http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1047489
Indian intelligence in high demand for access to terrorism database

Josy Joseph
Tuesday, August 15, 2006  23:19 IST

NEW DELHI: Indian intelligence agencies are inundated with requests from their counterparts around the world for cooperation and access to their database on terrorism, especially on Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed which have emerged as the most important threat to several nations.

What intelligence sources call a “dramatic turn around” has come about with the unearthing of plots in the US, Britain, Australia, Afghanistan and elsewhere of active Lashkar and Jaish plots to carry out terrorist attacks.

Sources told DNA that for sometime several foreign intelligence agencies, especially those from western nations have been actively courting India for intensifying cooperation, especially on terrorism emanating from Pakistan. The arrest of numerous suspects in Pakistan and England last week for their plan to blow up trans-Atlantic flights have only intensified the keenness of foreign agencies, sources said. They are expecting to “see more such requests in the coming days,” sources told DNA.

Investigators in Britain, US and Pakistan have independently claimed that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed were the key organisations behind the plot to smuggle liquid bombs into airlines. The investigators say it was primarily a Lashkar conspiracy.

Lashkar and Jaish are also the deadliest terror groups operating here and Indian agencies have the most exhaustive database and live information on the two groups among any intelligence groups, barring possibly Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence. New Delhi believes that the recent Mumbai blasts, last year’s Delhi blasts and several other major attacks across the country are the handy work of Lashkar and Jaish.

The British investigators have been reported as saying that the money for the alleged bombing plot came from charity collections for the victims of Kashmir earthquake last year. In fact an Indian intelligence source told DNA that they had “conveyed (to foreign agencies) our concerns about the flow of huge amounts of cash into PoK for relief operations.” The Indian fears have now come true with the London plots.

The information on the funding routes for Kashmiri terror groups, their organisational structure, training camps, and contacts with Pakistan’s official establishment etc have been the key obsession of Indian intelligence agencies for several years.  For the past several months, many foreign agencies have been actively courting Indian agencies, especially the Research and Analysis Wing and Intelligence Bureau to get access to this unparalleled database and live information on the Islamic terror groups operating from Pakistan. “No other country today has the resources and archives like us,” says a senior official in Indian security establishment dealing with foreign agencies.

The urgency among foreign agencies to cooperate with India has been heightened by the scepticism over Pakistan’s sincerity in weeding out terrorism. The US has admitted to photographing terror camps in Pakistan, and the Nato forces in Afghanistan have conveyed to India that new terrorist camps are coming up in Pakistan. The scepticism of Pakistan and its statecraft of selective use of terror have only further added to India’s significance, especially of the reliability of its database and network. Despite the 9/11 attacks in the US, bombing of Madrid and other developments, Indian claim that Kashmiri terrorist groups were part of the global jihad and that they were actively involved in supporting Al Qaeda moves never found much takers until recent months.