Pak Tea House » India, Pakistan, USA » Pakistan, India and U.S. Begin Sharing Intelligence
Pakistan, India and U.S. Begin Sharing Intelligence
By JAY SOLOMON and SIOBHAN GORMAN
WASHINGTON — Pakistan and India have begun sharing intelligence on Islamic extremists, with the prodding of the U.S., in an arrangement that represents unprecedented cooperation between the two nuclear-armed South Asian nations.
Washington hopes the cooperation will get a lift from last week’s Indian elections, in which the incumbent Congress Party won by a wide margin over a Hindu nationalist party traditionally more hostile to Pakistan.
An India-Pakistan Alliance?
With the Congress party’s recent win in India’s elections, intelligence reporter Reporter Siobhan Gorman explains why the time may be right for longtime rivals Pakistan and India to forge an alliance that allows for greater intelligence sharing with the U.S.
The Central Intelligence Agency arranged for Pakistan and India to share information on Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group widely blamed for last November’s terrorist attack on Mumbai, as well as on Taliban commanders who are leading the insurgency against Pakistan’s government, said U.S. officials.
The U.S. is stressing to Indian and Pakistani leaders that they face a common threat in Pakistan-based militant groups. Washington hopes that when India sees the intelligence and evidence that Islamabad is seriously fighting the militants in some areas, it will ease its deployments against Pakistan — which in turn would prompt Islamabad to put even more focus on the battle at home.
“We have to satisfy the Mumbai question, and show India that the threat is abating,” said a U.S. official involved in developing Washington’s South Asia strategy.
India and Pakistan traded military threats across their border in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, in which terrorists left more than 170 people dead. The CIA and U.S. diplomats tried to ease the tension, urging Pakistan to crack down on the sources of the attack. Pakistan banned Lashkar and detained six people in connection with the attack, partially mollifying Indian outrage.
Intelligence sharing on Mumbai has led to a somewhat more frequent exchange of information, U.S. and Pakistani officials said. India and Pakistan have shared “a lot” of information with each other about the Mumbai attack, said an official at Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency. He said the CIA was initially used as a conduit but the two countries now work directly with each other, while keeping the CIA in the loop.
Trading Information
India and Pakistan are sharing intelligence on Islamic militants, with U.S. help.
India gets: Information on groups that threaten it, including the one that carried out the Mumbai attacks.
Pakistan gets: More trust from India that it is serious about taking on militants.
U.S. gets: Sharper Pakistani focus on the battle against the Taliban and al Qaeda.
The official cautioned, “We’re not going to tell them everything we know and they’re not going to tell us everything they know. Nobody expects that to happen. … But we’re talking about [the attack]. We weren’t doing that in December.”
A U.S. official said Washington isn’t “under any illusions” about the difficulty of erasing decades-old suspicions between India and Pakistan, but sees some progress. U.S. officials hope that a calming of tensions can allow India’s Congress Party government, strengthened by its election victory, to resume peace talks with Pakistan over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Some U.S. officials believe Lashkar-e-Taiba orchestrated the assault specifically to undermine the peace process.
The Obama administration has been concerned that Lashkar could carry out a second strike on India in a bid to stoke a war. President Barack Obama came into office pledging to craft a regional solution to the instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The CIA and other intelligence agencies are stepping up efforts in the Pakistani tribal areas, tapping and tracking the location of the cellphones of Taliban commanders as well as taking pictures and collecting information in their training camps, according to a person familiar with the efforts. The U.S. shares this information with Pakistan, and sometimes with India, to reinforce the U.S. argument that the Taliban threat to Pakistan is greater than the Indian threat.
Reuters
Soldiers keep guard inside the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) Jalozai camp, where hundreds of families are seeking refuge from a military offensive in the Swat valley region, about 140 km (87 miles) north west of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad May 20, 2009.
The U.S. also sometimes brings intelligence on Pakistan’s efforts to combat militants to India’s attention, with Pakistan’s consent, this person said. Examples include showing Indian officials evidence of progress against militants in the Pakistani regions of Bajaur, Swat, and Buner.
U.S. intelligence officers have been able to track the whereabouts of key Pakistani Taliban leaders, such as Baitullah Mehsud, accused of orchestrating the murder of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, said this person. Sufi Muhammad and Maulana Qazi Fazlullah, leaders of a militant group aligned with Mr. Mehsud, are also tracked, according to the person familiar with the efforts. Mr. Muhammad brokered the now-defunct deal between the Pakistani government and the Taliban to enforce Islamic Sharia law in the Swat region in Pakistan.
The government of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is hoping that Congress’s victory can also provide the Indian government with the political cover to move one or two divisions away from the Pakistan border in coming months, according to an official briefed on the diplomacy.
But Indian officials say they aren’t ready to do so. An Indian government official said New Delhi has documented an escalation of cross-border infiltrations by Pakistani militants into Kashmir.
—Matthew Rosenberg in Islamabad and Paul Beckett in New Delhi contributed to this article
Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com and Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com
Filed under: India, Pakistan, USA · Tags: alliance, Congress, extremism, India, intelligence, Militants, Mumbai, Pakistan, USA, Zardari
10 Responses to "Pakistan, India and U.S. Begin Sharing Intelligence"
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Smokescreen…. More than likely it is going to one sided…
Anwar: I can understand your skepticism. Perhaps Solomon and Gorman are indeed way too optimistic and maybe an India Pakistan alliance is unlikely to happen in the next few months, maybe it will not happen even years but is it that preposterous an idea that it can never happen?
I suspect many secular minded Pakistanis are at least open to this idea even if they do not want to endorse it wholeheartedly right away; I do know that it does not seem too farfetched to a large number of secular Indians.
Unfortunately the current international geo-political climate makes it very hard for these two like minded groups to admit this fact in public; far less hold a meaningful dialogue.
I do not know anything about you other than the fact that you own a computer and visit sites like the PTH.
However I leave you and other (liberal minded?) Pakistanis like you with the following question:
Who are you closer to, in your thinking? A fellow Pakistanis like Sufi Mohammed or Baitullah Mehsud or to another human being who happens to be an Indian but shares your own views on individual freedom, democratic values and a liberal education for all?
Even if your answer is none of the above; I will remain optimistic that we have a fighting chance that some day our two nations can co-exist peacefully in our common South Asian homeland.
Regards.
My dear Gorki,
Thanks for reminding me of a Russian idealist Aleksey Maksimovich whom I fondly read long ago but has something in common with you – he too used a pseudonym – Maxim Gorky!
Your optimism is at best naive and your comments are off the mark, far away from the subject … typical of turning every discourse into a battle of secular liberals vs the “unfortunate” non-liberals. The thesis put forward by Solomon and Gorman has nothing to do with the classification outlined by you. The question you raise at the end of your comment is silly at best.
Look, I have a deep respect for my former Indian professors, my Indian colleagues and my Indian graduate students – so at the people level there already exists a pretty good understanding and absence of hostilities. But what percentage are these people who do come across each other regularly or can think above the territorial limits? Not much! and there lies the problem…
You guessed it right – I do have a PC and do read PTH (and many other blogs) and sometimes I even flirt with Raza electronically. What has this all got to do with Solomon and Gorman?
Anwar Sahib:
Thanks for the prompt reply.
Kindly indulge me a little bit longer.
I respectfully disagree with you when you say that I am off the mark. In fact I find the whole India Pakistan competition (both military and non military) as nothing more than a liberal versus non-liberal issue. Before I explain further, let me say up front that I agree with you that only a very miniscule percentage of our people “who do come across each other regularly or can think above the territorial limits.”
Therein lies the problem.
While a Sufi Mohammed of the TTP (or a Sudarshan of the RSS in India) can not be expected to understand this but I find it maddening that most intellectuals too (by which I am implying people like yourself; generally non dogmatic, well educated, reasonable, democratic folks who may have had some interaction with people from the other side of the divide) fail to rise beyond the notion of nationhood described solely by territorial boundaries or claims thereof.
As a disclaimer, I would specifically like to mention that I do not by any means want to sound either condescending or insulting in my above remarks. In fact I address this to you (and people like yourself) entirely out of a deep respect for your understanding of the issues involved and on the assumption that you and other like minded people have no other vested interest in your hearts other than the welfare of your country.
I therefore persist in addressing my question to you as follows:
If we both agree that we both want nothing more than that our own country becomes a society that is socially, politically and economically fair and equitable, its citizens have a decent living standard, have access to good education and healthcare and above all have the freedom of expression and worship; then how does Pakistan (or India for that matter) compromise its nationhood if we somehow can move away from a state of knee jerk hostility to the other?
I am not proposing a US-Canada kind of close relations or an EU kind of a union; only a bare minimum; a working relationship in a non hostile environment like say one that exists between India and Nepal or between Pakistan and Iran where each issue is dealt with pragmatically, on a case by case basis. Thus while occasional inter state disagreements can occur from time to time (as can be expected between any two partners) there can be a strong relationship built on the opportunities to co-operate for achievement of common goals (security and otherwise) as has been argued in the above article.
Barring the static dogma of the religious fundamentalists or the obsolete fascist way of thinking of the narrow minded nationalists, what is so horrible about the other side that we can not achieve that kind of a working relationship?
You have a right to your skepticism given the climate of hostility that has existed in the past 60 odd years. You are also absolutely right when you say that only a small percentage of our people look beyond territorial limits. Yet it is exactly people like you (and may I add others like you on the PTH, especially PMA, Moin Ansari, Y2K etc.) who are in the best position to understand that this mutual hostility is absurd and has no place in the 21st century.
If indeed all of you want Pakistan (as Indians like myself want India) to be a country such as the one that I have outlined in the 3rd paragraph above then don’t you see that perpetuating the mutual hostility among our countries is nothing but a generational malaise that has to stop at some point?
The fact that you believe “at the people level there already exists a pretty good understanding and absence of hostilities” makes me want to believe the glass is at least half full. Even if a handful of people make a start, and make it a life’s goal to end this national hostility (without compromising the interests of your own side) would this not be an equally valuable contribution to our nations as that made by the scientists who say ushered in the ‘Green revolution’ or built our nuclear arsenals?
Anwar Bhai, even if you (and others such as PMA) don’t become bleeding heart liberals overnight please keep an open mind and think about it; many of our goals are common and none of them get compromised in any way if there is a peace between our two peoples. The only thing I can dare propose to you and other Pakistanis like you at the present juncture it to agree to the above concept in principle.
Accept perpetual hostility is unacceptable. Then commit to be proactive in the pursuit of peace. I do not suggest a peace built upon demanding a meek surrender of any dearly held beliefs or anything else from the other but a peace of the strong and the brave; one built on mutual respect and shared common goals.
I know that the true fanatics will never understand this argument and the bleeding heart liberals though already committed are too few to make any major difference. Therefore I believe an argument such as above has to be made to the broader group of pragmatic yet open minded individuals like you (on both sides of this horrible historic divide) if we are to get anywhere other than this mental stalemate of the last 60 years.
Is there anything wrong in desiring this goal for our two peoples? If not then are we as a generation up to this task?
Awaiting your reply.
Regards.
Mr Gorki
Yours is just a ‘wishful thinking’—it ain’t not possible!
Why don’t you realize that without resolving the core issues between India and Pakistan there is hardly any sense in talking further.
There is internal strife in both the countries which has yet to be overcome before we talk about sharing intelligence or business. Your thoughts reflect the agenda passed over to us by ‘our masters’– how would you disagree with that?
gorki,
i second mazhur…b4 the core issue of mumbai attacks is not solved we cant go any further
on a serious note mazhur bhayya ”Why don’t you realize that without resolving the core issues between India and Pakistan there is hardly any sense in talking further”…do u see the contradiction…how do u solve without talking
Gen. Musharraf tried to talk but the Indians played dumb. Remember?
start from the most difficult first… and make it impossible. what a wonderfully pragmatic approach.
@ mazHur:
Your thoughts reflect the agenda passed over to us by ‘our masters’– how would you disagree with that?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Thanks for your comments.
My agenda is as I mentioned above, to have the educated, open minded Pakistanis and Indians to at least agree as to what is important for our peoples; and I repeat:
“our countries becomes a society that is socially, politically and economically fair and equitable, its citizens have a decent living standard, have access to good education and healthcare and above all have the freedom of expression and worship”
If we can agree that this is a good starting point then does it matter who this was passed on to us by; whether ‘our masters’ or by the World bank or by the jewish lobby or even by the devil himself?
I think atleast those of us who have lived and travelled outside South Asia can agree that there is no greater core issue than the above agenda.
Territorial claims can get people very passionate and sometimes unreasonable so I am judiciously trying to avoid getting into the specifics. I will go only so far to say that as long as all the peoples in the entire land of former British India can achieve the above goals, (and be able to travel freely) it does not matter whose flag is planted where.
Lastly I want to mention I do not claim to have all the final answers; these will have to be worked out, slowly, deliberately, over time. Only let us at least agree on a starting point and a common goal for our populations.
Regards.