R&AW and KAO

Count Alexandre de Marenches, erstwhile head of the French external intelligence agency, or SDECE (Service For External Documentation And Counter-Intelligence) as it was then known, named Kao as one of the ‘five great intelligence chiefs of the 1970s’. About Mr.Kao, whom he knew well and admired, the Count remarked:
“ 

What a fascinating mix of physical and mental elegance! What accomplishments! What friendships! And, yet so shy of talking about himself, his accomplishments and his friends.“
”

Alexandre praised the way Kao had build up R&AW into a professional intelligence organisation and made it play a key role to change the strategic face of the Indian Subcontinent within a span of three years of R&AWs formation

inter intelligence work

In late 60’s CIA was working with ISI to fawn and promote Khalistani Movement, It was working with Chinese so that India dosnt disintegrate West Pakistan (Baluchistan) and with R&AW so that Chinese dosnt Occupy North Burma region.

Strange? Yet true. As per Ex-Kao it was a normal thing in Intelligence circle. Interesting right?

R&AW and 1962 war

A major cause of Defeat in 1962 war was Intelligence failure of IB.
Indian army were taken aback when the mulers(one with mules) opened a war front from the Burmese side. They were actually Military officials from Chinse army. They took advantage of Absence of Burmese officials from the ‘No Man’ land’. IB had given some reports about this unusual increase in no of mulers but this was dismissed by Babus in Luteyns by claiming it to be paranoia.

1968 When RAW was incepted , they came to know about another major blunder , the Indian High Commission in Burma had allowed Chinese military airplanes to photograph Indo-Burmese border. After this came to light , no follow up action took place and neither did R&AW Press the matter much, they dint want to strain relations with MEA right at its infancy.

R&AW

ISI and CIA and the Chinese Intelligence Agency has been meddling in India’ Internal Affairs since late 50’s. All 3 were responsible for trouble brewing in Punjab and ISI/Chinese were Responsible for insurgency in Mizoram (MNF) and Nagalan (NSCN), by providing them training , arms , ammunition in East Pakistan(Bangladesh) and Yunan. R&AW/IB/Military Intelligence along with Burmese army was able to stop this insurgency and break Shadow war against India. 

Also , terrorist leader from MNF was installed as first CM of mizoram. Peace then returned in the state. He was a guest of ISI for several months in Karachi.

#RAW #CIA #CHINA

In 1964 intelligence reports kept indicating that China was preparing to test a nuclear bomb at its Lop Nor nuclear installation in Xinjiang. On 16 October 1964 China tested a nuclear weapon in Xinjiang. It was expected but not enough details were known. Later in November 1964, the CIA launched a U2 flight out of Aviation Research Centre (ARC)’s Charbatia Air Base in Orissa, but its return turned out to be a bit of a mishap. The U2 overshot the runway and got stuck in slushy ground caused by heavy rain in the monsoons. Following the normalization of Sino-Indian Relations after Deng Xiao Ping’s market reform the SFF ceased most of their operations within the PRC.

Getting it unstuck and out of India without being noticed by the Indian press, then even much more subject to leftist influences and hence antagonistic to the USA, was another clandestine operation. This gave all concerned quite a scare and it was decided to rely on other technical means. So CIA 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 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.[10] The plan to install a snooping device was hatched far away in Washington D.C., in the offices of the National Geographic Society. Barry Bishop, a photographer with the magazine, interested Gen. Curtis LeMay of the US Air Force in the idea.

The actual efforts called for to place a permanent electronic intelligence (ELINT) device powered by a nuclear SNAP 19C power pack fuel cell. The first attempt to place this device on the Nanda Devi, by a Kohli-led SFF team under the cover of a mountaineering expedition failed as the team had to retreat in the face of adverse conditions and left the device in a small unmarked mountain cave after having hauled the device to just short of the 25,645 feet peak. When another Kohli-led expedition returned the following year to recover the device, it was found to be missing.

In the meantime the Chinese not only kept testing nuclear weapons at regular intervals but also ballistic missiles. The urgency to gather information was never greater. Another mission was launched in 1967 to place a similar device on the Nanda Kot. This mission was successful but a couple of years later another problem cropped up; snow would pile up over the antenna and render it blind. So Kohli and a SFF team were sent once again to bring it down, this time they retrieved it successfully.

In October 1967 the Chinese began testing an ICBM capable of reaching targets 6000 miles away. There was renewed urgency to find out more. So SFF mountaineers went off on one more mission in December 1969 to successfully place a gas powered device on an undisclosed mountain supposedly in Chinese controlled areas. But by the following year, the US had the first generation of the TRW spy satellites in place and did not have to rely on the old ELINT devices.

#RAW #SpecialOperations #SFF #China #Pakistan
Part-3

As per MK Dhar, the secretive Tibetian Special Frontier Force (SFF) still reports to India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW). The Cabinet Secretariat does not have direct access to SFF. Cabinet Secretariat has limited financial and administrative control over R&AW and no operational control.
Another of the less known group is the Special Group. Some 500 non-Tibetan commandos of SFF were taken out for special commando action inside the country. They took part in Golden Temple operation (part of Operation Blue Star) in 1984. This special group still exist but has been absorbed by SFF. Some elements have been amalgamated with the National Security Guards (NSG). The NSG was formed with fresh recruits from Central paramilitary forces and the army. Only a minor section of the SG was merged with the NSG. The NSG has two broad sections: Special Rangers Group (for VVIP security) and Special Action Group (for anti-terrorism etc contingencies).

CIT-J was a special operation of the RAW in Punjab against Khalistanis. A group of about 350 SG personnel had helped the police in chasing the terrorists. They also conducted transborder Int and subversive actions. This is not a permanent force. The SG personnel has been absorbed by the parent force, the SFF.
In 1997, the former Indian Prime Minister IK Gujral had stopped some operations inside Pakistan and he stopped the SFF from operating near the border.

The SSB (Special Services Bureaux) was conceived after 1962 war and was placed under IB initially later to RAW for training Indians in border areas to adopt scorched earth policy in case the enemy overran parts of the country. That SSB has now been abolished and elements were merged with the present Special Security Border force. The SSB was used in NE India to fight the insurgents.
CIT-X is an operation against Pakistan involving Mossad and RAW. It is believed that CIT-X is an ongoing operation. A declassified document of RAW as posted on some internet pages claims that Pakistan is being targeted through a covert stratagem titled “CIT ‘X’ Operations”, to be executed through the ‘Dragon Policy’. These Operations were conceived “in retaliation to the alleged unending terrorist pursuits of Pakistan” a year earlier as the “Summer Offensive”. The salient features of CIT “X” operations comprise: Recruiting known international drug and mafia dons and training agents for covert operations in Pakistan. India has denied its existence.

Then there were CAT operations in Punjab which were conducted by the IB/police. It involved utilizing captured terrorists for locating Khalistani hideouts. Some were trained and sent back to Pak for gathering intelligence of training given by the ISI. A good description of the operation is given in MK Dhars book “Black Thunder.”

Updated (11 Sept 2013) A journalist of repute, who wishes not to be named, mailed the following :

Might like to add DGS or Directorate General Security to it. DGS is an orgn that predates RAW, set up in 1962 with three arms—SFF, ARC and SSB. SSB is now with the home ministry. SFF and ARC continue. Secretary ® as the RAW chief is called, wears a second hat as Director General Security.
SG is actually 4 Vikas or the 4th battalion of the Vikas regiment (Est 22) which was converted for special missions. Raised in 1982 with 3 squadrons (special forces equivalent of an infantry company). 2 squadrons taken out to form NSG in 1984. Participated in storming of Golden Temple, Bluestar 1984.
SG re-raised with a different mandate in 1987 in Sarsawa. They continue to function under DGS.

More on SFF–> 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Frontier_Force

#RAW #CITX #SpecialOPerations #Pakistan

Part-2

Even as India and Pakistan were actively engaged in laying a framework for normalizing their relations in the aftermath of Operation Parkaram (Dec 2001 – Oct 2002), RAW’s Counter Intelligence Team – X (CIT-X), assigned to conduct subversive operations targeting Pakistan was working relentlessly to destabilize the country. According to well placed sources the details of these plans came to light once a copy of the classified document detailing these activities was accidentally lost and became available for public scrutiny.

The strategy to advance the interaction with Pakistan on the diplomatic channels, while perpetrating acts of terrorism on a parallel track, was envisaged after the failure of Indian spell of coercive diplomacy vis-à-vis Pakistan during the Premiership of Atal Bihari Vajpaee. The document lays out the extensive espionage network dovetailed into the diplomatic missions in Central Asia, particularly Afghanistan, and Middle East which the Indian under cover intelligence operatives utilize to rake trouble not only in FATA but in Pakistani hinterland as well.

As per details given in the purloined paper, agents for anti-Pakistan subversion were trained in 57 training camps established in the IHK, East Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Assam. Activists of anti Pakistan nationalist groups were the focus of Indian search for recruits who received cash weapons and ammunitions from undercover RAW operatives masquerading as Al Qaeda agents. Mossad’s tactics of infiltrating Palestinian resistance acted as model and provided the modus operandi for CIT – X to stir insurgency on Pakistan’s Western border that, hitherto fore, had remained free from a military threat.

Apart from concentrating on the FATA Region, stoking the fires of sub-national movements in Pakistan can be identified as one of the vulnerable area where Indian Agencies are focused; reveals the document. Targeting interior regions of Sind province, Seraiki belt and the Northern Areas of Pakistan forms pivots of the Indian plan, receiving riveting and ceaseless attention of CIT – X , reveals the classified document.
CIT “X” OPERATIONS

1. A declassified document of RAW has revealed CIT ‘X’ Operations which spells out the Mossad / RAW / CIA plot against Pakistan Indicating that Pakistan has been effectively engaged in for a long hot summer as the “Summer Offensive Continues”. Following contents are the proof that Pakistan has been looking for:-

a. Tactics of the Dragon Policy. In retaliation to the alleged unending terrorist pursuits of Pakistan, RAW and MOSSAD had conceived the “Summer Offensive” a year ago. Modus operandi has been successful. The operational tactics are:-

(1) Intelligence has successfully tapped known international drug and mafia dons against Pakistan. CIT “X” is effectively training agents for covert operations in Pakistan. Under the Vajpayee government, the CIT “X” and other sensitive organizations were authorized to strengthen contacts with sleeping agents, and recruit new front men to carry out covert operations in Pakistan.

(2) All possible international criminal and mercenaries, including Afghans were engaged for covert purpose during LK Advani’s tenure in the Home Ministry. CIT “X” is actively involved in drug trafficking to finance its covert operations.

(3) The summer offensive includes establishment of 57 training camps in Occupied Kashmir, East Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujrat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnatka and Assam to train and launch Agents inside Pakistan. Trainees are generally drawn from the Indian hatched dissident groups of Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM), Jiye Sindh Mohaz,

b. Offensive under Diplomatic Cover (The MOSSAD Hands)

(1) RAW Centers at London, Dubai, Iran, and South Africa operate against Pakistan jointly with Israeli MOSSAD. However, for its summer offensive RAW in a joint effort with MOSSAD has laid out a whole network around Pakistan to ensure success through destabilization.

(2) During Wana operations the miscreants were fed cash, weapons and ammunition indirectly by RAW operatives under cover of Al-Qaeda. Mossad and AMMAN have also contributed heavily towards the funding and material requirements for those operations.

c. Ministry of Information and Security (Iran’s Involvement)

(1) Iran, having contiguous borders with Pakistan, is a hot bed of intrigues and constant source of support and inspiration to RAW functionaries. The Indian Embassy at Tehran and Consulates in Zahidan, Mashhad and Bandar Abbas are actively engaged in establishing links with disgruntled elements of Balochistan and Sindh for destabilizing these provinces. RAW is maintaining contacts / their sources / links in Pakistan through their consulates at Zahidan and Dubai. Most of the staff at Indian Consulate in Zahidan is from intelligence / security organizations including RAW, Intelligence Bureau and Military Intelligence. Irani intelligence has been providing reliable information and support to RAW operations by using disgruntled Shia elements in Pakistan.

d. Intelligence Model

(1) This intelligence model is an improvement on the practices of MOSSAD, which has infiltrated several Jewish agents into the occupied territory of Palestine as Muslims. These agents practice Islam like any ordinary Muslim. Mingle into local Muslim population just to wait for the appropriate time to strike. While Taliban and Al-Qaeda are getting the blame and Pakistan gets the rap for “not doing enough” by US and FRIENDLY” Afghan authorities

e Subversion

(1) To fan flames of Sindhi Desh Movement subversive literature, published from Bombay and Jammu e.g. Sindh Sujag. Sindh Rises, Sindh Parcham, Sangat and lot of other subversive material is being pumped into Sindh clandestinely. Whereas, RAW is morally and maerially supporting the Saraiki Movement in southern Punjab. Regional Political Parties like Saraiki Suba Mahaz, Pakistan Saraiki Party and Saraiki Sahaliya Sangam are being effectively sponsored. Subversive literature in huge quantity is being published on the subject.

f Balwaristan Movement

(1) RAW is also involved in sponsoring Balwaristan Movement. It is being organized under Abdul Hamid, self styled Chairman of his own faction of Balwaristan National Front based in Delhi. The Front is working for the independence of Northern Areas. It has been sending into Pakistan a highly subversive material from abroad.

2. The hostile intelligence operatives are making concerted / unified attempts to achieve their aim of destabilizing Pakistan through a well conceived / articulated plan.

#RAW #SpecialOperations #CITX #Pakistan 
Part-1
For the first decades after independence, India’s covert capabilities were in the main defensive. By contrast, Pakistan’s Intelligence Bureau — led by Qurban Ali, the senior-most Indian officer of its colonial predecessor — sponsored a series of offensive operations in Jammu and Kashmir. In line with imperial ideologues like General Francis Tucker, Mr. Ali believed that India’s ethnic-religious faultlines made it unsustainable as a nation. Much of the Pakistan Intelligence Bureau’s work was — and is — aimed at deepening these faultlines.

India’s own covert capabilities only began to grow after its 1962 defeat by China. Aided by the United States, the newly-founded Research and Analysis Wing developed sophisticated signals intelligence and photo-reconnaissance capabilities.

RAW soon put the lessons it learned to use against Pakistan. According to the still-classified official history of the Bangladesh war records that, by November 1971, over 83,000 guerrillas of whom over 51,000 were operating in east Pakistan had been trained and armed by India. Establishment 22 — a force set up by the CIA to target China — carried out deep-penetration strikes against Pakistani prior to the onset of war, drawing them forward to the Bangladesh border and thus easing the way for India’s eventual thrust to Dhaka.

India’s decisive triumph in 1971 seemed to have rendered the need for an offensive covert capability against that country redundant. India withdrew support for Baloch guerrillas fighting the Pakistan army, and slashed its involvement with anti-Islamabad forces in Afghanistan.

But the wheel turned again, as wheels are wont to do. After the Soviet Union’s intervention in Afghanistan, the regime of General Zia-ul-Haq acquired both the strategic influence and military resources needed to insulate itself against India’s superior conventional military capabilities.

Pakistan’s informal war resumed. By the mid-1980s, the ISI had initiated supplies of Afghan war-surplus military hardware to Khalistan terrorists in Punjab. Five years later, similar support was made available to jihad groups in Jammu and Kashmir. On two occasions, in 1987 and 1990, India threatened to go to war in retaliation; both times, the threat of a potentially-catastrophic war deterred its politicians.

Interesting, RAW and the ISI played a role in ensuring the informal war did not escalate into a full-blown one. After the 1987 crisis, RAW chief A.K. Verma and ISI Director-General Hamid Gul met to discuss limitations for Pakistan’s support for Khalistan groups, a negotiation brokered by the then-Jordanian Crown Prince, Hasan bin-Talal, whose wife, Princess Sarvath, is of Pakistani origin. Later, in the wake of the 1990 crisis, the ISI ensured that jihad groups in Jammu and Kashmir did not gain access to anti-aircraft missiles, after India made clear that the shooting down of an aircraft would lead to a full-blown war

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s regime did not, however, restrict itself to sending verbal signals to Islamabad. In the mid-1980s, RAW unleashed two covert groups, CIT-X and CIT-J, the first targeting Pakistan in general and the second directed at Khalistani groups. A low-grade but steady campaign of bombings in major Pakistani cities, notably Karachi and Lahore, followed. According to former RAW official and security analyst B. Raman, India’s counter-campaign yielded results by making Pakistan’s terror campaign “prohibitively costly.”

For a variety of reasons, these operations proved short-lived. Prime Minister I.K. Gujral, who took over in 1997, shut down RAW’s offensive operations on moral grounds, pointing to the end of the terrorist campaign in Punjab and the improved situation in Jammu and Kashmir. Earlier, Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao ended RAW’s eastern operations earlier as part of his efforts to build bridges with China and Myanmar.

Successive covert services heads attempted to gain fresh authorisation for deterrent covert operations, but without success. After the 1999 Kargil war, key intelligence officers attempted to persuade Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to issue the necessary authorisations. “He didn’t say a word,” recalls one official present at the meeting, “not yes, not no.”

#SmilingBuddha

When Buddha Finally smiled at 8:05 on 18th May:

The device was assembled in a hut 40 m from the shaft. Assembly began on 13 May with a team made up of Soni, Kakodkar, Iyengar, Venkatesan and Balakrishnan. During the assembly process the plutonium core was mounted in a copper disk to act as a heat sink and remove the decay heat. Nonetheless due to the extreme desert heat the core components did not fit together properly, and the assembly attempt was unsuccessful. The next day attempts were started earlier in the day and succeeded, so assembly moved on the lenses. Each of 12 lenses weighed approximately 100 kg and required 4 people to lift. Once both halves of the device were complete, each with 6 lenses, the upper half was raised with a crane to put in place. While this was going on one of the lenses slipped out of its mount and fell to the ground, becoming chipped. There was one (and only one) spare lens on hand to serve as a replacement. The assembly operation was complete after nightfall. The assembled device was hexagonal, yellow, about 1.25 m in diameter and weighed 1400 kg. The device was mounted on a hexagonal metal tripod, and transported to the shaft on rails which the army kept covered with sand.

The device was lowered into the shaft on the morning of 15 May. It was placed in a side cavity at the bottom of the L-shaped shaft. Moisture oozing from the shaft side gave concern about the integrity of the firing circuit, and Balakrishnan volunteered to go down the shaft to check it. Finally the shaft was sealed with sand and cement.

The team retired to an observation bunker 5 km away for the test on 18 May. The entire team of senior leaders and contributors to the PNE project appear to have been present.In addition to the assembly team, also present were Ramanna, Sethna, Nag Chaudhuri, Chidambaram, Sikka, Srinivasan, Dastidar, presumably Murthy and Roy who had helped deliver the nuclear components, Gen. Bewoor, and Lt. Col. Subherwal.

The test was scheduled for 8 a.m., but it was delayed for five minutes because V.S. Sethi, an engineer from TBRL, became stranded at the test site while checking the high speed cameras when his jeep wouldn’t start. Sethi hiked out in time for the test to go as scheduled, but the army’s efforts to recover the jeep delayed the shot. Finally at 8:05 a.m. Dastidar pushed the firing button.

This test has been known since its public announcement as “Smiling Buddha”, a name apparently given to it by Dhar, but the origin of this appellation is somewhat mysterious. The test actually had no formal code name prior to the shot (a pattern that would be repeated with the second test series 24 years later). The test was coincidentally conducted on the Buddhist festival day of Buddha Purnima, perhaps the reason that the association with the Buddha came about. Chengappa relates that the story that Sethna passed on the message to Dhar with the code phrase “The Buddha is smiling” is probably a myth.

#SmilingBuddha Part-3

The task of sinking the shaft for the test was assigned to the 61 Engineering Regiment stationed in Jodhpur. Ramanna first contacted the regiment commander, Lt. Col. Subherwal, in May 1973 to dig the shaft. The Army did not cooperate until June when PM Gandhi ordered Gen. Bewoor to proceed. The unit had no prior experience in digging shafts and the work got underway with difficulty. The shaft construction project was code named Operation Dry Enterprise, and the engineers and soldiers were told that they were digging a well to supply the Pokhran test range. The project was set back in January 1974 when, unfortunately they did hit water when the shaft tunneled into an aquifer that underlies Pokhran (that this seems to have been a surprise indicates an astonishing lack of preparation, since exploratory drilling would have quickly revealed this). Efforts to pump out or contain the flow of water failed and the shaft had to be abandoned. A new shaft was begun at the site of the abandoned village of Malki which was known to have dug several dry unsuccessful wells many years before. Sinking the new shaft began in February 1974 and was completed only days before the 18 May test.

The fact that two shafts were constructed may account for reports that India actually made two tests in 1974, the first of which failed.

Ramanna indicates in his autobiography that a round of decision making meetings occurred in 1974 prior to the test. The meetings included only Ramanna, Sethna, Nag Chaudhuri, Haksar and Dhar. The first was held probably in February when successful tests indicated the device was nearing completion. The final meeting occurred a “few weeks” prior to the 18 May test. Both Dhar and Haksar opposed the test to varying degrees, the three PNE program leaders supported it strongly. It was of course PM Gandhi’s decision, and she ordered it to go ahead.

The completed core (probably packed as separate pieces) was transported to Pokhran from Trombay under the direct supervision of Chidambaram and Roy. They rode in an army convoy carrying the plutonium core packed in a special case for the 900 km journey, which took three days.

The explosive lenses and other components of the implosion system came from TBRL by truck along with high speed cameras to record the detonation.