National Security Advisor M K Narayanan says that India is ready to fight Muslim

terror
Publication: ZeeNews.com
Date: November 29, 2006
URL: http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?rep=2&aid=338872&sid=NAT
India is strengthening political and security linkages with countries in the
region to combat "faith-based" terrorism with "external linkages" that has emerged
as one of the biggest challenges globally, National Security Advisor M K Narayanan
said today.
Such links would help the country to protect its pluralism and democracy and
maintain peace and stability in its immediate neighbourhood and beyond, Narayanan
told a international seminar here on "growing challenges of terrorism with special
reference to railways".
"One of the important features of faith-based terrorism is the extent of its
external linkages," he said adding that in many, if not most, cases there is the
element of external sponsorship -- whether state-sponsored, state-supported or by
non-state actors.
Narayanan also said most terrorist groups today "tend to have a radical Islamist
visage as well".
"Our effort has, hence, been to strengthen political, economic and security
linkages across the entire region. We have offered a wide array of political and
economic incentives to countries across the region and in some cases have helped
strengthen structures for functional cooperation," he said.
Sponsorship and external linkages have "tended to fertilize indigenous terrorism",
he said.
"We, are nevertheless, determined that even while dealing with the challenges,
there will be no dilution of our determination to sustain India as an inclusive,
open, multi-racial, multi-lingual and multi-ethnic society," he told an audience
that included Robert Jamison, Deputy Administrator of the US Transportation
Security Department.
Noting that it was "difficult to grade, or benchmark, the different types of
terrorism", he said, "nevertheless, experience the world over has been that the
intensity of violence has been much higher in the case of religion-oriented
terrorism than of other forms of terrorism."
India seeks "peace and stability in our immediate neighbourhood and beyond it.
Stable conditions in India`s vicinity alone will ensure a peaceful environment
within the country," Narayanan said.
Asserting that there was a need to understand the nature and roots of current day
terrorism, he said the world faced an entirely new breed of terrorists. Countries
were "pitted against global actors, dispersed, fanatical terrorist networks who
have the capacity to wage war internationally", he said.
"Motives and morale, men and material, scale and scope -- all have changed, apart
from technology. Many more terrorist outfits today have a trans-national reach,
most are seemingly untethered to geographical locations or even to political
ideologies," he said.
Narayanan said the "institutionalisation of violence" had made new terrorism more
asymmetric as newer groups combined many "pre-cepts and practices" of older
outfits with novel attributes, much of it made possible by state-of the art
technology, global mobility and increased stealth.
"They share common operating procedures and common training practices. They
espouse common operating philosophies. They often have common funding structures.
"Terrorist attacks, whether they are in Madrid or Mumbai, or suicide bombers be
they be in Bali or Casablanca, Jerusalem or Jammu, show the same pattern of
improvisation of tactics, weaponry, reconnaissance techniques, the use of
improvised explosive devices and other sophisticated delivery systems," Narayanan
said.
It is "noteworthy" that captured militants, whether in Kashmir, London or
Indonesia, claimed it was possible for their groups to gather recruits from
"different climes, backgrounds, skills and countries, through a uniform training
programme", Narayayanan explained.
"Such cross-cultural compatibility has paved the way for deadly attacks in
unexpected locales," he said adding that efforts of terrorists are accelerated by
technological innovation.
Technology has become a "force multiplier", helping to break down barriers in
communication and spread ideas while empowering non-state actors to carry out acts
of violence, he said.
"Technology has eased the way for the spread of the ideological virus of
terrorism, a virus that floats invisibly across borders and replicates itself in
different ways, targeting disconnected young men, via the Internet. Terrorism
could not have become the global threat that it has become today but for the
advent of technology," he said.
- Bureau Report