SEVERAL WESTERN security agencies have been working closely with India to try to thwart militant attacks on the Commonwealth Games from Pakistan-based Islamist groups.
Over the past year, intelligence officials from the US, Australia, Britain and other European states have been liaising with their Indian counterparts to prevent such a strike which, if it occurred, would stoke tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours who have fought three wars since independence in 1947.
That in turn could impinge adversely on Pakistani military efforts in fighting Islamist militants in its federally administered tribal regions adjoining Afghanistan, which pose a grave threat to US and Nato forces there.
For Islamabad, peace with India on its eastern front is predicated on its seriousness in engaging militant groups like the Taliban and associated al-Qaeda affiliates on its western borders who used Pakistani territory as a safe haven to regroup before attacking western troops in Afghanistan. CIA chief Leon Panetta was in Delhi recently, travelling from Islamabad where he reportedly called for “co-operation” from his Pakistani counterparts in ensuring no Islamist group executed any terror attack similar to the November 2008 strike on Mumbai in which 166 people died.
Mr Panetta is believed to have asked Islamabad to “rein in” the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT or Army of the Pure) Islamist group, 10 of whose cadres besieged two hotels and a Jewish centre for nearly three days in Mumbai two years ago after raking the city’s crowded main rail terminus with gunfire.
Banned by the UN five years ago and believed to have close links to the Pakistani military and the omnipotent Inter Services Intelligence Directorate, the LeT has grown in both capability and reach, Indian and western intelligence officials claimed.
There have been fears in some European cities recently of an attack by Islamic extremists similar to that which took place in Mumbai.
Concerns that the Commonwealth Games may be targeted emerged earlier this year when the 313 brigade, an operational arm of al-Qaeda, threatened to wreak havoc across India during the games unless the Indian army pulled out of the northern, disputed Kashmir province.