South Asia Security Monitor: No. 244

LeT ALIVE AND KICKING
[Editor’s Note: When Islamist terrorists attacked Mumbai, India last November, killing 166, and the perpetrators were found to have links to Pakistani-based terrorist groups, India immediately severed its comprehensive dialogue with Pakistan. Designed to address several outstanding issues, not the least of which is the status of Kashmir, the dialogue, India (along with the United States) has insisted, will remain on hold until Pakistan brings to justice the planners of the attack and shuts down the militant group Lashkar e Taiba and its affiliated charities, widely understood to have sponsored of the attack.]

Evidence suggests that a year from the Mumbai attacks, Lashkar e Taiba, far from being shut down by Islamabad as promised, continues to thrive and plot attacks from Pakistani soil. Pakistan officials insist they are preoccupied with a battle against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan, but is little secret that the Pakistani establishment views Lashkar as its “most reliable proxy against India.” While several of the group’s leaders await trial, LeT’s chief, Hafez Saeed, remains free, preach against America from a Lahore mosque. Thousands of fighters remain at training camps and safe houses, which is perhaps why it is no surprise that at least six new plots against Mumbai alone have been foiled by India in the past year while “Lashkar’s infiltration of India’s part of Kashmir is again on the upswing.” Most ominously, there is a wide consensus that another Mumbai-scale attack “risks sparking a fourth war between [India and Pakistan].” (Wall Street Journal, November 24, 2009)

INDIA AND RUSSIA COME TO TERMS ON AIRCRAFT CARRIER
India and Russia have ended a longstanding pricing dispute, paving the way for the sale to India of the Russian Aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, a Kiev class carrier commissioned in 1987. Gorshkov was withdrawn from service in 1996 and India signed an initial contract to purchase the carrier, to be renamed the INS Vikramaditya, in 2004. The agreement had been snagged on a pricing dispute and refitting delays but during a meeting between Indian PM Manmohan Singh and Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, the two were able to settle on a number between India’s proposal of $2.1 billion and Russia’s request for $2.9 billion. (Times of India, December 8, 2009; Wikipedia Admiral Gorshkov)

[India currently operates the INS Viraat, a British carrier also commissioned in 1987 and is on its way toward building to build two indigenous Vikrant class aircraft carriers to be commissioned in the next decade.].

NEPAL INCHING TOWARD CRISIS
Tensions are again on the rise in Nepal, the small but volatile jungle kingdom wedged between China and India. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in New Delhi in 2005, ending fifteen brutal years of civil war between the government and a Maoist insurgency has been inching toward the verge of collapse. That agreement brought the Maoists into a coalition government after performing strongly in elections and the current crisis began when the Maoist prime minister sought the resignation of the army chief, whom he viewed as obstructionist and unwilling to incorporate Maoist cadres into the army. The PM, known as Prachandra, has since resigned and with talks floundering, the Maoists are resorting to their trump card – mass action.

A mass protest by the Maoists in the western district of Kailaali resulted in the death of four civilians and a policemen, leading to threats for more direct action. The Maoists have since unveiled a plan to unilaterally declare 13 “federal autonomous states” based on Nepal’s original ethnic groups – a longstanding desire of the Maoist movement but one which contradicts the planned constitution. The decree has raised tensions further, with the leader of the anti-Maoist Communist Party of Nepal responding with a taunt to the Maoists to “re-enter the Jungles.” India, meanwhile, with its vast influence and interests in Nepal, remains wary that the Maoists will tilt Nepal toward China and is reportedly considering selling arms to the Maoist’s political opponents. All of which is hindering efforts at drawing up a new constitution by May 28, 2010. (Asia Times, December 8, 2009)

QUADRILATERAL SECURITY FOR ASIA… SORT OF
India and Australia have inked a new security agreement, further signaling India’s inclusion into an group of interlinking security pacts between the United States, Australia, and Japan. Indeed, Japan, Australia, and the United states had already institutionalized a “trilateral strategic dialogue” but Australia had been wary of offending China by turning that into a Quadrilateral dialogue. However, the bilateral agreement (India signed a security partnership with Japan in 2008 and the United States in 2005) now closes the loop; each of the four has a security pact with the remaining three, and the web of agreements reflects common security agendas of the four nations and increasing cooperation in the realms of defense and policy coordination. Cooperation among the four navies was evident in the relief efforts after the devastating tsunami in Indonesia in 2004. More recently, the group of four plus Singapore jointly staged major naval war games in the Bay of Bengal in September 2007 and India, U.S. and Japan were conducting naval maneuvers off Okinawa as recently as this spring. (Japan Times, December 11, 2009)