Hardly a Novelty
Any intelligence agency that has a stake in India-Pakistan hostility, be it that of India or of Pakistan, or of any weapons exporting country, could easily manage an incident like Uri with the help of people like Hikmatyar
When the whole world was focused on the uprising in Kashmir, the 18 September 2016 attack on Indian army base at Uri served as a diversion. New Delhi, ever keen to avoid facing the Kashmir issue and therefore having developed a habit of blaming everything nasty on Islamabad, was quick to call it an ISI-sponsored operation. Islamabad was as quick to deny involvement. Common Kashmiris, for their love of Pakistan and hatred of India, blamed it on RAW. They said that this incident would weaken Pakistan’s position at the UN General Assembly vis-à-vis Kashmir, hence RAW’s involvement.
So who actually masterminded the Uri operation? Normally people seldom find answers to such questions unless some insider spills the beans. And they do so years after the incident. For now Uri is a matter of guesswork. It could be RAW. It could be ISI. Or it could be some other intelligence agency. For example CIA, or al Qaeda, etc.
World history is dotted with examples of covert operations carried out by intelligence agencies of one country and then falsely blamed on another. Such incidents are called false flag. For example, in 1931 Japanese troops set off an explosion on a railway track and falsely blamed it on China to justify the invasion of Manchuria.
In 1938-39 German Nazi operatives faked attacks on their own people and blamed them on Poland to justify the invasion of Poland. Around the same time Red Army shelled Russian villages, falsely blamed the shelling on Finland and then invaded it.
In 1954 Israeli operatives in Egypt planted bombs in the US embassy, left behind “clues” that implicated Arabs. During the 1950s CIA hired Iranians to pose as Communists and carry out bomb blasts in Iran. Simultaneously they (CIA) got NATO to carry out bombings in European countries and blamed them on communists in order to rally people’s support for governments in Europe in their fight against communism.
In 1955 Turkey carried out bombings in its own consulate in Greece and falsely blamed Greece. In 1970 Turkish forces burned down a mosque in Cyprus and falsely blamed the Greeks to instigate violence against them.
In January 1971 the Border Security Force operatives facilitated JKNLF cadres in hijacking an airliner from Srinagar to Lahore to implicate Pakistan and to justify imposition of ban on Pakistani overflights from West Paksitan to East Pakistan via Indian air space.
In 1984 Mossad operatives planted a transmitter in Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli which broadcast fake terrorist transmissions recorded by Mossad. This to frame Gaddafi as a terrorist supporter. America bombed Libya immediately afterwards citing those transmissions as evidence against Gaddafi.
In 1990s the Algerian army killed civilians and then falsely blamed the militants for the killings.
In 2001 Kashmir police ordered Afzal Guru to accompany a person to Delhi who turned to be one of the persons killed in the parliamentary blast.
In 2005 Israeli operatives pelted stones on soldiers to justify army crackdown against peaceful Arab protesters.
In 2005-10 some non-Muslims groups in India carried out bombings in the Samjhuta Express, Dargah Ajmer Sharif, Mecca Masjid Hyderdabad, Malegaon, etc, to blame them on local Muslims and to demonstrate that the latter maintained connections with ISI.
In 2001 USA faked reports that Saddam maintained links with al Qaeda. US scientists carried out anthrax attacks and the White House told FBI to blame al Qaeda. In 2003 USA faked reports that Saddam was stockpiling Weapons of Mass Destructions. This to justify the invasion of Iraq. US soldiers killed Iraqi and Afghan civilians and then planted automatic weapons on them as if they had killed armed terrorists.
In 2011 a French secret serviceman infiltrated a violent mob and shot Gaddafi in the head to shroud the shady financial dealings between Gaddafi and President Nicolas Sarkozy.
There are multiple examples as to how Uri-type operations are masterminded? Militant cadres who believe in the justness of their “cause” remain ever prepared to kill and get killed for the sake of the “cause”. They willingly lay down their lives. However, their leaders behave differently. They believe in self-preservation. To this end they align with various intelligence agencies. They seldom work for a single agency. They forge links with multiple agencies which increases their chances of survival. Take for instance the case of the chief of Hizbi-Islamic Afghanistan, Gulbudeen Hikmatyar Khan. During the Afghan jihad his HIA received the lion’s share of the foreign aid and weapons that the USA and its allies provided through Pakistan for the war against the Soviets. The propaganda machine of Pakistan described Hikmatyar to be the greatest mujahideen commander of Islam. So people were full of admiration for him. Later it transpired that he had been a multiple agent (meaning one who works for more than two agencies) who worked for, and in return received money from, four agencies: ISI, MI6, CIA, and Iranian Intelligence. It is such multiple agents whom the intelligence agencies use to launch false flag operations. Any of these agencies could get Hikmatyar, against a money payment, to order his cadres to carry out a bombing or a target killing anywhere in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, etc. HIA cadres would willingly do his bidding thinking that they were serving Islam.
Coming back to Uri. Any intelligence agency that has a stake in India-Pakistan hostility, be it that of India or of Pakistan, or of any weapons exporting country, could easily manage an incident like Uri with the help of people like Hikmatyar.
Irrespective of which agency masterminded the Uri attack, the truth about Pakistan is that Hikmatyar-type mujahideen of Islam have safe havens in Pakistan in spite of Operation Zarbe-Azab. This gives a lever in the hands of India. New Delhi uses the presence of Hikmatyar-type people on Pakistani soil to blame all terror incidents on Islamabad. Yet the truth about India is equally bitter. They have been keeping Kashmir without seeking the consent of Kashmiris. They don’t want to resolve the Kashmir dispute. Hence the possibility of an Indian false flag to defame Kashmir’s self-determination movement and to malign Pakistan.