ISI, ISIS JOIN HANDS TO LAUNCH STRIKES AGAINST INDIA

Organisations controlled by the ISI, such as the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba are encouraged to send hardened operatives to Afghanistan. There, they join the ISIS-linked Wilayat Khorasan.

According to those tasked with responsibilities involving security, the high number of “accidents” involving the Air Force, the Navy, Indian Railways and other institutions vital to national existence have pointed to the need for a comprehensive examination of every individual involved in sensitive tasks, rather than just a few. Also, in practice, the few who get scanned usually come within the radar af- ter they have indulged in activity of a suspicious nature. However, while processes are being improved after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took charge in 2014, officials are hesitant to accept the premise of an increasing number of sympathisers of ISIS and other ultra-Wahhabi terror groups biding their time within the governmental machinery, readying themselves to strike when commanded to do so from controllers in Dubai, Karachi and other locations, where a substantial number of ISIS supporters function. Even in the 26/11 carnage of 2008, domestic auxiliaries of the ISI-backed terrorists were not touched, possibly for fear of a political or other backlash. This was despite evidence that individuals within India gave information to ISI handlers about the internal floor plan of the two hotels in Mumbai that were targeted and also revealed details of the floor plan and work habits of volunteers at Chabad House, a location in which members of the Jewish community were specifically targeted. Exhaus- tive follow up was not done of suspicious individuals who had established contact with the Chabad volunteers weeks before the terror attack in order to get operationally useful information from them and about them.

Even nine years later, several officials are reluctant to accept the view of diligent police officers in Bihar that the ISI is behind the spike in railway accidents, since Prime Minister Narendra Modi began in 2015 to implement a much tougher line towards GHQ Rawalpindi than his predecessor. The reason is that such a finding would necessitate a scan of the thousands of railway and other staff concerned with maintenance and other functions relating to passenger safety. For much the same reason, evidence has been brushed aside that at least a few of the “pilot error” crashes in the Indian Air Force and the “accidents” occurring in naval vessels were due to planned acts of sabotage, sometimes carried out in-house by individuals who had been indoctrinated or otherwise motivated to obey instructions emanating from GHQ Rawalpindi. Security experts warn that there needs to be an assessment of not just online patterns and contact lists, but any spike in spending or travel of all those associated with maintenance and other sensitive functions in cases where naval vessels or military aircraft have been lost as a consequence of “accidental malfunction”.

In the US, over the past two years, there has been an undeclared but comprehensive examination of the on-