Mumbai and Salala attacks’ anniversary

And why they must never be repeated

November 26 is an ominous date, since on this day in 2008, India orchestrated a terrorist attack on its Port City of Mumbai while on the same date in 2011, US-led NATO troops in Afghanistan launched an unprovoked assault targeting two Pakistani military check posts along the Pakistan-Afghan Border. Both incidents had serious repercussions and are known as the 26/11 attacks.

The former, generally termed as the Mumbai Attacks was an Indian false flag operation, during which ten “Pakistani terrorists” are alleged to have reached Mumbai in a hijacked Indian fishing boat and then disembarking at Mumbai Harbour in rubber dinghies, laden with heavy weaponry and targeting various locations in Mumbai including two five star hotels. The siege lasted 72 hours during which 169 Indians lost their lives while nine of the alleged “terrorists” were killed and a tenth by the name of Ajmal Kassab was wounded but captured alive. He was hastily tried and executed before a Pakistani investigation team could interrogate him or consular access could be provided.

The immediate repercussion of the attack was that India canceled the Pakistan India Composite Dialogue for peace, which had commenced in 2004. Major hue and cry was raised internationally, blaming Pakistan for sponsoring the attack, which brought down the ire of many western nations upon Pakistan, without delving deeper into the incident. Till today India flogs Pakistan that it did not bring the perpetrators of Mumbai attack to justice.

At the tenth anniversary of the attack, let us briefly examine the issue. There were major loop holes in the dossiers of evidence provided by India. Mumbai is also a major Naval Base and security is extremely tight, with Indian Coast Guard vessels patrolling the seas while coastal radars keep vigil round the clock. For a fishing vessel to dupe the entire coastal defence and reach Mumbai undetected is nigh impossible. Secondly, to transport the massive firepower, which the alleged terrorists unleashed on Mumbai on 26/11 and the subsequent four days, till they were overpowered, could not have been carried on board the rubber dinghies. For ten complete strangers to reach a new and hostile country and an alien city and yet assail the selected targets with impunity and ease could not have been possible without local support at the highest level. Thirdly, two five star hotels, which were besieged, had foreigners residing there and security was air tight, yet we find that the assailants ingressed with their heavy weaponry with ease and held the hotel guests including VIPs hostage with ease.

More importantly, one glaring event which points the attacks to have been perpetrated by Indian security agencies stands out. A couple of months prior to the Mumbai attack, an Eidgah and a Mosque were targeted at Malegaon, where a number of Muslims were martyred. The Chief of the Mumbai Anti Terrorist Squad, Hemant Karkare had carried out investigations and arrested Indian Army’s serving military intelligence officer, Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Prohit, who had provided the explosives for the Malegaon attack. He was arrested by Hemant Karkare and during interrogations, he confessed to also providing the explosives which caused the inferno on the Pakistan bound Samjhota Express Train, in which 59 Pakistanis had been burnt alive.

Colonel Prohit’s arrest caused a furore in the Hindu extremist groups who demanded his release. Colonel Prohit was a member of Abhinav Bharat, an extremist group led by, the niece of Gandhi’s assassin. When the Mumbai attacks occurred, Hemant Karkare and his team were contacted by wireless and asked to report to a certain location, where they were murdered in cold blood to silence them and have the law suit against Colonel Prohit dropped. Hemant Karkare and his team’s assassination were blamed at the terrorists allegedly involved in the Mumbai attacks. Hemant Karkare was awarded the highest award for gallantry posthumously. His widow refused to accept the award on his behalf, stating that his assassins were the ones presenting the award and she demanded justice instead in exposing her husband’s true assassins.

The evidence against Ajmal Kasab was based on a confession, which he made under duress and later withdrew. As mentioned earlier, when a Pakistani judicial inquiry team reached India to interrogate him, Ajmal Kasab was executed hastily. It is alleged that he was not a Pakistani citizen but a planted Indian terrorist, positioned to denigrate Pakistan.

India demanded that Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi, the alleged Pakistani mastermind of the Mumbai attacks be arrested, tried and sentenced. The Government of Pakistan acceded to the Indian request but based on the flimsy evidence presented to the Pakistani courts, all charges were dropped.

David Coleman Headley alias Dawood Gilani, an US citizen of Pakistani origin was arrested and named as an abettor and facilitator for the terrorists involved in the Mumbai attacks. David Coleman Headley has a dubious background; he was allegedly involved in drug trafficking, became an informer for the US Anti Narcotics Force and also possibly became a triple agent, also working for the Taliban. His so called confessions need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

India continues to harp on the beaten tune that Pakistan needs to do more on the Mumbai Attacks issue. Its cries of anguish have become heightened with the fresh round of aggression Pakistan is facing at India’s hands in its daily massacre of innocent Pakistani civilians and armed forces personnel across the Line of Control.

The second 26/11, also called the Salala attack, involved an apparently premeditated attack at the border in Afghanistan, where US led NATO forces opened fire at two border patrol check-posts, killing 28 Pakistani soldiers and wounding 12 others. According to Pakistan Army official statements, the attack was a coordinated NATO strike and used two AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopters, an AC-130H Spectre gunship and two F-15E Eagle fighter jets. A MC-12W Liberty turbo-propeller aircraft was used in an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) role. Thus massive fire and air power was unleashed at the two check-posts located 200 meters (660 ft) to 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) inside Pakistan from the border with Afghanistan in the Salala area of the Baizai subdivision of the Mohmand tribal region in FATA, Pakistan.

Relations between Pakistan and USA, which were souring since February 2011, when a CIA operative Raymond Davis was apprehended at Lahore after he murdered two Pakistanis in broad daylight and classified documents to Pakistani sensitive assets, were recovered from his person. On May 2, 2011, US Navy SEALs carried out a clandestine raid at a residential compound in the Pakistani Cantonment city of Abbottabad and reportedly eliminated the founder of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. Pakistan was infuriated at the surreptitious raid while the international community was charging Pakistan for harbouring the world’s most wanted terrorist leader.

The Salala attack was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The Pakistani public reacted with protests all over the country and the government took measures adversely affecting the US exit strategy from Afghanistan including the evacuation of Shamsi Airfield in Balochistan, which was being used to launch drone attacks and the closure of the NATO ground lines of communication (GLOC), the supply line via Pakistan. NATO and the US had to alternately use the northern supply line through Central Asia, which was cumbersomely long and six times more expensive than the GLOC through Pakistan. Pakistan also boycotted the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan, scheduled to be held on December 5, 2011. Owing to Pakistan’s absence, the event turned into a damp squib.

Most of the western countries, China and Russia condemned the attack. The White House released a statement in which it said that senior American officials had expressed their condolences to Pakistan but refused to apologise for the attack.

Pak-US ties touched their lowest ebb but with mounting logistic expenses and lack of intelligence support by Pakistan in the war on terror, on July 3, 2012, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially, however briefly, apologised for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military. Subsequently, Pakistan restored the NATO supply routes.

Both incidents merit attention, while we pay tributes to the martyrs of the Salala Attack; we need to ensure that it is never repeated. The Mumbai attack needs to be exposed widely as an Indian false flag operation with dire consequences.