Some senior officers of the Intelligence Bureau (India) establishment feel this was done to provoke the
Indian defence establishment and political opposition to retaliate, thus
undoing the India-Pakistan peace dialogue.
The Pathankot attack may have been masterminded by
the Pakistan Army's General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi, according to an
assessment by a top Indian intelligence official, says a prominent daily.
According to a senior intelligence official, the
Pakistan GHQ is puzzled and angered by the positive reaction of the
international community and media to PM Narendra Modi's Lahore diplomacy and
Nawaz Sharif's hospitality. The army has been feeling left out of the issue.
Though there were suggestions that the Pakistan
army had backed the recent peace outreach, the intelligence official disagrees.
It appears, rather, that ISI too is of the view that Modi's surprise visit to
Lahore created a favourable sentiment in Pakistan towards the civilian 'pro-peace'
regime.
The Pakistan Army and ISI this time did not use
their preferred Lashkar e-Taiba (LeT) responsible for 2008 Mumbai terror
attacks. Instead, they chose Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM_, a less known terror group,
to hit Pathankot. This, they felt, would ensure more deniability, says the
report.
Headed by Maulana Masood Azhar, one of three
terrorists swapped to end the IC-814 hostage crisis of 1999, JeM has been
resurrected over the past few years.
The Pathankot attackers were part of the Bahawalpur
group of JeM and spoke in Multani dialect, common to south Punjab, during phone
calls with their Pakistan-based masterminds. Four calls were made in the
intervening night of Friday and Saturday, three to terrorists' Pakistan-based
Jaish handlers and one to a family member of a fidayeen. The calls were
intercepted by Indian agencies, which is how the plot was unearthed.
While one of the fidayeen has been identified as
Nasir, the two handlers who were heard instructing the attackers to blow up
aircraft at Pathankot airbase were called Maulana Ashfaq and Haji Abdul
Shaqur.
In 2008, the 10-member LeT attack module, including
Kasab, was instructed in a similar way by their handlers from a control room in
Karachi as they carried out the carnage in Mumbai.
Sources said the objective of the Pathankot attack
was to cause damage to IAF assets and technical assets and kill as many
personnel as possible. Some senior officers of the Indian intelligence
establishment feel this was done to provoke the Indian defence establishment
and political opposition to retaliate, thus undoing the India-Pakistan peace
dialogue.
This would, in turn, also help bring back focus on
the Pakistan military's propaganda painting their country a victim of
terrorism, facing an aggressive eastern neighbour (India) and an Afghanistan
that is heavily pro-India.
Source:dna
