August 7 1998

Hundreds of people were killed when simultaneous truck bombs exploded at the US embassies in the East African capital cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya.

US had faced one of the largest terrorist attacks outside US.

Osama Bin Laden claimed responsibility to the attacks saying, it was in retaliation for the US invasion of Somalia, for what he described as the US plan to divide Sudan and for the genocide in Rwanda. The Nairobi bombing was code named Operation Kaaba while the Dar es Salaam bombing was code names Operation al-Aqsa.

This terror attack made FBI put Osama Bin Laden on its list of Top 10 most wanted fugitives.Clinton was the president of United States then. The question now was not whether US would retaliate. It was simply how and when.

A week later Clinton administration received an intelligence report saying Bin Laden would be attending a terrorist training camp in eastern Afghanistan. The when part had been answered, or had it been?.

The real reason for these bombings was that laden wanted to lure American army into Afghanistan, a country in whose rugged terrain foreign armies had only lost thousands of soldiers but had never won. Laden had invited US to the Graveyard of Empires and had planned to create another Soviet Russia out of US in Afghanistan.

Now the question for US remained, how to react?

It all depended on the quality of the intelligence information provided by the then CIA Director George J. Tenet. The CIA was confident that they had narrowed down on Laden to within few meters!

President Clinton was provided with the following options to Strike on Laden

1) A clandestine helicopter-borne night assault with special operational units
2) A massive bombing raid by US fighter planes
3) A large sea and air based Tomahawk cruise missile attack

Helicopter rides would put american lives at risk. Air bombing would require US to take prior permission to use air space from neighboring countries like Pakistan. It was well known fact that Pakistani establishment contained Laden sympathizers and if the information leaked, then the missiles would be landing in empty desert!

Hence, Clinton going by the recommendations made, opted for the third one, since it meant no American lives were put into jeopardy, nor would anybody be aware of it till the missile actually arrived!

The US intelligence also had identified a Chemical weapons factory in Sudan believed to be owned by Laden. Clinton decided to also target this factory in a parallel raid.

Afghanistan and Sudan were thus decided to be targets of a large scale Tomahawk Cruise missile raids. The date selected was

August 20 1998.

Operation Infinite Reach had begun..

But Just few months before this incident India and Pakistan had conducted a series of nuclear tests..

US was worried that Pakistan could mistake US cruise missiles strikes as strikes from India! A panicked Pakistan might launch a nuclear strike on India and an Indian full scale retaliation would wipe out Pakistan, since India had maintained a no first-strike stand, but also had made it clear that it would retaliate on full scale in case of a nuclear attack!

US was also worried about the Pakistani faulty intelligence. Just few days before its nuclear tests Pakistan had accused that India and Israel were planning to carry out pre-emptive strikes on its nuclear installations. US had then assured Pakistan that its intelligence reports were faulty and there were no such plans by India or Israel. US Ambassador to Pakistan, Thomas Simons, went as far as saying that A country which took national security decisions based on faulty intelligence inputs could not be seen as a responsible nuclear power

So in order to keep Pakistan informed about the US cruise missile strikes on Afghanistan, Clinton administration dispatched Gen Ralston – vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Islamabad to inform the then Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharief about the US attacks – neither before nor after the strikes, but just as the strike was going to happen.

He met Nawaz Sharief just before 10 pm..

At 10 pm local time

60 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles took off one after the other from a US flotilla in the Arabian sea close to Pakistan’s territorial waters, and were guided by the satellite navigation systems which had relied on intercepting Laden’s satellite based mobile phone signals to pinpoint his location in the region. Russia had used a similar technique to kill Chechen separatist leader Dudayev.

The US cruise missiles were loaded with cluster bombs with an intention to kill as many as possible. The cruise missiles flew over 1000 km of Pakistani territory before entering into Afghanistan to hit the target.

About 30 terrorists were said to have been killed in this raid, except the real target Laden who had left the place a couple of hours before the missiles arrived, which some US officials say was due to Pakistani intelligence agency ISI which had tipped off the Taliban about the possible strikes! Also, Laden had discarded his satellite phone!

Well, in that case, Gen Ralston after all was not required at all, if Pakistan already knew about the strikes, or who knows, ISI might not have kept Nawaz Sharief in the loop. In Pakistan there are three centers of administration, one is the civilian administration, the second ISI and the third Pak Army, and all these act independent of each other!

Now the turning point comes here.

Of the 60 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired, 20% did not perform as expected says Pentagon. Six of these missiles did not reach the intended target and instead fell alongside the Afghan-Pakistan border areas. Tomahawk is usually not destroyed if it does not reach the intended target since the warhead is activated only when the missile is very near to the target.

So Pakistan had a bumper lottery! Six unexploded intact Tomahawk cruise missiles were recovered by the Pakistani military. Pakistan officially said it had found only two (and probably gave them back to US)

Now it was festival time. Reverse engineer the remaining missiles and produce indigenous Islamic cruise missiles.

Just few months back Pakistan had tested Islamic nukes whose architect A Q Khan (Father of Paksitan’s Nuclear Bomb) had smuggled the blue prints of centrifuges for nuclear reactors from Netherlands, and who is today well known for having run the world’s largest nuclear black market. For those who dont know, he was born in Bhopal, India 10 years before India was partitioned ! He himself said in a speech to the Pakistan Institute of National Affairs in 1990 that he had shopped around on world markets while developing Pakistan’s nuclear programme!

If the international community had a proliferation most-wanted list, AQ Khan would be the most-wanted on the list , Robert Einhorn, assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation under former US president Bill Clinton, was quoted saying in The News in January 2003.

He’s a metallurgist, not a nuclear scientist as widely advertised. He has certainly not made any outstanding inventions, says Pervez Hoodbhoy, professor of physics at the Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad. He further says People in Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission were saying, If the US imposes sanctions, and the economy collapses, why not sell our bomb and prevent economic collapse? , adding The atmosphere is very religiously charged , in Pakistan’s research institutes!

Coming back to the recovered Tomahawk cruise missiles, Pakistan gave it to the Chinese and North Koreans for reverse engineering(?!). China had its own cruise missile programme too. Now it could include tips from Tomahawk into its own design! Then Pakistan was given back a blue print(?!)

August 12, 2005

Pakistan surprised the international community by testing Babur, its first cruise missile! It had not informed India before the tests, in accordance with the existing notification agreement, as the agreement was limited to ballistic missile testing only.

The anti-Indian sentiments in Pakistan continued with Babur by Pakistan naming all its missiles with the names of the Muslim invaders who had invaded India centuries back (Pakistan was actually a part of Indian territory then!).

Ghaznavi, Ghauri, Babur.. the Pakistani missile list continues, just like the way India was invaded by these Muslim invaders (Ghaznavi, Ghauri, Babur etc) centuries back.. Is Pakistan planning/hoping to repeat history with these missiles?!

US defense experts who saw the video of Babur said that the design system resembles that of Tomahawk (quite naturally!), especially the propulsion system appears to be a close approximation of Tomahawk!

India already has its own cruise missile development programme, Brahmos, in Collaboration with Russia. See Brahmos – The Deadly Cruise Missile

Now comes the nuclear twist to the Pakistani Cruise missiles. Pakistan has NOT said that it will NOT arm its cruise missiles with nuclear warheads!

Countries usually arm only their ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, for instance India has its Agni, Prithvi series, Pakistan has its Ghauri, Ghaznavi series of ballistic missiles. Ballistic missiles are long ranged, carry heavy payloads, not really accurate hence are best equipped to target civilian areas like cities.

On the other hand arming cruise missiles with nukes means the higher speed, accuracy and guided nature of cruise can be used to nuke enemy installations before enemy missiles take off! Nuclear tipped cruise missiles can be used against enemy defense establishments.

Even during the Cold War era US and Russia were into an agreement as to not nuclear tip their cruise missiles. But in the case of India-Pakistan this is not likely to be the case!

Which is why off late we have been seeing a series of missile interceptor systems being tested by India. India is putting a massive missile defense system into place, which is also the world’s first missile defense system aimed solely at cruise missiles! Recent tests have indicated that the system is quite reliable and is being sophisticated even further.

Cruise missiles being low altitude projectiles, cannot be detected by ground based radars. Hence, India is also installing a series of advanced air borne radars to detect incoming cruise missiles. Once detected, a combination of our own Brahmos guided by these airborne radars and satellite systems can be effectively used to intercept any incoming cruises from the Pakistani side.

India at the same time should also put a system in place to automatically invoke counter strike measures on detection of incoming cruise missiles. In other words, India should make it clear in no uncertain terms that any misadventure would not just end with successful interpreting of the cruise by the Indians, but also would be followed by massive counter strikes.

Every Indian would love to see a world free of nuclear weapons/missiles. But unfortunately at the same time, being realistic, we also have to deal with the madness surrounding our borders in the name of Islamic Bombs and Communist Bombs!

As our former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee once said, We can choose our friends, but not our neighbors!

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