RESTRUCTURING INTELLIGENCE TO COUNTER TERRORISM

Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali while presenting ‘though half-baked’ Pakistan’s first-ever ‘National Security Policy’ (NSP) in National Assembly on February 26, vowed to inanimate the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) and to establish a National Intelligence Directorate (NID) under its umbrella to counter the menace of terrorism and militancy.

The PM approved the establishment of NID ‘having the coordination among different intelligence agencies of the country; civil as well as military as its primal task’ on March 18 while chairing the first ever meeting of high level civil and military leadership. This initiative, if followed up in letter and spirit, would have a far-reaching impact.

The very term ‘intelligence failure’ is abuzz nowadays, especially after every major act of terror its echoes are heard in every nook and cranny of the country. Since intelligence is a covert process, common people remain oblivious to its subtleties. They expect more from the state’s intelligence apparatus to guard them from all implicit and explicit threats. The masses expect prior ‘cautions’ from the spymasters of any untoward incident that may be in the offing. Though, at times, their tips-off may come true, common populace as well as those at country’s helm are ought to be educated that intelligence is a laborious work aimed at combing through the plethora of reports or information and sift out the pertinent one. This information might also include counterintelligence, psyops and deceptive moves from the enemy, hence making it known to everyone may thwart the success of the law-enforcement agencies.

Therefore, ‘it is better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong,’ said John Maynard Keynes, an eminent economist. Accordingly, a more reasonable word to elaborate the functioning of intelligence could be ‘forecast’ as the secret intelligence is pretty much like a weather forecast. It could be right, or wrong too, but no certain predictability every time.

Moreover, in the wake of the emerging nature of threats and challenges to the national security, some radical changes in the modus operandi as well as responsibilities of the security apparatus are inevitable. Since, some militant outfits do have tacit support in the civil society, to gather intelligence and to obliterate the enemy’s counterintelligence manoeuvring have become a real challenge. In addition, the presence of unprecedentedly vibrant media, highly proactive judiciary and ‘clamorous’ civil society, have made the successful intelligence operations an unequivocally vigorous job.

The much-trumpeted counterterrorism approach comprising the remedial steps like redressing the grievances, good governance, socioeconomic development, etc., to win the hearts and minds of the people could really work in some cases, yet it seems misplaced to a larger extent. As we see, an increasing number of foot-soldiers and the top hierarchy of the major militant outfits operating inside Pakistan ‘be they ‘Tehriks’, ‘Lashkars’ or ‘Liberation Armies’ comes from well-off families, with an increasing number of university grads. The counterterrorism intelligence operations/psy-wars against such an enemy ask for novel and innovative strategies.

Then the militants’ unchecked financing from foreign agencies (RAW and CIA, for example) has obligated their access to modern weaponry and sophisticated communication tools along with the increased use of IT in their intricate counterintelligence training. That’s why they are capable of fighting a professional army. Their resorting to modern equipments has also made the process of intelligence collection, analysis, production, and dissemination a daunting task.

In such an exigent situation, a well-coordinated, coherent and integrated intelligence-sharing mechanism to interlink country’s intelligence bodies is more than necessary. After necessary analysis of the threat, information must be passed on to the concerned department so that pragmatic strategies are chalked out to ensure timely and befitting action. Do remember that any inefficiency or lethargy at any stage could end up in disaster.

The findings of 9/11 Commission speak volumes on the importance of intelligence coordination among different organizations assigned to guard the national security. The said report suggested that had there been a better mechanism of intelligence sharing within the country, the incident of 9/11 would have been averted. The intelligence and security apparatus’ inability in joining the dots and sharing the threat perceptions with on-ground officials ‘as the information did exist with high-ups of spying networks’ lead to the horrendous incident of 9/11. A Congressional inquiry into 9/11 revealed several FBI shortcomings, some of which are as under:

1. The FBI’s decentralized structure and inadequate information technology made the Bureau unable to correlate the knowledge possessed by its components. The FBI did not gather intelligence from all its many cases nationwide to produce an overall assessment of al Qaeda’s presence in the United States.

2. Many FBI field offices had not made counterterrorism a top priority and they knew little about al Qaeda before September 11.

3. The FBI also did not inform policymakers of the extent of terrorist activity in the United States. Although the FBI conducted many investigations, these pieces were not fitted into a larger picture.

The modern technology has revolutionized our lives and its importance in intelligence-gathering process, particularly in the counter-terrorism intelligence, is exceptionally phenomenal.

A homemade example, for us, is the Dera Ismail Khan jailbreak. According to a news report in daily ‘Dawn’, a letter, marked ‘secret’ and ‘most immediate’ by the country’s premier intelligence agency, was sent to the Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, DIG, DPO and the Jail Superintendent. It stated:

‘It has been reliably learnt that miscreants namely Umer Khitab and his associates affiliated with Gandapur Group/TTP are planning to carry out terrorist attack against Central Jail ‘Dera Ismail Khan on the pattern similar to Bannu jailbreak in near future. According to information, miscreants are in possession of sketch/map of Jail and have reached in the vicinity of Dera Ismail Khan for this purpose.’

The said memo not merely informed about militants’ presence in DIK, the administration was also warned that militants would be launching a three-pronged attack from Sabzi Mandi, Girls’ Degree College and Town Hall’ where the assailants parked their 14 vehicles after the attack. In spite of this, the administration remained in slumber and no actionable plan to counter the attack was chalked out. Resultantly, the attackers, in their onslaught, got 248 prisoners freed ‘among them 30 were hardcore militants’ including Qari Asif and Khalil, the culprits behind the bombing of Ashura processions last year in Dera Ismail Khan which left 25 people dead. This was the height of the sloppiness on part of country’s security apparatus.

The recently promulgated Protection of Pakistan Ordinance (PPO), though, gives some teeth to the Law-enforcements Agencies, yet there is a lot to be done. It is high time that the government comes up with the laws specifically in order to bettering the intelligence functioning. Such legal provisions should provide a legislative and structural umbrella under which intelligence organizations could work with convenience and without any undue fear.

The modern technology has revolutionized our lives and its importance in intelligence-gathering process, particularly in the counter-terrorism intelligence, is exceptionally phenomenal. Notwithstanding this, the Human Intelligence (HUMINT), even today, is lot more accurate and reliable, especially for the areas like Balochistan and Fata. Given the threats to the life of the ‘source’ it is extremely difficult to penetrate into the militant organizations. Nevertheless, human spies can provide huge help in collecting troves of information about the enemies’ plans, manoeuvres, weapons, financers along with their aims and objectives, and most importantly, their strengths and weaknesses. Dr Shakil Afridi is the epitome of successful use of humans for intelligence operations as he was used by the US in tracing out the exact location of Osama bin Laden.

All the aforementioned circumstances represent a dire need of a single department like American ‘Directorate of National Intelligence’ (DNI), with the responsibility to oversee all the intelligence agencies of the country. However, if the Nacta is placed under Interior Ministry and NID is established under Nacta, then can we expect that Pakistan’s spy agencies like ISI, MI and IB, who are directly under the PM as per constitution, will coordinate with it? This pheno might be menon a major reason why Nacta is still a non-vibrant organization. We have witnessed that during the previous regime the then Interior Minister, Rehman A. Malik, did not surrender the organization under PM despite repeated demands by the DG Nacta Tariq Parvez, who later resigned due to this tussle.

Only the time will tell what happens this time as apparently the government seems poised to eradicate the terrorism. Let’s hope that all the government’s endeavours do not end in smoke.