David Headley and WikiLeaks have queered the pitch for ISI

It is appropriate, even incumbent on the nation to objectively examine our preparedness to meet the challenge of another 26/11. But should we be debating in public what our response should be in case of such attacks in future? That will be helpful to the generators of terrorism.

What we should avoid is the kind of debate we had on the ‘cold start’ doctrine on which the Pakistani Army went to town and which has since been dismissed by the Indian Army chief. (It was speculated that the Army had a ‘cold start’ doctrine, envisaging a limited, conventional attack on Pakistani targets in the event of a terrorist strike.)

India is not the only country targeted by Pakistani Jehadis. The 9/11 plot was hatched by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani with the tacit approval of the Interservices  Intelligence (ISI). The last remittance of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker on 9/11, was wired by Omar Sheikh, the Pakistani Jehadi who is presently under sentence of death for the murder of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal correspondent. Pakistani Jehadis also carried out an attack on the London transport system on July 7, 2005, killing 52 and wounding 700, and as prime minister Gordon Brown told prime minister Gilani of Pakistan in front of international TV cameras, in 90% of terrorist cases in Britain, the trails lead to Pakistan.

There have been subsequent unsuccessful attempts by Pakistani Jehadis on US and UK targets, the latest being the attempt to set off a bomb in New York’s Times Square by the Pakistan-born  Faisal Shahzad. In an interview with CBS television, Hillary Clinton said on May 8, 2010, “We’ve made it very clear that if — heaven-forbid — an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences.”

Why did not the US and UK strike back at Pakistan? Because Pakistan has nuclear weapons and missiles supplied by China. The Pakistani Army has been using terrorism as state policy as a derivative of their nuclear deterrence. That has induced caution in the victim nations in handling Pakistan. However, now the warnings of both Clinton and India’s home minister Chidambaram to Pakistan, that consequences in case of future terrorist attacks will be severe, are on record.

In the two years since 26/11, there has been only one major terrorist incident again attributable to inspiration from across the border. That is the Pune bakery blast. This long period of absence of terrorist attacks on India by Jehadi organisations is attributed mostly to better counter-terrorism preparedness developed since 26/11, especially the intelligence coordination developed within the country and with US agencies operating in the region.

Moreover, after the Wikileaks and David Headley’s disclosures on ISI-LeT links, the Pakistan Army finds it difficult to pretend they are not responsible for the terrorist attacks of non-state actors. The whole world knows that all Jehadi organisations were patronised by the ISI. While one of them, the Pakistani Taliban, has turned against the Pakistan Army, the rest, particularly Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, continue to be under the overall direction of the Pakistan Army.

The Pakistanis are also aware that US agencies have been trying to penetrate Jehadi outfits, as revealed by the Headley case. The new House of Representatives in the US has a Republican majority and is likely to react in a very hostile manner when it comes to voting on funds for Pakistan if there are any such attacks on India.

The recent Task Force report of the Council of Foreign Relations has said, “What we’re suggesting is that we include LeT in this target list (Drone strikes), because if the Pakistanis aren’t willing to see this as a threat and indeed an existential threat to them, then we see it that way, and we’re going to prosecute it.” US defence secretary Robert Gates said on November 12 that  Pakistan has withdrawn an equivalent of six divisions of its army from the Indian border and moved them to fight the Taliban.

All these developments should rationally induce caution among the Pakistani Army and ISI about launching another terrorist strike on India. But only a few weeks ago European countries were put on alert on the anticipated threat from LeT, now directed  by Ilyas Kashmiri, a rogue commander. Summing up the latest position on the Pakistan Army pursuing terrorism against India, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said on November 12: “Now, I cannot… tell you that it has changed, but that it is changing.”