The smell of conspiracy

That the government is deadly in earnest about countering the terrorist threat that engulfs the region becomes manifest by the recent report of the government is to set up an organization by name of the National Commission for Counter-Terrorism (NCCT) to umbrella the activities of Pakistan’s Intelligence Bureau (IB), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA)  and Inter Service Intelligence (ISI).

In addition, reports have Afghanistan based US Army Colonel, John Spinzer admitting in the Friday 3 edition of the Washington Post that the pressure exerted by  Pakistan’s security forces  “has denied (terrorists) safe haven and led to more contact in Afghanistan”, for “more complementary” action with commanders on both sides exchanging tactical information on a daily basis.     

But apparently that does not suffice for the Indian and some segments of the western media which continue to persist with fanning the flames of the Mumbai fire with the dubious confession of the sole surviving terrorist, one Ajmal Kasab, about whom Pakistan has no record in its data banks and India has yet to provide credible identity information.

The Times of India, for instance cites “unidentified officials” announcing a readied report to be delivered to India-based diplomats from the US, UK and China, which was to present inclusive identity information on all 10 of the terrorists along with satellite transcripts of conversations recorded between them and their Lashkar e Tayyaba (LeT) handlers in Pakistan over the November 26-29 attack period.

The UK’s Sunday Times then upped the rhetoric another notch in claiming there was ample evidence to suggest that the Mumbai strikes were orchestrated by militants based in Pakistan which came together with the confession of Zarar Shah, a LeT communications  specialist, of his having directed the terrorists on the satellite phone during the attack.

The report read that the FBI had managed to decode Skype calls made between the gunmen and their controllers in Pakistan to kill all the Israelis in the Jewish centre and the two five-star hotels besieged, but to spare the Muslims, which suggests that the terrorists had all the time in the world to play during the three-day operation, which had apparently caught the Indian security apparatus napping.

The smell of some sort of conspiracy became rank when all of this suddenly surfaced in the immediate wake of the Israeli air and ground attack on Hamas in Palestine after the Indian Defence Minister, P Chidambaran had rationally ruled out “hot pursuit” into Pakistan territory, even as he condemned the razing of Gaza by Israel even before the world had condemned the genocidal attack.

What this suggests is that the saner members of the Indian establishment only too aware of Pakistan’s efforts to combat the insurgency and terrorism it has become a victim of and the likelihood of this spilling over into Indian territories considering the existing fault lines and thus reluctant to aggravate the situation.

Unfortunately there are those about lured by the lemming –like Israeli-Bush- neo-con protocol of adventurism -- and spells serious trouble for the region extending all the way from Delhi to Gaza.