By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : Although both India and Pakistan are fielding a more mature strategic nuclear capability, they do not appear to be engaged in a Cold War-style arms race, a top US intelligence official assesses.
“We note that missile tests and new force deployments over the past three years have not affected the ongoing political dialogue,” Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday.
Giving the senators the intelligence community’s annual unclassified threat assessment, he said: “We judge the ongoing political uncertainty in Pakistan has not seriously threatened the military’s control of the nuclear arsenal, but vulnerabilities exist, today.
“The Pakistan Army oversees nuclear programmes, including security responsibilities, and we judge that the army’s management of nuclear policy issues – to include physical security – has not been degraded by Pakistan’s political crisis,” he said.
However, in an ominous disclosure for India, McConnell warned that Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) and other Kashmir-focused groups would continue to plan and carry out attacks in India.
“Shia and Hindu religious observances are possible targets, as are transportation networks and government buildings,” he said.
“We judge Kashmir-focused groups will continue to support the attacks in Afghanistan, and operatives trained by the groups will continue to feature in Al Qaeda transnational attack planning,” McConnell added.
Al Qaeda and its affiliates remain the most pressing terrorist threats to the US and its allies, and Al Qaeda’s central leadership based in the border area of Pakistan is its most dangerous component, the retired navy vice admiral said.
Al Qaeda, he said, has been able to retain a safe haven in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) that provides the organisation many of the advantages it once derived from its base across the border in Afghanistan, albeit on a smaller and less secure scale.
The FATA serves as a staging area for Al Qaeda’s attacks in support of the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as a location for training new terrorist operatives, for attacks in Pakistan, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the US.
Using the sanctuary in the border area of Pakistan, Al Qaeda has been able to maintain a cadre of skilled lieutenants capable of directing the organisation’s operations around the world, he said.
It has lost many of its senior operational planners over the years, but the group’s adaptable decision making process and bench of skilled operatives have enabled it to identify effective replacements.
McConnell suggested that Pakistan was establishing a new modus vivendi among the army, the president and elected civilian leaders now that Musharraf had stepped down as army chief.
Pakistani authorities were increasingly determined to strengthen their counter-terrorism performance, even during a period of heightened political tension that he said the US expert expect to continue over the next year.
Radical elements in Pakistan have the potential to undermine the country’s cohesiveness, he said. He warned: “The terrorist assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto could embolden Pashtun militants, increasing their confidence that they can strike the Pakistani establishment anywhere in the country.”
The killing of Bhutto weakens the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the political party in Pakistan with the broadest national reach and most secular orientation, McConnell said.
However, sympathetic voters could give the party the largest number of assembly seats in the upcoming national elections.
The Pakistani government’s current plans will require intensified and sustained efforts to orchestrate the administrative, economic, educational, legal and social reforms required to defeat Islamic extremism and militancy, he said.