Laughing_soldier
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RAW's successes and failures
Major operations
ELINT operations in Himalayas:[30] After China tested its first nuclear weapons on October 16, 1964, at Lop Nur, Xinjiang, India and the USA shared a common fear about the nuclear capabilities of China.[31] Owing to the extreme remoteness of Chinese testing grounds and strict secrecy surrounding the Chinese nuclear programme, it was almost impossible to carry out any HUMINT operation. So, the CIA in the late 1960s decided to launch an ELINT operation along with R&AW and ARC to track China's nuclear tests and monitor its missile launches. The operation, in the garb of a mountaineering expedition to Nanda Devi involved celebrated Indian climber M S Kohli who along with operatives of Special Frontier Force and the CIA - most notably Jim Rhyne, a veteran STOL pilot - was to place a permanent ELINT device, a transceiver powered by a plutonium battery, that could detect and report data on future nuclear tests carried out by China.[32] The monitoring device was near successfully implanted on Nanda Devi, when an avalanche forced a hasty withdrawal.[33] Later, a subsequent mountain operation to retrieve or replant the device was aborted when it was found that the device was lost. Recent reports indicate that radiation traces from this device have been discovered in sediment below the mountain.[34] However, the actual data is not conclusive.
Creation of Bangladesh and aftermath:[35][36] In the early 1970s the army of Pakistan prosecuted a bloody military crackdown in response to the Bangladesh independence movement.[37][38] Nearly 10 million refugees fled to India. The R&AW's Bangladesh operation began in early 1970 by sowing discord among the disgruntled population of Bangladesh (then called East Pakistan), suffering repression by the Pakistani political establishment. This led to the creation of the Mukti Bahini. R&AW was responsible for supplying information and heavy ammunition to this organization. However within months of independence of Bangladesh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated at his residence. R&AW operatives claim that they had advance information about Mujib-ur-Rahman's assassination but Sheikh Mujib tragically ignored[6] R&AW's inputs. He was killed along with 40 members of his family. R&AW thus failed to prevent the assassination which led to the loss of a charismatic leader who had a soft corner for India after all they had done for his country's independence. However, R&AW has successfully thwarted plans of assassinating Sheikh Hasina Wazed, daughter of Mujibur Rahman, by Islamist extremists and the ISI.[39]
Hijack of Indian Airlines Fokker Friendship aircraft Ganga : On January 30, 1971 an Indian Airlines Fokker Friendship aircraft named Ganga was hijacked by two Kashmiris, Hashim Quereshi and his cousin Ashraf Butt and was flown to Lahore, Pakistan where the passengers and crew were released and plane was burnt on February 1, 1971.[40][41][42] Pakistan initially allowed media attention on the hijackers as heroes of Kashmir struggle but later branded them as Indian agents and sentenced them to prison terms.[41][43] India retaliated to the hijacking and subsequent burning of the aircraft by banning overflights by Pakistani aircraft. This overflight ban in the run up to the 1971 war had a significant impact on troop movement into erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.[41] It is alleged that R&AW planned and executed the hijack as false flag operation.[4] Incidentally Ganga was one of the oldest aircraft in the Indian Airline fleet and was already withdrawn from service but was re-inducted days before the hijack[41] further Hashim Quereshi was later disputably claimed to be a Border Security Force sub-inspector.[40]
Operation Smiling Buddha: Operation Smiling Buddha was the name given to India's nuclear programme. The task to keep it under tight wraps for security was given to R&AW.[44] This was the first time that R&AW was involved in a project inside India. On 18 May 1974, India detonated a 15-kiloton plutonium device at Pokhran and became a member of the nuclear club.[3]
Amalgamation of Sikkim: Bordered by Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and West Bengal in the Eastern Himalayas, Sikkim was ruled by a Maharaja. The Indian Government had recognized the title of Chogyal (Dharma Raja) for the Maharaja of Sikkim. In 1972, R&AW was authorized to install a pro-Indian democratic government there. In less than three years, Sikkim became the 22nd State of the Indian Union, on April 26, 1975.[3]
Kahuta's Blueprint:[45][46] Kahuta is the site of the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), Pakistan's main nuclear weapons laboratory as well as an emerging center for long-range missile development. The primary Pakistani fissile-material production facility is located at Kahuta, employing gas centrifuge enrichment technology to produce Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). R&AW first confirmed Pakistan's nuclear programs by analyzing the hair samples snatched from the floor of barber shops near KRL; which showed that Pakistan had developed the ability to enrich uranium to weapons-grade quality. R&AW agents knew of Kahuta Research Laboratories from at least early 1978,[47] when the then Indian Prime Minister, Morarji Desai, stopped R&AW's operations on Pakistan's covert nuclear weapons program. In an indiscreet moment in a telephone conversation one day, Morarji Desai
informed the then Pakistan President, Zia-ul-Haq, that India was aware of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. According to later reports, acting on this "tip-off", Pakistani Intelligence eliminated R&AW's sources on Kahuta, leaving India in the dark about Pakistan's nuclear weapons program from then on.[3][4][48]
Operation Meghdoot: R&AW received information from the London company which had supplied Arctic-weather gear for Indian troops from Northern Ladakh region some paramilitary forces that Pakistan too had bought similar Arctic-weather gear.[49] This information was shared with Indian Army which soon launched Operation Meghdoot to take control of Siachen Glacier with around 300[49] acclimatized troops were airlifted to Siachen before Pakistan could launch any operation resulting in Indian head start and eventual Indian domination of all major peaks in Siachen.[49]
Kanishka Bombing case:[50][51][52] On 23 June 1985 Air India's Flight 182 was blown up near Ireland and 329 innocent lives were lost. On the same day, another explosion took place at Tokyo's Narita airport's transit baggage building where baggage was being transferred from Cathay Pacific Flight No CP 003 to Air India Flight 301 which was scheduled for Bangkok. Both aircraft were loaded with explosives from Canadian airports. Flight 301 got saved because of a delay in its departure. This was considered as a major set back to R&AW for failing to gather enough intelligence about the Khalistani terrorists.[53][54]
Special Operations: In the mid-1980s, R&AW set up two covert groups, Counterintelligence Team-X(CIT-X) and Counterintelligence Team-J(CIT-J), the first directed at Pakistan[55] and the second at Khalistani groups. Rabinder Singh, the R&AW double agent who defected to the United States in 2004, helped run CIT-J in its early years. Both these covert groups used the services of cross-border traffickers to ferry weapons and funds across the border, much as their ISI counterparts were doing. According to former R&AW official and noted security analyst B. Raman, the Indian counter-campaign yielded results. "The role of our cover action capability in putting an end to the ISI's interference in Punjab", he wrote in 2002, "by making such interference prohibitively costly is little known and understood." These covert operations were discontinued during the tenure of IK Gujral and were never restarted.[56] As per B Raman the former R&AW cabinet secretary, such covert operations were successful in keeping a check on ISI and were "responsible for ending the Khalistani insurgency".[57] He also notes that a lack of such covert capabilities, since they were closed down in 1997, has left the country even more vulnerable than before and says that developing covert capabilities is the need of the hour.[58]
Operation Cactus:[59] In November 1988, the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), composed of about 200 Tamil secessionist rebels, invaded Maldives. At the request of the president of Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the Indian Armed Forces, with assistance from R&AW, launched a military campaign to throw the mercenaries out of Maldives. On the night of November 3, 1988, the Indian Air Force airlifted the 6th parachute battalion of the Parachute Regiment from Agra and flew them over 2,000 km to Maldives. The Indian paratroopers landed at Hulule and restored the Government rule at Malé within hours. The operation, labelled Operation Cactus, also involved the Indian Navy. Swift operation by the military and precise intelligence by R&AW quelled the insurgency.[3]
Sri Lanka:[60][61] R&AW started training the LTTE to keep a check on Sri Lanka, which had helped Pakistan in the Indo-Pak War by allowing Pakistani ships to refuel at Sri Lankan ports. However, the LTTE created a lot of problems and complications and the then Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi was forced to send the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in 1987 to restore normalcy in the region. The disastrous mission of the IPKF was blamed by many on the lack of coordination between the IPKF and R&AW. Its most disastrous manifestation was the Heliborne assault on LTTE HQ in the Jaffna University campus in the opening stages of Operation Pawan. The site was chosen without any consultation with the R&AW. The dropping paratroopers became easy targets for the LTTE. A number of soldiers were killed. The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi is also blamed as a fallout of the failed R&AW operation in Sri Lanka.[62]
Operation Chanakya:[63] This was the R&AW operation in the Kashmir region to infiltrate various ISI-backed Kashmiri separatist groups and restore peace in the Kashmir valley. R&AW operatives infiltrated the area, collected military intelligence, and provided evidence about ISI's involvement in training and funding Kashmiri separatist groups.[64][65] R&AW was successful not only in unearthing the links between the ISI and the separatist groups, but also in infiltrating and neutralizing the militancy in the Kashmir valley.[66][67][68] R&AW is also credited for creating a split in the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.[69] Operation Chanakya also marked the creation of pro-Indian groups in Kashmir like the Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen, Muslim Mujahideen etc. These counter-insurgencies consist of ex-militants and relatives of those slain in the conflict. Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen leader Kokka Parrey was himself assassinated by separatists.[2]
Help to the Northern Alliance: After the rise of Pakistan and American backed Taliban in Afghanistan, India decided to side with the Northern Alliance and the Soviet Union[70] By 1996, R&AW had built a 25 bed military hospital[71] at the Farkhor Air Base.[72] This airport was used by the Aviation Research Centre, the reconnaissance arm of R&AW, to repair and operate the Northern Alliance's aerial support. This relationship was further cemented in the 2001 Afgan war. India supplied the Northern Alliance high altitude warfare equipment worth around US$810 million.[73][74] R&AW was the first intelligence agency to determine the extent of the Kunduz airlift.[75]
Kargil War: R&AW was heavily criticized in 1999, following the Pakistani incursions at Kargil. Critics accused R&AW of failing to provide intelligence that could have prevented the ensuing ten-week conflict that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of a full-scale war. While the Army has been critical of the information they received,[75] R&AW has pointed the finger at the politicians, claiming they had provided all the necessary information. However, R&AW was successful in intercepting a telephonic conversation between Pervez Musharraf, the then Pakistan Army Chief who was in Beijing and his chief of staff Lt. Gen. Mohammed Aziz in Islamabad.[76] This tape was later published by India to prove Pakistani involvement in the Kargil incursion.[76][77]
Operation Leech: Surrounded by Arakans and dense forest, Myanmar had always been a worrisome point for Indian intelligence. As the major player in the area, India has sought to promote democracy and install friendly governments in the region. To these ends, R&AW cultivated Burmese rebel groups and pro-democracy coalitions, especially the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). India allowed the KIA to carry a limited trade in jade and precious stones using Indian territory and even supplied them weapons. It is further alleged that KIA chief Maran Brang Seng met the R&AW chief in Delhi twice. However, when the KIA became the main source of training and weapons for all northeastern rebel groups, R&AW initiated an operation, code named Operation Leech, to assassinate the leaders of the Burmese rebels as an example to other groups. Six top rebel leaders, including military wing chief of National Unity Party of Arakans (NUPA), Khaing Raza, were shot dead and 34 Arakanese guerrillas were arrested and charged with gunrunning.[3][78]
War on Terror: Although R&AW's contribution to the War on Terror is highly classified, the organization gained some attention in the Western media after claims that it was assisting the United States by providing intelligence on Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban's whereabouts. Maps and photographs of terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan along with other evidence implicating Osama bin Laden in terrorist attacks were given to US intelligence officials. R&AW's role in the War on Terror may increase as US intelligence has indicated that it sees R&AW as a more reliable ally than Pakistani intelligence. It has further come to light that a timely tip-off by R&AW helped foil a third assassination plot against Pakistan's former President, General Pervez Musharraf.[4][79]
2008 Mumbai attacks: About 26 months before 26/11 Mumbai attacks R&AW had intercepted several telephone calls through SIGINT[80]
which pointed at impending attacks on Mumbai Hotels by Pakistan based terrorists,[81] however there was a coordination failure 
and no follow up action was taken.[82] Few hours before the attacks, a R&AW technician monitoring satellite transmissions picked up conversations between attackers and handlers, as the attackers were sailing toward Mumbai. The technician flagged the conversations as being suspicious and passed them on to his superiors. R&AW believed that they were worrying and immediately alerted the office of the National Security Advisor. However the intelligence was ignored. [83] Later, just after the terrorists had attacked Mumbai, R&AW technicians started monitoring the six phones used by the terrorists and recorded conversations between the terrorists and their handlers.[84] On January 15, 2010, in a successful snatch operation R&AW agents nabbed Sheikh Abdul Khwaja, one of the handlers of the 26/11 attacks, chief of HuJI India operations and a most wanted terror suspect in India, from Colombo, Sri Lanka and brought him over to Hyderabad, India for formal arrest.[85]
Snatch operations with IB: In late 2009, investigative journal The Week ran a cover story on one of India's major clandestine operations that the R&AW ran with Intelligence Bureau to nab terrorists infiltrating India, via Nepal and other neighboring countries.[86] In order to bypass the lengthy extradition process, R&AW conducts snatch operations to nab suspects from various foreign countries. The suspect is brought to India, interrogated and is usually produced before a court. With emergence of Nepal as a terror transit point R&AW and the IB started closely monitoring the movement of suspected terrorists in Nepal. According to The Week in last decade there has been close to 400 successful snatch operations conducted by R&AW and/or IB in Nepal, Bangladesh and other countries. Some famous snatch netted Bhupinder Singh Bhuda of the Khalistan Commando Force, Lashkar militant Tariq Mehmood, Sheikh Abdul Khwaja, one of the handlers of the 26/11 attacks etc. most of the suspects are kept at Tihar Jail.
Major operations
ELINT operations in Himalayas:[30] After China tested its first nuclear weapons on October 16, 1964, at Lop Nur, Xinjiang, India and the USA shared a common fear about the nuclear capabilities of China.[31] Owing to the extreme remoteness of Chinese testing grounds and strict secrecy surrounding the Chinese nuclear programme, it was almost impossible to carry out any HUMINT operation. So, the CIA in the late 1960s decided to launch an ELINT operation along with R&AW and ARC to track China's nuclear tests and monitor its missile launches. The operation, in the garb of a mountaineering expedition to Nanda Devi involved celebrated Indian climber M S Kohli who along with operatives of Special Frontier Force and the CIA - most notably Jim Rhyne, a veteran STOL pilot - was to place a permanent ELINT device, a transceiver powered by a plutonium battery, that could detect and report data on future nuclear tests carried out by China.[32] The monitoring device was near successfully implanted on Nanda Devi, when an avalanche forced a hasty withdrawal.[33] Later, a subsequent mountain operation to retrieve or replant the device was aborted when it was found that the device was lost. Recent reports indicate that radiation traces from this device have been discovered in sediment below the mountain.[34] However, the actual data is not conclusive.
Creation of Bangladesh and aftermath:[35][36] In the early 1970s the army of Pakistan prosecuted a bloody military crackdown in response to the Bangladesh independence movement.[37][38] Nearly 10 million refugees fled to India. The R&AW's Bangladesh operation began in early 1970 by sowing discord among the disgruntled population of Bangladesh (then called East Pakistan), suffering repression by the Pakistani political establishment. This led to the creation of the Mukti Bahini. R&AW was responsible for supplying information and heavy ammunition to this organization. However within months of independence of Bangladesh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated at his residence. R&AW operatives claim that they had advance information about Mujib-ur-Rahman's assassination but Sheikh Mujib tragically ignored[6] R&AW's inputs. He was killed along with 40 members of his family. R&AW thus failed to prevent the assassination which led to the loss of a charismatic leader who had a soft corner for India after all they had done for his country's independence. However, R&AW has successfully thwarted plans of assassinating Sheikh Hasina Wazed, daughter of Mujibur Rahman, by Islamist extremists and the ISI.[39]
Hijack of Indian Airlines Fokker Friendship aircraft Ganga : On January 30, 1971 an Indian Airlines Fokker Friendship aircraft named Ganga was hijacked by two Kashmiris, Hashim Quereshi and his cousin Ashraf Butt and was flown to Lahore, Pakistan where the passengers and crew were released and plane was burnt on February 1, 1971.[40][41][42] Pakistan initially allowed media attention on the hijackers as heroes of Kashmir struggle but later branded them as Indian agents and sentenced them to prison terms.[41][43] India retaliated to the hijacking and subsequent burning of the aircraft by banning overflights by Pakistani aircraft. This overflight ban in the run up to the 1971 war had a significant impact on troop movement into erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.[41] It is alleged that R&AW planned and executed the hijack as false flag operation.[4] Incidentally Ganga was one of the oldest aircraft in the Indian Airline fleet and was already withdrawn from service but was re-inducted days before the hijack[41] further Hashim Quereshi was later disputably claimed to be a Border Security Force sub-inspector.[40]
Operation Smiling Buddha: Operation Smiling Buddha was the name given to India's nuclear programme. The task to keep it under tight wraps for security was given to R&AW.[44] This was the first time that R&AW was involved in a project inside India. On 18 May 1974, India detonated a 15-kiloton plutonium device at Pokhran and became a member of the nuclear club.[3]
Amalgamation of Sikkim: Bordered by Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and West Bengal in the Eastern Himalayas, Sikkim was ruled by a Maharaja. The Indian Government had recognized the title of Chogyal (Dharma Raja) for the Maharaja of Sikkim. In 1972, R&AW was authorized to install a pro-Indian democratic government there. In less than three years, Sikkim became the 22nd State of the Indian Union, on April 26, 1975.[3]
Kahuta's Blueprint:[45][46] Kahuta is the site of the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), Pakistan's main nuclear weapons laboratory as well as an emerging center for long-range missile development. The primary Pakistani fissile-material production facility is located at Kahuta, employing gas centrifuge enrichment technology to produce Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). R&AW first confirmed Pakistan's nuclear programs by analyzing the hair samples snatched from the floor of barber shops near KRL; which showed that Pakistan had developed the ability to enrich uranium to weapons-grade quality. R&AW agents knew of Kahuta Research Laboratories from at least early 1978,[47] when the then Indian Prime Minister, Morarji Desai, stopped R&AW's operations on Pakistan's covert nuclear weapons program. In an indiscreet moment in a telephone conversation one day, Morarji Desai
informed the then Pakistan President, Zia-ul-Haq, that India was aware of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. According to later reports, acting on this "tip-off", Pakistani Intelligence eliminated R&AW's sources on Kahuta, leaving India in the dark about Pakistan's nuclear weapons program from then on.[3][4][48]Operation Meghdoot: R&AW received information from the London company which had supplied Arctic-weather gear for Indian troops from Northern Ladakh region some paramilitary forces that Pakistan too had bought similar Arctic-weather gear.[49] This information was shared with Indian Army which soon launched Operation Meghdoot to take control of Siachen Glacier with around 300[49] acclimatized troops were airlifted to Siachen before Pakistan could launch any operation resulting in Indian head start and eventual Indian domination of all major peaks in Siachen.[49]
Kanishka Bombing case:[50][51][52] On 23 June 1985 Air India's Flight 182 was blown up near Ireland and 329 innocent lives were lost. On the same day, another explosion took place at Tokyo's Narita airport's transit baggage building where baggage was being transferred from Cathay Pacific Flight No CP 003 to Air India Flight 301 which was scheduled for Bangkok. Both aircraft were loaded with explosives from Canadian airports. Flight 301 got saved because of a delay in its departure. This was considered as a major set back to R&AW for failing to gather enough intelligence about the Khalistani terrorists.[53][54]
Special Operations: In the mid-1980s, R&AW set up two covert groups, Counterintelligence Team-X(CIT-X) and Counterintelligence Team-J(CIT-J), the first directed at Pakistan[55] and the second at Khalistani groups. Rabinder Singh, the R&AW double agent who defected to the United States in 2004, helped run CIT-J in its early years. Both these covert groups used the services of cross-border traffickers to ferry weapons and funds across the border, much as their ISI counterparts were doing. According to former R&AW official and noted security analyst B. Raman, the Indian counter-campaign yielded results. "The role of our cover action capability in putting an end to the ISI's interference in Punjab", he wrote in 2002, "by making such interference prohibitively costly is little known and understood." These covert operations were discontinued during the tenure of IK Gujral and were never restarted.[56] As per B Raman the former R&AW cabinet secretary, such covert operations were successful in keeping a check on ISI and were "responsible for ending the Khalistani insurgency".[57] He also notes that a lack of such covert capabilities, since they were closed down in 1997, has left the country even more vulnerable than before and says that developing covert capabilities is the need of the hour.[58]
Operation Cactus:[59] In November 1988, the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), composed of about 200 Tamil secessionist rebels, invaded Maldives. At the request of the president of Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the Indian Armed Forces, with assistance from R&AW, launched a military campaign to throw the mercenaries out of Maldives. On the night of November 3, 1988, the Indian Air Force airlifted the 6th parachute battalion of the Parachute Regiment from Agra and flew them over 2,000 km to Maldives. The Indian paratroopers landed at Hulule and restored the Government rule at Malé within hours. The operation, labelled Operation Cactus, also involved the Indian Navy. Swift operation by the military and precise intelligence by R&AW quelled the insurgency.[3]
Sri Lanka:[60][61] R&AW started training the LTTE to keep a check on Sri Lanka, which had helped Pakistan in the Indo-Pak War by allowing Pakistani ships to refuel at Sri Lankan ports. However, the LTTE created a lot of problems and complications and the then Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi was forced to send the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in 1987 to restore normalcy in the region. The disastrous mission of the IPKF was blamed by many on the lack of coordination between the IPKF and R&AW. Its most disastrous manifestation was the Heliborne assault on LTTE HQ in the Jaffna University campus in the opening stages of Operation Pawan. The site was chosen without any consultation with the R&AW. The dropping paratroopers became easy targets for the LTTE. A number of soldiers were killed. The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi is also blamed as a fallout of the failed R&AW operation in Sri Lanka.[62]
Operation Chanakya:[63] This was the R&AW operation in the Kashmir region to infiltrate various ISI-backed Kashmiri separatist groups and restore peace in the Kashmir valley. R&AW operatives infiltrated the area, collected military intelligence, and provided evidence about ISI's involvement in training and funding Kashmiri separatist groups.[64][65] R&AW was successful not only in unearthing the links between the ISI and the separatist groups, but also in infiltrating and neutralizing the militancy in the Kashmir valley.[66][67][68] R&AW is also credited for creating a split in the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.[69] Operation Chanakya also marked the creation of pro-Indian groups in Kashmir like the Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen, Muslim Mujahideen etc. These counter-insurgencies consist of ex-militants and relatives of those slain in the conflict. Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen leader Kokka Parrey was himself assassinated by separatists.[2]
Help to the Northern Alliance: After the rise of Pakistan and American backed Taliban in Afghanistan, India decided to side with the Northern Alliance and the Soviet Union[70] By 1996, R&AW had built a 25 bed military hospital[71] at the Farkhor Air Base.[72] This airport was used by the Aviation Research Centre, the reconnaissance arm of R&AW, to repair and operate the Northern Alliance's aerial support. This relationship was further cemented in the 2001 Afgan war. India supplied the Northern Alliance high altitude warfare equipment worth around US$810 million.[73][74] R&AW was the first intelligence agency to determine the extent of the Kunduz airlift.[75]
Kargil War: R&AW was heavily criticized in 1999, following the Pakistani incursions at Kargil. Critics accused R&AW of failing to provide intelligence that could have prevented the ensuing ten-week conflict that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of a full-scale war. While the Army has been critical of the information they received,[75] R&AW has pointed the finger at the politicians, claiming they had provided all the necessary information. However, R&AW was successful in intercepting a telephonic conversation between Pervez Musharraf, the then Pakistan Army Chief who was in Beijing and his chief of staff Lt. Gen. Mohammed Aziz in Islamabad.[76] This tape was later published by India to prove Pakistani involvement in the Kargil incursion.[76][77]
Operation Leech: Surrounded by Arakans and dense forest, Myanmar had always been a worrisome point for Indian intelligence. As the major player in the area, India has sought to promote democracy and install friendly governments in the region. To these ends, R&AW cultivated Burmese rebel groups and pro-democracy coalitions, especially the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). India allowed the KIA to carry a limited trade in jade and precious stones using Indian territory and even supplied them weapons. It is further alleged that KIA chief Maran Brang Seng met the R&AW chief in Delhi twice. However, when the KIA became the main source of training and weapons for all northeastern rebel groups, R&AW initiated an operation, code named Operation Leech, to assassinate the leaders of the Burmese rebels as an example to other groups. Six top rebel leaders, including military wing chief of National Unity Party of Arakans (NUPA), Khaing Raza, were shot dead and 34 Arakanese guerrillas were arrested and charged with gunrunning.[3][78]
War on Terror: Although R&AW's contribution to the War on Terror is highly classified, the organization gained some attention in the Western media after claims that it was assisting the United States by providing intelligence on Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban's whereabouts. Maps and photographs of terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan along with other evidence implicating Osama bin Laden in terrorist attacks were given to US intelligence officials. R&AW's role in the War on Terror may increase as US intelligence has indicated that it sees R&AW as a more reliable ally than Pakistani intelligence. It has further come to light that a timely tip-off by R&AW helped foil a third assassination plot against Pakistan's former President, General Pervez Musharraf.[4][79]
2008 Mumbai attacks: About 26 months before 26/11 Mumbai attacks R&AW had intercepted several telephone calls through SIGINT[80]
which pointed at impending attacks on Mumbai Hotels by Pakistan based terrorists,[81] however there was a coordination failure and no follow up action was taken.[82] Few hours before the attacks, a R&AW technician monitoring satellite transmissions picked up conversations between attackers and handlers, as the attackers were sailing toward Mumbai. The technician flagged the conversations as being suspicious and passed them on to his superiors. R&AW believed that they were worrying and immediately alerted the office of the National Security Advisor. However the intelligence was ignored. [83] Later, just after the terrorists had attacked Mumbai, R&AW technicians started monitoring the six phones used by the terrorists and recorded conversations between the terrorists and their handlers.[84] On January 15, 2010, in a successful snatch operation R&AW agents nabbed Sheikh Abdul Khwaja, one of the handlers of the 26/11 attacks, chief of HuJI India operations and a most wanted terror suspect in India, from Colombo, Sri Lanka and brought him over to Hyderabad, India for formal arrest.[85]Snatch operations with IB: In late 2009, investigative journal The Week ran a cover story on one of India's major clandestine operations that the R&AW ran with Intelligence Bureau to nab terrorists infiltrating India, via Nepal and other neighboring countries.[86] In order to bypass the lengthy extradition process, R&AW conducts snatch operations to nab suspects from various foreign countries. The suspect is brought to India, interrogated and is usually produced before a court. With emergence of Nepal as a terror transit point R&AW and the IB started closely monitoring the movement of suspected terrorists in Nepal. According to The Week in last decade there has been close to 400 successful snatch operations conducted by R&AW and/or IB in Nepal, Bangladesh and other countries. Some famous snatch netted Bhupinder Singh Bhuda of the Khalistan Commando Force, Lashkar militant Tariq Mehmood, Sheikh Abdul Khwaja, one of the handlers of the 26/11 attacks etc. most of the suspects are kept at Tihar Jail.
nothing but propaganda
