By deporting to India three terror suspects in the past four months, Saudi Arabia has taken the initial steps towards cooperation in counter-terrorism activities with this country, even though these may have come at the cost of upsetting long time ally Pakistan
It’s official now. When it comes to nabbing terror suspects, long-time Pakistani ally Saudi Arabia is India’s new best friend. Analysts have been talking about this ever since Riyadh handed over to New Delhi the biggest catch in the 26/11 terror case — Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal — back in June. But, at that time many had rightly wondered if the deportation was a one-time gesture ostensibly taken under mounting pressure from the US. However, with the recent deportation of Fasih Mahmood, who is suspected to be a high-level operative of the banned Indian Mujahideen terror group, there is now ample evidence to dismiss at least some of those initial apprehensions.
In these past four months, Saudi Arabia has in fact deported three terror suspects to India, including Mahmood. An accused in the April 2010 bomb blasts in Bangalore’s M Chinnaswamy Stadium, he was also allegedly involved in the Jama Masjid terror attack in September 2010 in Delhi. The 28-year-old mechanical engineer from Bihar was deported, and arrested by Delhi Police on October 22. This was less than two weeks after A Rayees was picked up by Kerala Police from Mumbai airport after he too was sent packing by the Saudis. A suspected operative of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Rayees is wanted in the 2009 explosives haul case. And that is not all: On Tuesday, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs said it was hoping to extradite four more terror suspects from Saudi Arabia.
Clearly, there is a new-found fervour in Riyadh to fight terror jointly with New Delhi in particular and deepen bilateral ties with India in general, even if it comes at the cost of upsetting Islamabad just a little bit. In fact, there seems to be an overall agreement in the power corridors of not just New Delhi and Riyadh but also around those of Islamabad that increasing militancy in Pakistan is making even it staunchest allies uneasy. Serious questions are being raised about the Pakistani establishment’s ability to control these groups that it has for so long nurtured and nourished, but that now run amok in that country. Saudi Arabia genuinely fears — and rightly so — that more sooner than later things will get out of hand in Pakistan.
Take, for example, the manner in which Riyadh’s response to the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba has evolved in recent years. As South Asia scholar Stephen Tankel points out, Saudi Arabia was a “reluctant contributor to the international effort against Al Qaeda” after 9/11 but this changed after “the Kingdom suffered directly from Al Qaeda attacks beginning in 2003. However, it remained relatively tolerant of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (which at the time had distanced itself from Al Qaeda). This owed to Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Pakistan, but also resulted from Lashkar’s position vis-à-vis the Kingdom.” Mr Tankel goes on to explain that not only do some Lashkar leaders have long-standing ties with the kingdom; many of them consider it to be the “best Islamic state, even if not an ideal one”. Equally importantly, “Lashkar leaders’ strong commitment to spreading Ahl-e-Hadith (or Salafi) Islam via non-violent activism and their decision to eschew revolutionary terrorism in favour of pan-Islamist jihad made the group more palatable” to the Saudi state, believes Mr Tankel.
However, that view of the Lashkar as a relatively ‘peaceful’ Islamist organisation was literally blown to smithereens after the Mumbai carnage of 2008 that it planned and executed. In effect, it was the 26/11 attacks that sealed the LeT’s reputation as a global terror organisation and Riyadh, under pressure from New Delhi and Washington, DC, has since been compelled to view the group as a threat to its own internal security as well. Against this backdrop, Pakistan’s inability to rein in Lashkar militants and others of their ilk has not gone down well in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, it is now clearly scoping out new friends in this region even as Pakistan tries to come to terms with the fact that it may no longer have a monopoly over the ‘Saudi relationship’.
The first signs of change in this regard were seen back in 2006 when Saudi king Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud visited India as part of a four-country tour that, interestingly, also included a stop-over in China. Still, it was the first time since 1955 that a Saudi king was visiting this country and the ‘Delhi Declaration’ that was signed at the end of his trip would eventually prove to be a game-changer in bilateral relations. More specifically, it was the Memorandum of Understanding on Combating Terrorism, also produced in the course of that visit, which would lay the foundation stone for cooperation in the areas of transnational crime and of course terrorism.
To be sure, all the right noises were made during King Saud’s visit. But it would be a while before they found reflection in concrete action. Nonethe-less, by the time Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Saudi Arabia in 2010, bilateral ties had deepened significantly. The time was right to put in place an extradition treaty, apart from signing the Riyadh Declaration of course, that would be key in facilitating on the ground, counter-terrorism operations.
The following two years saw increasing cooperation between India and Saudia Arabia that culminated in the deportation of Zabiuddin Ansari earlier this year. Though an Indian citizen, Ansari was in the West Asian Kingdom on a Pakistani passport when he was first arrested by Saudi authorities. As expected, Islamabad tried hard to leverage that fact in its favour and make a case for Ansari’s deportation to Pakistan instead of India. At an earlier time, this would have been the case for sure. But New Delhi was able to provide strong evidence that included DNA samples to show that Ansari was indeed an Indian citizen; this coupled with some hard-nosed American diplomacy ensured that Riyadh eventually put Ansari on a flight to Delhi.
However, it is imperative to mention here that while viewing counter-terrorism cooperation between India and Saudi Arabia through the Pakistani prism surely provides interesting perspectives, it must also be placed against the backdrop of overall improvement in bilateral ties between the two countries for a more holistic picture. For instance, between 2006 and 2012, India’s oil imports from Saudi Arabia increased by leaps and bounds. Much of this of course has to do with the US-led Western pressure to stop importing from Iran — India’s traditional oil supplier — but nevertheless, it has emerged as yet another connecting point between the countries. That apart, there has also been a jump in bilateral trade; and there is talk of greater defence cooperation especially following Union Minister for Defence AK Antony’s visit earlier visit to Saudi Arabia earlier this year.
On a concluding note though, it must be mentioned that just because the Saudis are working with India does not by any means indicate that they are willing to severe ties with Pakistan. The two Sunni Muslims countries have way too much invested in each other to break away, at least as of now.
For instance, Saudi Arabia will always need nuclear-armed Pakistan on its side to contain the influence of Shia Iran in its own neighbourhood especially if the latter acquires nuclear capabilities, and similarly, cash-strapped Pakistan will always depend on oil-rich Saudi Arabia for funds, finances and more. India clearly has no place in all of this. So, instead, it is chalking out its own relationship dynamics with the Saudis.
(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on November 1, 2012.)
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