PGT-2003: A Tale Told by an Idiot
Ajai
Sahni
The US State Department's Patterns of Global
Terrorism 2003 (PGT 2003) Report has been pilloried by a number of
American experts, who note that, "its maths defies reality". The
Report contains a number of internal totalling errors that "even a
third-grader could have found", according to one commentator in The
Washington Times. The State Department has now taken cognisance of
these errors and admitted that "the data in the report is incomplete
and in some cases incorrect", and promised to issue a "revised
analysis" after a review.
But poor arithmetic and peripheral incompleteness is the least of
the PGT 2003's problems. A review of the contents of the Report with
regard to South Asia (the only region treated in this Assessment)
exposes a capriciousness that does not suggest perverse intent, but
utter incomprehension and abysmal ignorance on the part of those who
have been charged with its compilation. The State Department
indicates that the data was compiled by the Terrorist Threat
Integration Centre (TTIC), which comprises "elements from the CIA,
FBI and Departments of Homeland Security and Defence." If this
reflects the levels of intelligence available to these agencies, or
their competence, that should certainly disturb, not only the
American taxpayer, but people across the world who have to deal with
the often disastrous consequences of American errors of policy and
perception. There is, through the Report, a comprehensive failure to
identify and consistently apply clear definitions and norms, and a
systemic tendency to both grossly underestimate and distort the
actual patterns and magnitude of terrorism, globally.
Speaking from Washington during a video conference with a group of
Indians (including this writer) at New Delhi, on May 6, 2004,
Ambassador Cofer Black, the US Coordinator for Counter-terrorism,
under whose authority the Report is issued, stated: "My
responsibility to the Secretary and others is to reflect the reality
of events on the ground. These have to be validated and checked out,
they have to be multiply sourced…" Little in the Report suggests
that any such process of validation or diversity of sourcing has
actually been followed.
The Report speaks of a total of 190 incidents of terrorism globally,
in which 307 persons were killed, in the year 2003, with 82 of these
targeting the US. The US is, consequently, the country worst
affected by terrorist acts in the year under review according to PGT
2003.
If this were, indeed, the true magnitude of international terrorism
today, we would be living in a blessed world. India alone
experiences thousands of incidents of terrorism each year, which
would meet US criteria of internationality and 'significance', but
Appendix A of the Report determines that there were a total of just
49 such incidents in the country, with a total of 99 fatalities, all
of them concentrated in the State of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K).
The reality is that in J&K alone, there were at least 477 attacks on
civilians in year 2003, with a total of 658 civilian deaths recorded
by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) from open source reports
(official statistics available with the Institute for Conflict
Management suggest the total civilian fatalities were significantly
higher, at 807; the divergence mainly results from subsequent deaths
in hospital of civilians injured in incidents, deaths occurring in
remote areas, and delayed reports of deaths, which are often
under-reported in the media). Significantly, all terrorist groups
operating in J&K are headquartered in Pakistan - including the
supposedly 'indigenous' Hizb-ul-Mujahiddeen (HM); their cadres are
armed, trained, and financed by Pakistani sources, both state and
non-state; they cross over into India for brief 'tenures of
service', and then cross back into Pakistan, and the most lethal of
these groups, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM)
have direct and multiple links with the international Islamist
extremist movement, including the Al Qaeda, thus meeting any
legitimate criteria on the 'internationality' of their activities.
The official US position on these facts is, at best, evasive and
facile. Confronted with the discrepancy in numbers, Cofer Black
sought to represent the issue as a divergence in perceptions,
stating, "In my dealings with the Indian Government I ask them and
challenge them to do a better job of representing the issue as they
see it," and again, "We look forward to the Indian Government
effectively communicating the reality of the situation there…"
This position appears to suggest that the PGT is compiled through
some kind of adjudication process, with respective national
Governments 'making a case' before the US State Department, and the
latter then pronouncing on the merits of the evidence. This is
certainly not the case, and is not borne out by the actual contents
of PGT 2003, with most of the incidents mentioned in the 'Chronology
of Significant Terrorist Incidents, 2003' (Appendix A of the Report)
citing unidentified 'press reports'.
Even on the basis of 'press reports', it is interesting to see how
much PGT 2003 misses out - and the inconsistency of what it chooses
to include. Several minor incidents of little significance are
included. Thus, on April 10, PGT 2003, displaying extraordinary
diligence, records: "In Kashmir, a bomb exploded in the famous
Mughal Garden causing no damage, according to press reports. No one
claimed responsibility." A number of attacks on the police and
security forces are also included in the chronology - militating
against the projected definition of terrorism as attacks against
civilians or 'non-combatants'. If this was applied consistently, the
total fatalities inflicted by terrorists in J&K would be even higher
than those indicated above (a total of 380 SF personnel were killed
in J&K, according to official sources; SATP records a total of 338
SF fatalities from open source reports).
On the other hand, what is excluded is shocking. It is not possible,
here, to give a full listing of the hundreds of incidents missed out
(though such a listing can easily be made available separately), but
it is useful to look at some of the more notable omissions:
January 28: National Conference leader and prominent businessman
Farooq Ahmed Kuchchay and his Personal Security Officer killed by a
group of four suspected HM terrorists in Udhir village, Chatru area
of Doda district.
February 12: Three civilians are
abducted and later killed by suspected Hizb-ul-Mujahideen terrorists
at Dharam village, Gool area of Udhampur district.
April 19: Unidentified terrorists
abduct a civilian and later chop off his ears, nose and tongue at
Chatroo village in the Doda district.
May 9: Unidentified terrorists kill
three prominent activists of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP)
in the Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's hometown of Bijbehara,
in south Kashmir.
May 19: Four women and two children
are beheaded by suspected JeM terrorists at village Chowkian in the
Kot Dhara area of Rajouri district.
May 26: A group of seven unidentified
terrorists intrude into the house of a Village Defence Committee
member and kill all five members of the family, including three
children, and later set ablaze their house at village Seri Khwas in
the Koteranka area of Rajouri district.
June 13: Three civilians, including
two women, are shot dead by unidentified terrorists in the Handwara
area of Kupwara district.
July 7: Three unidentified terrorists
shoot dead five civilians, including two women, and injure another
woman at village Dandhok, near the Line of Control (LoC) in Nowshera
sector of Rajouri district.
September 21: Three persons are
killed and 29 others injured in a blast triggered by an Improvised
Explosive Device (IED) fitted Video Cassette Recorder in the Rajouri
town.
September 27: Unidentified terrorists
kill four members of a family, including a two-year old child, in
the Mahore area of Udhampur district.
October 17:
Security forces foil the first Fidayeen (suicide squad) attack on
the official residence of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on
Maulana Azad Road in capital Srinagar. Two Border Security Force (BSF)
personnel are killed and 10 persons, including three
photojournalists, sustain injuries.
Interestingly, on September 9, PGT 2003 records: "In Sopat, Kashmir,
armed terrorists shot and killed a former state forest minister,
according to press reports. No one claimed responsibility." As a
matter of fact, the attack on former Forest Minister, Peerzada
Ghulam Ahmad Shah, at a marriage ceremony in Sopat village near
Qazigund, was unsuccessful. Shah escaped with minor injuries, though
his personal security officer was killed. So much for 'validation
and multiplicity of sources'.
Incidentally, no group has been identified as responsible for any of
the incidents in Kashmir listed in the PGT 2003 chronology. It is
not clear, under the circumstances, how a determination was made
regarding the 'international' character of the incidents. By
contrast, 'probable' responsibility is attributed for most incidents
in, for instance, Afghanistan.
The PGT 2003 chronology of significant incidents does not identify
any acts of international terrorism anywhere in India outside J&K in
the year under review. Interestingly, the South Asia Overview does
make a general reference to such incidents, and carries two
photographs, recording the worst acts of terrorism in India in 2003,
the twin Mumbai Blasts on August 25, in which 97 persons (45+52)
were killed according to the Report. The perpetrators of the Mumbai
twin blasts had significant external linkages. Interestingly, after
being 'validated, checked out, and multiply sourced', the Report
gets the location of one of the explosions wrong: one incident
occurred at the Zaveri Bazaar, and not at the 'Zahir Bazzar' as PGT
2003 notes. Worse, the combined fatalities in the two incidents,
according to reports available in India, did not exceed 52.
The hundreds of other incidents and fatalities in other parts of the
country, including areas affected by Left Wing extremist groups such
as the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and the People's War Group (PWG)
- which have been included in the PGT 2003's listing of 'Other
Terrorist Groups' - find no mention in the Report. Nor does India's
terrorism-wracked Northeast figure in PGT 2003, despite the fact
that virtually every group operating in the region is headquartered,
or has bases in Bangladesh, with some camps located in Myanmar as
well, and despite the overwhelming evidence that their leadership is
being directly supported by Bangladesh's covert agencies. But Cofer
Black simply dismisses all this on the grounds that, "We're not on
the same sheet of music with the Indians on this"; and that "We do
no have sufficient amount of information in terms of quantity and
quality… that would allow us to recommend that they (the terrorist
groups in the Northeast) be listed."
Bangladesh, incidentally, widely acknowledged as an emerging centre
of Islamist terrorist consolidation, a major supply route and
transit point for illicit weapons smuggling, and a major sponsor of
terrorist groups operating against India, finds no mention
whatsoever in PGT 2003.
Pakistan, if we go by the Report, is among America's "most important
partners in the global coalition against terrorism", and has done
exemplary work to arrest and neutralize terrorists, freeze their
assets, pass anti-terrorism legislation and establish an efficient
network of special courts to try terrorists. There is not a single
negative reference to trends in terrorism in Pakistan, nor any
suggestion that the country was responsible for, or has been one of
the most significant locations and sources of, international
Islamist fundamentalist terrorism. In fact, an interesting semantic
shift in the report on India underscores the obvious intent and
refusal to acknowledge ground realities in Pakistan: PGT 2002
explicitly identified Pakistan based terrorist groups operating in
J&K. PGT 2003, instead, speaks vaguely of 'foreign based' terrorist
groups operating in J&K, though Appendix B profiling "Designated
Foreign Terrorist Organisations" clearly locates every single listed
group which is generally known to be operating in J&K as being
located in Pakistan. Another interesting omission here is that the
Location/Area of Operation of major Pakistan backed terrorist groups
such as the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) is
identified as Pakistan in these profiles - no reference is made in
the report to their activities in J&K. PGT 2002, by contrast,
clearly indicated that members of the JeM "conduct terrorist
activities primarily in Kashmir." There is a clear pattern that
suggests a systematic effort to deny Pakistani culpability on
international terrorism.
It is interesting to note that all this occurs in a review of the
year in which US Ambassador to Pakistan, Nancy Powell, had called on
President Pervez Musharraf to end the "use of Pakistan as a platform
for terrorism"; a senior State Department official, Richard Haas,
confessed that Washington had been unable to persuade Pakistan to
"stop cross-border terrorism" against India; and Michael Evanoff, a
US Embassy official in Islamabad, termed Pakistan as "the epicenter
of terrorism".
The chronology of terrorism within Pakistan is also laughable. If
PGT 2003 is to be believed, a total of just four "significant
terrorist incidents" occurred in Pakistan in 2003. They included the
January 5 incident in Peshawar, where "armed terrorists fired on the
residence of an Afghan diplomat, injuring a guard", and the January
12 incident in Hyderabad, where "authorities safely defused a bomb
placed in a toilet of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant". There
was only one incident, on April 13, in which (two) fatalities
occurred. This would make Pakistan possibly one of the safest
countries in the world, and certainly the safest in the region.
That this is as far from the truth as is possible should, by now, be
common knowledge, even in distant America. Once again, it is not
possible to list the entirety of incidents in Pakistan omitted by
the PGT 2003 chronology, but if one simply totals incidents on the
SATP database in which multiple fatalities occurred or important
targets were attacked (parameters far more stringent than those
purportedly applied in the Report), at least 37 can be identified,
with 142 fatalities. Among some of the important incidents PGT 2003
missed out in Pakistan:
January 23: Anti-Taliban Afghan writer, Fazal Wahab, living as a
refugee in Swat, North West Frontier Province, shot dead along with
two other persons.
February 22:
Nine persons are shot dead and seven more wounded in an attack by
unidentified armed men outside a mosque in Rafah- i-Aam Society,
Karachi.
February 28:
Two policemen guarding the United States (US) Consulate in Karachi,
Sindh, are killed and five others injured by an unidentified gunman.
May 10:
Approximately 11 persons are injured when an explosive device went
off inside a Kandiaro-bound passenger bus at Pathan Colony,
Hyderabad.
May 13: A
powerful bomb explosion occurs outside the Christian Memorial School
in the Bannu district on May 13. However, no causalities were
reported.
July 4: At
least 53 persons are killed and 57 others injured as three armed
terrorists, including a suspected suicide bomber, attack a Shiite
Muslim mosque in Quetta, capital of the Southwestern Baluchistan
province, during the Friday prayers.
July 28:
Three persons, including a woman, are killed and four others sustain
injuries during a bomb explosion in the Saidgai village of North
Waziristan Agency along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
September
27: At least 12 persons are injured when a bomb of low intensity
exploded in a minibus under the Brigade police station-limits on the
MA Jinnah Road in Karachi.
November 20:
Chief of Jamaat-e-Islami in Dera Bugti, Amanullah Bugti, and his two
associates are killed near Dera Bugti, approximately 340 kilometers
from Quetta.
December 14:
President Pervez Musharraf escapes an assassination attempt when an
explosive device went off at the Chaklala Bridge near Jhanda Chichi
in Rawalpindi approximately two minutes after the departure of his
convoy.
December 25: At least
18 persons are killed and 40 others sustain injuries during a second
assassination attempt in less than two weeks on President Pervez
Musharraf in the Jhanda Chichi area of Rawalpindi.
[The assassination attempts on General Musharraf do, however, find
passing mention in the South Asia Overview]
It is useful to note that a majority of these incidents were
executed by groups directly connected to, or supported by, Osama bin
Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF).
As regards the other countries of the region, the Report fails to go
beyond bland generalisations, and cannot provide anything that would
meet the criteria of an objective and realistic assessment.
Given the complete lack of realism or reliability of the PGT 2003
Report in its assessment of the situation in South Asia, it is
difficult to believe that it is any more accurate with regard to
other parts of the world. The report can only further and severely
undermine confidence in US perceptions and projections with regard
to terrorism, and in the credibility of its intelligence. This is a
rather unsettling prospect: to discover that the world's sole
hyperpower operates on such poor intelligence is not particularly
comforting to the rest of the world, or, indeed, to the people of
the US who are yet to come to terms with the intelligence failures
that preceded 9/11, and the manipulation of intelligence that
preceded the ruinous misadventure in Iraq.
Author is:
Editor, SAIR;
Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management. |
