Saturday, 21 November 2015

From Arab Spring to Islamist Winter

From Arab Spring to Islamist Winter

Al Qaeda, that led the Mali hotel siege, was strengthened by the collapse of Muammar Gadaffi’s Libya in 2011.

 |  4-minute read |   21-11-2015
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The attacks by an al Qaeda affiliate at the Radisson Blu luxury hotel in Africa exactly a week after the Paris terror attack could signal a curious rivalry between jihadist groups opposed to the West. Al Qaeda, the original fount of global jihad, signalling the upstart Islamic State which carried out the lethal Paris strikes, that it was still relevant.
Al Qaeda in West Africa, also known as al Mourabitoun is believed to be behind the nine-hour siege in Bamako which killed 27 persons. Al Mourabitoun has origins similar to that of the nefarious IS. Both originated in western-led interventions in Asia and Africa and were strengthened by the so-called Arab Spring. The Islamic State sprang out of the US-led coalition's destruction of Saddam Hussain's Iraq in 2003 when Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi used disenchanted elements of Saddam's Baathist state-generals, spies and soldiers - and vast weapons caches to create his Sunni Arab "Caliphate" in July 2014.
Al Qaeda in Africa is also rooted in another equally disastrous western intervention - the overthrow of Muammar Gadaffi in 2011. The Libyan civil war was part of a so-called "Arab Spring" which began with civil unrest in Tunisia in 2010 and spread through Arab League countries. It turned into an Islamist Winter post 2012 when civil-war wracked countries like Syria became sanctuaries for terrorist groups like the IS and al Qaeda.
France under President Chirac wisely stayed away from the 2003 US-led intervention in Iraq. Under President Nicolas Sarkozy, France played an active role in the multi-national coalition force that bombed Libya in 2011, albeit under a UN Security Council mandate. I witnessed the consequences of this intervention firsthand over 2000km south of Libya's capital Tripoli in Chad last December. I was part of a small Indian press delegation witnessing France's intervention in Francophone Africa. Amidst the high-pitched roars of Rafale fighter jets, military officials briefed us on their war against a host of islamist groups reinvigorated by the collapse of Gadaffi's Libya.
Jihadist fires have simmered in Africa for decades. In 2005, the Algerian Salafi group for Call and Combat (GSPC) pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and renamed itself the al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Al-Mourabitoun, headed by a veteran jihadist fighter Mokhtar Belmokhtar, broke away from AQIM sometime in 2013. Just how these groups had revived to threaten fragile African countries, the UN Security Council committee grimly noted in a 2013 report:
"In the past 12 months, the proliferation of weapons from Libya has continued at a worrying rate and has spread into new territory: West Africa, the Levant and, potentially, even the Horn of Africa," it said. "Illicit flows from the country are fuelling existing conflicts in Africa and the Levant and enriching the arsenals of a range of non-state actors, including terrorist groups."
Flush with arms and ammunition from Libyan arsenals, jihadist groups captured vast swathes of north-eastern Mali in 2012 prompting French military intervention. Last January four Rafale jets flew 9.5 hours nonstop from their base in Saint-Dizier in southern France, topping up their planes five times, to bomb Jihadist forces as they encircled the town of Gao in Mali. This intervention was later succeeded by an ongoing Operation Barkhane (sand dune)- spread across Niger, Mali, Chad, Burkino Faso and Mauritania-the "G5" countries that make up the Sahelian belt, an area 10 times the size of France. More than 3,000 French military personnel backed by Rafale fighter jets, helicopter gunships and drones form the vanguard of a coalition fighting jihadi groups in the Sahel.
Libya, with its multiple armed conflicts, warlords and multiple militias continues to pose a challenge for them. In October 2014, an Islamic State affiliate took control of the eastern Libyan city of Derna, marking Libya's transition to Islamist Winter.
"Southern Libya is a large haven for terrorist armed groups who use it to rest, train, recruit and finance," a French military commander in N'Djamena rued. Intelligence-led military operation have intercepted hundreds of tons of weapon caches, most of it from Libyan arsenals, riding on Africa's old smuggling networks.
In August this year, Mokhtar Belmokhtar was named the head of al Qaeda in Western Africa, indicating why it may be too early to pronounce the demise of al Qaeda.
The core of al Qaeda's leadership headed by Ayman Al Zawahiri since the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden may have weakened and hiding in the Af-Pak region. But its affiliates like AQIM, al Muhajiroun, the al Nusra front in Syria and al Qaeda in Yemen continue to pose serious security challenges for the world. The Arab Spring was a short-lived phenomenon.
The Islamist Winter is likely to endure.

Wednesday, 18 November 2015

India's new enemy

India's new enemy

The Paris attacks have raised the possibility of strikes on India by the IS. The security establishment is now looking for a raft of solutions.

November 18, 2015 | UPDATED 13:32 IST 
Protesters in Kashmir carry flags of the Islamic state
Protesters in Kashmir carry flags of the Islamic state. Photo: Abid Bhat
At a high-level intelligence-sharing meeting in Washington DC this June, senior US officials flagged the possibility of IS attacks to their Indian counterparts. India, they said, faced a "massive terrorist threat" from the Islamic State.
It was only the second instance that the IS had figured in the high-level intelligence meetings that begun with the US after the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. Indian intelligence agencies, almost exclusively focused on the threat of terrorism emanating from Pakistan and the possibility of more Mumbai-style strikes, were not inclined to take the IS threat seriously then. Although the IS had attracted a handful of young Indian Muslims through a ferocious social media outreach, and had declared India to be part of the 'Khorasan province', covering Afghanistan and Pakistan, in IS propaganda, the group was largely seen as being a problem confined to West Asia.
That attitude changed swiftly after November 13. On November 16, three days after the Paris attacks, the home ministry issued a nationwide alert accepting that the terror group was expanding its arc beyond its core areas of Iraq and Syria. The IS, the alert states, has been piggybacking on terror groups operating in India, and that there is a high possibility of IS-sponsored terror attacks in the country.
"The whole world is under threat from the IS. It is a global challenge and we have to deal with it together," Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh told the media on November 17.
The home ministry has advised all states and union territories to take preventive measures around all foreign missions, tourist spots and community facilities frequented by foreigners. It has advised the review and strengthening of security facilities for foreign nationals from the US, UK, France, Russia, Israel, Turkey and Australia.
According to an Indian intelligence officer, India is in the second tier of countries on the list of IS targets-the West remains the terror organisation's primary target. "The IS has no cause to hit India at present, but they would like to carry out a major aggravating strike mainly to highlight our proximity to the United States and Israel," he says.
This is a near identical Indian security assessment of al Qaeda post the 9/11 attacks and also a reason the Mumbai attackers in 2008 targeted Israeli nationals.
IS, the successor to al Qaeda's apocalyptic legacy, has amplified the threat with its mastery of social media as a recruitment tool. It now presents a three-fold threat far greater than al Qaeda ever did in its heyday: lone wolf attacks carried out by self-radicalised youth, a Mumbai-style attack executed on Indian and foreign targets on Indian soil, and finally the possibility of an Indian militant group pledging allegiance to IS like groups such as Boko Haram have done.
A particular area of concern is J&K where the home ministry has warned of strikes. The security establishment is not alarmed by Kashmiri youths waving IS flags in downtown Srinagar, which is largely seen as attempts to get publicity. The real danger, a senior police officer in Srinagar warns, is the possibility of a breakaway Kashmiri militant group pledging allegiance to the IS. "It could get even more complicated if this group is recognised by IS as a so-called 'wilayat' (province). IS would then claim to have a presence in India," he says.
Terrorism experts say the advent of IS marks a new challenge since the 26/11 strikes because existing deficiencies in India's security architecture have not been fixed.
"We have not been able to distinguish between risk and vulnerability," says Ajai Sahni, executive director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies. "Our vulnerabilities, post 26/11 continue because we have not addressed our policing capabilities. What fluctuates is the risk."
Self-radicalised recruits
In November 2014, Indian intelligence agencies were stunned by the return of Areeb Majeed, a 24-year-old youth from Kalyan, a Mumbai suburb. A civil engineering student, Majeed had accompanied three others from Kalyan to join the IS ranks in Syria. He told his police interrogators that he had been trained to become a suicide bomber by IS handlers, but disillusioned with the organisation, had returned. His three companions-Saleem Tanki, Fahad Sheikh and Aman Sheikh-are listed as missing, believed to be dead. Suddenly, Indian authorities realised that the world's third largest Muslim population was no longer insulated from the lure of pan-Islamic extremism.
One study by the British House of Commons Defence Committee released in February this year estimates that handles sympathetic to the organisation post about 90,000 tweets each day. Many recruiters actively solicit global recruits to come and fight in their 'Caliphate'. Virtually all the 20 or so Indians believed to have traveled to IS-held territories were radicalised through social media.
 
Saifuddin (name changed), a Hyderabadbased MBA, for instance says he got in touch with a person who identified himself as Mohammed-Ibn-Al Bara and claimed to be a Syria-born Australian citizen carrying out aid work in conflict-hit Syria. "He convinced me to join as a volunteer and asked me to reach Turkey and then cross over to Syria," he says. Saifuddin aborted his plan after policemen knocked on his door in August last year, a week before he was to leave for Turkey after getting a visa. He is now working as an independent foreign exchange trader.
The possibility of strikes by IS adds a new dimension to the problem of radicalised youth, particularly since the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) advisory warns that the organisation has been successful in radicalising youths and attracting locals in India and people from the Indian diaspora to participate in its activities.
India has virtually no intelligence-gathering on the IS and relies on secondary intelligence obtained from the US, Britain and Russia through information-sharing agreements.
"But it is not enough to know where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the IS leader, is-we must know what he and the leadership are thinking," one intelligence officer says. But such information is hard to come by. Government sources say the first steps towards establishing some intelligence-sharing capability were taken in June this year with the appointment of former Intelligence Bureau chief Asif Ibrahim as the Prime Minister's special envoy for counter-terrorism. Ibrahim is believed to have played a key role in obtaining the release of 46 Indian nurses held captive by the IS in the Iraqi city of Mosul last June.
The priority for both MHA and state home departments remains on how to firewall Indian Muslims from IS's notorious online reach.
The Telangana model
As a concrete step, the MHA held a meeting with the police of 12 vulnerable states on July 30 and discussed the problem of IS radicalisation. The approach discussed was a radical departure from simply jailing youths who wanted to join their ranks. Areeb Majeed is an exception, and remains lodged in Mumbai's Arthur Road Jail, because he actually took part in the fighting and was arrested by the NIA. He was later chargesheeted under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). The plan to tackle youth yet to travel to the IS is going to be counseling and de-radicalisation.
Perhaps the biggest catch for the Indian authorities since Majeed's return from the IS front was the arrest of Afsha Jabeen, 38, who was deported from the UAE and arrested on arrival in Hyderabad on September 11. According to the police, Jabeen has used the IS ideology to radicalise people and even convince non-Muslims to convert through Facebook groups, although she was not in touch with any IS leader and was only a motivator, not a recruiter.
The police say Jabeen, who earlier worked with a travel agency in UAE, began to get radicalised in 2008. Pregnant at the time, she watched videos on YouTube and read jihadi literature online. On Facebook groups, she reportedly urged young Indians to establish a Caliphate in India and wanted the ISIS supremo, Al Baghdadi, to be idolised by Muslims the world over. "She says she engaged people on Facebook groups to appreciate the supremacy of Islam," recalls a senior intelligence officer.
An MHA official says the case is slightly different in India: "Indian Muslims are temperamentally different from Muslims in West Asia or in Africa. The reasons for alienation and indoctrination that exist abroad are absent here." The MHA now wants the police of other states to emulate the example of Telangana State Police, which claims to have successfully prevented at least 16 potential IS recruits from joining the extremist organisation over the past one year.
Indian recruits to IS are still miniscule when compared to western nations. The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) believes that up to 1,500 French nationals, 1,200 Russians, 600 British and German nationals make up an IS's foreign legion of nearly 20,000 fighters.

Protests outside Jamia Masjid, Srinagar, with Pakistan, IS and Lashkar flags. Photo: Abid Bhat

 
The counselling route
Banking on its earlier experience in weaning away some of those inspired by left-wing extremism, the Telangana Police follows what has until now turned out to be an effective plan to talk and walk back Muslim youth from the edge of sectarian extremism. It banks on counselling to win over the impressionable minds and victims of online radicalisation. This is also in consonance with the state government's softline approach in dealing with minority issues and handling those found sympathetic and supportive of the IS. Police officers keep a close and constant watch on internet users to track those attracted to IS ideology.
There are some hiccups in tracking social media accounts of potential suspects, they say, as Facebook, for one, is not consistent in granting access to profiles of potential recruits under investigation.
When such cases are spotted, the police act quickly. In the case of four youngsters, all in their early 20s trying to obtain Turkish visas, intelligence agencies were constantly monitoring them. After their visas got cancelled, the four planned to illegally cross over to Bangladesh where a handler promised to facilitate their travel to Turkey. They travelled from Karimnagar, near Hyderabad, to Kolkata by train last August. The Telangana police intercepted them in a Kolkata lodge.
All potential IS recruits stopped in their tracks have been put through counselling sessions. The police claim it has yielded positive results so far-those tracked and persuaded to change their minds are now either pursuing a professional career or continuing their studies. They refrain from browsing pro-ISIS websites. This is possible because inputs based on monitoring of radical social media platforms is shared with the local police and, in turn, elders in the family. If possible, local religious leaders are also roped in to make the recruits realise the futility of their misplaced idealism.
"We spend time to explain how their imagination is fired online by the exploits of so-called do-gooders and that a reality check would show it is a sour dream," a senior Telangana intelligence officer says about the counselling exercise. Experiences of ISIS survivors and returnees are also shared with potential recruits. "Education is a better alternative to enforcement because the learning of these impressionable minds is limited to social media exposure," says another intelligence officer. Counsellors interact with each individual directly as well as through those close to them who the police believe might convince these radical youths.
Some officers involved in the counter-radicalisation measures lament the lack of involvement of Muslims scholars and other opinion makers in Muslim society, and their negligible presence on social media to interpret Islam in its true light and explain to these radicalised youths its values.
Not everyone in the security and intelligence establishment approves of this strategy to neutralise an extremist ideology. Those opposed to it, particularly in the Intelligence Bureau, point out that like in the case of disillusioned or former Maoists cadres and sympathisers, those imbued by online Islamic radicalisation will eventually return to their erratic ways. They contend that the sway of extremist doctrines will not wear off unless these individuals are handheld into building careers because most of these people come from the rapidly emerging Muslim middle class with growing economic aspirations.
But, for now, the Telangana Police's model seems to have found more takers. Because, as the officers in Hyderabad say, the alternative-of doing nothing-is worse.
Follow the writers on Twitter @SandeepUnnithan and @AmarnathKMenon
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Tuesday, 17 November 2015

Metrojet bombing the worst aviation security attack since 9/11

Metrojet bombing is the worst aviation security attack since 9/11

It was reminiscent of the 1985 attack on Air India’s 'Emperor Kanishka' which killed 329 people.

 |  3-minute read |   17-11-2015
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Russia’s head of security service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov confirmed that a “terrorist bomb” brought down the Metrojet Airbus A321 passenger jet over Egypt’s Sinai peninsula. The St Petersburg-bound aircraft crashed on the Sinai peninsula on October 31 after taking off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, killing all 224 passengers on board. The Islamic State's (ISIS) affiliate in the Sinai peninsula, through a statement, claimed to have downed the aircraft, though the group did not reveal its modus operandi. The ISIS claimed that the aircraft was downed in revenge for Russia’s bombing campaign against the ISIS which began on September 30.
It is still not clear whether the explosive was carried by a suicide bomber or in baggage checked into the aircraft. Reports on November 17 that Egyptian authorities had arrested two Sharm El-Shiekh airport employees points to the latter possibility.
This is the worst breach of aviation security since the September 11, 2001, or "9/11" terrorist attacks, in which 18 al-Qaeda hijackers commandeered passenger jets and flew them into US landmarks including the World Trade Centre towers and the Pentagon, killing 2,977 people.
The suspected modus operandi in the Metrojet bombing is in fact reminiscent of the June 23, 1985 bombing of Air India’s "Emperor Kanishka" which killed 329 people. The bomb planted onboard the aircraft by Babbar Khalsa militants in Toronto, exploded when the Delhi-bound jet was off the coast of Ireland. It was the worst terrorist strike in aviation history until the 9/11 attacks.
The ISIS’ claim of downing the Russian jet has now been corroborated by a Russian investigation where forensic scientists discovered traces of explosives in the aircraft wreckage. Bortnikov says a homemade explosive device weighing approximately 1 kg of TNT broke the aircraft up in midair and caused the debris to be scattered over a wide area.
Aviation security has seen an unprecedented surge after 9/11 with countries focusing on scanning passengers for explosives or weapons and also rehearsing scenarios for fighter jets to shoot down commandeered aircraft to prevent them from being used as flying missiles.
Attempts by terrorists to bring down airliners — prized as high-visibility targets — have continued. Until now, all of them were foiled. In December 2001, passengers overpowered "shoe bomber" Richard Reid as he attempted to light an explosive-packed shoe over an airliner. Attempts by al Qaeda terrorists to down an Israeli Boeing 757 chartered aircraft over Mombasa when the two Russian-built SA-7 "Strela" Man Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS) missed the target. On December 25, 2009, alert passengers on an Amsterdam-Detroit flight overpowered Nigerian national Umar Farook Abdulmutallab, 24, as he attempted to light plastic explosives stuffed in his underwear. In November 2010, security offcials intercepted a colour printer rigged with explosives in the UK, bound on a trans-Atlantic cargo jet headed for the US.
Experts ruled out the possibility of Russian Metrojet aircraft being downed by a surface-to-air missile. The aircraft was flying at 30,000 feet well beyond the ceiling of most MANPADS available to terrorist groups.
Earlier, on November 2, US officials released infra-red satellite images to NBC News which showed a flash on the jet leading to speculation that it had been brought down by a bomb. The November 13, Paris attacks which killed 139 people has revived the spectre of highly coordinated Mumbai-style gun-and-bomb attacks. The downing of Russia’s Metrojet revives an older yet equally nefarious security threat.

Sunday, 15 November 2015

Attack of the Wolf Pack

Paris massacre: Attack of the wolf pack

Attacks carried out by gunmen are easily the most lethal of terror attacks because, unlike airlines or train stations where access can be controlled and security increased, it is almost impossible to prevent mass simultaneous shooting in public places, once they have started. 

Sandeep Unnithan   |    |   Mail Today  |   New Delhi, November 15, 2015 | UPDATED 14:28 IST

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Paris Attacks
Paris Attacks
The eight terrorists that hit Paris on the night of Friday, November 13 killing 127 persons did not carry out the worst terrorist strikes in the western hemisphere.
That dubious distinction continues to be held by the September 11, 2001 '9/11' terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda suicide hijackers that killed 2977 persons and the Madrid train bombings of March 2004 that killed 191 civilians.
Where the Paris attacks achieve lethal notoriety is the use of highly trained, motivated suicide attackers carrying out coordinated mobile bomb and gun attacks on soft targets. This lethal tactic pioneered in the November 26, 2008 '26/11' attacks on Mumbai.
Attacks carried out by gunmen are easily the most lethal of terror attacks because, unlike airlines or train stations where access can be controlled and security increased, it is almost impossible to prevent mass simultaneous shooting in public places, once they have started. Attackers are able to freely move either on foot or in vehicles thereby spreading panic; multiple sieges only help prolong the duration of the event giving the terrorists the upper hand.



Saturday, 14 November 2015

Similarities between Paris attacks and Mumbai 26/11

Similarities between Paris attacks and Mumbai 26/11

Suicide assailants in both cities hit public places frequented by civilians, aiming to kill as many people as they could before being neutralised.

 |  4-minute read |   14-11-2015
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In the concluding lines of my book ‘Black Tornado: the three sieges of Mumbai’ I wrote how, at a time when terrorist groups like ISIS had demonstrated their ability to capture and hold territory and attract global recruits, swarm attacks like those in Mumbai could prove to be their weapon of choice to inflict global terror.’
I could not have imagined how horribly prophetic those words would prove to be. This morning as I woke to news of the terrible tragedy in Paris. At least 153 people are believed killed in a series of bomb and gun attacks late on the night of Friday November 13, in what are now being referred to as the Paris attacks.
paris-mumbai_111415121919.jpg
Haversack of one of the Mumbai attackers recovered from the Taj. Bullets and anti-personnel grenades meant to cause maximum civilian casualties, AK-47 magazines taped together to enable rapid reloads. 
Two bombs were detonated in the Stade de France soccer stadium during the game being witnessed by, among others, French President Francois Hollande. At least eight terrorists are believed to be involved in this multi-stage terrorist attack. The first attacks were carried out in two restaurants on Rue Bichat—the La Petit Cambodge and the Le Carillon. Finally, at least three terrorists took over 100 people hostage in a concert hall, Bataclan, where a rock concert was in progress. Here they randomly executed their hostages, which newspaper reports say, they reloaded their assault rifles at least three times. At least seven of the eight attackers detonated suicide vests. No terrorist outfit has claimed responsibility for the attacks yet but the needle of suspicion points towards ISIS.
These attacks are the deadliest terrorist attacks on European soil since the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in 2004. Far more lethal than the January 7, 2015 Paris shooting at the offices of French magazine Charlie Hebdo which killed 12 people. In their sheer complexity and brutality, the Paris attacks are near-identical to the savage attacks on Mumbai on the night of November 26, 2008 carried out by gunmen from the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba which killed 166 persons. Look at the similarities.
The ten Mumbai ‘26/11’ attackers landed by sea in a hijacked fishing trawler. They split into five ‘buddy pairs’ and swarmed through a tight three square km box in the heart of India’s financial capital. Mumbai was the world’s first ‘hybrid terrorist attack’ because it combined all the elements of modern terrorism—stealthy cross-border infiltration by suicide attackers who used random active-shooter attacks on civilians, car bombs and hostage taking.
They struck at crowded railway stations, restaurants and a hospital before holding security forces off in multiple prolonged sieges in two prominent five star hotels and a Jewish centre. The terrorists used simple improvisations to enable mass killing—each AK-47 they carried had two magazines bound together with duct tape to enable rapid reloads; the terrorists carried hundreds of spare bullets in their haversacks with which they reloaded the magazines, they flung anti-personnel grenades meant to maim and kill. Each pair of terrorists had a 5-kg Improvised Explosive Device.
'I finished two-and-a-half magazines. Don't know how many I killed. I Just kept firing. Zakki (LeT military chief Lakhvi) had told us to keep killing till we were alive,' the sole surviving gunman Ajmal Kasab told the Mumbai police.
The 26/11 military masterminds including Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi continuously directed the attacks from a command and control room set up in the port city of Karachi.
The blueprint for the Mumbai 26/11 attack came from two sources—the March 1975 seaborne landing on Tel Aviv beach and the capture of the Savoy Hotel by Palestianian terrorists and the ‘Landmarks’ plot foiled by the FBI in June 1993. Eight Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists planned to storm several hotels and landmarks like the UN building in Manhattan, the Lincoln Tunnel, the Holland Tunnels and the George Washington Bridge. The logic was simple. Swarm attacks carried out by multiple mobile gunmen complicated the response of security forces who would be forced to scatter their forces.
Al Qaeda chose the suicide bomber over the gunman as it embarked on a series of ‘terrorist acts of the deed’ like the 9/11 attacks. Nineteenth century Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin described the terrorist act of the deed, "the most popular, the most potent, and the most irresistible form of propaganda.”
Strikes could also inflict economic blows on host nations to portray them as being unsafe—France for instance attracted 83.7 million tourists last year to emerge the world’s number one tourist destination. They also serve as huge recruitment tools for terrorist organisations particularly the ISIS which has attracted close to 20,000 foreign fighters in the past few years.
The successful deployment of swarm attacks in Mumbai and Paris mean terrorist groups have abandoned the classic hostage situation like the two-day siege in Munich, 1972 or the three-day siege of the Moscow theatre in 2002. Long sieges give states the time to deploy the full might of their resources and even impose media blackouts that could starve terrorists of their oxygen of media publicity.
The new terrorist blueprint has arrived. Tried in Mumbai, perfected in Paris. The swarm attack executed by foot soldiers is the new act of the deed. Kill as many civilians and then kill yourself.

Thursday, 12 November 2015

How a Soviet-era helicopter gunship became a South Asian must-have

How a Soviet-era helicopter gunship became a South Asian must-have

India and Sri Lanka have them. Pakistan is buying them. Afghanistan is getting some more.

 |  6-minute read |   12-11-2015
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This September, South Block was riled by news of Russia’s first sale of military hardware to Pakistan. After years of refusal, India’s long-term strategic partner signed a deal to sell four Mi-35 helicopter gunships to India’s western neighbour. The Pakistan Army, a long-time operator of the US-made Cobra attack helicopters, plans to use the Russian machines in its bloody battle against the Taliban in their north-western tribal region. But this was not the only interesting loyalty swap that month. On September 29, India, a long-time user of the Mi-24 and Mi-35 signed a multi-billion dollar deal to purchase 22 US-made Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, which its manufacturer calls the world's most advanced multi-role combat helicopter. The Apache, which first flew in 1975, mysteriously lacks the lore of the Mi-24, a helicopter that first flew in 1972. The Apache’s only combat mission during "Enduring Freedom", the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq ended in failure. Forty Apaches that flew a mission against the Iraqi Republican Guard were beaten back by heavy ground fire. One gunship was shot down and its two pilots taken prisoner, the rest flew back to base, heavily damaged. Such a scenario would be difficult to imagine with the Mi-24 which has often been dubbed the "AK-47 of assault helicopters". It is simple, rugged and reliable, both heavily armed and armour-plated and part of a folklore that has spread throughout South Asia.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) still operates close to a dozen ageing Mi-24s and Mi-35s, the Sri Lankan air force has an equal number and Afghanistan has seen them being used by three successive players - the Soviet army, rebel warlords and now, the Afghan government which operates nine Mi-24/Mi-35s whose pilots are trained by the IAF.
I first saw the fabled gunship 14 years ago in Afghanistan. I noticed its distinctively fearsome silhouette as we bumped around the Panjsher Valley 150km north of Kabul in a white and yellow Toyota taxi. “Commander Massoud’s air force,” my interpreter excitedly stabbed a finger out of the window towards the base of the valley — three Mi-24 gunships which sat in a rough and ready landing strip, like birds of prey at rest.
mi-35-embed_111315041950.jpg
Pic credit: Indian Air Force. 
The irony hit me instantly. The hero of the resistance against the Soviets, using the very machines that once tormented his mujahideen. (I will come to the mystery of how he came to get them, later). The famed guerrilla commander, however, was not around to watch the rout of the Taliban. He had been tragically assassinated by two Al-Qaeda operatives disguised as journalists just two days before hijacked aircrafts struck the World Trade Centre (WTC) towers in the US on September 11, 2001. I was there in Afghanistan during the spiral of events that followed 9/11 and the toppling of the Taliban by the US-supported Northern Alliance forces. Afghanistan was the battleground where the helicopter, with the unlikely North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) codename "Hind", for a female deer, cut its teeth. The Soviets had a more appropriate nickname - "letayushchiy tank" or flying tank. The Soviet 40th army used the gunship to harry the mujahideen, to escort convoys and land special forces. It was only after the deployment of US-supplied Stinger missiles that the tide turned. A gunship that had set speed records, touching over 350kmph, found the lethal missiles impossible to evade. Dozens were shot down between 1986 and 1988.
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Pic credit: Indian Air Force.  
Still, the legend of the Hind as the Swiss army knife for counter-insurgencies had been established. It was used in practically every civil war and bush conflict in Asia, Africa and central and South America.
A veteran IAF gunship pilot explained the Hind’s lethal mix of firepower, reach and ruggedness as reasons it was such an effective combat platform. It had the ability to simultaneously carry weapons effective from different ranges - cannons, rockets, heavy machine guns and guided anti-tank missiles, suitable for defeating different targets. It could deliver firepower over different terrain, altitude and weather and could drop eight armed soldiers. Like the Mi-8 transport helicopter on which it was modelled, the Hind was rugged and ideal for sustained operations on difficult terrain. Its pilot and gunner sat in a tandem arrangement in distinctive bubble-canopies, protected by bulletproof glass and titanium armour.
The IAF, which bought a dozen Mi-24s beginning in the early 1980s, called them "Akbar" (all aircraft nicknames were discarded in the mid-1990s). It first deployed the Hind against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the three-year mission of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka beginning in 1987.
Lt General Depinder Singh, IPKF commander, recounts in his 2007 memoir, Indian Peacekeeping Force in Sri Lanka that the "Akbars" performed admirably. But Brigadier Ravi Palsokar in his closer-to-the-ground account Ours Not to Reason Why says the Akbars were handicapped because “in the jungle terrain of Sri Lanka, it was very difficult for them to acquire targets and their utility was limited.” The LTTE, nevertheless, called the Indian gunships, "Modalai" or crocodile, a testament to their speed and lethality. The Tamil nom-de plume continued to be used when the Sri Lankan airforce bought modernised versions of the Hinds in the mid-1990s and continued to use them in all battles against the Tamil insurgents including the final Eeelam War in 2009.
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Mi-24s in Panjshir Valley, Afghanistan, December 2001 (Pic credit: Sandeep Unnithan).
Hollywood too embraced the Hind. It was the ideal ride for movie villains: Steven Berkoff piloted one to pursue Sylvester Stallone in the climax of the 1985 Rambo: First Blood - Part 2. It was actually a remodelled French-made Puma helicopter. The real machines made their debuts years after the Cold War when Arnold Vosloo rode one in the climax of the 2006 Leonardo di Caprio-starrer Blood Diamond and Bruce Willis escaped a rampaging Hind in A Good Day to Die Hard, in 2013.
The mystery of Massoud’s Mi-24s were solved at the home of a politician who served as an influential minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. “We bought those machines from the Russians and gave it to Massoud,” the former minister told me with a smile as he gently sipped his tea. The transaction was made in the late 1990s soon after Massoud had turned into a friend of India's bulwark against the Taliban. The two Hinds and three Mi-8 troop transports, secretly bought with Indian taxpayer money, were serviced by IAF technicians at a disused Soviet airfield - Ayni, in Tajikistan. This month, with reports suggesting that India is to supply Afghanistan with another unspecified number of Mi-24s, the lore of this venerable gunship is only set to continue.