Behind India’s Bust Of A Pakistan Spy

In this undated handout photo, Madhuri Gupta, 53, an Indian diplomat who worked as second secretary in the Indian high commission in Islamabad is seen

“At 53, she was bored, alone and attractive. Single, but definitely one step ahead to mingle.” That’s how the man who led the operation to bust Madhuri Gupta, the first Indian diplomat to be found spying for Pakistan, described her. For most of her two years in espionage, Gupta was a lone-wolf, conducting a classic spy operation from her base in Islamabad. Old-school “dead drops,” in which she passed off information without even meeting her Pakistani handlers, were her signature style. Yet it was a silly indiscretion — sending e-mails to her spy bosses from her office computer — that finally led to her arrest.

Gupta has not exactly been near the center of Indian decision-making, posted as a second secretary in the media section of India’s high commission in Pakistan’s capital, where her job had been to provide English and Hindi summaries of Pakistan’s Urdu-language newspapers. On April 22, the 53-year-old was summoned back to New Delhi ostensibly to help colleagues prepare for the ongoing South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) summit in Bhutan. After landing at Indira Gandhi International Airport, she was whisked away by officials of the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (IB), India’s internal intelligence agency, straight to an interrogation chamber in an undisclosed location. Twenty-four hours later, she was handed over to Delhi police, charged with treason and accessing confidential documents under India’s Official Secrets Act.

“Her spy game was up the moment a Joint Secretary — an IB officer — inside the Islamabad mission suspected her around October 2009 and reported back,” a high-level IB case officer in New Delhi told TIME. The IB launched a massive counter-intelligence operation, in which even its counterparts in the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), the country’s external intelligence agency, were kept out of the loop.

Over the next six months, Gupta’s every step was monitored. She was found to be taking undue interest in informal discussions among the senior embassy officials regarding important policy matters, including India’s strategic plans in Afghanistan and resuming a dialogue with Pakistan. She was even fed with incorrect information to be passed on to her Pakistan handlers, suspected to be from the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).

Pakistani authorities refused to comment on the case, but analysts in Islamabad saw her arrest as an attempt to scupper upcoming planned talks between India’s and Pakistan’s prime ministers. “The timing was supposed to send a signal that India is not ready to talk to Pakistan yet,” said Cyril Almeida, an editor and analyst at Pakistan’s
Dawn newspaper. “India has not moved beyond its post-Mumbai [the terror attack which Indian and Western authorities say originated in Pakistan] phase. It is not looking for talks with Pakistan any time soon.”

India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was scheduled to meet his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani, this week, although the purpose of such talks is contested. After breaking off all dialogue with Pakistan after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Indian officials had suggested a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the SAARC summit to discuss a long-running water dispute, but Pakistan has made clear that it wants a formal, open-ended peace talks. As Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told the India’s CNN-IBN network on Tuesday, “We need to go beyond a handshake.”

Asked whether the two prime ministers would still hold talks in Bhutan this week, Pakistan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Malik Amad Khan told TIME, “Maybe, maybe not, but that’s totally independent of [the spying] allegations.”

Almeida notes that espionage efforts to “turn” the other country’s diplomats are par for the course between the long-time rivals, “But given [Gupta's] relatively junior position it is unlikely that she would have had access to sensitive documents, unless there was a real breakdown internally.”

Indian government sources say Gupta had been spying for Pakistan since September 2008. “We have reasons to believe that she was not recruited inside Pakistan,” says a senior officer in R&AW. “Possibly she was picked up and nurtured either in Baghdad or Kuala Lumpur where she was posted earlier.” The agency also says this could have been a reason why she was keen for a Pakistan posting — usually a last choice among Indian diplomats and intelligence officials.

Vishnu Prakash, a spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, says that Gupta “is co-operating with the investigations and inquiries.” Sources told TIME that she has told interrogators that she spied for Pakistan to settle scores with senior Indian diplomats who mistreated her during her early career. She has also reportedly confessed that a prominent Pakistani journalist put her in touch with Pakistani intelligence officers.

Indo-Pakistan Proxy War Heats Up In Afghanistan

Tim Sullivan

KABUL — Across Afghanistan, behind the obvious battles fought for this country’s soul, a shadow war is being quietly waged. It’s being fought with spies and proxies, with hundreds of millions of dollars in aid money and ominous diplomatic threats.

The fight pits nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan against one another in a battle for influence that will almost certainly gain traction as the clock ticks down toward America’s military withdrawal, which President Barack Obama has announced will begin next year.

The clash has already sparked bloody militant attacks, and American officials fear the region could become further destabilized. With Pakistani intelligence maintaining ties to Afghanistan’s Taliban militants, India has threatened to draw Iran, Russia and other nations into the competition if an anti-Indian government comes to power in Kabul.

“This is a delicate game going on here,” said Daoud Muradian, a senior adviser to the Afghan Foreign Ministry. He spoke wearily about how Afghanistan, a mountainous crossroads linking South Asia, the Middle East and Central Asia, has for centuries often been little more than a stage for other countries’ power struggles. “We don’t want to be forced to choose between India and Pakistan.”

For both India and Pakistan, Afghanistan is an exceedingly valuable prize.

To India, ties with Kabul mean new trade routes, access to Central Asia’s vast energy reserves and a way to stave off the rise of Islamic militancy. It means the chance for New Delhi to undermine Islamabad as it nurtures its superpower aspirations by expanding its regional influence.

While Pakistan is also desperate for new energy supplies, its Afghan policy has been largely shaped by the view that Afghanistan is its natural ally. The two countries share a long border, overwhelmingly Muslim populations and deep ethnic links.

Then there is fear. Pakistan and India have already fought three wars over the past seven decades, and Pakistani military leaders are terrified of someday being trapped militarily between India on one border and a pro-India Afghanistan on the other.

“We can’t afford an unfriendly government in Afghanistan,” said Mohammad Sadiq, Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan.

The shadow war began in earnest in the wake of the 2001 U.S. invasion, when the Taliban government was forced from power and New Delhi began courting Afghanistan’s new leaders. It was a move into a country that Islamabad, a fierce supporter of the Taliban government, had seen as its diplomatic territory for two decades. But New Delhi quickly became a close ally of President Hamid Karzai, who will travel to India early next week for talks aimed at strengthening ties between the two countries.

On the surface, both India and Pakistan are bringing help to a country that desperately needs it.

New Delhi has built highways in the western deserts and brought electricity to Kabul. It is constructing a new Parliament building and offers free medical care in clinics across Afghanistan. Despite its immense spending needs — India has widespread poverty and staggering infrastructure problems despite its rapidly growing economy — it has given more than $1.3 billion in development aid.

That, in turn, has sparked Pakistani efforts, with Islamabad spending about $350 million on everything from school textbooks to buses.

But this is far from pure humanitarianism.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, laid out the situation bluntly: “While Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures,” he warned in a report late last year.

Heightened tensions are the last thing the U.S. wants. The Afghan war has killed more than 1,800 coalition soldiers — more than 1,100 of them Americans. More than 2,400 Afghan civilians were killed just last year.

If the competition over Afghanistan is rooted in a cocktail of issues, much of it revolves around the Taliban.

New Delhi’s perceptions of modern Afghanistan have been molded by its memories of the 1996-2001 Taliban government, the fundamentalist Muslim regime which rose to power with Pakistan’s help.

It was a time when New Delhi was openly despised in Kabul, when anti-India insurgents trained in Afghan camps and the hijackers of an Indian airliner were welcomed here as heroes. Even after the Taliban government fell, Pakistan’s powerful spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, retained links to the Taliban insurgency now battling the American-led forces and the Karzai government, in case the Taliban ever return to power.

But if there’s one thing New Delhi does not want, it’s another militant Islamic government in Kabul.

“We want the stabilization of Afghanistan because it is directly related to our security. Plain and simple,” said Jayant Prasad, the Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, speaking inside his heavily guarded Kabul residence.

India has paid heavily for its Afghan involvement. The Indian Embassy was bombed in 2008 and again last year, leaving 75 people dead. Six Indians were killed by militants during the construction of an India-funded highway.

Two Kabul guest houses popular among Indians have been attacked. The last attack, in February, left at least six Indians dead and forced New Delhi to temporarily close its medical and teaching missions in Kabul. India blamed that attack on the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, the same group believed to be behind the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.

India and the United States have both said the embassy attacks were carried out by militants allied to Pakistan’s ISI.

The Pakistanis “are bringing the proxy war to Afghanistan and we are the targets,” said Prasad.

It’s an accusation that Pakistan angrily denies.

“India has always used Afghanistan against us,” said Sadiq, the Pakistani ambassador.

Karzai has made little secret of his preference for India. The president, who was educated in India, has loudly welcomed New Delhi’s assistance while rarely mentioning Pakistan’s aid.

Other Afghan officials barely disguise their distrust of Pakistan.

Pakistan wants “a puppet state in Kabul, a subservient state,” said Muradian, the foreign ministry adviser. “India wants a stable, pluralistic Afghanistan.”

Certainly, India has shown it is willing to play diplomatic hardball.

Even India’s allies say New Delhi has a large presence in Afghanistan from its foreign intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW. At least one victim of the February guest house attack was an undercover RAW agent, a senior Afghan official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

According to Islamabad, many of those agents are providing support to separatist militants in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province — an accusation New Delhi denies.

The reality remains murky. Pakistan keeps Baluchistan largely sealed off to outsiders. Western diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, say Indian intelligence is believed to be in contact with the Baluchi separatists, though it’s unclear if they provide any support.

India also is keeping in reserve its longtime links to Afghan warlords, in case Afghanistan is again divided by violence.

For years, New Delhi supplied the leaders of the Northern Alliance, the collection of ethnic militias that battled the Taliban (and often one another), with food, intelligence and medical care. Later, after the Alliance helped the U.S. oust the Taliban in 2001, the warlords scattered into government and business — and sometimes into crime or exile.

But India remains in close contact with a range of the former militia leaders, according to people with close ties to New Delhi’s foreign policy elite, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

New Delhi’s biggest worry is that U.S. forces will withdraw from Afghanistan before Karzai’s government is in full control of the country. An early withdrawal, India fears, could allow Islamabad and the Taliban militants to gain more power in Afghanistan and potentially even usher in another government hostile to New Delhi.

While a full American pullout appears unlikely anytime soon, U.S. military officials have angered New Delhi by talking about the possibility of allowing some Taliban to join the Afghan government.

India warns it could form a coalition with Iran — an alliance that would infuriate Washington — if the Taliban appear poised to return to power. The “self-interested coalition” could include Russia and several Central Asian states that would also fear a Taliban return, according to an Indian with knowledge of the diplomatic maneuvering.

For now, though, India’s program to win Afghan hearts and minds is clearly working.

Take the three Indian doctors working in the dusty northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif, dispensing prescriptions and performing surgeries in a faded colonial-era hospital that somehow survived the years of fighting.

Every morning, clusters of women in blue burqas gather in the narrow hallway outside the clinic, while men wait in the parking lot. They are the poorest people in one of the world’s poorest countries: widows, the unemployed, the elderly. They measure the distance to the clinic by the cost of getting there — and a 10-cent bus ride is a painful investment.

About 150 arrive every day for free care and medicine.

An old man named Myagul — he has only one name, and didn’t know his age — had been coughing badly, he said, and growing dizzy when he stood up. The doctors prescribed blood pressure medicine and cough syrup. He’d already been to a handful of doctors, but they had all asked for fees he couldn’t afford.

But on a warm Afghan morning, the old man with the greasy beard and the torn blazer left the clinic clutching a handful of medicines, weary but pleased.

“Finally it was these Indians who helped.”

Afghan Crunch Time: Obama Must Decide Whether To Talk To The Taliban

Ahmed Rashid

Before President Hamid Karzai arrives in Washington next month, President Obama has to make clear key decisions on the course of war and peacemaking in Afghanistan.

Neighboring countries and most Afghans believe that the endgame has begun for a post-U.S. Afghanistan. There are just 14 months for the U.S. military surge to show results while Washington simultaneously prepares to begin its July 2011 troop withdrawal and handover to the Afghan government. Already, efforts to jockey for future control of Afghanistan have been seen among Pakistan, India, Iran and even Russia. Several NATO countries eager to withdraw forces are frustrated. It is clear in the region that someone will have to mediate with the Taliban, but in the absence of U.S. leadership, a tug of war is taking place over who will do it, when, how and where.

The recent spat between the White House and Karzai — which has cooled down thanks in part to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of international forces in Afghanistan — largely stemmed from Karzai’s growing frustration over questions about which the Obama administration has been unclear.

According to U.S. and Afghan officials, Karzai’s first question when he arrives will be whether Washington supports his efforts at reconciliation with the senior Taliban leadership. In January, the United States and NATO agreed to reintegration — bringing in Taliban foot soldiers and low-level commanders — but Washington balked at full reconciliation, saying it wants to see the Taliban weakened militarily over the next six to 12 months before considering talks with its leaders.

Karzai’s representatives, however, have spent the past 12 months holding talks about talks with senior Taliban representatives in several Arab Gulf states. Taliban leaders have made clear that they want to talk directly to the United States, and Karzai knows his discussions with the Taliban cannot go further without public U.S. support and a commitment to engage. The Afghans want a clear answer from Washington that they will lead any future negotiations.

The Obama Cabinet is set to discuss this issue, but it has been divided, including over how American voters would react to talks with the Taliban. Nevertheless, Karzai is hoping for a positive decision by the time he arrives in Washington. The issue is complicated by the Pakistani military’s determination to guide or even dominate the peace process rather than leave it to the Afghans.

Pakistan holds many of the cards: Taliban leaders and their families live in Pakistan and are in close touch with the military and its Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI). Some Taliban allies, such as the network led by Jalaluddin Haqqani, are even closer to the ISI. Although the military is finally hunting down the Pakistani Taliban in the Northwest tribal areas, the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani extremists in Punjab province are being left alone.

The January arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the No. 2 Taliban leader, in Karachi and the unexplained arrests and subsequent freeing of several other leading Taliban figures have demonstrated to Kabul and Washington the Pakistani military’s clout.

Karzai and most Afghans fear that if Washington waits too long to decide about talking to the Taliban, control will fall to the ISI as happened in the 1980s and 1990s — when Washington abandoned Afghanistan to Russia and Pakistan but the ISI played favorites and was unable to end the civil war among Afghan factions.

Almost all Afghans, including Karzai’s Pashtun supporters, the non-Pashtun Northern Alliance and even the Taliban oppose any major role for the ISI, as do most regional powers, particularly India, Iran, Russia and the five Central Asian republics.

When Karzai visited Islamabad on March 10 to find out why his interlocutor Mullah Baradar was arrested, he was, according to Afghan officials, bluntly told by Pakistan’s generals that the Americans are bound to leave and that if he wanted Pakistani help resolving issues with the Taliban, he would first have to close Indian consulates in Kandahar and Jalalabad. Pakistani officials deny threatening Karzai and insist that they want a peaceful and stable Afghanistan once the Americans leave. But other sources have confirmed that such ultimatums were delivered.

Pakistan is convinced that Karzai is allowing India to undermine Pakistan’s western border regions through its four consulates in Afghanistan and has demanded that Afghanistan close the consulates.

For a sovereign Afghanistan, this is an impossible request, but it is just the opening gambit in a looming test of wills. Pakistan’s maneuvers have prompted India to try reactivating its 1990s alliance with Iran, Russia and Central Asia, which supported the former Northern Alliance in a civil war against the Pakistan-backed Taliban regime.

Pakistan’s military has virtually taken control of foreign policy and strategic decision making from the civilian government. Thus Pakistan’s foreign policy reflects the military’s obsession with India.

The region and NATO countries are eager to hear from Washington on dealing with the Taliban. A U.S. decision is needed before regional tensions further escalate. The Obama administration must signal greater clarity about talking to the Taliban if the United States and NATO are to help the Afghans structure any future dialogue with the Taliban and if Afghans are not to feel abandoned once again to the whims of their neighbors.

The ‘Inevitable’ Clash

Would you like an atheist American as Chairman of WAPDA? A white City Nazim for Karachi or for that matter a British Director General of FIA in Punjab? Would you encourage wine shops and dance bars across Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad? How would you react to roving half-naked girls at Constitutional Avenue in Islamabad and at Millennium Mall in Karachi? Just as you don’t want significant titles in your country given to westerners and your way of life swayed by secular thoughts, same is the case in United States, Europe and India. They don’t want their culture altered under the shadow of Islamic civilization.

There is nothing wrong with the reaction that the West has, as it is exactly similar to how Muslims’ respond to when their societies are threatened by liberal and secular thoughts. However, over the past few years, this reaction has been institutionalized to a dangerous level, resulting in segregation of Islam and the West. It has become possible only due to controlled American media, campaigning strategically against Muslims since many decades. There has been intense use of propaganda techniques by various groups including PSYOPs of United States Army. 9/11, 7/7 and Mumbai attacks have only catalyzed the process and have given more strength and a tangible result to these stakeholders. As of now, we can weigh the major milestones that take us to the final and complete clash of both civilizations. Sympathy lies in the fact that all these steps were initiated by Westerners, who believe that their civilization has the power to influence the world and wipe out all other ways of life, including Islam. Therefore, the faster the process, the earlier their dominance would prevail.

Europe and the United States have been a key player in battling Islam’s rise. The laws addressing detention, ban on scarf and minarets are not only ceilings on symbols of Islamic faith, but in a broader perspective, they are more about funneling Islam towards a totally rejected religion. Scarfs and minarets aren’t the only threats, Americans and Europeans don’t even welcome shops that sell Halal food. Maligning Islamic faith and Salat is what was extracted from the Fort Hood episode of Major Hasan Nadal, in a move to further their hostility.

Likewise, the Swiss ban on minarets is not a matter of beautiful terrains; it’s is a symbolic reaction to what they perceive as Islamic threat. During the campaigning for ban on minarets, the organizers discussed less on the construction and architecture of minarets and campaigned more about the influence of Islam, its Sharia’h and Burqa. They portrayed Islam as a civilization contrary to their beliefs, in order to gain voters for their drive. The posters reflected images of Switzerland as if it was taken over by some ‘beast’ known as Islam. The Swiss people termed minarets as Muslim power symbols.

Lately, the South Asian version of this clash was reflected in the Indian Premier League bidding and Shoaib Sania wedding. It was just another example of the assumed ‘greater civilization’ insulting Muslims for no apparent reason, other than Pakistanis, Shoaib and Sania being Muslims in faith.To ridicule Pakistan, or the symbolic fort of Islam, served the purpose of many. It has been apparent in the Indian cinema too since more than two decades, and no need to mention the threatening statements of Indian ministers and leaders.

Despite the ongoing insult and ridicule, thousands of Muslims have migrated to United States and other western countries over the past decades, felling prey to the deceptive Western civilization. Better economic conditions and improved standard of life is what low-esteemed immigrants might have achieved, but at what cost? Upon arrival, the migrants are forced to choose between the three; adapt their civilization, leave their lands or get ready for detention and death. As a result, total lost of identity is what trickles through generations or one observes people returning to their homelands after being offended. It further strengthens the argument that Muslims have never been welcomed in the West and will never be.

Muslims, in principle, are known for their self-esteem. In order to stop the influx of Muslims, methods are being adopted to institutionalize suppression of self-esteem. The full body scan introduced at American and UK airports for majority Muslim countries reflect the same. Similarly, the ‘terror threats and suspects’ mechanism ensures that Muslims do not create stronger bonds with Masjids, Muslim community and their faith.

There had been several efforts in the past too for segregation of Islamic and Western civilizations. But, since the Islamic civilization has proved to be more powerful than the western civilization, it had always superseded in terms of influence. The only solution left now is to segregate the followers of the two civilizations. However, it is a step that precedes the ‘final clash’ of both.

The ‘final clash’ will be more fierce and bloody than what we see now. The United States and its allies are loosing war in Afghanistan and can never, I repeat never, win war in Pakistan. Leave aside the state power, military and nuclear capability, the resistance in the public has already perplexed the western forces. This imbalance has the power to reverse the entire situation and further miscalculations could lead the United States to complete disaster.

Those who still believe that there is a place for composite dialogue and understanding between Islam and the West, are badly mistaken. There are no options left. Clash of civilizations is the only thing that can happen between the two camps – The Muslims and the Non-Muslims. Both are extremists, assertive and insist on their ideology, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, logic and philosophy of mind. Its time to decide, which side are you on?