifically anti-India, such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). That is the real threat. The new-age jihadi terror package entails equipping him with GPS systems, satellite phones, detailed maps, winter clothing and top-class weaponry. And the making and export of that package to India would not be possible had the Pakistan Army’s spy wing, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), concentrated only on intelligence gathering. It is the expert ISI hands that have given shape to the modern jihadi, allowing and sponsoring the indoctrination of even minors in the jihadi school of thought. The terrorists trying to sneak into India have the twin agenda of fomenting fresh trouble in Jammu and Kashmir and of keeping the ‘issue’ alive before the international community, as well as of triggering violence across the country before the general elections. As response to the threat perception, the army has redeployed forces along the 778-km Line of Control to strengthen its counter-infiltration grid, while Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has asked the Border Security Force (BSF) to maintain a high level of vigil along the international boundary in Rajasthan and Punjab too. The BSF has already detected 1,000-odd bunkers constructed by the Pakistan Rangers — Pakistan’s border guards — along the international border in Jammu, and these bunkers can be easily used by infiltrators ‘‘to enter India from Poonch and Akhnoor centres’’ as a senior BSF official said. Intelligence agencies believe that LeT terrorists may try to enter India through the international border in the same way as they did last year in the Kanachak area of Jammu.

The precariousness of the time is due mainly to Pakistan’s collapse as a nation-state in control of its rogue elements, both state (read ISI) and ‘stateless’ as President Asif Ali Zardari referred to while dwelling on the perpetrators of Mumbai 26/11. That India should be the immediate victim as a spill-over effect from Pakistan is only too obvious, given the grand jihadi design to bleed India by ‘‘a thousand cuts’’. While Pakistan’s tryst with its horrendous destiny — with the Taliban set to take over the entire country — is unnerving for whatever small but liberal and sensible class of Pakistanis is left out, India faces a direct threat of aggression and mayhem that is being planned meticulously in the terror factories of the neighbouring country, thanks of course to the Pakistan Army and its ISI. What remains to be seen is how New Delhi will gear up to preclude or counter Mumbai-like crises. One hopes it must have learnt a few lessons by now. Or has it not yet? THE SENTINEL