Atlantic Council

The head of  al Qaeda in Pakistan was killed last week, Joby Warrick reports on page 1 of today's NYT. A New Year's Day CIA strike in northern Pakistan killed two top al-Qaeda members long sought by the United States, including the man believed to be behind September's deadly suicide bombing at a Marriott hotel in the Pakistani capital

Atlantic Council senior fellow David L. Phillips published an op-ed at the Boston Globe entitled, "A counterterrorism plan for Obama."

Pakistan has diverted troops away from anti-terrorist operations in order to safeguard against an attack from India.  Meanwhile, India and Saudi Arabia are calling for "joint action" against terrorists.  BBC: The Pakistani military has scaled down its operations against Islamist militants in the north-west following tensions with India, officials say.

"People assume we should be offended that somebody in the military thinks our song is annoying enough that played over and over it can psychologically break someone down. I take it as an honor to think that perhaps our song could be used to quell another 9/11 attack or something like that."  - Bassist Steve Benton of Drowning Pool, whose 2001 hit "Bodies" is a particular favorite of interrogators

Here is a paradox to consider: The implementation of the Bush Administration’s counter-terrorism strategy has been more successful than anyone could have expected and yet the threat from violent jihadist groups remains undiminished. 

Pakistani security forces have conduced a raid on a major Laskhar-e-Taiba training camp and captured a dozen terrorists, including Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, allegedly the mastermind of last month's Mumbai massacre.  It remains to be seen whether these are in fact the responsible parties and what follow-up action will be taken.

Pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia and the sea-borne infiltration of terrorists into Mumbai are graphic (and recent) reminders why maritime domain awareness — being aware of activity occurring on or under the water that has a direct impact on a country's safety and security  —  matters.  Transatlantic cooperation has already succeeding in making the Mediterranean a safer place. Now it is time to direct our attention further afield.

Western intelligence are focusing their investigation of the Mumbai terrorist attacks on a Kashmiri group. NYT:

American intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Friday that there was mounting evidence that a Pakistani militant group based in Kashmir, most likely Lashkar-e-Taiba, was responsible for this week’s deadly attacks in Mumbai. The officials cautioned that they had reached no firm conclusions about who was responsible for the attacks, or how they were planned and carried out. Nevertheless, they said that evidence gathered in the past two days pointed to a role for Lashkar-e-Taiba or possibly another group based in Kashmir, Jaish-e-Muhammad, which also has a track record of attacks against India.

[...]

Lashkar-e-Taiba denied any responsibility on Thursday for the terrorist strikes. American intelligence agencies have said that the group has received some training and logistical support in the past from Pakistan’s powerful spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or I.S.I., and that Pakistan’s government has long turned a blind eye to Lashkar-e-Taiba camps in the Kashmir region, a disputed territory over which India and Pakistan have fought two wars.  Officials in Washington said Friday that there was no evidence that the Pakistani government had any role in the attacks. But if evidence were to emerge that the operation had been planned and directed from within Pakistan, that would certainly further escalate tensions between India and Pakistan, bitter, nuclear-armed rivals. It could also provoke an Indian military response, even strikes against militants’ training camps.

Rumors of British ties are apparently false. Times of London:

Some 48 hours after launching co-ordinated attacks on the country's commercial capital rumours persisted that at least one of the terrorists involved in Wednesday's attacks was a Briton of Pakistani origin.The Foreign Office said that Indian authorities had confirmed that there was "no evidence that anyone, either of those shot or those in custody, was British".

As mourning of the Mumbai attack continues, one thing is certain—intelligence cooperation between India and the rest of the world must increase. This is not only due to the transnational nature of terrorism, but also because states increasingly rely on international cooperation to combat terrorism.

Suspicion that the Mumbai terror attacks were in some way backed by Pakistani intelligence services are threatening to end recent cooperation between India and Pakistan.  Chris Brummit for AP:

India has not singled out Pakistan as being linked to the strikes, but Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said militants based outside his country carried them out. That was widely understood in Pakistan to be an accusation of its involvement. Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said Pakistan "should not be blamed like in the past." "This will destroy all the goodwill we created together after years of bitterness," he told The Associated Press. "I will say in very categoric terms that Pakistan is not involved in these gory incidents."

Deteriorating relations between Pakistan and India, which have fought three wars since 1947, would greatly complicate U.S. foreign policy in the region. Incoming President-elect Barack Obama has said normalizing ties between the two South Asian neighbors will be a major plank of his broader campaign to stabilize Afghanistan and beat al-Qaida in the region.

"You can't cozy up to a country that is accusing you of complicity in terrorism," said Shaun Gregory, an expert on South Asian terrorism at the University of Bradford in Britain. "Any sign of Pakistani involvement would be extraordinarily damaging."

The fact that there's even serious suspicion, of course, isn't a good sign, either.