Opinion On 26/11 anniversary, a few things India must make Trump understand about Pakistan
There was a third party behind 26/11 attacks besides Pakistan’s ISI and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Al Qaeda had its own reasons for supporting the attack
Why did al Qaeda get involved in 26/11? Reidel said that it had “big hopes” that after 26/11, India would attack Pakistan which, in turn, would disrupt NATO operations in Afghanistan by way of drone attacks on it. (File Image) 
How do we assess the significance of the 17th anniversary of the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai in the background of the recent bonhomie between US President Donald Trump and Pakistan’s 11th army chief, Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir Ahmed Shah who had threatened to “shatter India’s geographical immunity”?
Should we refresh the President’s memory on what American strategist Bruce Reidel had pointed out years ago, that there was a third party behind the 26/11 attacks besides Pakistan’s ISI and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)? Reidel said that it was al Qaeda, which had its own reasons for supporting that attack. He had argued that al Qaeda deliberately kept a low profile and allowed LeT to select the Mumbai targets, making it appear that it was purely an Indo-Pak issue.
Why did al Qaeda get involved in 26/11? Reidel said that it had “big hopes” that after 26/11, India would attack Pakistan which, in turn, would disrupt NATO operations in Afghanistan by way of drone attacks on it. “Instead, India chose to use diplomacy and avoid a military response. We all dodged a bullet,” he added.
Reidel also added that LeT had planned a big attack on New Delhi during the 2010 Commonwealth Games, which “was thwarted by prompt intelligence from the British services”. International media had quoted Michael Leiter, the then director of the US National Counter-terrorism Centre disclosing to the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi would be “an appealing target for Lashkar-e-Taiba due to their political and economic significance for India”.
In 2009, Stephen Tankel, an internationally recognised authority on LeT, published a paper, ‘Lashkar-e-Taiba: From 9/11 to Mumbai’, according to which the Mumbai attacks revealed “Lashkar’s progression toward al-Qaeda’s global jihad” against Western interests.
On July 3, 2024 the chair of the UN Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1988 of 2011 wrote to the president of the Security Council that al-Qaeda in Afghanistan remained “strategically patient, cooperating with other terrorist groups in Afghanistan and prioritising its ongoing relationship with the Taliban”.
However, it continued to operate “covertly” to project the image of Taliban adherence to the provisions of the Doha Agreement to prevent the use of Afghan soil for terrorist purposes. The report added that although the Taliban had claimed that it had done much to constrain the activities of al Qaeda and their affiliates, “member states remarked that its reorganisation and training activities, as well as new travel into Afghanistan, indicate that the group still uses Afghanistan as a permissive haven under the Taliban, raising questions about al Qaeda’s intent”.
India needs to convey to the Trump administration that this background needs to be kept in mind to read and interpret the November 10 Red Fort Metro bomb attack on India which has exposed an extremely dangerous group of educated persons which was preparing to attack Indian cities.
In the present case, it was the remarkable alertness, on October 19, of Srinagar Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sundeep Chakravarthy of Jammu and Kashmir police, that led our agencies to Maulvi Irfan Ahmad, the Shopian cleric, then to the terrorist modules across J&K, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and finally to the Red Fort bombing.
Normally, none would have cared to go deep into the origins of such protest posters as they occur almost daily in J&K. However, Chakravarthy insisted on finding out who was behind the posters, and connected the dots. The CCTV cameras revealed the perpetrators, which led to the sleeper modules.
The importance of Chakravarty’s alertness cannot be understood without comparing it to our earlier experience with the Indian Mujahideen (IM) which had burst onto the scene two decades ago anonymously, playing havoc with our security and indulging in wanton killings on a pan-Indian model between October 2005 and January 2018.
We could identify these killers only in November 2007 after the synchronised bombing of three law courts (Varanasi, Lucknow and Faizabad) in Uttar Pradesh, killing 18 persons for which they claimed credit. Investigations later revealed that IM was responsible for 23 bomb blasts all over India, including the 2005 Delhi bombings.
The writer is former special secretary, cabinet secretariat, who was part of the high-level committee to enquire into the 26/11 terror attacks
Share
