The recent claim by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan that it had orchestrated the botched bombing plot at New York's Times Square is a clear indication that terror patterns are changing. Terror outfits have realised that their operations are becoming all too familiar, and hence have decided to go in for a complete revamp of their strategy.
There are 40 terror camps on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and a similar number of them thrive on the Indo-Pak border as well. And in the fact these numbers are rapidly growing, say Intelligence Bureau sources.
Earlier there were a limited number of groups focusing on India. But now with Al Qaeda too being roped in to carry out terror strikes in the country, terror groups are expanding their modules -- both in the border areas and within the mainland.
There has been an interesting change in the terror infrastructure in Pakistan. While the Lashkar-e-Tayiba was directed to focus mainly on India operations, Al Qaeda was reserved for operations in the West and in Afghanistan.
IB sources say that at present there are dedicated camps for the battle in Afghanistan, and all terror outfits in that country have decided to wage that battle as one. There were a lot of differences between these outfits, but now they feel that the Pakistani establishment too is not being too supportive of their cause, and they feel betrayed since that establishment appears to be leaning towards the United States.
A year ago, the Inter Services Intelligence had managed to disrupt the terror infrastructure and had split these outfits in a bid to play a power game.
However, there is no split now and all the outfits have come together and have decided that they will remain united in Afghanistan.
These outfits have decided that they would not operate actively in areas that they have been targeting over the past few years. For instance, the Lashkar would take a back seat where India operations are concerned, and would provide more of logistic and moral support to Al Qaeda, which has decided to play a big role in India.
Al Qaeda, on the other hand, would make way for groups such as the Siraj Haqqani group, Lashkar and the Tehrik-e-Taliban to operate in the West.
Intelligence agencies feel this is a well thought-out strategy.
Post the 9/11 and the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, a lot of study had been done on these terror modules, their infrastructure, and also the faces that operate for these groups.
It was becoming all too familiar, and as a result, their cadres were being picked up at regular intervals. Both the US and India have busted at least 50 to 60 plots in the past couple of years, and operating in these countries have become increasingly difficult for the terror outfits. Therefore these terror groups decided that it would be better to send in completely new outfits into these lands, since it would give the security forces a harder time.
The IB sources say that each terror strike bears a signature. Based on the data prepared, they are able to pick up and intercept people. However, now the job will be harder since new groups which come into the fray will have different set ups and patterns.
This is primarily one of the reasons why the Tehrik-e-Taliban was asked to operate and carry out the Time Square plot.
