Monday, August 3, 2020

Indian Investigative Reporter Exposes RAW's Covert Ops Against Neighbors

In a new book titled "RAW: A History of India’s Covert Operations", Indian investigative journalist Yatish Yadav has essentially confirmed some of what India's neighbors have suspected for a long time. Yadav has added to the revelations contained in a earlier book titled "Mission R&AW" written by ex Indian spy RK Yadav.

Indian RAW in Afghanistan:

Yatish Yadav has revealed that Indian intelligence recruited three top Afghan leaders, including Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Masood, in 1990s. Two other leaders, not named by Yadav, are still active in Afghan politics. The Americans knew about RAW's activities in Afghanistan.  Although it is not clearly stated in the book, it appears that Indian intelligence continues to have its assets at the highest levels of the government in Kabul. One of India's Afghan assets that is still active but not been named is most likely Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan's current "Chief Executive". Abdullah has close ties with New Delhi. Members of his immediate family live in India.

Here's an excerpt of the book about Afghanistan:

"R&AW also created immense goodwill in many countries; it helped a top Afghan politician and former warlord to escape the Taliban and even got his relative a job in Turkey. R&AW spooks relentlessly bribed, cajoled and blackmailed India’s enemies".

RAW Vs Pakistan:

Yatish Yadav confirms what is already well known: India had carved Bangladesh out of East Pakistan.  Indian intelligence continued its covert actions in Bangladesh after its creation. Here's an excerpt of the book, as published in the Indian media:

"Set in the turbulent ’70s to the ’90s, R&AW spooks toppled dictators like General Ershad in Bangladesh and Fiji’s Colonel Rabuka by organising public protests and trading loyalties of people in their inner circles respectively.

Although the book makes no reference to it, Indian agent Kulbhushan Jhadav's arrest in Balochistan has confirmed that  RAW agents, based in Afghanistan and Iran, are actively carrying out violent covert ops in Pakistan.

There are 4,000 Indians working in Chabahar, Iran, according to Indian journalist Karan Thapar. Some of them, like Kulbhushan Jadhav, work undercover for Indian intelligence agency RAW.  It is hard to believe that the Iranian intelligence is not aware of the presence of undercover Indian agents among the 4,000 Indians working in Chabahar. After all, Jadhav had two passports, one in his own name and another in the name of Hussein Mubarak Patel. The Indian Express and Asian Age, both Indian publications, suggest that Jadhav had links with Uzair Baloch who has been convicted by for working for the Iranian intelligence in Pakistan.  Kulbhushan Jadhav has confessed to orchestrating deadly terror attacks in Balochistan and Karachi. He has said that India's RAW funneled money through Indian consulates in Jalalabad, Kandhar (Afghanistan) and  Zahidan (Iran) to BLA and TTP for terror attacks in Balochistan and Karachi. Targets of terror attacks included people, mosques, roads, port and Balochistan's Hazara Shia community.

RAW in Sri Lanka:

The book claims that RAW fueled the conflict in Sri Lanka by playing both sides. Here's an excerpt:

"In Sri Lanka, R&AW played a double game, helping the Sri Lankan Army to destroy the LTTE while protecting Indian assets against the Tigers and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s hit men. According to a R&AW spymaster in Colombo, MEA bungled and allowed the Chinese to get a foothold in the island. Avinash Sinha arrived at Colombo Fort Café on the morning of 3 December 2005, looking forward to what he had been told was the best Sri Lankan breakfast in the city. Avinash, a R&AW operative, perhaps a few autumns younger than Kosala Ratnayake, had returned to Colombo that October after three years. He had recruited Kosala, a top functionary in the Sri Lankan government, over several wet evenings in January 2002. That was when the Sri Lankan regime had been seriously engaging with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for peace talks".

Summary:

Indian investigative reporter Yatish Yadav's "RAW: A History of India’s Covert Operations" confirms what many of India's neighbors and long known and experienced: Indian intelligence agency RAW sabotages and subverts governments through its proxies and its assets in neighboring countries. India promotes and exacerbates local grievances to overthrow governments and break up nations. Yatish Yadav says "R&AW spooks relentlessly bribed, cajoled and blackmailed India’s enemies".

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11 comments:

Ahmed said...

Sir

Some people say that Indian agents were behind assassination of former PM Benazir Bhutto .

Can you pls throw some light on this ?

Thanks

Riaz Haq said...

Ahmad: "Some people say that Indian agents were behind assassination of former PM Benazir Bhutto"


Both the CIA and Scotland Yard believe Benazir Bhutto's assassination was ordered by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Hakimullah Mehsud.

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2008/0118/p99s01-duts.html

Subsequent reports indicate that TTP had close links with Indian intelligence agency RAW. Indian analyst Bharat Karnad has also echoed this suspicion and advocated the use of TTP to attack Pakistan.

https://www.riazhaq.com/2019/02/indian-analyst-bharat-karnad-to-modi.html

Mantou said...

RAW work for years to annex Sikkim and in 1975 finally make the move. Sikkim was a small independent Himalayan Buddhist kingdom that has existed for hundred of years neighboring China (There is no such thing as India at that time). In the 18th century the small kingdom was briefly overran by the Nepalese and the Sikkim Chogyal (monarch) ask China for help. The then Qianlong emperor sent an expedition army into Sikkim and repelled the Nepalese and restored Sikkim independence. The small kingdom was left unmolested until it was annexed by India in 1975.

Riaz Haq said...

The authors (Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark of Spy Stories) also conclude that Kulbhushan Jadhav, the former Naval commander accused of planning terror attacks and awaiting an appeal on a death sentence in Pakistan, was an “asset” but not an “officer” for the Indian intelligence agencies, who had been “trapped” by Pakistan’s ISI. India has flatly denied those charges, and said that Mr. Jadhav retired from service in 2001 and was kidnapped by Pakistani agencies in Iran. However, the book says many Indian intelligence agencies had shown interest in recruiting Mr. Jadhav due to his access from Iran to Pakistan, and that he was lured by the ISI to Karachi to meet a Baloch contact.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/two-foreign-journalists-had-post-pulwama-back-channel-role-between-india-pakistan-says-book/article35861441.ece


“According to some of those we interviewed in IB (Intelligence Bureau), R&AW and Indian Navy as well as ISI and military intelligence in Pakistan, many agencies were suddenly interested in a man like [Jadhav] who had the wherewithal to travel with cover….There was already plenty of R&AW investment in terms of assets and officers in Iranian Baluchistan and at Chabahar, but to have Jadhav, who could travel widely, and even to get down to Karachi, would make him exceptional,” Mr. Levy said in an interview. “Not as an officer, trained, deployed and backed up by an institution — but as an asset, we were told, a person who reported back to handlers and supervisors, with [his] insights,” he added.

Riaz Haq said...

Taliban has never been India’s enemyInterview/ Adrian Levy, author

https://www.theweek.in/theweek/cover/2021/08/19/taliban-has-never-been-india-enemy.html

Levy recently co-authored Spy Stories: Inside the Secret World of the RAW and the ISI, published by Juggernaut, with author-journalist Cathy Scott-Clark.



On India’s role in Afghanistan, he said that Delhi had been busy nurturing its relationship with the national government, forgetting that there was an Afghanistan beyond Kabul. Excerpts from an interview:

What role do you see for Delhi in Afghanistan?

India did many things in Afghanistan. It pumped in cash and resources and created a relationship, but perhaps its biggest failing was that it was late in [reaching out to] the other side (Taliban). Kabul is not equivalent to Afghanistan; India put too [much trust] in the US mirage there. It went late to Doha. Its reach mirrored the US’s. We must remember that the Taliban is not India’s enemy. It never was.

As much as Indian intelligence agencies like R&AW want to build a narrative that Pakistan will be the biggest worry again, there is evidence to suggest that groups that have decamped as a result of constant purging by Pakistan are now operating in the lawless lands across the Durand Line. Elements of the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba are forming deadly battle-hardened groups inside southern Afghanistan and will attack anyone, including Pakistan.

What are the other worries in Afghanistan?

First, it is the chaotic space created in places in Afghanistan by insurgents who fled Waziristan and FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas), where terror groups are deeply entrenched inside communities. They will continue to spark tension around the Durand Line and beyond. Second, there are spoilers like Iran, which has funded sections of the Taliban to hamper the US; and Russia, which had previously lost in Afghanistan, and is engaged in a contest with Washington. There is Turkey, which is deep into Pakistan, rivalling Saudi, and wants to be seen as a regional power. So, the failed state and the spoilers together pave the way for a breeding ground for evil forces and dangerous groups to thrive.

In 20 years, there have been some changes. The Pakistan army has come through 18 years of war for the better, and Rawalpindi has spent a lot of money to fortify the Durand Line with fencing and tech. What is far from clear is how and whether adventurist elements within the military and the intelligence establishment have now been enabled, too, to prosecute their old anti-India project.

In the book, you draw links between the 2019 Pulwama attack and Afghanistan.



Jaish-e-Mohammad plotted Pulwama inside Afghanistan. They had occupied compounds alongside Al Qaeda and other terrorist outfits. While the public statements and perception were completely different, that the ISI and the Pakistan military establishment were to blame, the facts suggested that the command and control structure was inside Afghanistan. If you look at the aetiology of forensics, a similar device was used in the 2008 bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad. Aluminium powder was used to create enormous heat. So, what you have are Al Qaeda engineers, Jaish leaders and even men trained by the now dead [Al Qaeda] commander Ilyas Kashmiri, who targeted Pulwama. What we see is how few people are needed to spill blood and create the architecture of terror. But what happens afterwards, despite the evidence, is that India lambasts Pakistan. The political project takes over.

So are you saying that R&AW is good at perception management?

India has had great success in projecting itself as benign. It is a masterful thing done through soft and hard power, where you gather a cloak around yourself to disguise all hot actions and instead portray yourself as being the patient, perpetual victim of Pakistan terror. Good play, as ISI would say. There has been Pakistan-backed terror and insurgency. But that is all we see.

Riaz Haq said...

Fidato
@tequieremos

In 1980, India and Israel collaborated a joint attack against Pakistan's nuclear plant in Kahuta. The nuclear program was still in the embryonic state. Plus there were no F-16 aircrafts with the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to counter such a strike. A squadron of Israeli aircraft...


https://twitter.com/tequieremos/status/1447977997177442310?s=20


https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/48288/did-india-plan-to-get-pakistans-nuclear-facility-destroyed-by-israel-in-the-mid


The timing of Khan’s outpourings could not have been worse. Reagan was due in Beijing. The aid package to Pakistan was up for renewal on Capitol Hill. In New Delhi, too, there was anger at Khan and at the US. The talk was that Washington had betrayed India’s secret plans to strike at Pakistan’s nuclear project. K. Subrahmanyam, chairman of India’s joint intelligence committee, picked over the Khan interviews. “We knew we were being challenged by Islamabad,” Subrahmanyam recalled. “Our intelligence people also had evidence of the Pakistan air force increasing their levels of readiness, further proof, if any more were needed, that our covert intentions to hit Kahuta were not secret any more.”

But what made India’s joint intelligence committee livid was that it had been sitting on the plan to strike KRL for a year. A committee of soldiers and intelligence people had first come together to discuss what became known as “the Osirak contingency” in 1981, after Lieutenant General Krishnaswami Sundarji had published his Pakistan war-gaming manual. Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi had consented and placed Air Marshal Dilbagh Singh, chief of air staff, in charge of the operation. He had ordered Indian Air Force Jaguar squadrons to practice low-level flying, simulating runs with 2,000-lb bombs.

In February 1983, with the strike plan at an advanced stage, Indian military officials had travelled secretly to Israel, which had a common interest in eliminating Khan, to buy electronic warfare equipment to neutralize Kahuta’s air defenses. On 25 February 1983, Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi had accused Pakistan of “covertly attempting to make nuclear weapons,” and three days later, Raja Ramanna, director of India’s Bhabha Atomic Research Center, had revealed that India, too, was developing a uranium enrichment facility. Suspecting something was brewing, the ISI sent a message to their Indian intelligence counterparts in RAW that autumn, and as a result Munir Ahmed Khan of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission met Dr. Ramanna at the Imperial Hotel in Vienna. He warned Ramanna that if India were to strike at Kahuta, Pakistan would hit India’s nuclear facilities at Trombay. It lay downwind from the teeming Indian city of Mumbai and an attack would result in the release of “massive amounts of radiation to a large populated area, causing a disaster.”


— Adrian Levy & Catherine Scott-Clark: "Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the global nuclear weapons conspiracy", Walker Books, 2010.

Riaz Haq said...

Fidato
@tequieremos

In 1980, India and Israel collaborated a joint attack against Pakistan's nuclear plant in Kahuta. The nuclear program was still in the embryonic state. Plus there were no F-16 aircrafts with the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to counter such a strike. A squadron of Israeli aircraft...


https://twitter.com/tequieremos/status/1447977997177442310?s=20


https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/48288/did-india-plan-to-get-pakistans-nuclear-facility-destroyed-by-israel-in-the-mid

----------

New Delhi paused. Israel stepped in, suggesting that it carry out the raid, using India’s airbase at Jamnagar to launch Israeli air force jets and a second base in northern India to refuel. A senior Israeli analyst close to the operation recalled that the plan was to enter Pakistan beneath the radar, with jets tracking the line of the Himalayas through Kashmir. As Reagan’s staff finalized arrangements for the president’s visit to China in March 1984, prime minister Indira Gandhi signed off the Israeli-led operation, bringing India, Pakistan and Israel to within a hair’s breadth of a nuclear conflagration. It was at this point that the CIA tipped off President Zia, hoping the chain reaction would defuse the situation. And after Khan’s outbursts in the Pakistani newspapers, India and Israel had backed off. But these were high-stakes games, played between a known nuclear nation—India—and another—Pakistan—that Reagan continued to insist had no capability, the US deception bringing the region even further towards an apocalyptic conflagration.

Soon afterwards, Khan was at it again. This time sticking to a tight script, he contacted the Daily Jang and The Muslim. “Pakistan can set up several nuclear centers of the Kahuta pattern,” he bragged, knowing that every one of his words was being read over the border. “In the event of the destruction of the Kahuta plant, more than one such plant can be set up in Pakistan.” To make things absolutely clear, Pakistan’s ambassador in New Delhi approached the Indian foreign office, promising that they would make it rain fire if India went ahead.

Indira Gandhi had her resolve to do something about Kahuta rekindled in March 1984, when, just weeks after the Chinese president Li Xiannian visited Pakistan and stated that China endorsed a nuclear weapons-free South Asia, the Indian foreign ministry learned that China appeared to have detonated a nuclear-capable device on behalf of Pakistan at its test site at Lop Nor, an event witnessed by Pakistan’s foreign minister.30 In Washington, the true nature of the China–Pakistan nuclear pact also began to surface. Len Weiss, Senator Glenn’s staffer, recalled the congressional backlash as newspaper stories from the UK reached Washington claiming that US and Western intelligence had concluded that China had passed its bomb designs to Pakistan. “This news for us came from nowhere and its consequences were obvious. It was no longer just inexperienced Pakistan striving for a bomb and the US turning a blind eye. It was Pakistan backed by a sophisticated and proven nuclear power with the US burying the bad news from elected officials.”
— Adrian Levy & Catherine Scott-Clark: "Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the global nuclear weapons conspiracy", Walker Books, 2010.


Riaz Haq said...

EH
@ejazhaider
FINALLY, ISPR comes up with a pro forma, perfunctory statement on the Kech attk, hours AFTER i wrote my analysis. but missing from all this is a simple fact: BLF, for years, has used Iran's soil for mounting attacks in southwest Balochistan. why are we afraid of that discussion?

https://twitter.com/ejazhaider/status/1486776348223979528?s=20


EH
@ejazhaider
in my public debate with
@mosharrafzaidi
i constantly favoured a proactive CT policy. why wait for attacks on our soil; why not take the war to the enemies in Afghanistan and Iran? i can tell you we have the capability; not sure if we have the balls.

EH
@ejazhaider
ps: are we more engrossed in the Islamabad power politics shit than securing our interests? as i said on
@ZarrarKhuhro
's programme last night, state with balls could take out Mohsin Fakhrezadeh south of Tehran. you wanna deal with Tehran, deal from a position of strength.


Riaz Haq said...

Clear evidence of India carrying out terrorist activities in Pakistan: Rana Sanaullah



https://www.dawn.com/news/1726154


“Naveed was a labourer in the Middle East and was in jail because he could not pay his fine. A RAW agent approached him and told him that he would pay his fine, but then, Naveed would have to engage in terror activities against Pakistan,” Mehmood said in the press conference.

He added that as soon as Naveed was arrested, several terror activities were thwarted. “When we arrested Sami ul Haq, Naveed was unaware of his arrest. Sami ul Haq told us that he was about to meet Naveed on May 10. We were then able to apprehend Naveed as well.”

As the investigation continued, Mehmood said, more RAW agents were uncovered.

“We also found out that close to a million dollars of terror financing was done through India to spread terrorism in Pakistan through different channels,” he revealed, adding that all the arrested persons have been sentenced to death three times by the court.


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HOW AN INDIAN STATE-SPONSORED TERRORIST RING WORKS 🧵

On the 23rd of June, 2021, #India’s external intelligence agency #RAW conducted a #terrorist attack in the suburbs of Johar Town, Lahore, #Pakistan leading to the death of 3 civilians, and injuring 22 innocent citizens.

https://twitter.com/INTELPSF/status/1602631458698526722?s=20&t=fL8UKCnmKUNbyc0Q5vLhUA

The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
The VBIED (Vehicle-Bourne Improvised Explosives Device) has 200 kilograms of explosives and destroyed 7 residential houses and 12 vehicles.
The plan was hatched in New Delhi somewhere in 2020, and after approval from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was put into action.

The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
It was not the first time that India would be conducting a major terror attack inside Pakistan, and would not be the last.
R&AW, Indian intelligence, was given the task. They initially recruited one Bablu Srivastava, a criminal running an extortion and kidnapping-for-ransom ring


The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
out of Bareilly Jail in Uttar Pradesh under the patronage of RAW.
He became the mastermind behind this terrorist attack. Sanjay Kumar Tiwari, RAW operative in the UAE was the supervisor of this operation. He was aided by Aslam Khan (alias), also a RAW agent operating out



The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
of Nepal and Maldives. He was financed by two brothers, both working with RAW, namely Zaheem and Saheem Sheikh (both based in the UAE). They were also assisted by one Ali Budesh, who runs RAW’s gold-smuggling network in the Middle East.


The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
What follows is a chilling account of how India’s state machinery organised a ruthless terror operation against civilians, using underworld criminals as a nexus.

In mid-2020 Naveed Akhtar, a Pakistani national imprisoned in the UAE due to visa problems and non-payment of fines

Riaz Haq said...

Clear evidence of India carrying out terrorist activities in Pakistan: Rana Sanaullah


https://www.dawn.com/news/1726154

----------

The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
is approached by Saheem Sheikh, an Indian RAW operative.
After some time, Saheem discloses his affiliation with Indian intelligence, and offers to get him out of jail and a large financial sum to solve his problems. Mr. Akhtar agrees after some persuasion.

https://twitter.com/INTELPSF/status/1602631500440256515?s=20&t=fL8UKCnmKUNbyc0Q5vLhUA



The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
His fines are paid, and he travels back to Pakistan, now a RAW informant.
Mr. Akhtar is then introduced to Bablu by Saheem Sheikh who informs him of the attack plan.
Mr. Akhtar is asked to rent a hideout near the target location.


The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
Mr. Akhtar shifts his family to the hideout to mask his real intentions. He then is instructed to travel to Maldives to meet with RAW operatives, who give him $50,000 and order him to meet RAW’s Afghani execution team in Pakistan who will conduct the attack. After retuning to


The Intel Consortium
@INTELPSF
Pakistan,he deposits 3.3 million rupees into two of his accounts and buys a car Toyota license plate number LEA-10-3200. After reconnaissance of the target location for the terrorist attack, Mr. Akhtar sends a video message to Bablu (RAW frontman and operator).

December 13, 2022 at 9:51 AM Delete
Blogger Riaz Haq said...
Pakistan blames India for 2021 bombing near militant’s home
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - 12/13/22 9:21 AM ET

https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-international/ap-pakistan-blames-india-for-2021-bombing-near-militants-home/


Pakistan’s interior minister on Tuesday accused neighboring India of orchestrating last year’s car bombing in Lahore, near the residence of a militant leader suspected of orchestrating deadly attacks in Mumbai in 2008.

Rana Sanaullah Khan said at a news conference that several Pakistani suspects had been arrested, prosecuted and convicted by Pakistani courts in recent months over their links to the June 2021 bombing, which killed three people. The explosion went off near the home of Hafiz Saeed, who is the founder of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba group.

The interior minister said Pakistan, with the help of INTERPOL, will seek the arrest of Indian intelligence operatives they suspect of being behind the attack near Saeed’s home. Saeed, a Pakistani, is serving a jail term in Pakistan on charges of financing anti-India militants. He said Pakistan had solid evidence about India’s role in the bombing.

The Indian External Affairs Ministry couldn’t be reached for comment.

Saeed had been designated a terrorist by the U.S. Justice Department after the 2008 bombing and has a $10 million bounty on his head. Saeed’s Lashkar-e-Taiba was active for years mainly in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is split between Pakistan and India and is claimed by both in its entirety.

In the Indian-controlled sector of Kashmir, rebels have been fighting against Indian rule since 1989. Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebel goal that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

Riaz Haq said...

Pakistan blames India for 2021 bombing near militant’s home
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - 12/13/22 9:21 AM ET

https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-international/ap-pakistan-blames-india-for-2021-bombing-near-militants-home/


Pakistan’s interior minister on Tuesday accused neighboring India of orchestrating last year’s car bombing in Lahore, near the residence of a militant leader suspected of orchestrating deadly attacks in Mumbai in 2008.

Rana Sanaullah Khan said at a news conference that several Pakistani suspects had been arrested, prosecuted and convicted by Pakistani courts in recent months over their links to the June 2021 bombing, which killed three people. The explosion went off near the home of Hafiz Saeed, who is the founder of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba group.

The interior minister said Pakistan, with the help of INTERPOL, will seek the arrest of Indian intelligence operatives they suspect of being behind the attack near Saeed’s home. Saeed, a Pakistani, is serving a jail term in Pakistan on charges of financing anti-India militants. He said Pakistan had solid evidence about India’s role in the bombing.

The Indian External Affairs Ministry couldn’t be reached for comment.

Saeed had been designated a terrorist by the U.S. Justice Department after the 2008 bombing and has a $10 million bounty on his head. Saeed’s Lashkar-e-Taiba was active for years mainly in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is split between Pakistan and India and is claimed by both in its entirety.

In the Indian-controlled sector of Kashmir, rebels have been fighting against Indian rule since 1989. Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebel goal that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.