The Government must without delay clear the creation of a Special Operations Command that will conduct covert operations and unconventional warfare
The report that the Government is likely to approve the establishment of a Special Operations Command to counter terrorism, and conduct unconventional warfare and covert operations, in the country and its neighbourhood, has to be implemented without delay. The need for this, felt for long, was once again underlined on July 10, when Hafiz Saeed, the founder of the terrorist outfits Jamaat-ud-Dawa’ah and lashkar-e-Tayyeba, had railed against India and the United States at a seminar organised at the lahore High Court Bar Association building by the Pakistan Justice Party.
The viciousness and falsehood characterising his speech was clearly reflected in his statement that India had sent 25,000 troops to Afghanistan, and more were on the way. “The presence of Indian forces in Pakistan”, he had added, “is a great threat to Pakistan's integrity”. Claiming that the US, which sought to teach Pakistan a lesson by patronising India, was behind the deployment, he had added that “America had also targeted Pakistan's atomic programme while sitting in Afghanistan, but it miserably failed because of the sacrifices of Muslims.”
This was not the first time that Saeed, the mastermind of the 26/11 outrage which killed over 160 persons in Mumbai in November 2008, had gone about openly, threatening and abusing India and the US. On May 28, in a speech at Aabpara Chowk, located a few hundred yards from the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate's headquarters in Islamabad, he asked thousands of his assembled followers to get ready as the “time has come to perform the final jihad against India to free Kashmir from Indian occupation.”
The leT does not just want the annexation of Kashmir but the ‘restoration’ of Muslim rule all over India and the union of all Muslim-majority regions of the countries surrounding Pakistan. Hence, besides Jammu & Kashmir, it is active in Chechnya and other parts of Central Asia. Its global network extends from North America to Australia, with units in Germany, the United Kingdom, Iraq, Oman, Bahrain, Dubai and Bangladesh. Allied with Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, it has close links with jihadists in the Philippines, Kosovo, Chechnya, Palestine, Jordan and Southeast Asia.
Saeed, who has a $10 billion bounty on his head put by the US, which has also designated the JuD, the leT and associated organisations and key individuals as terrorists, moves about and rants freely in Pakistan because the Government supports him. This was again underlined by the grant of 350 million Pakistani rupees by Pakistan's Punjab province Government, headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's brother, Mr Shahbaaz Sharif, in the 2013-2014 annual budget to the JuD for setting up a ‘knowledge park’.
Saeed's patently false allegation about the presence of 25,000 Indian troops in Afghanistan was clearly a part of an effort to prepare the ground for legitimising Pakistan's direct involvement in an offensive to conquer that country if necessary. What would India do then, particularly if the JuD and leT step up, with the blessings of Pakistan's Government, their unconventional war against this country to ‘restore’ Muslim rule all over India — as its agenda statesIJ
Hence the urgency of setting up the Special Operations Command headed by a lieutenant-General reporting to the National Security Adviser and the Prime Minister's Office. This command will work in close cooperation with the Research & Analysis Wing, as its commandos may have to conduct operations both inside and outside India. This clearly indicates that India has in mind strikes on terrorist camps, even in a neighbouring country, from which attacks are launched on its soil. This knowledge itself may restrain Pakistan, which has been using state-sponsored terrorism as an instrument of governmental policy. If not, the commandos will strike.