November 14, 2025 • 57 mins
A car explodes near Delhi's Red Fort and the trail runs through Srinagar posters, Faridabad storehouses, and an alleged "white-collar" module featuring multiple doctors.
In this episode, host Dev Goswami and national security expert Sandeep Unnithan take their first impressions of the deadly terror attack that has revived scary memories of blasts in India's urban centre.
The two examine what we know (and don't) about the Red Fort attack, why the government's initial messaging stayed deliberately measured, and zoom out to Field Marshal Asim Munir's "thousand cuts" doctrine that the Pakistani military boss seems to have adopted.
Tune in!
Produced by Taniya Dutta
Sound mixed by Aman Pal
In this episode, host Dev Goswami and national security expert Sandeep Unnithan take their first impressions of the deadly terror attack that has revived scary memories of blasts in India's urban centre.
The two examine what we know (and don't) about the Red Fort attack, why the government's initial messaging stayed deliberately measured, and zoom out to Field Marshal Asim Munir's "thousand cuts" doctrine that the Pakistani military boss seems to have adopted.
Tune in!
Produced by Taniya Dutta
Sound mixed by Aman Pal
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is India Today Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
Deve Goswami, and every week I sit down with experts
and retired officers from the Army, Navy, and Air Force
to decode all things to do with India security and
explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
(00:27):
stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
This is in our Defense. Welcome to Another Defense.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
It's been a very somber week, especially for people in
my circle, so the privileged circle, I would say, who've
grown up mostly in cities. When a bomb blaster in
the heart of Teli killed twelve people, it was a
terror incident. Please have said that the blast perhaps itself,
was not intentional in terms of that particular moment, that
(01:00):
particular day, may not have been the choice of the
attackers to carry out the attack, but it happened during transit.
We'll get to that obviously on this episode. Uh, but
this all began sort of in mid October, and there
is this this entire story has an element of chance
to it that is quite you know, a bit surprising,
(01:22):
a bit scary.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Even.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
It all began in mid October when the Jammu and
Kashmir Police are investigating some posters that had come up
in Nogam near near Shinagar. The posters were of Jeshi Muhammad.
The investigation led them to a Molana. That mala led
them to a doctor Adil. That doctor led them to
a doctor Musamil from in Faridabad, Haryana, and a raid
(01:44):
at his house on over the weekend Saturday Sunday led
to the discovery of around three thousand kilos of ID
making material.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
This including ammonium.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Nitrid, batteries, wires and stuff like that. This news broke
Monday morning. Uh, everybody thought that's it. You know, modules
get busted, recoveries are made, that's.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
More or less it.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
People at that time did not know that one person
had gotten away. That was doctor Umar. He had gotten
away on Monday morning. He entered Deli in a night
twenty car. He drove around. He parked near the Red
Foot at around three o'clock. At around six six point thirty,
he left from the parking. He was driving down a
busy street and then his car blew, killing twelve people.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
What's happened here?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
And why on this episode, am I gonna take am
I going to talk about this and then go and
talk about Field Marshal Assimuni. Even though right now authorities
haven't directly linked Pakistan or any Pakistani agents to this attack.
For this and more, I.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Have Hey, they've good to be back, the good to
have you.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Something, you know, like I was saying, this is like
a somber moment and bring brings back bad memories because
you know, I'll tell you something that would We were
discussing on the news flow that initially people thought it
was a CNG blast because plasts in cities don't happen anymore, right,
That's what like we've been We've been living for so
(03:15):
many year years and it's over a decade now. I
think the last it's an explosion in Delhi at least
took place maybe maybe fourteen fifteen.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Odd years orgo eleven yeah, yeah, yeah uh.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
And another I think a blast, if I can recall
very decently, would be the Ramish from cafe blast in Bengluru.
But that did not kill any people and it was
a very small sort of an improvise explosive. But the
point I'm trying to make is this whole this the way,
this whole thing has unraveled. A module has lots of explosives,
is spread across the country, is being you know, someone's
(03:45):
arrested in one place and then it leads cops to
some some somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
It gets pasted.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
And then this this fellow managed to make out, make
out of the way.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
And what happened. What happened.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
This is something that doesn't really happen anymore in India,
but it has happened, which is why it is so scary,
isn't it It is?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
It is scary. Indeed, they went you know, I was
on the news floor when this incident happened, and when
I saw those first visuals that came out, I immediately
knew it was a car bomb because, you know, I've
seen CNG cylinders, blasts. We're all used to seeing cars
catch you know fire. As safe as they are, there
are the one odd you know, cases of CNG kids
(04:25):
exploding or battery operated vehicles catching fire. But this one
was different. You could see from the blast radius that
it was a proper explosive explosive. Somebody had fashioned a
car bomb of sorts and that had gone off either
deliberately or unintentionally. But the fact is, the end result
is that we are left with a terror attack of
sorts in the heart of the national capital. And that's
(04:47):
why we should worry for exactly the reasons that you mentioned.
And I have been seeing this day for now three decades,
and I've grown old literally seeing terror attacks through cities.
And as you mentioned, I mean there is possibly a
generation of Indians who are unaware of the terror of
serial blasts in cities targeting civilians, innocent people, you know, men, women, children,
(05:13):
and bombs don't discriminate on the basis of communities or religion.
They target whoever is in the general vicinity of a blast.
And I've seen blasts in Mumbai, my city where I
come from, starting from nineteen ninety three all the way
up to twenty six eleven, and we've had a few
cases after that. But this one is worrying because from
(05:35):
what I sense is going on, there's been a slow
build up to that one blast in near the Red
Fort over the last six months. And the story begins
on the twelfth of May twenty twenty five, after Prime
Minister movie speech where he called out Plakistan's nuclear black males,
(05:55):
so literally this I'm seeing that as a series of events.
There are several events that have happened six months after
operations Sindhura, and this blast exactly six months after points
to the Pakistan Army going back to its old base.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah right, So, like I said, we'll get to that.
And also the interesting part of why India has been
very measured in its response so far, in its statements
so far, very interestingly, no one officially has called a
terror attack attack yet, even though UAPA has been invoked,
the terror and the investigating, so obviously it's a terror attack.
(06:34):
But when I say no one has said it, I
don't mean to say they're couching it. What I mean
to say is no one is going out there and
making it sound like a terror attack, making it sound
like a huge deal. It's a big deal, It's not
a huge deal. Why is that happening? Why has Pakistan
not yet been named formally? Is something also we'll discuss
before we obviously discuss Pakistan, but just before that's deep
(06:55):
and I think this would sort of answer my first
question as well. Do you, as a journalist, do you,
as a national security expert, feel that it is highly
complex to sometimes discuss matters of internal security viasably what
we do on this podcast, which is usually discussed external
security and national security geopolitics, because I think, unlike with that,
(07:16):
it's not so black and white when it comes to
domestic acts of terrorism, because you have several different elements involved,
several different people involved. Some of them are your own,
some of them are involved, perhaps unwittingly. Take the case
of the I twenty car. It has a chain of owners.
Many of them may be completely innocent, but they are
right now involved. So there's also even for the police,
(07:37):
they have tread with caution like who is a terrorist,
who is not a terrorist? And at the same time
you have an act like this going on. So do you,
as a commentator, do you, as an analyst feel it's
a bit complex for us to sit and have a
discussion about this as well?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
It is they and you know, and that is exactly
why we are talking about it, to make sense of
this what's going on. And you know, the whole history
of urban terrorism and especially state sponsored terrorism of the
kind that we've been at the receiving end of for
more than four decades now, aims to precisely create these
(08:10):
kind of conflicts when you use your own people, for instance,
you weaponize them and use them against your own country.
That is exactly what these deep state actors across the
border are doing, right by creating cells, using cutouts, you know,
using plausibly deniable hands that they can carry out terror
(08:31):
attacks with. And we've seen it through the past, you know,
radicalized Indian youth have been used to carry out terror
attacks and when the Pakistan deep state felt that it
wasn't enough for their you know, devious plans that you know,
you know, the classic case I gave is in nineteen
ninety three, there was a phase two and a phase
(08:53):
three of the bomb blasts, where the idea was that
radicalized Indian youth were given weapons training, they were asked
to go into storm landmarks in Mumbai like Mantra and
Shusna Bawan and attack and kill government officials. They didn't
do that. They simply dropped their weapons and ran, which
is why the Pakistan military then decided we've got to
(09:15):
send our own people and that's how twenty sixty eleven
happened several years later. So you're right, it is complex.
It is when you're never you know, navigating among your
own people, and you have a certain set of individuals
who've been radicalized and who've been brainwashed and who have
been asked to carry out attacks against their own people,
then that becomes more complicated. But then it is in
(09:39):
a sense we are not facing an international ideology. I'm
talking purely in the sense of India and Pakistan. We
are actually faced with the Pakistan state, the Pakistan military,
which has weaponized religion to use against India.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Right, So, about what's happened, I've described the chain of
events that we know uh so far of how the
investigation began. It almost seems like a fluke that the
Jamukashmir police and later the Haryana police were able to
get onto this this module of based on some posters
being put up in an area outside of Vinuggar and
(10:19):
they managed to bust this this gang. And what officials
are now saying is that this guy doctor he was
he panding basically because of the arrest, and then he
sort of you know, went towards Redfoot and that he
unintentionally may have done up the car. So based on
what and see, I'll be very honest to our listeners
and us, we don't know a lot. It's just been
(10:41):
it's just over developing the developping story. So all the
inferences that we have on during the discussion, everything that
Sandip has to say will be based on just first
like whatever we know right now. So you you know
this for for for one day, but like you said,
you've been covering this field for three decades. You've seen
similar kinds of acts stakes in place previously. So when
(11:01):
you see this Howard panned out, Howard happened, and when
you see back in the day what you saw, how
does it compare and what does this tell you right now?
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Well, you know this is exactly the modus operandi that
the Pakistani deep state has used with the previous attacks,
whether it is the Delhi attacks in two thousand and five,
you've had several other serial blasts that were carried out
in Indian states like Karnataka, in Gujarat, in Mumbai. The
(11:32):
modus operandi is pretty much the same. What you do
is that you create a terror cell. Now, a cell
is something that the concept of a terror cell originated
somewhere in the nineteenth century, which is to ensure that
an organization is not completely compromised by the arrest of
one or two individuals, So which is why you break
(11:53):
up the organization into smaller cells, which you have a
nodal person at the center of a hell and he
has a certain you know, number of people around him
and they are given a particular task, of particular mission,
and you have a number of cells making up the organization.
And this is something that started in the far right
(12:14):
groups in the late nineteenth century in Europe, and that
was then uh you know, absorbed and uh you know,
used by all terror groups, all covert actors, a lot
of these uh you know, deniable operations carried out by
governments to use the similar modus operand covert actions for instance,
used by governments, they use cells so that you know,
(12:36):
the capture of one or two or three will not
expose the whole organization. One person would only know his
uh you know plan that one person would have been
tasked only to buy the car or you know, purchase
the explosives or assemble the bomb. He wouldn't know the
whole plan. For instance, It's only the guy at the
center who would know the whole plan, and he would
be you know, in the know of things, and he
(12:58):
would be the person who the external actor would you know,
finally be in contact with And here it seems to
be the person who was who blew himself up, the
doctor who blew himself up at red for he was
possibly in contact with his handlers. And this is you know,
the LTT also used the same thing. You know. And
to my mind, a lot of viewers wouldn't know this
(13:20):
story that when the LTT put out a hit on
Rajiv Gandhi, they had a cell here in Delhi that
was operating at the same time as their bombers in
Sri Perduru attacked him. And that cell was a very
small three person cell. They had a LTT guy who
lost his leg. He was in charge of the cell.
(13:42):
There was a suicide bomber, a lady called Athirai and
Halis was Sonia. She was eighteen years old and she
was the one who would wear the suicide vest and
try and attack Rajiv Gandhi here in Deli. And you
had an old man, seventy five year old man called
Kanagha Sababati. They were all three LTT operative. So this
(14:02):
three person module was here in Delhi. They were living
in a government flat in Kapuram and the cover was
that this person I think his name was Dixon who
lost a limb, he was in Delhi for getting a
prosthetic limb attached to Jaipur and which is why he
was under treatment. Kanaha Sababati was an old man who
(14:23):
had come to Delhi to get his uh supposed granddaughter
English education and are of course was a student. And
therefore they had this perfect aliss you know, it was
just like an episode out of Homeland. And they were caught.
When a number of those cell people were caught, they said,
(14:44):
there is another cell that is active in Delis and
that's how they caught hold of them. So that's how
you know terror groups, you know work. They have these
compartmentalized units cells and this is something that the l
T the JESH which are basically of the Pakistan Deep
State Pakistan Armies ISI. They've been functioning all along for
(15:05):
I would say from the nineties early nineties on one.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
One thing about the investigation and the Fluke moment, does
it happen this way? Because it is quite scary to
an extent, because what if there was no investigation over
those posters they were posters a truely, what if the
local cops over their thought keys.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Look he carried. It's not that deed, you know.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
They you've hit the nail on the head had it
not been for that alert SSP and those police officers
in Jamun Kashmir, they've done an excellent job and they
must be complimented for that, but not too much, because
that is their job. It is their job to tackle
suspicious activity, go after suspicious individuals, and which is what
they did. This is good old fashioned police procedural work.
(15:50):
They just looked at the posters. This is very unusual
posters in the middle of Srinagar. Who's putting them up?
And that's when they started pulling the strings. And those strings,
when they started pulling it, they landed up here in Faridabad,
outside of Delhi. One school of thoughts suggests that maybe,
just maybe the police should have held on to their
(16:13):
horses before going out with the press release and announcing
that they had busted a module and all that, because
we still don't know the details yet. But my reading
of the situation is that maybe they should have held
onto it, not revealed the fact that they'd busted a
big module like this, because it so happens that you
might not get everyone in under one roof, and there
(16:34):
are people who are you know, torpedoes in the water.
To use a naval term, that one of these guys
the main bomber. One of these guys, the main bomber,
was already out there with the vehicle bond explosive. And
that's what happened in this case. It's a case of
the investigating agencies coming busting the module, doing excellent work
(16:58):
following up the leads coming to the module, and then
one of these members of the module panics and he
runs and he carries out what he's supposed to have
done much later. That's what the inference is that this
was not actually meant to be a bomb that would
go off on the tenth of November. It was possibly
to coincide with some event, either a religious or a
(17:19):
political event or a national event to send out a message, right,
And in this case, it so happens that things didn't
go as per plan, and that's when this detonation happened,
which is why I think the government is very careful
on they're not calling it a terror attack also, but
there are other reasons for that as well, which we can.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Which we talk discuss Yeah, we'll just discuss that. But
you know, interesting point about you saying that perhaps they
should not have sent on the Presleys told media people
that we've busted such a module because I don't know
if you know about this. There is a red post
Reddit post that was made around twelve one pm on Monday.
The guy said, I just came back from somewhere he
(17:58):
landed that yet and he's seeing a lot of a
lot of fatigues, army men. He thought they were army
men and policemen around Old Eli and half of the
blast happened that that evening a lot of people have
lashed onto the post saying that they knew they knew
that one guy had gotten away and they were trying
to find him, so maybe that also happened.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
We will not know that the near near future.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
UH something before we go to UH the India, India's
response and then because India is suppose gonna be gonna
be very important talk about because we have got to
talk about Pakistan, but India is not, so why is
the government not?
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And then we'll talk about why we have to talkbout Pakistan.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
One quick tangent, especially because you are somebody who knows
a lot about explosives and guns and stuff like that.
It's a compliment, by the way, uh, ammonium nitrate fuel oil.
What is this element that is supposed to have caused
this massive blust?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
So and so that's what you said, anmonia nitrate fuel oil.
It's a very very potent uh explosive. And the thing
about it is that it is easily available, availability, affordability.
It costs US about two thousand rupees a CAG. It's
used by fertilizers, farmers. Farmers use it for fertilizers and
(19:15):
all that. It is a it's deemed a prickersor chemical
right freely available and it's been used. As per one study,
something like seventy percent of all terror attacks worldwide have
used ammonium nitrate because it's so easily available, and in
terms of blast force, it is closest to PNT. It's
(19:39):
not as good as say RDX. RDX is hard to
come by, right their military grade explosives. They're manufactured only
by certain facilities. Getting hold of it is difficult. PNT
that's commercial explosive dynamite that's hard to get as well.
That's also very strictly regulated but ammonium nitrate is dual
use chemicals. It's fertilizers, has got a it's used, and
(20:01):
that's how people have been using them as fertilizer bombs.
Timothy makeweight. For instance, we carried out that Oklahoma bombing
in nineteen ninety five, I think one hundred and sixty
people were killed, hundred and sixty eight, the largest domestic
terror attack on US soil that was carried out by
an ammonium nitrate explosive. So it's a very potent explosive
(20:23):
and the most important thing about it is that it
allows you, if you're the Pakistan deep state deniability, right,
you can stock up large piles of this explosive user
to carry out multiple terror attacks and all that, which
is what seems to have been the plan here in
the red foot bombing, the cell that was uncovered in Faridabad.
(20:47):
But you know, we've seen the blast effect of ammonium
nitrate in Beirut when that massive stock of ammonium nitrate
that was stored in the port of Beirut. It's the largest,
one of the largest non nuclear blasts in history, right,
massive explosion. So it's a very very potent thing and
(21:08):
it has a blast wave that is about I think
six thousand meters per second. That's the thing of the
blast wave that's nearly approaching P and T standard. TND
is about I think about nine thousand meters per second,
and rdx's twice that goes into the tens of thousands.
(21:29):
But this is the easiest to assemble a weapon. Availability,
ease of transport, all of those things. That's what makes
it very attractive to terrorists. And when you mix it
with fuel oil, then it becomes this very lethal combination
in and for and forho bombs, and that's what this
cell was planning to do right.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
In fact, I think what makes it also easier is
the fact that you can source it in the target country,
like you know, like with like let's say RDX, as
you used in the Pulama bombing, you'd have to supply
to the terrors that who's carrying out the attack, and
that will probably have to come across the border, which
would then leave a trail and that would be dangerous
and stuff like that. Yere, you just radicalize a bunch
of doctors, by the way, who use that credentials UH
(22:12):
to be able to source this even more easily. Than
they would have as a lay person without arousing suspicion,
without suspicion.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Exactly right.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
So let's talk about India's response. So for the first
few hours, yeah, it wasn't even deemed a terror attack.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
It was a mitch.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I think the Home Minister had a late net press
conference where he said all angles are being proved.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Uh. You initially instantly knew because of your experience.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Even I had had ninkling because I covered the arrest
earlier in the day and for in my head it
was like, it can't be that. It's just too much
of a coincidence for this to happen, just you know,
a few hours after what the arrest had that happened
with that amount of hall but for the last number
of people it was probably either a CNNG plus or
something something of that sort sort.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
It's only next day in the morning when then the
police said that we've registered a case on the UAPA,
that it was classified a terror attack. And then you
had all this information coming and linking the supposed driver
doctor Umar. I think I'm misnamed him earlier, so it's
doctor Rumar to the Faridabad module and stuff like that.
You've had the PM making a comment on it again
(23:21):
very interestingly, making an English comment on it when he
was in Bhutan put on an English statement, just like
he did after after the Pehelkam terror attack when he
was in Bihar he taught an English statement in the
middle of his speech. You've had Rajha think talking about it,
but you haven't had the statements of the sort that
you had after Pehelkam, after Puma, because unlike with Pehelkam,
(23:45):
unlike with Pulwama, like with twenty six eleven, you haven't
made that immediate direct overt.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Association with Pakistan.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Right with twenty six eleven you had people literally coming
from there with you had lots of investigative evidence is
pointing to the RDS change for example Pelgam. Also you
knew people came from there. You're like, we discussed. It's
a bit more complex. These are people who were born
in Jaman Kashmi. These are people who've been involved with
other citizens of India. Uh So India has not yet
(24:15):
directly blamed Pakistan. But you have police officials telling media
that there's a link to this module.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Why do you think is this the case?
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Well, I go back to what Prime Minister Movies said
on the twelfth of May when he made that famous
speech putting out India's red lines, where he said that
every attack against India would be construed a terror attack.
The fact that there would be no distinction between non
state and uh you know uh state actors and nuclear
(24:46):
blackmail would not be tolerated. So this point about every attack,
every terror attack being construed as an attack on India
is a is a very important statement. And thereby uh
it basically says that India will have to respond to
a terror attack through force. Now, how do you distinguish
(25:09):
a terror attack of the magnitude that would determine a response?
So you have to be careful about that, and I
think that is what the government has been doing to
see the extent of this terror attack. What is the
kind of plan that they had, Did they actually carry
out the plan? Did we preempt them? And I think
the sense that I'm getting is that this attack was
(25:31):
actually pre empted. They preempted the terrorists module before they
could actually carry out that attack. And as they say,
with all you know, preventive action, it is that one
goal that you will be remembered for that you've missed
but you know, all the other saves, you would all
(25:52):
be forgotten. And in this case, it's a bit of
a gray area. You caught hold of the module before
they could do large scale damage. One of those guys
got away and he triggered off a blast. We don't
know exactly how. It's nine individuals. It's terrible what happened,
even that should not have happened. But does that warrant
a response from India? I think that is what the
(26:13):
political leadership must be thinking right now. And the silence
about this is exactly what you mentioned. Is they are
assessing the whole story, figuring out whether there was a
clear link between Jesh and this module, what was their plans,
who was in the loop, what did their plan to
(26:34):
strike at and if so, what would be the thing
and that would determine our response. So I think they're
being very measured in how they respond to this. There's
not going to be any quick instant action on that
based on what we've seen so far. I think the
government is playing a wait and watch strategy, but they
will definitely be a response. We don't know what kind.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
It will be, Yeah, right right, we'll talk more about this,
but a track quick.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Here is a very key component.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
No true manufacturer has been dominant in a way in
Formula E the way the manufacturers.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
A motorsport fan, true motorsport fan. This is something that
you will really we.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
Have seen manufacturers being dominant in a lot of series.
Let's talk w Let's talk w EC, Toyota, Posha, Perrari
since the comeback Formula one Perrari. I mean they used to,
but like Red Bull Mercedes now, but Formula E is
not like that. Formula E is different. No true driver,
(27:35):
no true manufacturer. I mean I don't mean true in
that sense, but like not one has just gone ahead
and dominated everything else, won everything. And you know, I
feel that's a good thing because, Okay, we have all
seen how manufacturers start losing the game once there's just
one driver and one manufacturer constantly winning, winning, winning. I mean,
(27:57):
I get bored when one guy is winning.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
But I think I think that's what true motorsport is
really about. Really high highs and then really low lows,
which is the perfect transition for the Gen three platform.
And just how difficult it was for Mahindra in this
period because they went from the highs of Gen two
(28:19):
to critical reliability issues to a point where their entire
internal management and their technical team needed to be restructured
from the ground up. They did not leave the sport,
they changed the way they were playing it, and that
(28:41):
again again is just testament to the tenacity of this manufacture.
They're like a pit bull. They've got their teeth in
and they're staying there.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Welcome back.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
We've been discussing the Delhi red food blast that took
place earlier this week. We've talked about the module that
is supposed to be behind it, the initial our initial
impressions of what has happened, how the Indian government has
reacted to it, or rather has not reacted to it,
and why So now I want to talk about Pakistan
and Field Marshal arsimun yir So. Like I said at
(29:22):
the beginning of this episode, even though the Indian government
has not formally directly linked Pakistan to it, you already
have officials telling media people that, you know, there is
a gelink somewhere. We're trying to determine that and before
the break you were talking about they're going to be
mediculously looking at how solid is that link.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
But I want to talk about Pakistan.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Because see, it would be very obvious that for a
cell like this to be able to operate, there has
to be some sort of background backing coming from Pakistan.
Otherwise it's not really possible, right that would be that
would be our thought. So before we but just before that,
(30:02):
I want to understand one thing. So because I'm very
new to this concept, I mean as in, I haven't
seen some a cell.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Like this so up close in my in my career.
You have. What I want to.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Understand is, so when you have all these cells across
India when you used to have them, whether it was
whatever terrorist organization, are they sort of like you know,
micro managed from across the borders or are they just
like you know that those cells are made, those are
infiltrated across the borders, they are you know in the society,
and then they just like do their own thing and
(30:34):
find their own way and carry out their own attacks.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Right, good question, Dave. And how a cell usually works
is that all the members of the cell will not
be in contact with the handlers, right, because that would
compromise the operation. So if there was a cell like
for instance, a Farida cell dot omer, if it was
actually proved that he was in touch with handlers across
(30:57):
the border, and there seems to be certain chat around that.
The fact is that it would be only him who
would be in touch with the handler and not everyone else.
So to the members of the cell, he would be
like this, you know, motivator and you know, the chief
plotter and the leader. He's the leader, but he won't
necessarily tell all of them that I'm in touch with
(31:20):
you know, ABC or X y Z across the border. Right,
So every cell usually has just one person who's in
contact with the handler, and that's done for reasons of
operational security. You don't want to compromise your operation. One
guy might get picked up or caught and he'll say that, oh, listen,
you know, we have a cell over year and we're
in touch with you know, our handlers across the border
(31:42):
and all that. So that's why, and possibly that is
the reason also that he might have decided to go
and kill himself or you know, trigger off that bomb.
We don't know exactly what happened, but the fact is
that what actually finally happened is that he blew up
in that car with a lot of explosives. So by
cutting the links between this module and external actors. So
(32:05):
it's always the case, and it was the case in
the Butler House thing as well, where there was an
entire module that was another that were carrying out cereal
blasts across the country that was linked to the Indian
Mujahideen and one person among them was supposed to have
been in contact with the handlers across the border.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Interesting, right, right, So Pakistan and Assimunir and this doctrine
of bleed India with a thousand cuts very interesting. I
did not know this until yesterday. There's an entire Wikipedia
page to bleed India with one thousand cuts to this doctrine.
So I never knew that it was something. I always
thought it was something you know, journalists and experts like you,
(32:47):
you used to sort of explain the larger theory of
what you're trying to explain to it. It's a very
short phrase and it is very you know, it's evocative
and you understand why instinctly what you're trying to see
with it. But there's an entire Wikipedia page deported to it.
It's sort of an overview, and you know how many
times it's supposed to have been used. So I want
you to do that, actually, Sandep sort of an academic
(33:08):
question before we talk about why Assimoni is reverting to
this film, to his doctrine that you said, was you know,
masterfully used by What is this doctrine? When did it
first come to be used amongst people like you in
the journalistic circles.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Well, so they've Pakistan has had Assimoni. Field Marshal Assimoni
is the fifth military dictator in Pakistan. There've been four
before him. There was the first one, of course is
Field Marshal Uh. This guy what's his name? Are? You
can't right? Field Marshal are you was the first dictator,
took over in fifty eight and gave up in eleven
(33:48):
years later, replaced by his successor, Yaya Khan. These two
guys were they went out, They came out, they came
with a lot of fanfare and glory, and they've retreated
in complete disgrace, both of them. Now things start to
change in seventy seven when Ziaoul Huck takes over General
Ziaoul Luck and he is condemned internationally for taking over power,
(34:14):
deposing Kaributo, murdering him. It was actually called a judicial
execution in Pakistan. But then lo and behold what happens
is the Soviet Union decides to invade Afghanistan, and Zia suddenly,
from a paraya becomes a frontline ally in the war
against the Soviet Union. Wherever we heard that before. He
keeps repeating his story, keeps repeating in Pakistan every couple
(34:37):
of decades, and Zia then becomes this frontline ally in
the US's war against the Soviet Union proxy war. And
what happens is between seventy nine and eighty eight, the US,
the CIA, and all the intelligence agents, even the Chinese,
they are supplying weapons to Zia and the Pakistan ISI
(34:59):
andization that was a very small you know, a dhaba,
a roadside dhaba becomes a big McDonald's franchise, right, that
is a transformation of this nineteen seventy nine to nineteen
eighty eight, this US supported war on the Soviet Union
proxy war on the Soviet Union. It transformed the ISI.
(35:21):
And when the Soviets retreated from Afghanistan in nineteen eighty
eight and the Soviet Union collapsed in nineteen ninety one,
do you know what it did to the generals in
jhk Rawal Pindi. They said, look, the Soviet Union, the
most powerful country in the world, was vanquished by us.
We played a, you know, such a key role in
that it collapsed. They withdrew from Afghanistan and then they collapsed.
(35:45):
We can do the same with India. And so you
saw from the nineteen eighties the full force of what
I call Operation Cyclones leftovers. Operation Cyclone was the entire
Cia funded arms pipeline into Pakistan, and we went into Afghanistan.
A lot of it was diverted first into Punjab, where
there was an insurgency that they had stoked from the
(36:07):
late eighties, from mid eighties to the early nineties, and
then in the early nineties into Jamun Kashmir. And the
Pakistan military was convinced that if we keep attacking India there,
tying down their soldiers over there and later carrying out
terror attacks across India, terrorizing India with this nuclear umbrella
(36:28):
that they had there was in the basement. Then in
the eighties it came out in nineteen ninety eight, India
would collapse. So their whole fundamental thing of their war
fighting strategy was this death by a thousand guts. You
bled the Indian Army in Jamun Kashmir, you carry out
terror attacks across the hinterland in Delhi, in Bombay and
(36:51):
Bangalore and low and behold, India will collapse. Something like
that is a strategy that they came up with so
to impose a lot of penalties. That's how this whole
death by a thousand cut strategy originated. And this was
something that originated in the General Ziaoul years and it
was actually implemented by Pervez Musharoff on a very large
(37:13):
scale post nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Okay, so tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
What did Musharaff do and where do you think Asimund
is now taking it?
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Well, what Musharoff did was that the UH militancy in Kashmi,
terrorism in Kashmir was confined to Jamu and Kashmi. It
never spilled out of the valley, so to say. But
after Kargil and particularly after the nuclearization of the subcontinent,
after the Pokron tests and then the Chugai test of
(37:43):
nineteen ninety eight, Musharaff is the one who figured out
this what we call today this nuclear weapons enabled terrorism strategy,
where he said, look, we can do what we want
to India will not retaliate conventionally using its superior military machine.
And you saw evidently of that. They first struck at
the Red Fort. That was a trial two thousand December
(38:06):
two thousand. Before that, you had the Kandahar hijack. Soon
after Kargill. Then you had two thousand and one, they
came and attacked Parliament, India's parliament, leading to a large
scale mobilization by India, Operation Parakhram. But then again, all
in the mushure of years, you had the serial bombings
all across India through these cutouts like Indian Mujaiden. You
(38:30):
had attacks in Mumbai, two very big attacks two thousand
and six, the July two thousand and six train bombings
in Mumbai where seven trains were bombed, two hundred and
nine people were killed. And then of course twenty sixty eleven.
All of this happened during General pervez musure of tenure.
Ashbak Perveskani was the DGISID, the first digiside to become
(38:55):
Army chief right Asimuni is only the second DGI side
to become Army chief. And in his case he has
also been the head of the military intelligence. So he's
both the ISI as well as them, and now he is,
to my understanding, trying to do what ZR did and
(39:15):
trying to do what mushrav did. That grant strategy that
MUSHEROV did of pushing terror attacks into India's heartland and
which was abandoned post twenty six eleven. You saw just
one or two blasts because Musharraf successors, Kayani, the Bajua,
Rahil Sharif they said, look, we don't want to do
(39:36):
this kind of thing. It's too risky. Muney Field Marshall.
Munei is a risk taker. If you look at it,
and he's restarted this strategy, he thinks that that's going
to get him. You know that that analogy that he
used in that meeting in the United States that India
is a Chinese sports car and I'm a dumpster, a
(39:58):
dump truck running over there he wants to He's actually
thinking like a suicide bomber. And that's really really dangerous
because what Munei doesn't realize is that the India of
twenty twenty five is not the India of Watchby. It's
not the India of mon Mourn Singh. You have a
prime Minister, Prime Minister Modi, who's called out nuclear blackmail,
(40:18):
who's understood the game plan, who's called out the nuclear blackmail,
who said there is nothing like state and non state.
And we saw that during Obsindur, when the Pakistan military
had to come out and acknowledge the fact that these
terrorists were actually their own actors, their own state actors, right,
and the fact that any major terror attack like twenty
(40:40):
six eleven or two thousand and six or nineteen ninety
three would be seen as an act of war. So
he is on extremely dangerous ground. And that is precisely
the reason that I believe that his clock started taking
the minute. Prime Minister More he gave that speech on
the twelfth of May where he drew those new red lines.
(41:01):
And that is why in the last six months, if
you've seen, Muni has been running hilter skelter all over
the world, first going to Saudi Arabia, then to China,
then to the United States, securing all his traditional external partners,
giving them whatever they wanted. You know, you want mineral
state minerals, you want nuclear weapons, stake nuclear weapons. Whatever
(41:23):
he has he's put on the table. And now, of
course this twenty seventh Amendment of the Pakistani Constitution, which
has made him the most powerful military figure in Pakistan
post its creation.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Yeah right, And you know, to just sort of take
this forward naturally and try to understand the motivations behind this.
Something briefly we talked about just before we began recording
is Muni as the person because you know, to a
lay person, to me, it sounds like, but yeah, Karnak,
you like, you know, running helter skelter. Your country is
(41:58):
in a messconomic bind. You are under so many you know,
the threat of so many sanctions from international agencies. You
have to constantly prove to them that you know, your
account sheet is fine, your funding dealings aren't bit terrist
organizations have to basically hide those transactions and sort of
present a clean, clean balance sheet.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
In all this.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Why why would a Pakistani general, why would a Pakistani
army chief decide, you know what, let me go back
to that old strategy of Paris Musharaff and needle India
and poke India and carry bleed India with a thousand cards.
Ultimately milnakyah. Well, good, good Christian, Dave. And you have
to understand the mindset of the Pakistan military. You know,
(42:39):
ever since they've taken over power in.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Nineteen fifty eight under a Field Marshal Muniz Field Marshal
Ayu can't Muni is the newest Field Marshal. But they've
never truly given up power. And what has happened is
that all the institutions that have existed in Pakistan, whether
it's the judiciary, whether it's the political class, whether it's
the citizen, rey the executive, all of these have been diminished.
(43:04):
So Pakistan has what I call a bondside democracy. You
have the military that is this gigantic structure, this huge
Banyan tree under which nothing grows. And with this twenty
seventh Amendment, Muni has finished off all the other institutions.
He's finished off the executive. The politicians are anyway at
his becon call. I mean, they're the weakest lot of
(43:27):
politicians that Pakistan has probably seen in probably half a century.
He's even you know, killed the judiciary with these with
the twenty seventh Amendment. The twenty sixth actually finished off
the judiciary, with the judicial appointments being decided by the executive.
He has systematically eroded all the institutions and it's only
(43:50):
the military that is standing now. The military sees everything
militarily right, what is their priority? Their priority is a
national security priority. And when you see everything through that prism,
as they say, when all you have in your hand
is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail to you.
(44:10):
You know, oh that's a nail bank. You know, India
is a nail. I must try and you know it's
a big nail. But I will try little with little, little,
you know cuts, I will radiuceage size. So that Pakistan
military is a very strange kind of a military. It's
not won a single war since nineteen forty seven. But
as Christine Fair, Professor Christine f Avid watcher of India
(44:31):
and Pakistan, she said that you have to understand how
they define victory for them. You know, defeat is when
they stop fighting. They might surrender, they might lose half
the country in seventy one, but they have to keep fighting.
For them. Defeat means when they stop fighting, when they
cease fighting, that is defeat. When you framed your entire
(44:53):
notions of victory and defeat, thus they will just want
to keep on fighting and fighting. And that's what Munia said.
I will just keep fighting. And that's why one of
her books is Christine Fair's books is called Fighting to
the End. And Munir now is this complete. He's a
bit of an unhinged character if you've seen his kind
(45:14):
of speeches, and these are speeches that even Zia and Musharaff,
for all their you know, wild natures, I mean, they've
done things that are pretty reprehensible, both of them, right.
I solely hold them responsible for a series of terror
attacks which have killed a lot of Indians, But they
never spoke like this the way Muni is. Munir speaks
(45:35):
like someone who actually believes in all of this, right,
he actually believes in holy war against India and that
this is actually a clash of the civilizations. Kind of
is the dangerous kind of a character, right in a
way that Musharaff was not. Musharoff might have actually expanded
Pakistan's war against the Indian heart and he's killed a
(45:58):
lot of Indian civilians. Right, But even his public pronouncement,
if you saw, were not as unhinged as Field Marshal Monis.
Where this entire thing of you know, screaming holy war.
Military chiefs don't do that, and especially people who are
vested with so much of power. And today he has
(46:20):
formalized the fact that of the nine nuclear weapons states,
there is only one in the world which directly controls
nuclear weapons. You know, the military is the only the
Pakistan military is the only military in the world that
directly controls nuclear weapons. And that's a very dangerous place
to be. And he believes that he can do what
(46:40):
the other dictators, the four dictators prior to him, tried
to do but couldn't, which is basically, tackle India, downsized
India a chief parity with India. Their whole game is
to achieve parity with India, keep fighting, doing all of that.
And I'm sure this is what he thinks as he
(47:00):
walks down that corridor or GHQ Robert Pindi. I haven't
seen pictures, but I assume that there must be a
corridor lined with portraits of Pakistan army chiefs, and Muni
possibly walks down that corridor and looks at them and
just you know, you guys couldn't do what I'm going
to be doing. I'm the man, you know, I'm the
most powerful you know, Phield Marshall in Pakistan's history. I'm
(47:23):
going to do all this what you guys tried and failed.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
I guess you saw that actually earlier this year when
a few days before the heal Cometer attack he gave
that rab rabbit speech and even the attack itself, you know,
it was the verbarity of which was quite like shocking.
I remember eating somewhere some some expert, I think a
retired police official officer said that it requires a special
(47:47):
kind of radicalization to train your your your terrorists to.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Kill people at point blank range.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
You know, It's one thing to train a squad of
you know, for gunman to go and bomb a place,
fight in place, kill people, but it's another to tell
them to take them hostage and kill them at point
lit rate. So that that sort of you know, maybe
I'm guessing is what you're sort of hinting at. We
talk about Money's mindset and what he thinks about himself
and the Holy War, which brings me to my question
(48:16):
about did India see him coming? So you know, I'll
take this example. When you have elections happening, and let's
say in the United States, the country that has you know,
significant uh, we have significant ties with you'll obviously have
the AMA car. You know, bring out the dossers and
do like sort of a red book green book analysis
(48:37):
of all candidates. You know, if Kamala Harris comes to power,
this is what we'll have to deal with. If Donald
Trump comes too far? With Donald come, I don't know
who knows what they love to deal with, because even
Donald Trump does not know what he has to deal
with the.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Next day is like he loves to see.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
But jokes apart, you would have many governments do that analysis.
You know, if these guys come to part this is
what will happen. If these guys come to us, this
is what I have to deal with. So you do
that analysis. Did India analyze the upcoming army chief Are
we analyzing upcoming army chiefs of Pakistan and thinking of
what happens when they come into the Chiefs Chiefs office
(49:12):
and what happens after that?
Speaker 1 (49:13):
Right?
Speaker 3 (49:13):
You know a good question there. And now the thing
is that this psycho profiling is done for all our
intelligence agencies do this as a matter of routine for
all political figures military figures across the border in both
China and in Pakistan. And I'm aware of the fact
that the one was done for Muni. But I'm not
(49:35):
sure whether they actually predicted that Muni would actually go
off like this on a rant and you know, reveal
his true colors in twenty twenty five, because if you
saw him pre twenty twenty five, he was pretty under
the radar. Actually, yes, everyone missed him. We didn't even
know who the Pakistan military troop was until he actually
stood up and gave that speech in twenty twenty five,
(49:58):
a few days before the Pilgam attack. So he's a
guy who kind of kept his convictions and his beliefs
to himself, deeply religious guy. All of that was known,
But I'm not sure whether any of the psycho profiling
predicted that he would actually strike the way he did,
and possibly also Trump, would he react the way he did?
(50:24):
Did we predicted? Did we become a bit too complacent
when Trump took over? These are big questions that I
think we must answer. Did our leadership miss that the
fact that Trump two point oh was going to be
very different from Trump one point oh? And he was
a man in a hurry in search of a legacy.
And what you saw is a meeting of these two
(50:47):
people in a hurry, Trump and money, and they are
now best buddies, right, and Trump is openly called him
my favorite general. And when American presidents say my favorite general,
then a lot of countries in the vicinity have to worry, right,
because that's how they love doing business, and that's where
(51:08):
the Pakistan military has always provided that. Yes, sir, yes, sir,
two bagsful. You know it's from the time of are
you to Yaya, to Zia, to Musharaff and now finally
as the general always delivers.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Right, So if you would take that point forward and
as the last point on this episode, because I don't
want to ask you a very typical question of you know,
what do you think is going to happen next? Shouldn't
be worried because you're not really questions you can answer
in black and white, not questions you can answer very easily.
But the question I'd rather ask you is our alarm
(51:46):
bells ringing within the establishment national security establishment about Assimuri
because he's going to be there for a while now, right,
especially thanks to what he's done with the constitution. Now
he's going to be the field Marshal the rest of
his for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
At some point, maybe.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
He'll appoint a general to oversee the daily affairs of
the army. But he'll wield control of the middle.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
He'll never give up the more.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
He wants interesting, interesting army. So you can answer that.
You talk about that as well when you answered this question,
before you answer this question. So, yeah, our alambing is
ringing in the establishment about us moon heir and that,
Oh we've got something crazy on the hands.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
It's going to be a tough fight going forward.
Speaker 3 (52:26):
Yeah, yes, Alam bells are ringing, but I don't think
it is something that we can't handle. Okay, that's my
you know, my understanding. Because money is here for the
long haul, right. He's given himself another extension which means
he can serve for another two years and then beyond that.
So he's literally like what Jen Ping is president for life,
(52:48):
He is phield marshal for life, and it is up
to him to decide when he wants to step down.
He's not very old, he's under sixty, right, so he
has a long road ahead of him unless something in
Pakistan happens. And every dictator has come to power in
Pakistan thinking they're there forever. But then you know, events,
(53:10):
dear boy, events, that's what happens. And we've seen that
with uh you know, with our absolute, meticulous precision. It's
happened to every single dictator. Are you Yaya Zaia Musharaf?
And now who knows could be munir'stern And there's one
(53:32):
person who's standing between Muni and his projections of power
and greatness and all of that is the man who's
in adiy Ala jail, right, Captain of the Pakistan, Captain
of the Pakistan team, former Prime Minister Imran Khan. If
Imran Khan bends to as Muni and he says, yes,
you are the supreme overlord and Field marshall and president
(53:56):
and general for life. I bow to the Please allow
me to come out and live my last years in
retirement or excile. Nothing stops money, right, there is no
threat on the horizon. I'm not even counting the the
TDP or those are terror terrorist actors, but politically, a
(54:17):
figure around whom civilians can coal this and then you know,
overthrow this hated dictator. Imran Khan is the only option.
Speaker 1 (54:26):
Yeah, I Rankan is the only option.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
And that's what we'll watch and we'll discuss on this
podcast as we go forward.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
But quick.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
Point about what you said, I want to know the answer.
I wanted the reason you said that Bun will not
give up the Army Chief's office because I thought it
would be very obvious. If he's field marshal, he won't
really need to be the Army chief. But you said
that won't happen by so because you know the.
Speaker 3 (54:50):
Whole command structure of the Pakistan military. Right, the core
commander is the only answer to the Army chief. Right,
they don't care about any field marshal. He can call
himself what a Chief of Force. He's got rid of COJC.
He's now calling himself the Chief of Defense Forces, which
means basically what's left of the Pakistan Air Force and
Navy will also come under the things. It is a
(55:10):
structure that's always existed in Pakistan. He's only formalized it,
but he will never move out of the Pakistan Army
Chiefs Post. Mushaf literally wept and gave way to Khanni
because the Americans forced him to, right, that was the
only force on earth that could get Mushav to give
up the Army Chiefs Post. Zia never gave up the
(55:31):
Army Chiefs Post, though a lot of the day to
day work was carried out by the Vice chief, so
he will probably appoint a vice chief and get his
work done through him as he did, as Musharoff did.
But they will never give up the Army chiefs thing
because the entire Pakistan military answers only to the Pakistan
Army Chief.
Speaker 2 (55:51):
Who I think the episode there then, thanks and deep
and I think like the Unian establishment, we're also want
to keep a very close eye on Simunir and discuss
more about him.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
When we need to.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
So thanks so much discussion, Thanks as always, thank you and.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
Thanks is always to a less and viewers. That's it
for the Speaks Defense toes for more tune in next week.
Then stay safe and not lost any boundaries with the passport.
Speaker 6 (56:23):
Yes here Nevali tan ta tau Ka or Sara hit
(56:45):
the dot May.
Speaker 1 (56:47):
Pitches Kam had to
Speaker 6 (56:55):
Kis Buys or Nay Major National Stadium neitherly to get
Uppi Bukarin arch that dot in slash Sa hit the
bar
This is India Today Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
Deve Goswami, and every week I sit down with experts
and retired officers from the Army, Navy, and Air Force
to decode all things to do with India security and
explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
(00:27):
stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
This is in our Defense. Welcome to Another Defense.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
It's been a very somber week, especially for people in
my circle, so the privileged circle, I would say, who've
grown up mostly in cities. When a bomb blaster in
the heart of Teli killed twelve people, it was a
terror incident. Please have said that the blast perhaps itself,
was not intentional in terms of that particular moment, that
(01:00):
particular day, may not have been the choice of the
attackers to carry out the attack, but it happened during transit.
We'll get to that obviously on this episode. Uh, but
this all began sort of in mid October, and there
is this this entire story has an element of chance
to it that is quite you know, a bit surprising,
(01:22):
a bit scary.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Even.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
It all began in mid October when the Jammu and
Kashmir Police are investigating some posters that had come up
in Nogam near near Shinagar. The posters were of Jeshi Muhammad.
The investigation led them to a Molana. That mala led
them to a doctor Adil. That doctor led them to
a doctor Musamil from in Faridabad, Haryana, and a raid
(01:44):
at his house on over the weekend Saturday Sunday led
to the discovery of around three thousand kilos of ID
making material.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
This including ammonium.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Nitrid, batteries, wires and stuff like that. This news broke
Monday morning. Uh, everybody thought that's it. You know, modules
get busted, recoveries are made, that's.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
More or less it.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
People at that time did not know that one person
had gotten away. That was doctor Umar. He had gotten
away on Monday morning. He entered Deli in a night
twenty car. He drove around. He parked near the Red
Foot at around three o'clock. At around six six point thirty,
he left from the parking. He was driving down a
busy street and then his car blew, killing twelve people.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
What's happened here?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
And why on this episode, am I gonna take am
I going to talk about this and then go and
talk about Field Marshal Assimuni. Even though right now authorities
haven't directly linked Pakistan or any Pakistani agents to this attack.
For this and more, I.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Have Hey, they've good to be back, the good to
have you.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Something, you know, like I was saying, this is like
a somber moment and bring brings back bad memories because
you know, I'll tell you something that would We were
discussing on the news flow that initially people thought it
was a CNG blast because plasts in cities don't happen anymore, right,
That's what like we've been We've been living for so
(03:15):
many year years and it's over a decade now. I
think the last it's an explosion in Delhi at least
took place maybe maybe fourteen fifteen.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Odd years orgo eleven yeah, yeah, yeah uh.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
And another I think a blast, if I can recall
very decently, would be the Ramish from cafe blast in Bengluru.
But that did not kill any people and it was
a very small sort of an improvise explosive. But the
point I'm trying to make is this whole this the way,
this whole thing has unraveled. A module has lots of explosives,
is spread across the country, is being you know, someone's
(03:45):
arrested in one place and then it leads cops to
some some somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
It gets pasted.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
And then this this fellow managed to make out, make
out of the way.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
And what happened. What happened.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
This is something that doesn't really happen anymore in India,
but it has happened, which is why it is so scary,
isn't it It is?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
It is scary. Indeed, they went you know, I was
on the news floor when this incident happened, and when
I saw those first visuals that came out, I immediately
knew it was a car bomb because, you know, I've
seen CNG cylinders, blasts. We're all used to seeing cars
catch you know fire. As safe as they are, there
are the one odd you know, cases of CNG kids
(04:25):
exploding or battery operated vehicles catching fire. But this one
was different. You could see from the blast radius that
it was a proper explosive explosive. Somebody had fashioned a
car bomb of sorts and that had gone off either
deliberately or unintentionally. But the fact is, the end result
is that we are left with a terror attack of
sorts in the heart of the national capital. And that's
(04:47):
why we should worry for exactly the reasons that you mentioned.
And I have been seeing this day for now three decades,
and I've grown old literally seeing terror attacks through cities.
And as you mentioned, I mean there is possibly a
generation of Indians who are unaware of the terror of
serial blasts in cities targeting civilians, innocent people, you know, men, women, children,
(05:13):
and bombs don't discriminate on the basis of communities or religion.
They target whoever is in the general vicinity of a blast.
And I've seen blasts in Mumbai, my city where I
come from, starting from nineteen ninety three all the way
up to twenty six eleven, and we've had a few
cases after that. But this one is worrying because from
(05:35):
what I sense is going on, there's been a slow
build up to that one blast in near the Red
Fort over the last six months. And the story begins
on the twelfth of May twenty twenty five, after Prime
Minister movie speech where he called out Plakistan's nuclear black males,
(05:55):
so literally this I'm seeing that as a series of events.
There are several events that have happened six months after
operations Sindhura, and this blast exactly six months after points
to the Pakistan Army going back to its old base.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah right, So, like I said, we'll get to that.
And also the interesting part of why India has been
very measured in its response so far, in its statements
so far, very interestingly, no one officially has called a
terror attack attack yet, even though UAPA has been invoked,
the terror and the investigating, so obviously it's a terror attack.
(06:34):
But when I say no one has said it, I
don't mean to say they're couching it. What I mean
to say is no one is going out there and
making it sound like a terror attack, making it sound
like a huge deal. It's a big deal, It's not
a huge deal. Why is that happening? Why has Pakistan
not yet been named formally? Is something also we'll discuss
before we obviously discuss Pakistan, but just before that's deep
(06:55):
and I think this would sort of answer my first
question as well. Do you, as a journalist, do you,
as a national security expert, feel that it is highly
complex to sometimes discuss matters of internal security viasably what
we do on this podcast, which is usually discussed external
security and national security geopolitics, because I think, unlike with that,
(07:16):
it's not so black and white when it comes to
domestic acts of terrorism, because you have several different elements involved,
several different people involved. Some of them are your own,
some of them are involved, perhaps unwittingly. Take the case
of the I twenty car. It has a chain of owners.
Many of them may be completely innocent, but they are
right now involved. So there's also even for the police,
(07:37):
they have tread with caution like who is a terrorist,
who is not a terrorist? And at the same time
you have an act like this going on. So do you,
as a commentator, do you, as an analyst feel it's
a bit complex for us to sit and have a
discussion about this as well?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
It is they and you know, and that is exactly
why we are talking about it, to make sense of
this what's going on. And you know, the whole history
of urban terrorism and especially state sponsored terrorism of the
kind that we've been at the receiving end of for
more than four decades now, aims to precisely create these
(08:10):
kind of conflicts when you use your own people, for instance,
you weaponize them and use them against your own country.
That is exactly what these deep state actors across the
border are doing, right by creating cells, using cutouts, you know,
using plausibly deniable hands that they can carry out terror
(08:31):
attacks with. And we've seen it through the past, you know,
radicalized Indian youth have been used to carry out terror
attacks and when the Pakistan deep state felt that it
wasn't enough for their you know, devious plans that you know,
you know, the classic case I gave is in nineteen
ninety three, there was a phase two and a phase
(08:53):
three of the bomb blasts, where the idea was that
radicalized Indian youth were given weapons training, they were asked
to go into storm landmarks in Mumbai like Mantra and
Shusna Bawan and attack and kill government officials. They didn't
do that. They simply dropped their weapons and ran, which
is why the Pakistan military then decided we've got to
(09:15):
send our own people and that's how twenty sixty eleven
happened several years later. So you're right, it is complex.
It is when you're never you know, navigating among your
own people, and you have a certain set of individuals
who've been radicalized and who've been brainwashed and who have
been asked to carry out attacks against their own people,
then that becomes more complicated. But then it is in
(09:39):
a sense we are not facing an international ideology. I'm
talking purely in the sense of India and Pakistan. We
are actually faced with the Pakistan state, the Pakistan military,
which has weaponized religion to use against India.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Right, So, about what's happened, I've described the chain of
events that we know uh so far of how the
investigation began. It almost seems like a fluke that the
Jamukashmir police and later the Haryana police were able to
get onto this this module of based on some posters
being put up in an area outside of Vinuggar and
(10:19):
they managed to bust this this gang. And what officials
are now saying is that this guy doctor he was
he panding basically because of the arrest, and then he
sort of you know, went towards Redfoot and that he
unintentionally may have done up the car. So based on
what and see, I'll be very honest to our listeners
and us, we don't know a lot. It's just been
(10:41):
it's just over developing the developping story. So all the
inferences that we have on during the discussion, everything that
Sandip has to say will be based on just first
like whatever we know right now. So you you know
this for for for one day, but like you said,
you've been covering this field for three decades. You've seen
similar kinds of acts stakes in place previously. So when
(11:01):
you see this Howard panned out, Howard happened, and when
you see back in the day what you saw, how
does it compare and what does this tell you right now?
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Well, you know this is exactly the modus operandi that
the Pakistani deep state has used with the previous attacks,
whether it is the Delhi attacks in two thousand and five,
you've had several other serial blasts that were carried out
in Indian states like Karnataka, in Gujarat, in Mumbai. The
(11:32):
modus operandi is pretty much the same. What you do
is that you create a terror cell. Now, a cell
is something that the concept of a terror cell originated
somewhere in the nineteenth century, which is to ensure that
an organization is not completely compromised by the arrest of
one or two individuals, So which is why you break
(11:53):
up the organization into smaller cells, which you have a
nodal person at the center of a hell and he
has a certain you know, number of people around him
and they are given a particular task, of particular mission,
and you have a number of cells making up the organization.
And this is something that started in the far right
(12:14):
groups in the late nineteenth century in Europe, and that
was then uh you know, absorbed and uh you know,
used by all terror groups, all covert actors, a lot
of these uh you know, deniable operations carried out by
governments to use the similar modus operand covert actions for instance,
used by governments, they use cells so that you know,
(12:36):
the capture of one or two or three will not
expose the whole organization. One person would only know his
uh you know plan that one person would have been
tasked only to buy the car or you know, purchase
the explosives or assemble the bomb. He wouldn't know the
whole plan. For instance, It's only the guy at the
center who would know the whole plan, and he would
be you know, in the know of things, and he
(12:58):
would be the person who the external actor would you know,
finally be in contact with And here it seems to
be the person who was who blew himself up, the
doctor who blew himself up at red for he was
possibly in contact with his handlers. And this is you know,
the LTT also used the same thing. You know. And
to my mind, a lot of viewers wouldn't know this
(13:20):
story that when the LTT put out a hit on
Rajiv Gandhi, they had a cell here in Delhi that
was operating at the same time as their bombers in
Sri Perduru attacked him. And that cell was a very
small three person cell. They had a LTT guy who
lost his leg. He was in charge of the cell.
(13:42):
There was a suicide bomber, a lady called Athirai and
Halis was Sonia. She was eighteen years old and she
was the one who would wear the suicide vest and
try and attack Rajiv Gandhi here in Deli. And you
had an old man, seventy five year old man called
Kanagha Sababati. They were all three LTT operative. So this
(14:02):
three person module was here in Delhi. They were living
in a government flat in Kapuram and the cover was
that this person I think his name was Dixon who
lost a limb, he was in Delhi for getting a
prosthetic limb attached to Jaipur and which is why he
was under treatment. Kanaha Sababati was an old man who
(14:23):
had come to Delhi to get his uh supposed granddaughter
English education and are of course was a student. And
therefore they had this perfect aliss you know, it was
just like an episode out of Homeland. And they were caught.
When a number of those cell people were caught, they said,
(14:44):
there is another cell that is active in Delis and
that's how they caught hold of them. So that's how
you know terror groups, you know work. They have these
compartmentalized units cells and this is something that the l
T the JESH which are basically of the Pakistan Deep
State Pakistan Armies ISI. They've been functioning all along for
(15:05):
I would say from the nineties early nineties on one.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
One thing about the investigation and the Fluke moment, does
it happen this way? Because it is quite scary to
an extent, because what if there was no investigation over
those posters they were posters a truely, what if the
local cops over their thought keys.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Look he carried. It's not that deed, you know.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
They you've hit the nail on the head had it
not been for that alert SSP and those police officers
in Jamun Kashmir, they've done an excellent job and they
must be complimented for that, but not too much, because
that is their job. It is their job to tackle
suspicious activity, go after suspicious individuals, and which is what
they did. This is good old fashioned police procedural work.
(15:50):
They just looked at the posters. This is very unusual
posters in the middle of Srinagar. Who's putting them up?
And that's when they started pulling the strings. And those strings,
when they started pulling it, they landed up here in Faridabad,
outside of Delhi. One school of thoughts suggests that maybe,
just maybe the police should have held on to their
(16:13):
horses before going out with the press release and announcing
that they had busted a module and all that, because
we still don't know the details yet. But my reading
of the situation is that maybe they should have held
onto it, not revealed the fact that they'd busted a
big module like this, because it so happens that you
might not get everyone in under one roof, and there
(16:34):
are people who are you know, torpedoes in the water.
To use a naval term, that one of these guys
the main bomber. One of these guys, the main bomber,
was already out there with the vehicle bond explosive. And
that's what happened in this case. It's a case of
the investigating agencies coming busting the module, doing excellent work
(16:58):
following up the leads coming to the module, and then
one of these members of the module panics and he
runs and he carries out what he's supposed to have
done much later. That's what the inference is that this
was not actually meant to be a bomb that would
go off on the tenth of November. It was possibly
to coincide with some event, either a religious or a
(17:19):
political event or a national event to send out a message, right,
And in this case, it so happens that things didn't
go as per plan, and that's when this detonation happened,
which is why I think the government is very careful
on they're not calling it a terror attack also, but
there are other reasons for that as well, which we can.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Which we talk discuss Yeah, we'll just discuss that. But
you know, interesting point about you saying that perhaps they
should not have sent on the Presleys told media people
that we've busted such a module because I don't know
if you know about this. There is a red post
Reddit post that was made around twelve one pm on Monday.
The guy said, I just came back from somewhere he
(17:58):
landed that yet and he's seeing a lot of a
lot of fatigues, army men. He thought they were army
men and policemen around Old Eli and half of the
blast happened that that evening a lot of people have
lashed onto the post saying that they knew they knew
that one guy had gotten away and they were trying
to find him, so maybe that also happened.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
We will not know that the near near future.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
UH something before we go to UH the India, India's
response and then because India is suppose gonna be gonna
be very important talk about because we have got to
talk about Pakistan, but India is not, so why is
the government not?
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And then we'll talk about why we have to talkbout Pakistan.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
One quick tangent, especially because you are somebody who knows
a lot about explosives and guns and stuff like that.
It's a compliment, by the way, uh, ammonium nitrate fuel oil.
What is this element that is supposed to have caused
this massive blust?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
So and so that's what you said, anmonia nitrate fuel oil.
It's a very very potent uh explosive. And the thing
about it is that it is easily available, availability, affordability.
It costs US about two thousand rupees a CAG. It's
used by fertilizers, farmers. Farmers use it for fertilizers and
(19:15):
all that. It is a it's deemed a prickersor chemical
right freely available and it's been used. As per one study,
something like seventy percent of all terror attacks worldwide have
used ammonium nitrate because it's so easily available, and in
terms of blast force, it is closest to PNT. It's
(19:39):
not as good as say RDX. RDX is hard to
come by, right their military grade explosives. They're manufactured only
by certain facilities. Getting hold of it is difficult. PNT
that's commercial explosive dynamite that's hard to get as well.
That's also very strictly regulated but ammonium nitrate is dual
use chemicals. It's fertilizers, has got a it's used, and
(20:01):
that's how people have been using them as fertilizer bombs.
Timothy makeweight. For instance, we carried out that Oklahoma bombing
in nineteen ninety five, I think one hundred and sixty
people were killed, hundred and sixty eight, the largest domestic
terror attack on US soil that was carried out by
an ammonium nitrate explosive. So it's a very potent explosive
(20:23):
and the most important thing about it is that it
allows you, if you're the Pakistan deep state deniability, right,
you can stock up large piles of this explosive user
to carry out multiple terror attacks and all that, which
is what seems to have been the plan here in
the red foot bombing, the cell that was uncovered in Faridabad.
(20:47):
But you know, we've seen the blast effect of ammonium
nitrate in Beirut when that massive stock of ammonium nitrate
that was stored in the port of Beirut. It's the largest,
one of the largest non nuclear blasts in history, right,
massive explosion. So it's a very very potent thing and
(21:08):
it has a blast wave that is about I think
six thousand meters per second. That's the thing of the
blast wave that's nearly approaching P and T standard. TND
is about I think about nine thousand meters per second,
and rdx's twice that goes into the tens of thousands.
(21:29):
But this is the easiest to assemble a weapon. Availability,
ease of transport, all of those things. That's what makes
it very attractive to terrorists. And when you mix it
with fuel oil, then it becomes this very lethal combination
in and for and forho bombs, and that's what this
cell was planning to do right.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
In fact, I think what makes it also easier is
the fact that you can source it in the target country,
like you know, like with like let's say RDX, as
you used in the Pulama bombing, you'd have to supply
to the terrors that who's carrying out the attack, and
that will probably have to come across the border, which
would then leave a trail and that would be dangerous
and stuff like that. Yere, you just radicalize a bunch
of doctors, by the way, who use that credentials UH
(22:12):
to be able to source this even more easily. Than
they would have as a lay person without arousing suspicion,
without suspicion.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Exactly right.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
So let's talk about India's response. So for the first
few hours, yeah, it wasn't even deemed a terror attack.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
It was a mitch.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I think the Home Minister had a late net press
conference where he said all angles are being proved.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Uh. You initially instantly knew because of your experience.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Even I had had ninkling because I covered the arrest
earlier in the day and for in my head it
was like, it can't be that. It's just too much
of a coincidence for this to happen, just you know,
a few hours after what the arrest had that happened
with that amount of hall but for the last number
of people it was probably either a CNNG plus or
something something of that sort sort.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
It's only next day in the morning when then the
police said that we've registered a case on the UAPA,
that it was classified a terror attack. And then you
had all this information coming and linking the supposed driver
doctor Umar. I think I'm misnamed him earlier, so it's
doctor Rumar to the Faridabad module and stuff like that.
You've had the PM making a comment on it again
(23:21):
very interestingly, making an English comment on it when he
was in Bhutan put on an English statement, just like
he did after after the Pehelkam terror attack when he
was in Bihar he taught an English statement in the
middle of his speech. You've had Rajha think talking about it,
but you haven't had the statements of the sort that
you had after Pehelkam, after Puma, because unlike with Pehelkam,
(23:45):
unlike with Pulwama, like with twenty six eleven, you haven't
made that immediate direct overt.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Association with Pakistan.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Right with twenty six eleven you had people literally coming
from there with you had lots of investigative evidence is
pointing to the RDS change for example Pelgam. Also you
knew people came from there. You're like, we discussed. It's
a bit more complex. These are people who were born
in Jaman Kashmi. These are people who've been involved with
other citizens of India. Uh So India has not yet
(24:15):
directly blamed Pakistan. But you have police officials telling media
that there's a link to this module.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Why do you think is this the case?
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Well, I go back to what Prime Minister Movies said
on the twelfth of May when he made that famous
speech putting out India's red lines, where he said that
every attack against India would be construed a terror attack.
The fact that there would be no distinction between non
state and uh you know uh state actors and nuclear
(24:46):
blackmail would not be tolerated. So this point about every attack,
every terror attack being construed as an attack on India
is a is a very important statement. And thereby uh
it basically says that India will have to respond to
a terror attack through force. Now, how do you distinguish
(25:09):
a terror attack of the magnitude that would determine a response?
So you have to be careful about that, and I
think that is what the government has been doing to
see the extent of this terror attack. What is the
kind of plan that they had, Did they actually carry
out the plan? Did we preempt them? And I think
the sense that I'm getting is that this attack was
(25:31):
actually pre empted. They preempted the terrorists module before they
could actually carry out that attack. And as they say,
with all you know, preventive action, it is that one
goal that you will be remembered for that you've missed
but you know, all the other saves, you would all
(25:52):
be forgotten. And in this case, it's a bit of
a gray area. You caught hold of the module before
they could do large scale damage. One of those guys
got away and he triggered off a blast. We don't
know exactly how. It's nine individuals. It's terrible what happened,
even that should not have happened. But does that warrant
a response from India? I think that is what the
(26:13):
political leadership must be thinking right now. And the silence
about this is exactly what you mentioned. Is they are
assessing the whole story, figuring out whether there was a
clear link between Jesh and this module, what was their plans,
who was in the loop, what did their plan to
(26:34):
strike at and if so, what would be the thing
and that would determine our response. So I think they're
being very measured in how they respond to this. There's
not going to be any quick instant action on that
based on what we've seen so far. I think the
government is playing a wait and watch strategy, but they
will definitely be a response. We don't know what kind.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
It will be, Yeah, right right, we'll talk more about this,
but a track quick.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Here is a very key component.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
No true manufacturer has been dominant in a way in
Formula E the way the manufacturers.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
A motorsport fan, true motorsport fan. This is something that
you will really we.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
Have seen manufacturers being dominant in a lot of series.
Let's talk w Let's talk w EC, Toyota, Posha, Perrari
since the comeback Formula one Perrari. I mean they used to,
but like Red Bull Mercedes now, but Formula E is
not like that. Formula E is different. No true driver,
(27:35):
no true manufacturer. I mean I don't mean true in
that sense, but like not one has just gone ahead
and dominated everything else, won everything. And you know, I
feel that's a good thing because, Okay, we have all
seen how manufacturers start losing the game once there's just
one driver and one manufacturer constantly winning, winning, winning. I mean,
(27:57):
I get bored when one guy is winning.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
But I think I think that's what true motorsport is
really about. Really high highs and then really low lows,
which is the perfect transition for the Gen three platform.
And just how difficult it was for Mahindra in this
period because they went from the highs of Gen two
(28:19):
to critical reliability issues to a point where their entire
internal management and their technical team needed to be restructured
from the ground up. They did not leave the sport,
they changed the way they were playing it, and that
(28:41):
again again is just testament to the tenacity of this manufacture.
They're like a pit bull. They've got their teeth in
and they're staying there.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Welcome back.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
We've been discussing the Delhi red food blast that took
place earlier this week. We've talked about the module that
is supposed to be behind it, the initial our initial
impressions of what has happened, how the Indian government has
reacted to it, or rather has not reacted to it,
and why So now I want to talk about Pakistan
and Field Marshal arsimun yir So. Like I said at
(29:22):
the beginning of this episode, even though the Indian government
has not formally directly linked Pakistan to it, you already
have officials telling media people that, you know, there is
a gelink somewhere. We're trying to determine that and before
the break you were talking about they're going to be
mediculously looking at how solid is that link.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
But I want to talk about Pakistan.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Because see, it would be very obvious that for a
cell like this to be able to operate, there has
to be some sort of background backing coming from Pakistan.
Otherwise it's not really possible, right that would be that
would be our thought. So before we but just before that,
(30:02):
I want to understand one thing. So because I'm very
new to this concept, I mean as in, I haven't
seen some a cell.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Like this so up close in my in my career.
You have. What I want to.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Understand is, so when you have all these cells across
India when you used to have them, whether it was
whatever terrorist organization, are they sort of like you know,
micro managed from across the borders or are they just
like you know that those cells are made, those are
infiltrated across the borders, they are you know in the society,
and then they just like do their own thing and
(30:34):
find their own way and carry out their own attacks.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Right, good question, Dave. And how a cell usually works
is that all the members of the cell will not
be in contact with the handlers, right, because that would
compromise the operation. So if there was a cell like
for instance, a Farida cell dot omer, if it was
actually proved that he was in touch with handlers across
(30:57):
the border, and there seems to be certain chat around that.
The fact is that it would be only him who
would be in touch with the handler and not everyone else.
So to the members of the cell, he would be
like this, you know, motivator and you know, the chief
plotter and the leader. He's the leader, but he won't
necessarily tell all of them that I'm in touch with
(31:20):
you know, ABC or X y Z across the border. Right,
So every cell usually has just one person who's in
contact with the handler, and that's done for reasons of
operational security. You don't want to compromise your operation. One
guy might get picked up or caught and he'll say that, oh, listen,
you know, we have a cell over year and we're
in touch with you know, our handlers across the border
(31:42):
and all that. So that's why, and possibly that is
the reason also that he might have decided to go
and kill himself or you know, trigger off that bomb.
We don't know exactly what happened, but the fact is
that what actually finally happened is that he blew up
in that car with a lot of explosives. So by
cutting the links between this module and external actors. So
(32:05):
it's always the case, and it was the case in
the Butler House thing as well, where there was an
entire module that was another that were carrying out cereal
blasts across the country that was linked to the Indian
Mujahideen and one person among them was supposed to have
been in contact with the handlers across the border.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Interesting, right, right, So Pakistan and Assimunir and this doctrine
of bleed India with a thousand cuts very interesting. I
did not know this until yesterday. There's an entire Wikipedia
page to bleed India with one thousand cuts to this doctrine.
So I never knew that it was something. I always
thought it was something you know, journalists and experts like you,
(32:47):
you used to sort of explain the larger theory of
what you're trying to explain to it. It's a very
short phrase and it is very you know, it's evocative
and you understand why instinctly what you're trying to see
with it. But there's an entire Wikipedia page deported to it.
It's sort of an overview, and you know how many
times it's supposed to have been used. So I want
you to do that, actually, Sandep sort of an academic
(33:08):
question before we talk about why Assimoni is reverting to
this film, to his doctrine that you said, was you know,
masterfully used by What is this doctrine? When did it
first come to be used amongst people like you in
the journalistic circles.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Well, so they've Pakistan has had Assimoni. Field Marshal Assimoni
is the fifth military dictator in Pakistan. There've been four
before him. There was the first one, of course is
Field Marshal Uh. This guy what's his name? Are? You
can't right? Field Marshal are you was the first dictator,
took over in fifty eight and gave up in eleven
(33:48):
years later, replaced by his successor, Yaya Khan. These two
guys were they went out, They came out, they came
with a lot of fanfare and glory, and they've retreated
in complete disgrace, both of them. Now things start to
change in seventy seven when Ziaoul Huck takes over General
Ziaoul Luck and he is condemned internationally for taking over power,
(34:14):
deposing Kaributo, murdering him. It was actually called a judicial
execution in Pakistan. But then lo and behold what happens
is the Soviet Union decides to invade Afghanistan, and Zia suddenly,
from a paraya becomes a frontline ally in the war
against the Soviet Union. Wherever we heard that before. He
keeps repeating his story, keeps repeating in Pakistan every couple
(34:37):
of decades, and Zia then becomes this frontline ally in
the US's war against the Soviet Union proxy war. And
what happens is between seventy nine and eighty eight, the US,
the CIA, and all the intelligence agents, even the Chinese,
they are supplying weapons to Zia and the Pakistan ISI
(34:59):
andization that was a very small you know, a dhaba,
a roadside dhaba becomes a big McDonald's franchise, right, that
is a transformation of this nineteen seventy nine to nineteen
eighty eight, this US supported war on the Soviet Union
proxy war on the Soviet Union. It transformed the ISI.
(35:21):
And when the Soviets retreated from Afghanistan in nineteen eighty
eight and the Soviet Union collapsed in nineteen ninety one,
do you know what it did to the generals in
jhk Rawal Pindi. They said, look, the Soviet Union, the
most powerful country in the world, was vanquished by us.
We played a, you know, such a key role in
that it collapsed. They withdrew from Afghanistan and then they collapsed.
(35:45):
We can do the same with India. And so you
saw from the nineteen eighties the full force of what
I call Operation Cyclones leftovers. Operation Cyclone was the entire
Cia funded arms pipeline into Pakistan, and we went into Afghanistan.
A lot of it was diverted first into Punjab, where
there was an insurgency that they had stoked from the
(36:07):
late eighties, from mid eighties to the early nineties, and
then in the early nineties into Jamun Kashmir. And the
Pakistan military was convinced that if we keep attacking India there,
tying down their soldiers over there and later carrying out
terror attacks across India, terrorizing India with this nuclear umbrella
(36:28):
that they had there was in the basement. Then in
the eighties it came out in nineteen ninety eight, India
would collapse. So their whole fundamental thing of their war
fighting strategy was this death by a thousand guts. You
bled the Indian Army in Jamun Kashmir, you carry out
terror attacks across the hinterland in Delhi, in Bombay and
(36:51):
Bangalore and low and behold, India will collapse. Something like
that is a strategy that they came up with so
to impose a lot of penalties. That's how this whole
death by a thousand cut strategy originated. And this was
something that originated in the General Ziaoul years and it
was actually implemented by Pervez Musharoff on a very large
(37:13):
scale post nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Okay, so tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
What did Musharaff do and where do you think Asimund
is now taking it?
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Well, what Musharoff did was that the UH militancy in Kashmi,
terrorism in Kashmir was confined to Jamu and Kashmi. It
never spilled out of the valley, so to say. But
after Kargil and particularly after the nuclearization of the subcontinent,
after the Pokron tests and then the Chugai test of
(37:43):
nineteen ninety eight, Musharaff is the one who figured out
this what we call today this nuclear weapons enabled terrorism strategy,
where he said, look, we can do what we want
to India will not retaliate conventionally using its superior military machine.
And you saw evidently of that. They first struck at
the Red Fort. That was a trial two thousand December
(38:06):
two thousand. Before that, you had the Kandahar hijack. Soon
after Kargill. Then you had two thousand and one, they
came and attacked Parliament, India's parliament, leading to a large
scale mobilization by India, Operation Parakhram. But then again, all
in the mushure of years, you had the serial bombings
all across India through these cutouts like Indian Mujaiden. You
(38:30):
had attacks in Mumbai, two very big attacks two thousand
and six, the July two thousand and six train bombings
in Mumbai where seven trains were bombed, two hundred and
nine people were killed. And then of course twenty sixty eleven.
All of this happened during General pervez musure of tenure.
Ashbak Perveskani was the DGISID, the first digiside to become
(38:55):
Army chief right Asimuni is only the second DGI side
to become Army chief. And in his case he has
also been the head of the military intelligence. So he's
both the ISI as well as them, and now he is,
to my understanding, trying to do what ZR did and
(39:15):
trying to do what mushrav did. That grant strategy that
MUSHEROV did of pushing terror attacks into India's heartland and
which was abandoned post twenty six eleven. You saw just
one or two blasts because Musharraf successors, Kayani, the Bajua,
Rahil Sharif they said, look, we don't want to do
(39:36):
this kind of thing. It's too risky. Muney Field Marshall.
Munei is a risk taker. If you look at it,
and he's restarted this strategy, he thinks that that's going
to get him. You know that that analogy that he
used in that meeting in the United States that India
is a Chinese sports car and I'm a dumpster, a
(39:58):
dump truck running over there he wants to He's actually
thinking like a suicide bomber. And that's really really dangerous
because what Munei doesn't realize is that the India of
twenty twenty five is not the India of Watchby. It's
not the India of mon Mourn Singh. You have a
prime Minister, Prime Minister Modi, who's called out nuclear blackmail,
(40:18):
who's understood the game plan, who's called out the nuclear blackmail,
who said there is nothing like state and non state.
And we saw that during Obsindur, when the Pakistan military
had to come out and acknowledge the fact that these
terrorists were actually their own actors, their own state actors, right,
and the fact that any major terror attack like twenty
(40:40):
six eleven or two thousand and six or nineteen ninety
three would be seen as an act of war. So
he is on extremely dangerous ground. And that is precisely
the reason that I believe that his clock started taking
the minute. Prime Minister More he gave that speech on
the twelfth of May where he drew those new red lines.
(41:01):
And that is why in the last six months, if
you've seen, Muni has been running hilter skelter all over
the world, first going to Saudi Arabia, then to China,
then to the United States, securing all his traditional external partners,
giving them whatever they wanted. You know, you want mineral
state minerals, you want nuclear weapons, stake nuclear weapons. Whatever
(41:23):
he has he's put on the table. And now, of
course this twenty seventh Amendment of the Pakistani Constitution, which
has made him the most powerful military figure in Pakistan
post its creation.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Yeah right, And you know, to just sort of take
this forward naturally and try to understand the motivations behind this.
Something briefly we talked about just before we began recording
is Muni as the person because you know, to a
lay person, to me, it sounds like, but yeah, Karnak,
you like, you know, running helter skelter. Your country is
(41:58):
in a messconomic bind. You are under so many you know,
the threat of so many sanctions from international agencies. You
have to constantly prove to them that you know, your
account sheet is fine, your funding dealings aren't bit terrist
organizations have to basically hide those transactions and sort of
present a clean, clean balance sheet.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
In all this.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Why why would a Pakistani general, why would a Pakistani
army chief decide, you know what, let me go back
to that old strategy of Paris Musharaff and needle India
and poke India and carry bleed India with a thousand cards.
Ultimately milnakyah. Well, good, good Christian, Dave. And you have
to understand the mindset of the Pakistan military. You know,
(42:39):
ever since they've taken over power in.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Nineteen fifty eight under a Field Marshal Muniz Field Marshal
Ayu can't Muni is the newest Field Marshal. But they've
never truly given up power. And what has happened is
that all the institutions that have existed in Pakistan, whether
it's the judiciary, whether it's the political class, whether it's
the citizen, rey the executive, all of these have been diminished.
(43:04):
So Pakistan has what I call a bondside democracy. You
have the military that is this gigantic structure, this huge
Banyan tree under which nothing grows. And with this twenty
seventh Amendment, Muni has finished off all the other institutions.
He's finished off the executive. The politicians are anyway at
his becon call. I mean, they're the weakest lot of
(43:27):
politicians that Pakistan has probably seen in probably half a century.
He's even you know, killed the judiciary with these with
the twenty seventh Amendment. The twenty sixth actually finished off
the judiciary, with the judicial appointments being decided by the executive.
He has systematically eroded all the institutions and it's only
(43:50):
the military that is standing now. The military sees everything
militarily right, what is their priority? Their priority is a
national security priority. And when you see everything through that prism,
as they say, when all you have in your hand
is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail to you.
(44:10):
You know, oh that's a nail bank. You know, India
is a nail. I must try and you know it's
a big nail. But I will try little with little, little,
you know cuts, I will radiuceage size. So that Pakistan
military is a very strange kind of a military. It's
not won a single war since nineteen forty seven. But
as Christine Fair, Professor Christine f Avid watcher of India
(44:31):
and Pakistan, she said that you have to understand how
they define victory for them. You know, defeat is when
they stop fighting. They might surrender, they might lose half
the country in seventy one, but they have to keep fighting.
For them. Defeat means when they stop fighting, when they
cease fighting, that is defeat. When you framed your entire
(44:53):
notions of victory and defeat, thus they will just want
to keep on fighting and fighting. And that's what Munia said.
I will just keep fighting. And that's why one of
her books is Christine Fair's books is called Fighting to
the End. And Munir now is this complete. He's a
bit of an unhinged character if you've seen his kind
(45:14):
of speeches, and these are speeches that even Zia and Musharaff,
for all their you know, wild natures, I mean, they've
done things that are pretty reprehensible, both of them, right.
I solely hold them responsible for a series of terror
attacks which have killed a lot of Indians, But they
never spoke like this the way Muni is. Munir speaks
(45:35):
like someone who actually believes in all of this, right,
he actually believes in holy war against India and that
this is actually a clash of the civilizations. Kind of
is the dangerous kind of a character, right in a
way that Musharaff was not. Musharoff might have actually expanded
Pakistan's war against the Indian heart and he's killed a
(45:58):
lot of Indian civilians. Right, But even his public pronouncement,
if you saw, were not as unhinged as Field Marshal Monis.
Where this entire thing of you know, screaming holy war.
Military chiefs don't do that, and especially people who are
vested with so much of power. And today he has
(46:20):
formalized the fact that of the nine nuclear weapons states,
there is only one in the world which directly controls
nuclear weapons. You know, the military is the only the
Pakistan military is the only military in the world that
directly controls nuclear weapons. And that's a very dangerous place
to be. And he believes that he can do what
(46:40):
the other dictators, the four dictators prior to him, tried
to do but couldn't, which is basically, tackle India, downsized
India a chief parity with India. Their whole game is
to achieve parity with India, keep fighting, doing all of that.
And I'm sure this is what he thinks as he
(47:00):
walks down that corridor or GHQ Robert Pindi. I haven't
seen pictures, but I assume that there must be a
corridor lined with portraits of Pakistan army chiefs, and Muni
possibly walks down that corridor and looks at them and
just you know, you guys couldn't do what I'm going
to be doing. I'm the man, you know, I'm the
most powerful you know, Phield Marshall in Pakistan's history. I'm
(47:23):
going to do all this what you guys tried and failed.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
I guess you saw that actually earlier this year when
a few days before the heal Cometer attack he gave
that rab rabbit speech and even the attack itself, you know,
it was the verbarity of which was quite like shocking.
I remember eating somewhere some some expert, I think a
retired police official officer said that it requires a special
(47:47):
kind of radicalization to train your your your terrorists to.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Kill people at point blank range.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
You know, It's one thing to train a squad of
you know, for gunman to go and bomb a place,
fight in place, kill people, but it's another to tell
them to take them hostage and kill them at point
lit rate. So that that sort of you know, maybe
I'm guessing is what you're sort of hinting at. We
talk about Money's mindset and what he thinks about himself
and the Holy War, which brings me to my question
(48:16):
about did India see him coming? So you know, I'll
take this example. When you have elections happening, and let's
say in the United States, the country that has you know,
significant uh, we have significant ties with you'll obviously have
the AMA car. You know, bring out the dossers and
do like sort of a red book green book analysis
(48:37):
of all candidates. You know, if Kamala Harris comes to power,
this is what we'll have to deal with. If Donald
Trump comes too far? With Donald come, I don't know
who knows what they love to deal with, because even
Donald Trump does not know what he has to deal
with the.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Next day is like he loves to see.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
But jokes apart, you would have many governments do that analysis.
You know, if these guys come to part this is
what will happen. If these guys come to us, this
is what I have to deal with. So you do
that analysis. Did India analyze the upcoming army chief Are
we analyzing upcoming army chiefs of Pakistan and thinking of
what happens when they come into the Chiefs Chiefs office
(49:12):
and what happens after that?
Speaker 1 (49:13):
Right?
Speaker 3 (49:13):
You know a good question there. And now the thing
is that this psycho profiling is done for all our
intelligence agencies do this as a matter of routine for
all political figures military figures across the border in both
China and in Pakistan. And I'm aware of the fact
that the one was done for Muni. But I'm not
(49:35):
sure whether they actually predicted that Muni would actually go
off like this on a rant and you know, reveal
his true colors in twenty twenty five, because if you
saw him pre twenty twenty five, he was pretty under
the radar. Actually, yes, everyone missed him. We didn't even
know who the Pakistan military troop was until he actually
stood up and gave that speech in twenty twenty five,
(49:58):
a few days before the Pilgam attack. So he's a
guy who kind of kept his convictions and his beliefs
to himself, deeply religious guy. All of that was known,
But I'm not sure whether any of the psycho profiling
predicted that he would actually strike the way he did,
and possibly also Trump, would he react the way he did?
(50:24):
Did we predicted? Did we become a bit too complacent
when Trump took over? These are big questions that I
think we must answer. Did our leadership miss that the
fact that Trump two point oh was going to be
very different from Trump one point oh? And he was
a man in a hurry in search of a legacy.
And what you saw is a meeting of these two
(50:47):
people in a hurry, Trump and money, and they are
now best buddies, right, and Trump is openly called him
my favorite general. And when American presidents say my favorite general,
then a lot of countries in the vicinity have to worry, right,
because that's how they love doing business, and that's where
(51:08):
the Pakistan military has always provided that. Yes, sir, yes, sir,
two bagsful. You know it's from the time of are
you to Yaya, to Zia, to Musharaff and now finally
as the general always delivers.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Right, So if you would take that point forward and
as the last point on this episode, because I don't
want to ask you a very typical question of you know,
what do you think is going to happen next? Shouldn't
be worried because you're not really questions you can answer
in black and white, not questions you can answer very easily.
But the question I'd rather ask you is our alarm
(51:46):
bells ringing within the establishment national security establishment about Assimuri
because he's going to be there for a while now, right,
especially thanks to what he's done with the constitution. Now
he's going to be the field Marshal the rest of
his for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
At some point, maybe.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
He'll appoint a general to oversee the daily affairs of
the army. But he'll wield control of the middle.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
He'll never give up the more.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
He wants interesting, interesting army. So you can answer that.
You talk about that as well when you answered this question,
before you answer this question. So, yeah, our alambing is
ringing in the establishment about us moon heir and that,
Oh we've got something crazy on the hands.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
It's going to be a tough fight going forward.
Speaker 3 (52:26):
Yeah, yes, Alam bells are ringing, but I don't think
it is something that we can't handle. Okay, that's my
you know, my understanding. Because money is here for the
long haul, right. He's given himself another extension which means
he can serve for another two years and then beyond that.
So he's literally like what Jen Ping is president for life,
(52:48):
He is phield marshal for life, and it is up
to him to decide when he wants to step down.
He's not very old, he's under sixty, right, so he
has a long road ahead of him unless something in
Pakistan happens. And every dictator has come to power in
Pakistan thinking they're there forever. But then you know, events,
(53:10):
dear boy, events, that's what happens. And we've seen that
with uh you know, with our absolute, meticulous precision. It's
happened to every single dictator. Are you Yaya Zaia Musharaf?
And now who knows could be munir'stern And there's one
(53:32):
person who's standing between Muni and his projections of power
and greatness and all of that is the man who's
in adiy Ala jail, right, Captain of the Pakistan, Captain
of the Pakistan team, former Prime Minister Imran Khan. If
Imran Khan bends to as Muni and he says, yes,
you are the supreme overlord and Field marshall and president
(53:56):
and general for life. I bow to the Please allow
me to come out and live my last years in
retirement or excile. Nothing stops money, right, there is no
threat on the horizon. I'm not even counting the the
TDP or those are terror terrorist actors, but politically, a
(54:17):
figure around whom civilians can coal this and then you know,
overthrow this hated dictator. Imran Khan is the only option.
Speaker 1 (54:26):
Yeah, I Rankan is the only option.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
And that's what we'll watch and we'll discuss on this
podcast as we go forward.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
But quick.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
Point about what you said, I want to know the answer.
I wanted the reason you said that Bun will not
give up the Army Chief's office because I thought it
would be very obvious. If he's field marshal, he won't
really need to be the Army chief. But you said
that won't happen by so because you know the.
Speaker 3 (54:50):
Whole command structure of the Pakistan military. Right, the core
commander is the only answer to the Army chief. Right,
they don't care about any field marshal. He can call
himself what a Chief of Force. He's got rid of COJC.
He's now calling himself the Chief of Defense Forces, which
means basically what's left of the Pakistan Air Force and
Navy will also come under the things. It is a
(55:10):
structure that's always existed in Pakistan. He's only formalized it,
but he will never move out of the Pakistan Army
Chiefs Post. Mushaf literally wept and gave way to Khanni
because the Americans forced him to, right, that was the
only force on earth that could get Mushav to give
up the Army Chiefs Post. Zia never gave up the
(55:31):
Army Chiefs Post, though a lot of the day to
day work was carried out by the Vice chief, so
he will probably appoint a vice chief and get his
work done through him as he did, as Musharoff did.
But they will never give up the Army chiefs thing
because the entire Pakistan military answers only to the Pakistan
Army Chief.
Speaker 2 (55:51):
Who I think the episode there then, thanks and deep
and I think like the Unian establishment, we're also want
to keep a very close eye on Simunir and discuss
more about him.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
When we need to.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
So thanks so much discussion, Thanks as always, thank you and.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
Thanks is always to a less and viewers. That's it
for the Speaks Defense toes for more tune in next week.
Then stay safe and not lost any boundaries with the passport.
Speaker 6 (56:23):
Yes here Nevali tan ta tau Ka or Sara hit
(56:45):
the dot May.
Speaker 1 (56:47):
Pitches Kam had to
Speaker 6 (56:55):
Kis Buys or Nay Major National Stadium neitherly to get
Uppi Bukarin arch that dot in slash Sa hit the
bar
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