Sea denial can be cheaply accomplished. Sea control is much harder. Landing on your adversary’s coast against opposition is the hardest of all. For all that the IN is much larger and more powerful than the PN, its superiority may not mean much in a war.

April 13, 2006

Bill Roggio

Karachi Bombing

Terrorists have struck again in the southern city of Karachi, Pakistan. Over forty are believed dead and scores wounded after a bomb was detonated during a prayer service in a public park. The Associated Press reports "Initial reports suggested a bomb was planted near the stage in Nishtar Park... for a prayer gathering organized by a Sunni Muslim group to celebrate the birth of Prophet Muhammad, said area police chief Shah Nawaz. But Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao told Pakistan's private Geo television that authorities were also investigating whether the attack may have been carried out by a suicide bomber."

CNN speculates the attack may be the latest incident of sectarian violence between Shiite & Sunni factions in Pakistan, "In February, at least 40 people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a Shiite procession in the town of Hangu in the country's North West Frontier Province." However if the incident was a suicide bombing, the obvious culprit is Lashkar-e-Taiba, al-Qaeda's local branch in Pakistan.

In early March, Karachi was the scene of a suicide car attack on a convoy of a representative of the U.S. Consulate, which killed the diplomat and seriously damaged the surrounding buildings. Karachi is the breeding and meeting grounds of al-Qaeda terrorists. Just this week, Interpol has issued a "special notice" concerning Dawood Ibrahim, and "now recognizes Dawood as part of the worldwide terror syndicate of Osama bin Laden whose Al-Qaida is lead member of the 17-member World Jihad Council. "Dawood's operations have spanned Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman." Interpol states Dawood maintains "a posh colony in Karachi."

Pakistan's dysfunctional state of affairs only worsens. Various agencies in the North West Frontier Province have fallen to the Taliban. The Taliban is basically offering the Pakistani Army a truce in North Waziristan. Pakistan has been inclined to accept such offers in the past. The banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) recently held a 5,000 man strong rally calling for the establishment of "a global caliphate, beginning with Pakistan," and according the the Daily Times, a leader of the SSP was quoted as saying "The concept of nation state is an obstacle in the way of the establishment of Khilafat (Caliphate). We will start the establishment of Khilafat in Pakistan and then will do so across the world." And the Pakistani government recently declared the Baluchistan Liberation Army a "terrorist entity," foreshadowing another bloody confrontation in the large natural resource-rich province in the southwest corner of the country.

Taliban Set Up Office in South Waziristan

The following excerpts are from an article in Jamestown Foundation by Sohail Abdul Nassir. They support the message Mr. Roggio has been giving for the past several weeks: A critical part of Pakistan is falling out of government control, affecting not just Pakistan's internal security, but the war in Afghanistan.

Please note that the recent heavy fighting between the Pakistan Government and insurgents including Taliban has been taking place in North Waziristan. Mr. Nassir says the North, home to the Wazirs, has different characteristics from the South, home to Mehsuds. The two major tribes are blood enemies.

Participants noted that the crime rate was rising in Wana, particularly murder, robbery and drug trafficking. [A local cleric] explained the purpose of opening the office was not to enforce Sharia, but to restore peace in the area. As part of the plan, locals will be able to bring their problems and grievances to the Taliban office where they can be heard by a local judge, replacing the traditional jirga system. [The cleric] said that the government did not oppose the opening of the office because it knows that it will improve law and order in the area.

While the Taliban in South Waziristan is beginning to cooperate with the government, the Taliban in North Waziristan is involved in intense fighting with government security forces. There are a variety of reasons for this paradoxical attitude.

 The militant leaders who led the insurgency in South Waziristan [are] not religious scholars [whereas the insurgent leaders in North Waziristan are].

Government officials, for obvious reasons, are trying to undermine the strength of the local Taliban. For instance, Sikandar Qayyum, the Peshawar-based security chief of the tribal zone, said that the local Taliban "are just a few local people [who] studied in madrassas where some miscreant mullah misled them...They create an environment of fear, [and] pretend [that] they are in charge. We cannot let those Taliban impose what they want" (AFP, March 18). The fact of the matter, however, is that the Taliban in Pakistan are gaining in strength.

While the insurgency is in full swing in North Waziristan, security analysts think that a lull in violence in South Waziristan could be brief. Local and foreign militants could escalate their attacks at any time. According to intelligence information, there are still about 400 foreign militants in different parts of North and South Waziristan.

 

April 11, 2006

Ravi Rikhye

The fourth invincible weapon, which the Iranians say can be launched from aircraft and ships and cannot be detected and the target cannot escapes etc. was likely a plain vanilla anti-ship missile. Even crude ones are not the easiest of weapons to defeat. The problem, however, is to locate task forces at sea and then to target them. In the Stark incident in 1987, for example, the Iraqi F-1 Mirage that fired two Exocets at the US ship was tracked from 300 kilometers out. Iranian and Iraqi aircraft regularly flew close to and over US ships – it is their right in international waters. The Mirage closed to 20 km without responding to requests to identify itself, and then turned away. The frigate saw no indication it was being painted or that missiles had been launched. Obviously there was s systems failure; things seldom work perfectly and if someone gets that’s close there is obviously going to be a serious problem for the defender.

But in a war situation, no one will be allowed to get that close; indeed, after the first week of sustained counter air operations, no hostile should be able to take to the air in the first place.

 Even Iran – as far as we know – didn’t claim this was something new.

The fifth invincible weapon is a shoulder-fired SAM. Here are direct quotes which show the blather Iran is spewing (quotes from IRNA, the official news agency):

§         “Iranian Armed Forces test-fired successfully high precision anti-aircraft the fastest surface-to-sea destructive missiles against warships in the ongoing 'Great Prophet (PBUH)' military exercise on Tuesday.”

§         “The speed of the missile is to the extent that no radar can detect it and its high speed protects it completely from being targeted in case of being detected by other warning systems,"

§         “He (Iranian spokesperson) said that Misaq missile can be fired from man's shoulder and is capable of hitting air targets. Its smart warhead protects it from being hit by any other weapon ahead of accomplishing its mission.”

§         “The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) naval gunboats and vessels of the regular Army are equipped with Misaq high precision anti-aircraft missiles.”

It’s likely the first quote reflects bad reportage or mistranslation by Iran: no one is stupid enough to claim that a shoulder-fired SAM is the ‘fastest surface-to-sea destructive missile against warships’.

No one shoots at shoulder-fired SAMS to stop them, you evade them using flares and other countermeasures. So we can stop being amazed at the missile’s high speed which protects it against being targeted in case it is detected by other warning systems, and its smart warhead which protects it from being hit by any other weapon.

Is it a problem that Iran makes these wild, meaningless claims? Not so much if its military/civilian leaders, at least, understand they are boasting for morale effect. But if sufficient military/civilian leaders actually believe this drivel, it may lead them to overestimate their capabilities and make an egregious mistake that could lead to a war that might have been avoidable.

Even claims solely for morale purposes can be harmful. Sooner or later it will get out that Iranian aircraft and ships are being badly clobbered with little to show. Tight information controls can delay the spread of bad news; extravagant propaganda claims of enemy losses are usually believed by most people till after the war when evidence is presented, and some continue believing the claims regardless of evidence. To this day, for example, many believe the US had to suspend its heavy air offensive against Haiphong-Hanoi in 1972 because of aircraft losses, and then fail to explain why, if the US was defeated, North Vietnam agreed to talks – which was the US purpose in launching the attacks.

But – and this is particularly true in the day of the videocam, cell phones, and satellite links – its impossible to keep heavy losses secret in a relatively small military such as Iran deploys. Iran may have 500 boats trained for swarm tactics, but if after 3 days of such attacks only 350 are left, the news is going to be all over the navy and act to demoralize everyone.

In Iran’s case, if the US decides to take down power distribution and telecommunication centers – as is standard offensive practice, civilians are going to be quick to know things are not working out the way their leaders claimed they would. The greater the pre-war ego-inflation, the greater the letdown. Because, if the US attacks, it will be aiming at regime change, it will do its best to show Iranians their government/military cannot protect them. And no matter how tight Iranian information control, when people find they have no petrol – Iran imports most of its petrol and has only small reserves – no power, and no ability to communicate except by satphone, they are going to get the picture.

[Concluded]

April 10, 2006

Ravi Rikhye

Iran’s 5 New Weapons - I

The US military hasn’t had much to say about Iran’s new weapons tested during the IIRC naval maneuvers “Great Prophet” in the Sea of Oman and the Arabian Gulf. The maneuvers involved 17,000 personnel, and will last a week ending on April 8^th   allegedly with a bang: “We are going to have very important news that will make our nation proud in the next few days”.  The bang appears not to have taken place.

Its important to realize the exercise is a simple coast defense operation to protect against an amphibious landing. Its scope extends all along Iran’s cost, but only 40-km to sea. To begin with the US will not attempt any amphibious landing until coastal and air defenses are suppressed. And Iran may want to rethink what it can do against amphibious landing craft coming in at 80 knots and helicopters at 150 knots in the absence of air cover. Of course, the Iranians are not terribly concerned with the realities: they staged the exercises to prove to their own people that Iran can fight back if the US invades by sea – which will be the last step of a US operation possibly extending to months.

Iran says the US, British, French and Dutch Navies have 125 “large ships” in the Gulf, of which 81 have been assigned to cover the exercises. That they have that many ships is surely major news to the western navies, even if we stretch the definition of “large ship” to include anything over 500 tons. Even though it augers well for the west their strength is so overestimated, its speaks badly of Iran’s ability to surveil its own neighborhood.

Personally we think the exercise name is a bit sacrilegious, but of course it’s not for us to judge. The Iranians have a habit of exaggerating their weapons capability. One would think that particularly with the Revolutionary Guards, the emphasis would be on the ideologically motivated man, not the weapon. Again, however, who are we to judge this peculiar fascination the Iranians have with weapons that appear inevitably to have 3 attributes. One, they are Iranian developed. Two, they are stealthy. Three, they are unstoppable.

The first of the trip was allegedly a long-range missile with independently targeted warheads that could neither be detected nor shot down. Turns out, according to the Pentagon, which keeps a sharp eye on missile launches worldwide and presumably is keeping an extra-sharp eyes on the maneuvers, this super-weapon is the good old Scud-C of about 500-km range. It’s not modern even by Iranian standards.

The second is a 100-meters/second torpedo. This cannot be anything other than the Russian Shkval, which is unguided and has a short range. It requires a launching submarine to line up with its intended target. First, that requires the launching submarine to detect and accurately the adversary submarine. With US submarines, it is not a good idea to plan on getting within 6500 yards of them and still being alive to launch anything. The same applies to US surface warships. Locating naval targets at sea if you cannot fly your aircraft over the water – and Iran will not be able to do any such thing – is extremely difficult; approaching a task force at that close range will be even more difficult.

While the media has focused on Shkval, they haven’t noted the supercavitating torpedo is hardly unknown to the west. Not to ruin the Iranians fun, as long ago as 1997 the US tested a supercavitating torpedo that reached 5082-feet/second – that’s exceeding Mach 1, the speed of sound, at least 3 times faster than Shkval. The US being the US, the American torpedo was designed to change course and speed and had a hunting capability. All stuff the Russians said they were developing but there has been no indication there were able to, not least because of the reduction of GNP spent on defense from 30% before the USSR broke up to about 3% today. The US doesn’t expect its torpedo to be ready till at least 2012. And the US is hardly alone: France and Germany are also working in these weapons.

From the coverage shown on Iran TV, it’s impossible for other than specialists to make out what exactly it was launched. The platform was a surface platform; the torpedo emerged sluggishly like a conventional one and sped away on the surface to hit a stationary target. There was no way to tell what the speed was but it seemed to this writer, at least, to be running too shallow to supercavitate.

The third weapon, the single-prop hydroplane that ambles along above the wave tops – from which position it cant see any meaningful distance and from where its easy for airborne aircraft to spot it – is also stealthy, impossible to stop and so on. To us it seems like a particularly ineffective kamakazi that will be flying near blind over the waves.

Our Intelligence Bureau (IB), which is largely an urban-based organization, has very little capability for preventive intelligence collection in the rural areas. We have to depend on the rural police for this purpose. The ability of the  rural police to collect intelligence depends to a considerable extent on its mobility (patrolling) and its relationship with the village communities in the affected areas. Fears caused by the frequent use of landmines with  devastating effect by the Maoists and the failure of the States to provide the police with adequate mine detection and clearing capability have affected the mobility and rural patrolling. This has also an impact on police-community relationship. A police force, which is not able to remain in regular touch with the villagers, cannot collect much worthwhile intelligence.

The defining characteristics of the jihadi and Maoist terrorists differ in significant aspects. Since there is a regular flow of funds, modern arms and ammunition and communication sets to the jihadi terrorists from Pakistan, they do not have to depend on raids on the posts of the security forces for the replenishment of their weapons stocks. Bereft of external sources of supply, the Maoists have to depend on frequent raids on the security forces for replenishing their stocks.

The jihadi terrorists, who operate in very small numbers, avoid control of territory and the setting up of "liberated areas", since territorial control would need the availability of large manpower. The Maoists, on the other hand, operate in large numbers----with sometimes their operating numbers going up to many dozens and in one instance 1,000--- and believe in setting up "liberated areas" in which they have their own tax collection and judicial machineries.
 

While the jihadi terrorists continue to wage their unconventional war in a purely unconventional manner, the Maoists are waging their unconventional war in an increasingly conventional manner. The Maoist movement is more like that of the movement of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka---a mix of terrorism and insurgency, of unconventional and conventional capabilities.

While the jihadists have been increasingly using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) for some years now, in preference to hand-held weapons, the Maoists have been using a mix of the landmines to prevent the mobility of the rural police and hand-held weapons to raid the posts of the security forces and capture arms and ammunition.

While the jihadi terrorists kill civilians indiscriminately, the attacks of the Maoists on civilians are more targeted----against those whom they look upon as their class enemies or exploiting classes such as landlords, forest contractors and money-lenders as well  those collaborating with the security forces against the Maoists.

The inability of the State to deal with the Maoist insurgency-cum-terrorism effectively so far can be attributed to the absence of a mix of political and operational strategies. The political strategy has to identify and address the root causes of the spreading Maoism. While the spread is alarming, it is not yet out of control. There are still large areas in the tribal belt where the people are not supporting the Maoists and are observing law and order. The State has so far failed to undertake a crash development of these areas, which have not yet been infected by Maoism, in order to prove to the people that they can achieve their justified economic and social objectives through peaceful means, without having to take up arms against the State. Simultaneously, there has to be an improvement in rural policing and intelligence collection in order to thwart the efforts of the Maoists to bring these areas too under their sway.

The areas, which have already gone under the effective control of the Maoists, need a different strategy, with the emphasis more on the professional and operational aspects of counter-terrorism than on the political and economic. The objective is to wrest control of these areas from the Maoists. This would be possible only through expanding and strengthening the police presence in the areas, creating in the IB and the intelligence wings of the Police an improved capability for intelligence collection in the rural areas and strengthening the capability of the police and the para-military forces to counter the modus operandi of the Maoists such as their devastating use of landmines.

Concerned over the spread of Maoist terrorism and insurgency, suggestions are increasingly being made for giving the police a military edge through training in jungle warfare techniques etc. We should definitely improve the technical capabilities of the police  in matters such as mine-detection and neutralization, but we should not militarize the methods of operation of the police.

The growing interest in some of our officers----serving and retired---in the highly militarized British and American methods of dealing with insurgency and terrorism needs to be curbed. The former British occupying power in Malaya used and the current American occupying power in Iraq uses highly militarized methods. They were/are operating against foreign nationals in foreign territory and had/have, therefore, no qualms about the kind of methods they were/are using to suppress the insurgency-cum-terrorism.

Our Police and para-military forces are operating in our own territory against our own people. We have to temper effectiveness with self-restraint. We had to use the jungle warfare methods in Mizoram and certain areas of the North-East in the 1960s and the 1970s because of the involvement of Pakistan and China in keeping the insurgency sustained in those areas. We cannot unintelligently use those methods in our tribal heartland in Central India.

Modernization of the police forces' rural counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency capability, yes; but, militarization, no.

April 4, 2006

India's Continuing Maoist Dilemma - I

 B.Raman

[B. Raman is a retired senior Indian intelligence officer. The article was forwarded by Mandeep S. Bajwa]

The Police forces of different Indian States and the intelligence agencies have had  several successes to their credit in dealing with  essentially urban terrorism, initially of the Khalistani terrorists in Punjab and subsequently of  the jihadi terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) and other parts of India. But, they continue to face serious difficulties in controlling the spreading fire of the rural terrorism of the Maoists.

There are many reasons for this. The first is the fact that the Maoists----who have taken to terrorism on ideological grounds---have genuine root causes for doing so---the continuing pockets of abject poverty, particularly in the tribal areas across central India, and the failure of the State to implement an effective program for the economic development of the tribal areas. As a result of these root causes, Maoist terrorism enjoys considerable popular support unlike the Khalistani terrorism, which did not, and the current jihadi terrorism, which does not either.

The second is the understandable ambivalence of the political leadership in dealing with Maoist terrorism and its reluctance to authorize the counter-terrorism agencies to use the same methods against the Maoists as they do against the jihadi terrorists. This ambivalence arises from the fact that large sections of the elite and the public, which do not approve of Maoist terrorism, have nevertheless a strong empathy for their ideology and objectives.

The ideology and objectives of the jihadi terrorists are medieval. They are sought to be justified on grounds of alleged historical wrongs committed against the Muslims. Those of the Maoists are not. They do not want to take the society backwards as the jihadi terrorists do, but forward into an era of egalitarianism and prosperity.

The reluctance of the State can be attributed to the differing background of the two kinds of terrorism. Jihadi terrorism is to a large extent foreign inspired, foreign funded and foreign trained and armed. It is being used by Pakistan as a weapon to achieve its strategic objectives against India. A large component of foreign mercenaries ---mainly Pakistanis---is involved in it. Counter-terrorism as applied against the jihadi terrorists is seen by the political leadership and the intelligence and security agencies as part of our continuing confrontation with the Pakistani Armed Forces in order to maintain the secular character of our pluralistic society. There is no inhibiting factor ---either at the political or the professional level-- coming in the way of effective counter-terrorism against the jihadi terrorists.

The Maoists, on the contrary, are sons and daughters of our own soil, who feel neglected by the State, the political leadership, the governmental agencies and the better-off sections of our society and abandoned to the clutches of abject poverty and misery while the rest of the society is marching forward towards increasing prosperity. Their ideology---Maoism--- is not native to our soil. But, this has caught their imagination since our own political leadership and elite have not been able to place before them an alternative ideological model, which would end their economic and social marginalization. The Chinese and the North Korean Communist Parties were actively involved in supporting our Maoists till 1979. Since 1979, the Chinese Communist Party has stopped supporting them---at least materially. One does not know whether the support from the North Korean Communist Party continues. One should not be surprised if it does, through the Maoists of Nepal.

The indigenous character of the Maoist terrorists and the absence of the involvement of foreign mercenaries come in the way of the professionalism of our rural police, which has to be the cutting edge of our counter-terrorism strategy. They also come in the way of the success of our intelligence agencies in collecting rural intelligence comparable with their success in collecting intelligence in the urban areas. The rural police constables, who have to be in the forefront of the counter-terrorism campaign against the Maoists, often come from the same social and economic milieu as the Maoists. One cannot blame them totally if this comes in the way of their performance.

Fears caused by the ruthlessness of the methods used by the Maoists and the reluctance to operate against them caused by the fact that they are products of the same milieu as the Maoists should at least partly explain the hesitation of the people of the affected areas to come forward to join the police force in the required numbers. This is despite the prevalence of large-scale unemployment in these areas and the attractive emoluments offered to the police personnel volunteering for duty in the terrorism-affected rural areas.

According to a briefing of the media given by Mr.V.K.Duggal, the Home Secretary of the Government of India, on March 31,2006, ("The Hindu" of April 1), there were 17,000 vacancies of Constables in the State of Bihar, 6,000 in Andhra Pradesh and 1,000 in Jharkhand.  He did not explain to what extent these vacancies were due to the non-availability of candidates with the required minimum qualifications and to what extent due to the reluctance of the local people to serve in the Maoism-affected areas.

The intelligence agencies find themselves handicapped due to two reasons. Firstly, the Maoists have not been using modern means of communications to any significant extent. Extensive use of modern means of communications, as the jihadists do, increases the vulnerability of the terrorists to detection and neutralization. When they avoid the use of modern means of communications, the flow of technical intelligence (TECHINT) is sparse.

Counter-terrorism against the Maoists is, therefore, much more dependent on human intelligence (HUMINT) than counter-terrorism against the jihadi terrorists. Urban sources do not have much hesitation in reporting to the Police on the activities of suspected terrorists---whether indigenous or Pakistani nationals. The large urban population strengthens their anonymity and gives them  protection against reprisals by the terrorists.

In the case of the largely rural Maoist terrorism, the villagers have often a reluctance to report against their co-villagers. Moreover, in thinly populated villages, the advantage of anonymity is weak and there is less protection for village sources against reprisals by the terrorists.

How weak is our intelligence capability against rural Maoist terrorism would be evident from the fact that in recent months the Maoists have operated successfully in large numbers, with the assembling of the terrorists and their moving on the road towards the targets remaining undetected and unthwarted. In one incident in the State of Bihar on November 13, 2005, about 1000 armed Maoists raided a jail and rescued their comrades detained there. It is difficult to say how much of this was due to the absence of intelligence and how much due to the complicity of sections of the police personnel.