times nation | terror strikes uri wednesday...

Sachin.Parashar@timesgroup.com

A potential low-yield, tactical nucle-ar weapon strike by Pakistan isperhaps the single most important

factor preventing the Modi governmentfrom taking military action against Pa-kistan in haste. While the threat from the-se weapons has been described by some inIndia as just a Pakistani red herring, thesame will play on the minds of policy ma-kers if they indeed decide to go ahead withany cross-border strike.

As the director of Federation of Ameri-can Scientists’ Nuclear Information Pro-ject, Hans Kristensen remains one of theworld’s leading authorities on Pakistan’snuclear weapons programme. He firstwrote in 2011that Pakistan’s production ofthe nuclear-capable 60-km Nasr missilewas not intended to target any Indian citybut to check an Indian Army advance. TOIcaught up with Kristensen to find out howcredible was the threat from Pakistan’stactical nukes:�Does the prospect of a flare-up bet-ween India and Pakistan, both nucle-ar powers, after the Uri attack worryyou?Yes, that is potentially a dangerous situa-tion. However, a Pakistani decision to usenuclear weapons in response to an Indi-an incursion is not automatic but wouldvery much depend on the magnitude ofthe Indian incursion.

�When exactly do you think Pakis-

tan could put to use its tactical nucle-ar weapons?Smaller operations would be very unlik-ely to trigger nuclear use but would cer-tainly trigger conventional responses.And once a conventional confrontationbreaks out and more forces are throwninto the battle, it would potentially esca-late to nuclear weapons use if Pakistanconcluded that it couldn’t push back theIndian attack.

�What about the effectiveness of the-se weapons for Pakistan?As for the effectiveness, nuclear weaponscould no doubt create significant pro-blems for an attacking force. But it verymuch depends on how the attack is struc-tured. Indian forces would have to attackin fairly concentrated formations for nu-clear weapons to be useful. And a nuclearcounter-attack could actually end up requ-iring a large number of warheads. Whenthe US examined potential use of tacticalnuclear weapons against Iraq it concludedthat it would not be a limited matter but re-quire a significant number of weapons.

�What can Indian forces do to limit

the damage from a low-yield nuclearweapon?If the Indian forces were not coming in aheavily concentrated form but more dis-persed and from different directions, itwould be much more complicated to co-unter them.

�Could Pakistan itself not sufferfrom the radioactive fallout of its tac-tical nukes?The radioactive fallout from the weaponswould be indiscriminate; it would fallwherever the wind blows. So if the Indianforces were attacking with the wind in the-ir back, the radioactive fallout would driftacross Pakistan, not India.

�In these circumstances, can Indiaafford to use the military option?Because of these risks, it would be reck-less and highly risky for India to strikeinto Pakistan in revenge for the terroristattacks. It would carry with it consequ-ences that would far exceed the damagecaused by the terrorist attacks. Soundstrategy — especially nuclear strategy—requires cool heads, not hasty reactivemilitary spasms.

‘Pak may use tactical nukes if it’sunable to push back Indian Army’

... it would be reckless and highly risky for India to strike into Pakis-tan in revenge for the terrorist attacks. It would carry with it consequencesthat would far exceed the damage caused by the terrorist attacksHANS KRISTENSENDIRECTOR, FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS’ N-INFORMATION PROJECT

TIMESNEWSNETWORK

New Delhi: External affairsminister Sushma Swaraj willlead India’s diplomatic offen-sive against Pakistan at the UNGeneral Assembly next week inthe wake of the terror attack inUri, blamed on terrorists fromacross the border.

In a development that gaveIndia satisfaction, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon refrainedfrom taking up Pakistan’s re-peated requests to intervene inJammu & Kashmir. In his open-ing statement, he dwelt on areasof concern in the world like Sy-ria and West Asia. But there wasno mention of India-Pakistan orJ&K.

This made Nawaz Sharif ’sopening gambit in the UNGAbite the dust early, but the Pakis-tani PM is expected to make animpassioned speech against In-dia at the gathering.

Another early diplomaticsuccess by India at the UN wasthe acceptance of the India-sponsored Comprehensive Con-vention on International Terror-ism (CCIT) by the BRICS groupin the UN. This is the first time apowerful grouping called for itsearly acceptance by the globalcommunity.

The UN face-off will kickoff with Sharif ’s speech at theUNGA on Wednesday.

On Monday, junior externalaffairs minister M J Akbar tou-ched upon terrorism in hisspeech on migrants and refu-gees. “It is important to stressthat today the geo-politics of thecrisis points and proves that ter-rorism is the principle cause ofrefugee movements. Can we ig-nore this fact? We cannot. We doso at our peril,” he said. “There

is no good terrorism or bad ter-rorism and if you do not knowthe answer to this question, allyou have to do is ask the refugeeif he considers any terrorism tobe good or bad.”

Afghan envoy to India Shai-da Abdali told NDTV on Tues-day that the time had come tosend a decisive message to Pakis-tan on terror, which could in-clude a mass boycott of the No-vember Saarc summit. “We haveto make sure we bring on boardthe maximum number of coun-tries and I am sure most SouthAsian countries are in line withwhat we think. Therefore, the ef-fort should be comprehensive and weshould single out a country thatspoils our unity, that spoils re-gional peace,” he said. In a strongstatement against Pakistan, Ab-dali said, “This is an issue ofstate- sponsored terrorism. It isno more an issue of non-state ac-tors that we have been hearingabout. Now we have ample proofof state-sponsored terror.”

In Geneva, India lashed

out at Pakistan’s use of terror.“The human rights violationsin Pakistan cry for the world’sattention. The people of Balo-chistan, amongst other prov-inces, have been waging fordecades a bitter and bravestruggle against their dailyabuse and torture,” said the In-dian statement delivered byAlok Ranjan Jha from the Indi-an mission.

Round-I to India: UN chief snubs PakJ&K Finds NoMention In

Ban’s Speech

Rohan.Dua@timesgroup.com

Srinagar: Less than three we-eks before the Uri attack by Ja-ish-e-Mohammad, the ED so-ught details on six men fromPOK living in Italy for fundingterror activities through Hur-riyat separatists in Kashmir.TOI has accessed the charges-heet submitted by the ED befo-re the district court in Srinagaron August 24 and August 30.

The chargesheet says an Ita-

lian remittance firm, MadinaTrading, at Corso Garibaldi inBrescia, Italy, has been used bytwo Hurriyat separatists, Fir-dous Ahmad Shah and Yar Mo-hammad Khan, to accept mo-ney from the POK-based men.

Shah and Khan have beenshown as accused in a moneylaundering case and chargedwith raising funds for terro-rist activities, holding proce-eds of terrorism and wagingand attempting war against

India in the ED chargesheet.The charges put the role of

Kashmiri separatists in the un-rest under the scanner as Shahis the chief of Democratic Poli-tical Movement and memberof Syed Ali Shah Geelani’shardline Hurriyat Conference.Also, the same firm, MadinaTrading, was used to create avoice over internet protocol ac-count with software firm Callp-honex for the 26/11attackers in2008.

ED: POK men in Italy fund unrest via separatists

Chidanand.Rajghatta@timesgroup.com

Washington: Pakistan’s ef-forts to raise the stakes on the Kashmir issue, inclu-ding by rattling its nuclear ar-senal, has misfired.

With the eyes of the worldon the country following theemergence of yet another Pak-istan-inspired terrorist in US,PM Nawaz Sharif was told bywestern interlocutors to backdown from repeated confronta-tion with India and address itsnurturing of terrorists.

Verbal finesse could barelycouch the dressing down Sha-rif, regarded as a stooge of Pa-kistan’s ruling military junta,got from US secretary of stateJohn Kerry, long seen as sym-pathetic to Islamabad. “Thesecretary reiterated the needfor Pakistan to prevent all ter-rorists from using its territoryas a safe haven,” a state department readout of Kerry’s meeting with Sha-rif said bluntly amid other di-plomatic pabulum.

Implicit in the use of the ex-pression “prevent all terro-rists” was a message that Pakis-tan’s so-called National ActionPlan (Zarb-e-orb) is selective insparing state-backed terroristslike Masood Azhar and HafizSaeed, who is proscribed by thevery UN where Sharif intendsto highlight the Kashmir issueon Wednesday.

The statement also said Sh-arif and Kerry expressed “st-rong concern with recent vio-lence in Kashmir”, and just sothe state-tutored Pakistan me-dia does not misinterpret it, itmeaningfully added, “particu-larly the army base attack”.

The statement also saidKerry “stressed the need forrestraint in nuclear weapons

programs”, even as trigger-happy Pakistani leaders, including the country’s defen-se minister Khwaja Asif, spo-ke of using tactical nuclearweapons if Pakistan came un-der threat from India.

Many analysts reckon Pa-kistan’s failure to impress any-one with its stand on Kashmirstems from its record of reck-less adventurism. That inclu-des its long history of sponso-ring terror (as proved conclusi-vely in the 26/11 attack) and ofnuclear proliferation to roguecountries.

This week has been parti-cularly fraught for Islamabaddiplomatically after it emer-ged that the New York-NewJersey bomber Ahmad KhanRahami may have been radica-lised during long stays in Pa-kistan. He joins the ranks ofmany terrorists, including Fa-izal Shahzad, son of a Pakista-ni Air Marshal who attemptedto bomb the iconic Times Squ-are, who have been radicalisedin Pakistan.

Such a long chronicle ofproducing terrorists is star-ting to attract censure.

In a separate briefing, statedepartment spokesman MarkToner was more direct, sayingthe US will “continue to urgePakistan to take additionalsteps to deal with all of the ter-

rorist threats it faces on its ownterritory but also those groupsthat seek refuge or safe refugewithin Pakistan’s borders”.“We’ve seen some progress; wewant to see more, and I thinkmoving forward we’ll just con-tinue to work closely and try toencourage greater counter-ter-ror cooperation with Pakistanbut also within the region,” hesaid.

Again, the statement imp-lied Pakistan has not been coo-perating fully with the US,which keeps the otherwisebankrupt country alive.

Sharif is expected to button-hole Barack Obama on the mar-gins of the UNGA to raise theKashmir issue at the risk of get-ting another earful. The US pre-sident is said to have describedPakistan as a “disastrously dys-functional” country and ques-tioned why the US should be al-lied with it, something Ameri-can analysts and even militarygenerals have now begun to ask.

Obama has also disdainful-ly avoided going to the country.For that matter, few leaders ofinfluence appear to have any ti-me for Pakistan’s antics.

Britain and New Zealandlargely ignored Sharif’s Kash-mir talk, and without readoutsof these meetings, it was left tothe Pakistani media to belabo-ur what he told them.

Kerry gives Sharif anearful, says stop terror

Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif listens to an adviser as US PresidentObama addresses the UNGA in New York City on Tuesday

© Getty Images

Sidhartha & Surojit Gupta TNN

New Delhi: India is hopingthat the new G-20 resolution tocrack down on terror fundingand money laundering willhelp choke fund flows to Pakis-tan-linked outfits. Much beforethe Uri attack, the governmentmanaged to get the world’s 20most powerful economies to in-sert the clause in the final reso-lution earlier this month despi-te some resistance from China.

“In confronting terrorism,we remain committed to effec-tively exchanging informa-tion, freezing terrorist assets,and criminalising terror finan-cing. We call for swift, effectiveand universal implementationof the FATF (Financial ActionTask Force) standards,” thecommuniqué issued at the Lea-ders’ Summit in China says.

FATF is the global forum todeal with anti-money launde-ring and terror financing rela-ted activities with nearlythree dozen member countri-es, including India.

Sources said with the G-20resolution is place, India willnow put pressure at the AsiaPacific Group, the regionalbody which also has Pakistanas member.

India may useG-20 resolutionto choke terror

funds to Pak

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: In an unusualslip up, exter-nal affairs mi-nister Sush-ma Swarajmissed themeetings todiscuss theUri attack andits fallout onMonday due to a miscom-munication over her depar-ture schedule for the UN Ge-neral Assembly.

Officials responsible forcoordinating the meetingsheld by PM Modi were underthe impression that Swarajhad left for the US when shewas in the capital attendingto work.

The slip up came to lightquite late and by then thediscussions were over. It isunderstood that Swaraj wasthen informed of the errorand apprised about the dis-cussions.

Swaraj’s absence had ledCongress to ask why the mi-nister, despite being a mem-ber of the Cabinet Commit-tee on Security, was not partof consultations.

When officialsdidn’t know

where foreignminister was

Sushma

LIKE THAT ONLY JUG SURAIYA & AJIT NINAN

The two infiltration bidswitnessed fierce gun-fights, with the first one

involving as many as 10-15 ter-rorists trying to sneak acrossthe border near Lachipora inUri sector in the afternoon.“Reacting to the suspiciousmovement, our troops inter-cepted the group of terroristsnear the LoC. Pakistani troopsalso violated the ceasefire byusing small arms to fire at ourforward posts at Kamalkote inthe Uri sector… we retaliated,”a senior officer said.

The Uri encounter tookplace around 12km from theArmy’s administrative campwhich was stormed by fourheavily-armed Jaish-e-Mo-hammed fidayeen on Sunday,leading to the death of 18 sol-diers and injuries to over 20

others before the terroristswere gunned down.

The step-up coincides withreports about the governmentconsidering surgical strikesacross the border to avenge thedeaths in Uri and amid esti-mates that Pakistan may re-spond to any Indian retaliationby pushing more terrorists.

As earlier reported by TOI,the Army is planning to turnthe heat on Pakistan along theLoC with concentrated artil-lery barrages, sniping and oth-er operations to impose sometactical costs on the adversary.The Army has already movedtwo additional brigades intosouth Kashmir and other areasto strengthen the counter-ter-rorism grid in the region. “In-creasing the density of troopshas been done to enhance ourdomination and surveillancein the areas,” said an officer.

Encounter took place just 12kmfrom Sunday’s attack site

�Continued from P 1

12 THE TIMES OF INDIA, LUCKNOWWEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2016TIMES NATION | Terror Strikes Uri