Flames And Arrows Read online

  19:00 Hours

  PM House

  New Delhi, India

  A meeting between the Indian PM, the Chiefs of Army, Navy, Air Force, NSA, and the Defence Minister was already in progress when the Home Minister rushed in to the building, closely followed by his aide, who was stopped at the door by the security guard. "Sorry sir, but we can't allow your companion in. He'll have to wait outside in the lobby till the meeting is over. Orders from above"

  HM paused for a moment to argue with the guard but then shrugged and went in himself alone to the secure conference room where NSA chief, Angad was debriefing PM and other participants on the current situation in Pakistan. Everybody paused for a moment when HM entered. Indian PM signaled him to take seat on the nearest available empty chair and said, “Got held up somewhere Purohit ji? Angad had just started explaining to us the current situation in Pakistan. I believe that you haven't missed anything that you already didn't know." and motioned NSA chief to continue.

  "As I was saying, Pakistani politics is currently divided in to numerous camps. But the biggest ones that we need to monitor are the Naqvi-Beg and Asgar-Akhtar alliances. They are being backed up by USA and China respectively. Also there are some minor political groups like MQM, PML (Q), and ANP etc. But their role and influence is comparatively minor. In addition to these mainstream parties, there are numerous jihadi tanzeems (organisations) that we monitor. Some are pro-government, others anti and still many others declare their allegiances on case by case basis. Without any major exceptions, they all sympathise or cooperate with Taliban and Al Qaida and are one of the major support bases for these terrorist organisations.

  Beg's renewed cooperation with US in war against terrorism has been a mixed bag for them. Even though, they've suffered the loss of many senior leaders by means of arrests and even killings, their wide support base and help from closet jihadis in Pak establishment, especially Army, ensures that their work continues unhindered. Our intelligence sources suggest that General Asgar has close links with many of these organisations and employs their cadre for his dirty work.

  Apart from this, there are two other factors that we can't afford to miss. First one is Balochistan and second is Pak Occupied Kashmir. Both regions are in serious turmoil directly due to Chinese.

  Of the two, it's POK that concerns us the most as it is Indian Territory illegally occupied by Pakistan and now being swamped with thousands of Chinese soldiers and workers. In early 2010, Pakistan allowed China to start building a massive network of roads, railway tracks and pipelines through the region connecting the two countries. Chinese hope to safe-guard their energy routes by using this line as it gives them a direct land-route to the Arabian Sea and Gwadar port. This way, they can avoid the longer and potentially less reliable route through Straits of Malacca. They have already started negotiations with Iran, Saudi Arab and some African countries to route their shipments, oil and gas through this port. Pakistanis also hope to benefit from this and have extended their full cooperation. In fact we have intelligence which proves that Chinese have been using, at least, two army bases and one air strip, in POK to move in their supplies and as storage dumps.

  Satellite pictures show construction of at least four permanent colonies where no civilian Pakistani is allowed. Each one of these colonies has one or more helipads and heavily armed guards on a 24x7 watch basis. Two of these colonies and military bases are less than 80 km from the Line of Control and can be used to launch a surprise attack against us within an hour's notice.

  Not only that, there are dozens of terrorist training camps in the vicinity, some of them in direct control of ISI and Paki army. It is a very dangerous situation for us. Chinese presence in this area means that if we decide to take any action against these terrorist camps in the near future, Chinese can get in the way. We have reports from multiple sources that Pakistanis have been planning a big terrorist attack in India very soon and I have a gut feeling that Chinese presence in this area will definitely come into play some way or the other.