Seaborne terrorism and counterintelligence in India: challenges and concerns

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe city of Bombay (later Mumbai) has witnessed two deadly seaborne terrorist attacks in 1993 and 2008, respectively. Recurring with a gap of 15 years, the latter had a similar nature and goal as that of the former. Apart from the seaborne character, there was state sponsorship from Pakistan, nexus with organized criminal groups and communal objectives. The only difference was that the 2008 attacks were carried out with greater sophistry as a result of the right lessons learnt from 1993, and a greater involvement of the Pakistani ‘deep state’. The central question approached in this article is how does a nation cope with such a triad threat perception? On examination of the intelligence prerogative for terrorist operations, the inevitability of counterintelligence responses is established. It is argued that the intelligence solution to the terrorist problem lies in ‘counterintelligence’ (CI), especially offensive CI, rather than traditional intelligence gathering.