The Longest August

by Dilip Hiro

  Islamabad maintained that the LeT had nothing to do with the Mumbai outrage, which the Pakistani media, briefed by officials, attributed to Bangladeshi and Indian criminals. When the Indian authorities revealed that the arrested suspect was a son of Amir Shahban Kasab from Faridkot, the Islamabad government insisted that such a person did not exist in Pakistan. In stark contrast, investigative journalist Saeed Shah traveled to Faridkot to try to track down Ajmal Amir Kasab’s family.19 Shah then consulted the electoral rolls for Faridkot and found the names and national identity card numbers of Kasab Senior and his wife, Noor Illahi. Several other reporters followed his lead. On the night of December 3 the Kasab couple would disappear mysteriously.

  On November 29 Singh chaired a meeting of the military high command and intelligence chiefs. Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major strongly advocated surgical strikes at the terrorist training camps in Pakistani Kashmir. The prime minister promised to discuss this option at the next meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security, which tilted toward hitting the camps. Armed with a clandestine report on this high-level debate, the CIA station chief in Delhi concluded that India was about to attack Pakistan. He instantly reported this to the CIA director, General Michael Hayden, who conveyed this information to President George W. Bush.

  The previous day, India’s foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, and his Pakistani counterpart, Mukhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who happened to be in Delhi during the Mumbai attacks, had a heated telephone conversation. After stating that “all options” were open to India to avenge the Mumbai carnage, Mukherjee added that “they [Pakistanis] were leaving us no choice but to go to war.”20 Qureshi interpreted Mukherjee’s words as a warning of an upcoming war and informed Prime Minister Gilani.

  In Washington, a White House aide anxiously called Rice to inform her that “the Pakistanis say that the Indians have warned them that they’ve decided to go to war.” Surprised, she said, “What?” and added, “That isn’t what they’re telling me. In my many conversations with the Indians over the [past] two days, they’d emphasized their desire to defuse the situation and their need for the Pakistanis to do something to show that they accepted responsibility for tracking down the terrorists.” She then asked the operations center at the State Department to get Mukherjee on the phone. It failed to contact him. “I called back again,” Rice continued. “No response. By now the international phone lines were buzzing with the news. The Pakistanis were calling everyone—the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Chinese. Finally Mukherjee called back. I told him what I’d heard.” He explained that Qureshi had taken his stern words over the phone “the wrong way.” At the State Department, Rice received frantic calls from the US ambassadors in New Delhi and Islamabad. “Ambassador (David) Mulford’s [in Delhi] message was stark. ‘There is war fever here. I don’t know if the Prime Minister can hold out. Everyone knows that the terrorists came from Pakistan.’” She then talked to Ambassador Anne Patterson in Islamabad. “Her message was just as clear. ‘They have their heads in the sand,’ she said.” This version appeared in Rice’s book No High Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington.21

  These developments were enough to set the alarm bells ringing in Washington. On November 30 (the next day) Bush instructed Rice to rush to South Asia.

  Rice arrived in Delhi on December 3. In her meetings with top officials, she conveyed the condolences of the US administration to the Indian government and people. With Rice standing by his side, Mukherjee told reporters that undoubtedly the terrorists who struck Mumbai came from Pakistan and that they were coordinated there. “The government of India is determined to act decisively to protect its territorial integrity and the right of our citizens to a peaceful life with all the means at our disposal,” he added.22 “Pakistan needs to act with urgency and with resolve and cooperate fully and transparently [with India],” said Rice. “The response of the Pakistan government should be one of cooperation and action. That is what we expect and we have been sending that message.”23

  In Islamabad Rice conferred with the highest civilian and military leaders. “The Pakistanis were at once terrified and in the same breathe dismissive of the Indian claims,” she noted in her memoirs. “President Zardari emphasized his desire to avoid war but couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge Pakistan’s likely role in the attacks.” Having listened to a long explanation by Prime Minister Gilani that those who had launched the Mumbai attacks had nothing to do with Pakistan, Rice said, “Mr Prime Minister . . . either you’re lying to me or your people are lying to you. I then went on to tell him what we—the United States—knew about the origins of the attack. I didn’t accuse Pakistan’s government of involvement; that wasn’t the point. But rogues within the security services might have aided the terrorists. It was time to admit that and to investigate more seriously.” In her book she mentioned that General Kayani was “the one person who, even if he couldn’t admit responsibility, understood that Pakistan would have to give an accounting of what had happened.”24

  Rice’s comparatively mild statement issued at the Chaklala Airbase before her departure from Islamabad was at odds with the report published by the Karachi-based Dawn. In her talks with Pakistani officials she referred to “irrefutable evidence” of the involvement of elements in Pakistan in the Mumbai attacks and that Pakistan needed to act urgently and effectively to avert a strong international response.25

  In her interview with Wolf Blitzer of CNN on December 7, Rice summed up her conclusion thus: “I don’t think that there is compelling evidence of involvement of Pakistani officials. But I do think that Pakistan has a responsibility to act, and it doesn’t matter that they’re non-state actors.”26

  President Zardari had taken to using the term “nonstate actors” to deny any complicity by the Pakistani state. But that did not exempt Islamabad from investigating the hard facts supplied by Delhi. By contrast, Prime Minister Singh claimed solid evidence of a Pakistani connection and warned that India would not tolerate use of the territories of its neighbors to mount attacks on his country and that there would be a “cost” to it.

  Hot on Rice’s heels, Senator John McCain, the unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate, arrived in Delhi. He met Singh and then flew to Islamabad on December 5 to confer with Gilani. At an informal lunch with senior journalists and politicians in Lahore, he informed his audience that “a visibly angry” Singh had told him that they had enough evidence of the involvement of former ISI officers in the planning and execution of the Mumbai attacks, and if the Pakistani government failed to act swiftly to arrest the people involved, India would be left with no option but to conduct aerial operations against select targets in Pakistan. “The democratic government of India is under pressure and it will be a matter of days after they have given the evidence to Pakistan [that they decide] to use the option of force if Islamabad fails to act against the terrorists,” said McCain, according to Ejaz Haider, a senior editor at the Daily Times, who attended the lunch. “We were angry after 9/11. This is India’s 9/11. We cannot tell India not to act when that is what we did, asking the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden to avoid a war and waging one when they refused to do so.”27

  Pakistan Bends—in Stages

  The joint Washington-Delhi pressure worked. On December 7, Pakistani troops raided the LeT base at Shawai Nullah near Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistan-controlled Azad Kashmir. They arrested twenty LeT activists as well as Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai attacks, and Zarrar Shah, another LeT leader.28 Simultaneously, Islamabad declared that even surgical strikes against suspected terrorist training camps in Pakistani Kashmir would be considered an attack on Pakistan’s sovereignty and that it would retaliate with “all its might.”

  On December 10 the UN Security Council designated the Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD), the front organization for the LeT, a terrorist faction. And the Council’s Al Qaida and Taliban sanctions committee declared that Lakhvi, Muhammad Hafiz Saeed, and two other leade
rs of the LeT were terrorists subject to sanctions. Pakistan placed Saeed under house arrest under the Maintenance of Public Order law, which allowed the authorities to detain temporarily those who were deemed likely to create disorder. That and Islamabad’s statement that it would ban the JuD were welcomed by Delhi.29

  To deprive India of a rationale to carry out a surgical strike on the headquarters of the LeT/JuD at Murdike, twenty miles north of Lahore, the Pakistani government pressured LeT/JuD management to let an Indian reporter of the Delhi-based magazine Tehelka, Harinder Baweja, visit the premises in mid-December. She was given a guided tour of the educational complex, attended by very few people because of the Eid festival break, with the JuD spokesman, Abdullah Muntazir, insisting that the JuD was a charitable organization. On further questioning, he conceded that “we used to provide logistical help to the Lashkar [LeT], collect funds for them and look after their publicity,” and added that “they must have bought weapons with the money we gave them.”30

  But these gestures were not enough for India to end its week-old state of war readiness for its air force and navy. However, its decision not to mobilize its ground forces remained unchanged. “Pakistan has one of the best armies of the world,” declared Gilani on his arrival in Multan, the base of one of Pakistan’s corps. “The nation should not be worried. . . . Pakistan is a responsible state. Being a nuclear power, we are cautious in reaction.” Islamabad put its naval forces on alert in response to the re­deployment of India’s warships. Equally, its air force confirmed reports of “increased vigilance” on its part.31

  Though limping along during its last days, the Bush administration strongly advised the quarrelling neighbors to cool it. Its counsel fell on receptive ears. “We are not planning any military action,” said the Indian defense minister, Arackaparambil Kurien Antony, on December 16. “At the same time, unless Pakistan takes actions against those terrorists who are operating in their soil against India, and also against all those who are behind this Mumbai terrorist attack, things will not be normal.”32

  Mukherjee qualified Antony’s statement a week later. He explained that India had not ruled out military operations against terrorists in Pakistan if its government failed to curb those based on its own soil. “If you ask about military conflict, nobody will say about it in the media. [But] we have kept our options open.”33

  On December 16 Islamabad placed its air force on high alert and conducted aerial surveillance of all its sensitive sites likely to be targeted by India. It also mobilized its ground troops along the LoC and the international border to protect vital points. To Washington’s distress, it moved a fifth of its troops deployed in the tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghan border to its frontier with India. In response, Delhi redeployed its soldiers along the Pakistani border. This led Washington to resort to public diplomacy and urged increased cooperation between the sparring nations in investigating the Mumbai attacks, which India squarely blamed on Pakistan-based militants.34

  “I propose to India to de-activate forward air bases,” said Qureshi on December 30. “I also propose to India to re-locate its ground forces to peace time positions. These measures will reduce tension and we will move forward in a positive way.” Mukherjee referred to the Indian army’s statement that its movements were part of its “normal winter exercise.” As for his own stance, he said, “From day one I am saying this is not an India-Pakistan issue. This is an attack perpetrated by elements emanating from the land of Pakistan, and Pakistan government should take action.”35

  Defying overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Islamabad had disowned the Pakistani nationality of Ajmal Amir Kasab for weeks. Then on January 7 it conceded that he was a Pakistani national and went on to file a case against him. This pacified Indians to some extent.

  A week later India’s COAS, General Deepak Kapoor, said that he considered war “the last resort.” In response Gilani argued that with India and Pakistan being nuclear powers, there was no possibility of war between them. He explained to his compatriots that Indian leaders were issuing strong statements to satisfy outraged public opinion at home.36

  Though the two neighbors once again avoided hot war, the process of normalization of relations went into a deep freeze following the Mumbai outrage. For several weeks they communicated with each other on different wavelengths. At the root of this noncommunication was Pakistan’s outright denial of any involvement even by nonstate agents operating on its soil. Its leaders feared that if they conceded any link between their country and the Mumbai attacks in the emotionally charged atmosphere prevailing at the UN Security Council after 26/11, the Council would impose sanctions on Pakistan. So they dragged their feet to let passions cool. They took ten long weeks to even confirm Kasab’s Pakistani nationality.

  But by sticking to the denial mode for so long, Pakistani officials stoked tensions between Delhi and Islamabad; they kept their respective air forces and navies on high alert. India went on complaining bitterly that Pakistan was not doing enough to arrest those behind the attacks, despite the voluminous evidence it had received from India.

  The situation suddenly eased on February 12, 2009. “Some part of the conspiracy [to mount the Mumbai attacks] has taken place in Pakistan,” conceded Pakistani’s interior minister, Rehman Malik. He added that eight suspects from the banned LeT had been detained. “We have lodged an FIR [first information report by police] into the case.”37

  Even though disappointed that the suspects’ list did not include Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the cofounder of the LeT, the Indians were gratified that finally they had succeeded in getting the Pakistanis on the same page with them. Malik had owned up to only “part” of the conspiracy relating to Pakistan, chiefly to validate Islamabad’s claim that the plotters had the active cooperation of some Indian Muslims, who among other things had secured SIM cards for the terrorists’ mobile phones.

  A Glacial Thaw

  By the time the Pakistani authorities brought the case for trial, it was April. The next month the Congress Party–led coalition in Delhi led by Manmohan Singh was reelected. On June 24 Singh met President Zardari on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia. They decided to overcome the factors holding up the “composite dialogue” between their countries.

  On the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, Singh met Gilani on July 16. “Prime Minister Gilani assured that Pakistan will do everything in its power in this regard [of combating terrorism],” read their joint communiqué. “He said that Pakistan had provided an updated status dossier on the investigations of the Mumbai attacks and had sought additional information/evidence.” After stating that “the two countries will share real time, credible and actionable information on any future terrorist threats,” the communiqué added that “Prime Minister Gilani mentioned that Pakistan has some information on threats in Baluchistan and other areas.” Lastly, both leaders recognized that “action on terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process and these should not be bracketed. Prime Minister Singh said that India was ready to discuss all issues with Pakistan, including all outstanding issues.”38

  Different interpretations of the statement followed. In Islamabad, the de-linking of action on terrorism from the composite dialogue was hailed as a diplomatic victory for Pakistan, eager to sidestep the fallout from the Mumbai episode. Also, the Pakistani media interpreted the mere mention of Baluchistan in the joint communiqué as evidence of India’s clandestine assistance to Baluchi insurgents battling Islamabad in their quest for independence.

  In Delhi, Singh was taken to task by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Decrying the joint communiqué as “surrender” by India, and fulminating at the reference to Baluchistan in the document, it staged a walkout from Parliament. In reply, Singh argued on July 30 that de-linking the composite dialogue from action by Pakistan against terrorism strengthened India’s commitment, and that
“meaningful process of engagement cannot move forward unless and until Pakistan takes measures to control terrorism.” He added, “When I spoke to Prime Minister Gilani about terrorism from Pakistan, he mentioned to me that many Pakistanis thought that India meddled in Baluchistan. I told him that we have no interest in destabilizing Pakistan. . . . If Pakistan has any evidence . . . we are willing to look at it because we have nothing to hide.” Rounding off his argument, he said, “Unless we want to go to war with Pakistan, dialogue is the only way out but we should do so on the basis of trust but verify.”39

  The diametrically opposite interpretations of the Singh-Gilani statement by the politicians and press of India and Pakistan illustrated the wide chasm that persisted between their respective popular perceptions.

  All the same, in August, Delhi provided further evidence on the involvement of Saeed in the 26/11 outrage. In response, following their meeting in New York during the UN General Assembly session in September, Qureshi assured the Indian foreign minister Somanahalli Mallaiah Krishna of “doing everything” to bring to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks.

  Both Delhi and Islamabad were pressured by President Barack Obama’s administration to resume the peace process. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton considered reconciliation between India and Pakistan essential to achieving Washington’s overarching aim of turning war-ravaged Afghanistan into a stable, democratic political entity. Despite opposition at home, Singh bit the bullet and initiated talks at the highest bureaucratic level of foreign secretary. Pakistani officials gloated that “India had been brought to its knees.” In return, India threatened to cancel the talks if Islamabad did not cease “grandstanding.”