Moots State-sponsor tag in case of another terror attack on India
The Pakistani Army and its notorious spy wing, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), are engaged in a “dangerous game” of using terrorist brinkmanship to threaten India and simultaneously undermine their own Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, says former CIA analyst and White House official Bruce Riedel.
“The Pakistani Army and its ISI spies are once again playing with fire — with India, the leT and Kashmir — in order to secure domestic gains against their civilian leaders,” writes Riedel in The Daily Beast.
A top expert on counter-terrorism who advised four US presidents on South Asia, Riedel goes on to say that America should consider naming Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism if it were to mount another terrorist attack against India.
“It certainly meets the criteria and has for decades,” Riedel notes in his strongly-worded commentary, disclosing: “The first Bush administration seriously considered this measure in 1992, although such a step obviously would have immense consequences for US-Pakistan relations.”
Riedel also makes the case for America stepping up intelligence cooperation with India to prevent and deter terrorist attacks such as the ones in Mumbai and Herat in Afghanistan, where the Indian consulate was targeted on the eve of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s inauguration in May.
“Even if a terrorist action cannot be foiled, the more information exchanged about Pakistani ISI involvement with leT, the more likely the US will have credibility with New Delhi if a crisis does occur,” notes Riedel, who currently heads the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution.
Commenting on Al Qaeda’s latest bid to complicate the situation by announcing the creation of its new franchise in India, Riedel says the videotape by Ayman al-Zawahiri has been made “in his hideout in Pakistan, no doubt, and many Indians suspect the ISI is helping to protect him”.
“Zawahiri has longstanding links to leT and to (its founder, Hafiz) Saeed,” Riedel notes, concluding that the domestic politics of Pakistan are central to the drama surrounding the Al Qaeda leader’s first tape this year, threatening jihadist attacks across India.
In Riedel’s assessment, one of the goals of the Herat operation that was foiled by Indian security guards was to discredit Sharif, who has no control over the ISI or the Pakist ani army.
According to him, the army is unhappy with Sharif since his election last year and is particularly upset that he has put former military rule Pervez Musharraf on trial for treason.
“While the Army doesn’t care that much for Musharraf, it does not like the judicial system holding a general accountable for coups,” Riedel writes, quipping: “For them that sets a bad precedent.”