India Might Wage An Anti-Pakistani Infowar After The Sri Lankan Attacks

By Andrew Korybko
Source

India is carefully crafting the implied narrative that the Sri Lankan terrorist attacks wouldn’t have happened had the island’s authorities acted on the tips that its intelligence agencies shared with them, with it being very likely that New Delhi will incorporate this notion into a forthcoming anti-Pakistani infowar in order to pressure other countries into unquestionably trusting its fake news allegations against Islamabad, especially if it attempts to link its neighbor to Daesh’s previously reported activity in Kashmir and its recent claims of establishing the so-called “Wilaya of Hind”.

There’s a common saying that “all is fair in love and war”, and few practice this as much as the Indians who follow the anything-goes approach of the ancient proto-Machiavellian Chanakaya. The recent terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka are still in the back of the global public’s mind, reminding them of the danger that the scourge of ideological extremism poses to the rest of the world. The pure shock of what happened made many people impressionable to all sorts of interpretations related to that horrific event, with many Westerners falling for the devious divide-and-rule narrative about a seemingly inevitable “Clash of Civilizations” and consequently blaming Islam for this tragedy. Keenly understanding what the non-Muslim audience all across the world would likely be misled into thinking, India’s ruling Hindutva fundamentalists quickly “leaked” the information that the country’s intelligence services had supposedly tipped off their Sri Lankan counterparts before the attack, but that their warnings fell on deaf ears for a variety of reasons. The implied narrative being pushed is that the Sri Lankan terrorist attacks wouldn’t have happened had the authorities acted on India’s intelligence.

Whether one believes that this is true, false, or misleading, the fact of the matter is that this notion will likely be incorporated by India into a forthcoming anti-Pakistani infowar in order to pressure other countries into unquestionably trusting its fake news allegations against Islamabad. These more often than not attempt to tie its neighbor to all sorts of plots, especially the acts of resistance that regularly take place in Kashmir but are smeared as “acts of terrorism” by New Delhi, which therefore serves the purpose of pushing the weaponized narrative that Pakistan is a “state sponsor of terrorism”. As “coincidence” would have it, Daesh just declared the establishment of the so-called “Wilaya of Hind” in South Asia approximately a year and a half after claiming its first attack in Kashmir, with the second-mentioned event being a Hindutva dream come true because it contributed to “justifying” India’s deployment of 750,000–1 million occupation forces in the democracy-seeking region. In light of the latest development, there’s little doubt that Indian intelligence is preparing to concoct a convoluted theory (most likely “proven” through falsified “evidence” and fake news claims) tying Daesh to both the Kashmiri freedom movement and the Pakistani state.

The relevance that this forthcoming infowar campaign has to Sri Lanka is that India will remind its intended audience that the island nation could have prevented one of the worst terrorist attacks in recent memory had it acted on the intelligence that New Delhi provided, hence why India is taking “decisive action” against what it will probably eventually claim are the “interconnected threats” of Daesh, the Kashmiri freedom movement, and Pakistan. Furthermore, it can’t be discounted that Indian intelligence will invent similarly false claims against Pakistani citizens and officials residing abroad in order to manipulate the host state into expelling them and provoking a diplomatic scandal like New Delhi demands, pressuring them to take action “before it’s too late” by blindly believing whatever India tells them without taking the time to assess its veracity. The grand strategic intent behind all of this is to malign the reputation of the civilization-connecting global pivot state by falsely linking it to the world’s most notorious terrorist group prior to leading the crusade for multilateral sanctions against it.

The End of Terror

May 01, 2019  /  Gilad Atzmon

By Gilad Atzmon

Three hate crimes: a slaughter in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, a massacre in Sri Lanka and a shooting in a synagogue in San Diego; what do they have in common? The three attacks fit neatly within the Neocon vision of our emerging dystopia. We are set to hate each other. Conflict, hostility, terror – rivers of blood- keep the immoral interventionist agenda afloat.

But there is a deeper meaning in these recent events and the many others that preceded them. Terror, as we should know by now, is a message. Terror has a lethal rationale which is delivered by means of fear and destruction. Perhaps if we start to be attentive to the message of terror we may find this to be the best strategy to dilute its venom.

Many are convinced that terror must be met with fierce retaliation, an ‘eye for an eye’ is what the Israelites called it in their Old Testament. Thousands of eyes for an eye is how their Israeli ‘offspring’ interpret their religious text. This brutal genocidal approach has now been adopted by Israel’s most subservient English speaking colonies (The USA and Britain). I assume that being vengeful and merciless on a mass scale must be a satisfying experience for some, and exciting for others, but it hardly offers a prospect of a better future let alone the possibility of harmony and reconciliation.

Vindictiveness reduces the victim into the perpetrator of another crime.  That which presents itself as defiance is, in practice, a total surrender to terror. If we really want to eliminate terror we had better learn to listen and even find forgiveness. We better invest our energy in understanding our enemies and attempting to decipher their plight. We must dig into the logus that drives hostility, intolerance, hatred, racism and even genocidal inclinations.  We must ask what is it that which brings about blood thirstiness towards Muslims (Christchurch), What is it that some Muslims hate about us the so called ‘West’ (Sri Lanka)?  The above  also apply to Jews. The people who claim to be subject to suffering, discrimination and hatred throughout their history should be able to wonder why. Unlike the so called progressives who attribute reactionary  ‘phobia’ (homophobia, Islamophobia, Judeophobia etc.) to that which they oppose, I contend that the path towards progress is to search for the rationale.

 To eliminate terror and defuse its poison, we have to reinstate our true Western philosophical ethos. We should seek truth and apply the rule of reason. In the hopeful world I grew up in, hostile debate and crude controversy were a source of inspiration. In the world in which we are living, intellectual polarity has been squashed by a tyranny of correctness. When people are silenced and suppressed  they revert to violence. When people realise they are losing their elementary freedoms they become dangerous to themselves and their surroundings.   If anyone out there is nostalgic about the hope for a better world, act to reinstate Athens in our midst.  Listen to your enemy, love your foe, almost as much as you hate yourself.

If the above sounds familiar or even spiritual it is only because the political is dead in the water. What used to be known as a battle between socialism and capitalism, Left and Right, has reemerged as clash between greed and grace…

My battle for truth and freedom involves some expensive legal services. I hope that you will consider committing to a monthly donation in whatever amount you can give. Regular contributions will enable me to avoid being pushed against a wall and to stay on top of the endless harassment by Zionist operators attempting to silence me.

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ISIL’s Baghdadi Refers to Syria Defeat in First Video in Five Years

AlManar

April 30, 2019

The ISIL Takfiri group’s elusive supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his first purported appearance in five years in a propaganda video released Monday, acknowledging ISIL’s defeat in the Syrian town of Baghouz while threatening “revenge” attacks.

The world’s most wanted man was last seen in Mosul in 2014, announcing the birth of ISIL’s “caliphate” across swathes of Iraq and Syria, and appears to have outlived the proto-state.

In the video released by ISIL’s Al-Furqan media arm, the man said to be Baghdadi referred to the months-long fight for ISIL’s final redoubt Baghouz, which ended in March.

“The battle for Baghouz is over,” he said, sitting cross-legged on a cushion and addressing three men whose faces have been blurred.

He referred to a string of ISIL defeats, including its onetime Iraqi capital Mosul and Sirte in Libya, but insisted the Takfiri terrorists had not “surrendered” territory.

“God ordered us to wage ‘jihad.’ He did not order us to win,” he said.

In a segment in which the man is not on camera, his voice described the April 21 Easter attacks in Sri Lanka, which killed 253 people and wounded nearly 500, as “vengeance for their brothers in Baghouz.”

The man insisted ISIL’s operations against the West were part of a “long battle,” and that the Takfiri group would continue to “take revenge” for members who had been killed.

“There will be more to come after this battle,” he said.

On Monday ISIL terrorists claimed their first attack in Bangladesh in more than two years, saying they had “detonated an explosive device” on a group of police in Dhaka, wounding three officers, the SITE Intelligence Group reported.

Source: AFP

• ISIL Terrorist Group Claims Sri Lanka Attacks: Propaganda Arm

تفجيرات سريلانكا الأميركية وحرب المضائق والخلجان

أبريل 26, 2019

محمد صادق الحسيني

سيظلّ الحدث السيرلانكي حاضراً في المشهد الإعلامي العالمي إلى حين استكمال واشنطن لعبتها الهوليودية القذرة في أعالي البحار في إطار حربها المفتوحة على الكبار من إيران الى روسيا والصين…!

فمما لا يخفى على أيّ متابع للشأن السياسي بشكل عام، وللحملة الأميركية الإسرائيلية ضدّ إيران وحزب الله بشكل خاص خلال الأيام القليلة الماضية، إلا أن يقرأ تصريحات وزير الخارجية الأميركي، مايك بومبيو، والتي أطلق من خلالها سلسلة تهديدات، ضدّ كلّ الدول التي تكسر قرار الولايات المتحده القاضي بفرض حصار شامل على إيران، على انها التصريحات قنابل صوتية للتغطية على الفعل الحقيقي الذي اقترفته الإدارة الاميركية، عبر أدواتها التكفيرية المتطرفة، في سريلانكا هذه المرة في عيد الفصح المجيد عند الطوائف المسيحية الكاثوليكية في العالم، الحدث الذي لا يزال مستمراً…!

فعلى الرغم من خطورة تصريحات مايك بومبيو إلا أنه يعلم تماماً أنها غير قابلة للتطبيق، وذلك لأنّ إيران قادرة على منع ذلك، خاصة أنّ الولايات المتحده قد استدركت القرار من خلال إصدار سلسلة من الاستثناءات، لدول وهيئات ومؤسسات دولية، تعفيها من العقوبات في حال تعاملت مع الحرس الثوري الإيراني، الذي سرعان ما هدّد بإغلاق مضيق هرمز إذا ما أقدمت الولايات المتحدة على فرض إجراءات لوقف تصدير النفط الإيراني.

الأمر الذي ردّت عليه الولايات المتحدة بصيغة باهتة جاء فيها انّ هذا التهديد غير مبرّر وغير مقبول…!

فأين عنجهية وصلف الولايات المتحدة في مثل هذه الحالات…!؟ بالإضافة إلى انّ هذه التصريحات لا تحمل أيّ جديد وذلك لأنها تكرار للسياسة الأميركية، من فرض الحصار والعقوبات على إيران، المتبعة أصلاً منذ أربعين عاماً ضدّ هذا البلد الصامد…

هذا كما انّ اتفاق بومبيو مع السعودية لزيادة إنتاجها من النفط ليصل الى 14 مليون برميل يومياً لن يؤدّي الى أيّ نتيجة بسبب قدرة إيران على منع السعودية من رفع حجم صادراتها النفطية، حتى لو استطاعت رفع الإنتاج من الناحية الفنية، وذلك عبر سلسلة إجراءات إيرانية ميدانية سيتمّ تطبيقها في الوقت المناسب…

انها صورة جلية عن العجز والوهن الأميركيين…!

لكن الولايات المتحدة هذه، ورغم عجزها هذا، تواصل العمل على إشعال الحروب الأهلية والصراعات المسلحة، فها هي تطلق بؤرة توتر دولية جديدة في شبه القارة الهندية، وذلك عبر إعطاء الضوء الأخضر لمجموعات التطرف والإرهاب المتنقلة، والتي تشرف على إعادة تدويرها وتشغيلها الأجهزة الأمنية والعسكرية الأميركية، وذلك خدمة لأهداف استراتيجية أميركية على الصعيد الدولي.

فما هي هذه الأهداف الأميركية المتوخاة من وراء التفجيرات التي حصلت في عيد الفصح ولا تزال في سريلانكا، وذهب ضحيتها أكثر من ألف قتيل وجريح؟

ويبدو أنّ المستهدف الرئيسي كانت الكنائس الكاثوليكية في البلاد… وهذا ما يجعل الأهداف الاميركية من وراء ذلك تتمثل في ما يلي:

1 ـ السعي لإشعال حرب أهلية طائفية بين مكونات الشعب السريلانكي، الذي يبلغ تعداده 21 مليون نسمه، منهم 70 من البوذيين، و12 من الهندوس، إلى جانب 10 من المسلمين، و 8 من المسيحيين مليون ومائتي ألف مسيحي .

2 ـ يكمن الهدف الأميركي من وراء ذلك في خلق الظروف الملائمة لتدخل عسكري أميركي يفضي إلى إقامة قواعد عسكرية، جوية وبحرية، في هذا البلد الذي يتمتع بموقع استراتيجي غاية في الأهمية.

إذ انّ هذا البلد يقع على مدخل خليج البنغال، الذي تمرّ من جنوبه باتجاه الشرق، الطريق البحري المؤدّي الى مضيق مالاقا Strait of malacca ، الموصل الى بحر الصين الجنوبي. ما يعني تمكن الولايات المتحدة، في حال إقامتها لقواعد عسكرية في سريلانكا، من التحكم المباشر بحركة الملاحة البحرية عبر هذا المضيق وهو ما يعني تهديد حركة الملاحة البحرية الصينية، سواء كانت مدنية او عسكرية.

3 ـ كما تعني إقامة قواعد جوية وبحرية أميركية في سريلانكا تعزيزاً هاماً في عمليات الحشد الاستراتيجي الأميركي البعيد المدى ضدّ الصين. إذ انّ إقامة مثل هذه القواعد سيعزز قدرات القاعدة الجوية الاستراتيجية الأميركية في دييغو غارسيا في المحيط الهندي وذلك عبر إقامة قواعد أكثر قرباً الى الصين مما يشكل ميزة استراتيجية للولايات المتحدة في هذا الجزء من العالم.

4 ـ مواصلة الضغط على الهند شمالاً والتي تعتبرها واشنطن حليفاً لروسيا في الاصطفافات العالمية رغم صداقاتها الإسرائيلية التجارية وغير التجارية…

5 ـ أيضاً وأيضاً محاولة عرقلة خط الطاقة الاستراتيجي الصيني الذي تمرّ خطوطه من وسط خليج البنغال، وهو الطريق الذي اختارته الصين منذ مدة لنقل احتياجاتها النفطية عبره الى الأراضي الصينية الأكثر حاجة للتنمية المستدامة إضافة لكونه من خطوط مشروع طريق واحد حزام واحد الصيني الشهير…!

6 ـ يأتي كلّ هذا في إطار حرب المضائق والخلجان التي تخوضها الولايات المتحدة الأميركية وأذنابها الصغار من جبل طارق إلى باب المندب وهرمز امتداداً إلى أعالي البحار غرباً وشرقاً…! ورغم كلّ ذلك فإنّ سياسة واشنطن هذه تسارع الخطى للاصطدام بأسوار المقاومة العربية والإسلامية والعالمية من جبال الأطلس الكبير وصولاً إلى سور الصين العظيم.

بعدنا طيبين قولوا الله…

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Pakistan’s ISI Has a Crucial Role to Play in Helping Sri Lanka Achieve Justice and Peace

By Adam Garrie
Source

Pakistan has pledged to assist Sri Lanka in its investigation into the multiple atrocities which took place throughout the island nation days ago. In particular, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has a vital role to play in uncovering the true culprits behind this incident.

Already, the truth of who and what was behind the terror attacks is being muddied by a combination of open incompetence and cunning deviousness among media outlets that have rushed to judgement rather than attempt to connect the dots whilst waiting for hard evidence to appear. It is all but impossible that the small and obscure National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ) could have pulled off the kind of attack that normally could only be accomplished by terror groups working directly with a state’s military-intelligence agency.  It is of course of note that NTJ reportedly trains in the same part of India’s Tamil Nadu that was once home to the anti-Sri Lankan LTTE terror group – a group openly backed by India prior to 1987 whilst India’s RAW continued to covertly back LTTE even after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

Secondly, as Daesh (aka ISIS) has never been active among the small population of Sri Lankan Muslims who have never been prone to any form of extremism, it seems utterly incredible that even non-Indian media outlets are portraying an unusual and un-evidenced claim by a pro-Daesh website as a legitimate indication that the attack was committed by a terror group totally foreign to Sri Lanka. 

Into this chaos, Pakistan’s ISI can help to separate fact from fiction. Not only does ISI have a track record of counter-terrorism and investigative excellence against both religious extremist terrorist groups like TTP and secular extremist terrorists like BLA, but ISI also understands the warning signs to look for in the event of a false flag attack that has been staged by a hostile foreign intelligence service.

The following issues that Eurasia Future has raised in relation to investigating the atrocities in Sri Lanka are well placed to be answered by the experts in ISI:

“1. The dialect and vernacular of the suspects 

In several terror attacks in India that were blamed on Pakistan, the suspects in question did not have a grasp on the Urdu language nor other official/indigenous languages of Pakistan. There have even been some cases where supposedly Pakistani born men accused of terror plots in India quite obviously spoke in a vernacular native to India rather than Pakistan.

In the case of Sri Lanka, whether the suspects are Sri Lankan or foreign, it is important that it is publicly confirmed that they speak the language and or dialect of the ethno-linguistic and/or geographical group to which they supposedly belong.

In the instance of cover-ups or false flag attacks within south Asia, discrepancies in languages, accents and dialects are important to thoroughly investigate so as to determine whether an apprehended alleged terrorist is who and what he claims to be or is initially suspected of being.

2. Examine the bodies of the terrorists 

There have likewise been instances primarily in India where terror attacks were blamed on either Pakistanis or Indian Muslims whilst there has been strong evidence to suggest that the attackers were anything but Muslims or Pakistanis. There has been testimony from individuals who examined the bodies of various terrorists in India who were allegedly Pakistani Muslims, which reported that the suspects were not circumcised. Within south Asia’s diverse religious makeup, the only group that is universally circumcised is Muslim males.

Hence, if the terrorists in question (living suspects or dead bodies) are not circumcised, it can be assured that anyone trying to call the attack an Islamist terror incident is not being sincere.

3. Politicisation of the attacks 

During the 2008 attacks in Mumbai (aka Bombay), the Indian authorities alluded to Pakistani culprits whilst the incident continued to unfold. Thus far, Sri Lankan authorities have avoided public inferences or open speculation as to the ethnic, religious, political or national origin of the terrorists.

In the coming hours and days, the words of Sri Lankan and regional authorities should be examined carefully to see if any major figures are trying to sow a narrative that politicises the event before the hard facts are known.

4. Who benefits? 

Both regionally and in terms of Sri Lanka’s recently heated internal political rivalries, one must consider who will benefit from the tragedy or who could otherwise exploit the situation for personal/political gain. If the attack was (as I personally suspect) conducted by resurgent LTTE terrorists, the atrocities are indicative of the fact that ten years after LTTE’s defeat, the group is again active.

As LTTE had been eliminated within Sri Lanka, one must examine what the group’s supporters have been up to in countries where they have knowingly congregated over the last ten years. Beyond this, if the attack was sponsored by a foreign state, one must examine which state seeks to gain the most.

India first backed LTTE in its long war against Sri Lanka. However, when India withdrew its support, LTTE assassinated Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Since the mid-1990s, elements of India’s intelligence agency RAW  rekindled ties with LTTE in an attempt to better manipulate the balance of power in the region. Similar tactics have been employed by RAW in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.

At a time when Sri Lanka is maintaining good and expanding relations with China and Pakistan alike in spite of internal political rivalries, India could stand to benefit by effectively punishing Sri Lanka for drawing close to China. Under such a possible scenario, India may well have backed revivalist LTTE elements in order to carry out a dastardly deed.

In spite of who committed the atrocity, known Islamophobes have already decided who the culprit is. Here too, India’s ruling BJP stands to benefit by pinning the attack on Sri Lanka’s very small Muslim minority as a means of beating the drumming of Hindutva jingoism during the ongoing election process in India.

5. Drugs 

Most terrorists are on drugs during and even prior to their attacks. At this point in history, the narcotic captagon is the terrorist’s drug of choice. Other drugs including multiple varieties of meth and cocaine are also popular among terrorists.

The places where the terrorists were lodging prior to the attack should be forensically examined for all traces of drugs. Authorities should then work to trace the origins of the narcotics so as to see if they can be linked to known drug cartels or trafficking syndicates”.

Irresponsible media outlets continue to peddle a uniquely Islamophobic line on the incident without actually taking into account the fact that whilst Sri Lanka has been the victim of decades of terrorism, there has never been an Islamist terrorist incident in the country’s history. Instead, Sri Lanka has suffered at the hands of the secular (with a Hindu majority membership) LTTE and the secular far-left JVP.

It is also irresponsible to overlook the fact that India’s ruling party stands to benefit greatly from the atrocity as the narrative being unquestioningly pushed by major Indian and western media outlets lends pseudo-credibility to the BJP’s infamously vicious anti-Muslim agenda. It is all the more worrisome that after Pakistan’s military put an end to India’s aggressive acts against its neighbour in February, India’s rulers might have sought to extract vengeance against a softer target – Sri Lanka.

It is likewise irresponsible to ignore the fact that Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena reportedly feared that India’s RAW would assassinate him in late 2018 after he attempted to replace his Prime Minister with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, a known proponent of healthy China-Sri Lanka relations.

It further beggars belief that it is merely a coincidence the attacks took place just days before the prominent Belt and Road Forum in Beijing that Sri Lanka was to have played a major role in. Now, the fate of Sri Lanka’s economy has been put into question because of an attack that came just weeks shy of the 10 year anniversary of Sri Lanka’s heroic defeat of the LTTE terror group after a 26 year long civil war that had doubtlessly been lengthened by both overt and covert Indian meddling. Thus, one can see that Sri Lanka and China could both face material economic challenges as a result of the atrocity, whilst Pakistan once again stands victimised by an Indian media that exhibits a malign tendency of blaming all of the region’s woes on Pakistan.

All of these factors must be examined but instead of calmly and objectively seeking answers to these questions and concerns, a campaign of hated has been launched by both the Indian and western media against those asking the right questions at the right time and for the right reasons.

Because of this, it is imperative that an intelligence organisation with the proven professionalism of ISI helps their fraternal Sri Lankan partner to discover just who and what was behind a vicious attack that disturbed 10 years of Sri Lankan peace.

Right On Cue, Indian Media Blames Pakistan For The Sri Lankan Terrorist Attacks

By Andrew Korybko
Source

It was bound to happen sooner than later, but Indian media finally decided to play the “Pakistan card” by attempting to connect their neighbor’s ISI intelligence agency to the Sri Lankan terrorist attacks, a desperate narrative move that says a lot more about the Indian incumbent’s political vulnerability during the ongoing month-long electoral process than anything about Pakistan’s purported culpability in this tragedy.

The Cheap Shot That The Whole World Saw Coming

It was only a matter of time before Indian media predictably blamed Pakistan for the Sri Lankan terrorist attacks, which just happened earlier this week in a piece by Vicky Nanjappa for “Oneindia” about “How ISI radicalised Sri Lanka through the Pakistan High Commission“. The writer wasted no time in reminding the reader about a years-long scandal in Sri Lanka initiated by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) and claiming that a Pakistani diplomat on the island nation was responsible for plotting a Mumbai-style attack in South India, never mind the fact that the incident that this allegedly masterminded one was being based on was actually a false flag. In fact, it can be argued that one of the consequences of the Mumbai attacks is that India capitalized on the manufactured notion that Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency was behind it in order to portray its rival as a regional bogeyman who all of South Asia had to be suspicious of from then on out, so it’s logical in hindsight why India’s RAW intelligence agency would also cook up a conspiracy about this in Sri Lanka in an attempt to weaken historically strong Pakistani-Sri Lankan relations.

Convoluted And Conspiratorial Claims

The enduring motivation to divide Pakistan from its regional partners and opportunistically misportray it as a “state sponsor of terrorism” is what’s also behind the latest attempt trying to connect it to the Sri Lankan terrorist attacks. Mr. Nanjappa reminds his reader about the fake news claims that the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) Buddhist nationalist organization is supposedly being bankrolled by the ISI, which is more than likely another weaponized narrative that ultimately originated with RAW. According to Mr. Nanjappa’s far-reaching theory, the Pakistani diplomat supposedly responsible for organizing a Mumbai-style attack in South Asia also paid the BBS to incite anti-Muslim violence in order to improve the ISI’s recruitment prospects of local Muslims afterwards, with the clear innuendo being that this somehow makes Islamabad responsible for last weekend’s Easter suicide bombings. This convoluted narrative is understandably confusing for most people to follow, but for as much as it turns off readers from outside the region, it nevertheless is meant to be ultra-intriguing for its intended audience in South Asia, especially the Indian one.

Fearmongering For Votes

It can’t be forgotten that Prime Minister Modi is battling for his political life during his country’s ongoing month-long electoral process and that he’s hoping to win re-election on a platform that heavily emphasizes national security. India was just utterly humiliated, however, following the dogfight that it initiated with Pakistan in late February after the Bollywood-style “surgical strike”, which led to New Delhi’s rival capturing one of the downed pilots prior to releasing him as a gesture of peace and then Modi’s own Defense Minister later publicly contradicting her own government by admitting that not a single person was injured in the Balakot attack. For a political leader who prides himself on his notion of national security, these events were certainly embarrassing and reduced his dwindling credibility among the electorate, hence the need to distract voters with more fearmongering scandals in the meantime so that he can improve his re-election odds. Therein lays the relevance of the ridiculous claims that Pakistan is conspiring with Russia and China to wage Hybrid Wars against the entire world and specifically India, respectively.

The BJP’s Hybrid War On India

In reality, these public accusations by the state and civil society are actually a form of Hybrid War in and of themselves, one that’s being waged not only on the minds of the international audience that India intends to trick into thinking that Pakistan is a “state sponsor of terrorism” and therefore should be subject to unilateral US sanctions and multilateral UN ones, but also against its own citizens who these perception management practitioners want to imbue with a deep sense of fear that they can then exploit to mislead their targets into thinking that India can only be protected by re-electing Modi and continuing his “muscular” foreign policy. I predicted in my piece earlier this week about my “Initial Assessment Of The Terrorist Attacks In Sri Lanka” that “it’ll be tempting for some [international forces] to imply that their rivals’ intelligence agencies might have had a hand in the latest events, or at the very least present themselves as super tough on terrorism for domestic political reasons (e.g. Modi during the elections)” which is exactly what India is now doing.

Political Purposes

India’s “Hindi Heartland/Cow Belt”, the stronghold of the BJP’s support, has yet to go to the polls but is about to real shortly in the election’s upcoming phases, so spinning the narrative that Pakistan might have indirectly had a hand in the Sri Lankan terrorist attacks is meant to ensure that as many of Modi’s supporters come out to vote as possible in order to help him win this neck-and-neck election. As an added benefit, New Delhi would be delighted if Sri Lankan media picked up on Mr. Nanjappa’s piece and provoked one of their pro-Indian politicians to publicly praise it and/or demand an investigation into what India is framing as “Pakistan’s Hybrid War” in the country. Even better, since his article was written in English, international media further abroad might republish it too, especially some of the forces that have an interest in sparking a so-called “Clash of Civilizations”. It would be a dream come true for Modi if these weaponized fake news claims eventually made it to the UN, too.

Concluding Thoughts

It’s unsurprising that an Indian writer decided to opportunistically spin a convoluted and conspiratorial story purporting to link Pakistan’s ISI to the Sri Lankan terrorist attacks since the fake news claims and attendant innuendo being put forth appeal to the preconceived notions of the BJP’s base and will probably succeed in improving voter turnout for this constituency during the next phases of the country’s ongoing month-long electoral process. The introduction of this weaponized narrative into the Internet’s information ecosystem also carries with it the chance that it’ll be picked up by Sri Lankan media and consequently provoke a pro-Indian politician there to publicly praise the piece in order to trigger a crisis in Pakistani-Sri Lankan relations. Moreover, it’s too early to rule out the possibility of other forces republishing it with the intent of intensifying the so-called “Clash of Civilizations”, which might have the horrifying effect of inspiring right-wing “reprisal” attacks against the Western-based Pakistani diaspora in an attempt to trigger more inter-civlizational violence that would superficially advance this false divide-and-rule narrative.

Sri Lankan Authorities May Have Fallen Into a Trap Set by a Foreign Power

By Adam Garrie
Source

The entire world remains confronted with the horrors that unfolded yesterday throughout Sri Lanka. Whilst the country remains under curfew, the authorities have pinned the blame for the attack on an obscure group called National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ). NTJ is reportedly an Islamist terror group that as noted by Sri Lankan authorities, has multiple links to foreign countries. The links to foreign countries appears to hold the key to determining who is really behind the attacks. Notably, it has been reported by journalists that the group trains in Chennai in Tamil Nadu – the same location where LTTE had previously trained. Others yet claim that NTJ is such a small and obscure group that even if it wanted to pull off such an attack, it did not have the capacity to do so.

As the Muslim population of Sri Lanka is less than 8% of the country’s entire population, it is difficult to conceive that any genuine local Islamist group would seek to stage such massive attacks when the possibility of any material gain would be limited by the fact that not only is Sri Lanka’s Muslim population at harmony with the Buddhist majority, but the population of Muslims is incredibly small. This contrasts sharply with the situation in Syria where a Sunni Muslim majority was weaponized against a leadership comprised of the minority Alawite faction.

Therefore, due to NTJ’s foreign links, it is highly likely that a foreign entity, most likely a foreign state or state intelligence agency was behind the attacks and that the men on the ground who have been captured are merely pawns in a much larger and even more dangerous game. When it comes to seeking to pin-pointing the country with a clear motive for orchestrating the attacks, India is the one that springs immediately to mind, not least because NTJ reportedly trains where the LTTE once did.

India has a long history of seeking to manipulate the power balance in Sri Lanka in order to turn the country into something of an Indian protectorate. These attempts have notably been resisted by most contemporary Sri Lankan leaders who seek an independent foreign policy that aims at securing win-win friendship not only with India but crucially, also with China and Pakistan.

In spite of this, India was one of the first open backers of the LTTE’s reign of terrorism that gripped Sri Lanka beginning in 1983. India ultimately paid a price for its dithering in the early stages of the Sri Lankan civil war. By the end of the 1987, India had given up on LTTE and instead sought to influence the situation by committing a deeply controversial peace keeping force to Sri Lanka whose overall effect only served to provoke further violence. As a result of India’s 1987 decision to publicly “switch sides”, LTTE assassinated Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. In spite of this, it has been widely known in Sri Lanka and elsewhere that in spite of the official rhetoric in New Delhi, India’s RAW intelligence agency resumed covert support of LTTE later in the 1990s.

Since the end of the war against LTTE in 2009, India has sought to monopolise foreign influence in a post-war Sri Lanka that has developed ever more economic ties with China and plays a key role in the Belt and Road initiative. This has clearly been a source of consternation for an Indian state that has a track record of meddling in the affairs of both Sri Lanka and the much smaller Maldives. In both Sri Lanka and the Maldives, political factions are often divided by foreign observers into a pro-India side and a pro-China side. Although such divisions are not black and white, there is a level of truth to such descriptions. As such, India recently engaged in what geopolitical expert Andrew Kroybko described as a “electoral regime change in the Maldives”. This came after the prominent BJP supporter Subramanian Swamy called for a traditional war against the Maldives.

India was clearly looking to the south both in terms of Maldives and Sri Lanka for much of late 2018 and early 2019. Beginning in late 2018, Sri Lanka experienced a serious political crisis after President Maithripala Sirisena abruptly sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replaced him with former political rival (and former President) Mahinda Rajapaksa. According to Sirisena and his supporters, the proximate causes of Wickremesinghe’s dismissal were personal, cultural and class differences that Sirisena called irreconcilable. Furthermore, it was claimed by some in the Sri Lankan press that the sacking of Wickremesinghe was due to an Indian backed assassination plot against the President which resulted in the abrupt about face in respect of the Sri Lankan President’s loyalty. Later however, Sirisena assured Indian Premier Modi that he had never made such an accusation.

But while Sirisena took the time to assure India that stories regarding an Indian assassination plot are ‘fake news’, an inevitable geopolitical justification for Wickremesinghe’s sacking was offered from many quarters of Indian media.

According to the Indian narrative throughout the end of the 2018,  the traditionally/”formerly” pro-India Sirisena dismissed the pro-India Wickremesinghe in favour of the pro-China Rajapaksa due to pressure from Beijing. Of course, no one has been able to present any evidence of any Chinese involvement in the matter while China itself has taken a diplomatic line on the matter that has respected Sirisena’s decision in a rather subdued manner.

Ultimately, the courts overruled Sirisena and Wickremesinghe has continued to serve as the country’s Prime Minister.

Whilst the saga which pitted Wickremesinghe against Rajapaksa on the orders of Sirisena does ultimately seem to have been a completely internal matter, India clearly has not forgotten that Sirisena had moved to install a Prime Minister who ostensibly was more favourable to China and less so to India. As Sri Lanka is a much larger country than Maldives, meddling in the political situation was clearly going to be more difficult than the “electoral regime change” that New Delhi pulled off in Malé. Beyond this, whilst Indian media did their best to meddle in the situation in Sri Lanka during late 2018 and early 2019, this may well not have been enough to satisfy elements of the Indian deep state seeking revenge against Sirisena.

Beyond this, the timing of the attacks is incredibly suspicious. After India’s  recent provocation against Pakistan resulted in humiliation after Pakistan downed two Indian jets and safely captured and later released an Indian pilot, it can be logically deduced that India sought to create a different regional disturbance against a target that is generally seen as “softer” from the Indian perspective vis-a-vis Pakistan.

As Sri Lanka defeated LTTE ten years ago, the atmosphere of peace that had prevailed may well have created a false sense of security that was ripe for exploitation. Even before Colombo named an obscure Islamist group as the culprits of the attacks, Indian politicians up to and including Narendra Modi began banging the drums of jingoistic Islamophobia as is par for the course when it comes to the radical Hindutva BJP.

Therefore, when one connects the dots, one sees that India stands to uniquely benefit from Sri Lanka’s turmoil not only in terms of internal electoral politics but in terms of weakening a Sri Lankan government that in spite of its allegedly pro-India Prime Minister maintains healthy and growing ties to China and Belt and Road. Thus, the attack could well serve as a “punishment” for Sri Lanka’s “crime” of moving closer towards Belt and Road. Making matters all the more beneficial for India is that a relative of the Bangladesh Prime Minister’s family was also killed in the attack which took place on a five star hotel in which he was staying. It cannot be ruled out that RAW had knowledge of this and specially targeted the hotel in order to inevitably inflame Bangladeshi sentiment against Sri Lanka for its self-evident security failure.

Taken as a whole, India has clear motives for seeking to destabilise Sri Lanka at this time. What’s left for Sri Lankan investigators to do is make the foreign links of NTJ know to the wider world whilst Sri Lanka must also record and make public the voices of the surviving suspects so that experts can determine if the suspects speak in the language, dialect and vernacular that one would expect. Also, the bodies of the terrorists must be examined to determine whether they are circumcised or not. This is crucial as previous Indian false flag attacks have involved non-circumcised men (therefore not Muslims) participating in allegedly Islamist attacks whilst also, previous false flag attacks in India allegedly involving Pakistanis were later exposed due to the fact that the “Pakistani” suspects could not speak Urdu or any other official Pakistani language but instead spoke in languages and vernaculars common only to India.

Therefore, while it cannot be concluded with certainty that yesterday’s atrocity was a false flag attack, it can certainly not be ruled out. As such, anyone with a clear motive for conducting a false flag attack should be thoroughly investigated by the Sri Lankan authorities.