US undercover agents’ rogue operation

A national Intelligence organisation - like that of India - earns the respect of the countrymen because it helps the State in discharging its sovereign function of safeguarding national security, stays completely non-partisan and establishes a method of working that is secretive but never crooked.

Since security, by definition, is protection against a scheming adversary resorting to a ‘covert’ attack, the counter-intelligence effort relies on tradecraft techniques perfected with professional training - like surveillance, infiltration into the enemy's camp, communication monitoring, raising human sources and carrying out an interview under 'cover'.

The adversarial entity has to be identified and then targeted keeping in view the aim that security by definition is preventive - if there is therefore the danger of an enemy infiltrating its vanguard into the country clandestinely, these ideally have to be picked up right at the point of entry.

For this a lot of effort is made round the clock by operational teams to garner intelligence about the identity and location of 'enemy' agents. Intelligence operators could try to 'turn in' a member of the adversary's set up or 'plant' a person of their own trust there. The results are never easy to get but the intelligence agency is prepared to ceaselessly slog for getting access to the plans and activities of a 'real' enemy.

A professional and upright intelligence organisation goes for the hard targets and does not fall for the temptation of somehow creating an illusion of success for credit in the eyes of the political masters - by manufacturing a narrative of threat without establishing the presence of an ‘enemy’.

If this is done by fabricating a ‘trap’ by way of creating a fake university for getting unsuspecting individuals - who could not, by any stretch of imagination, be described as ‘enemy agents’ - to land in the country for joining that educational institution and then hauling them up as unlawful people precisely on the ground of being in a fake institution, this is a rogue operation and not an intelligence effort. The criminality here would be on the shoulders of the phoney entity and its creators alone and not on the victims of the 'fraud' committed by the former.

Imagine the shock that the people across the democratic world would feel over the recent media reports to the effect that the Homeland Security agents in the US apparently in collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) - both are a part of the US Task Force against Terrorism - have rounded up hundreds of Indian students precisely in this way and tried to claim it as a great operation designed to detect infiltration into the US. India has sent a demarche to the US Embassy in Delhi questioning this action and the Indian Embassy in Washington has intervened to help the imperilled students, but this raises serious questions about the spurious operations and unethical ways of some lead agencies engaged in counter-intelligence work. 

The Trump regime had no doubt taken a serious view of illegal migrations and fraudulent entry of outsiders into the US from countries which traditionally posed a threat to the American security. But are the American intelligence agencies totally oblivious of the complete convergence that India and the US had achieved on security matters or are they so desperate about creating an impression of being pro-active after their Chiefs had run into problems with President Trump that they wanted to secure 'results' through such dubious means?

The 'University of Farmington' based in Michigan was reportedly created two years ago by undercover agents of Homeland Security and its head - one Ali Milani - wrote letters to the prospective students imploring them to come to his university, getting in this questionable manner more than a hundred Indian students on its rolls during this period with the help of a gang of recruiters.

The Immigration & Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) is now treating these students as a prize catch to prove its great work against 'illegal' immigration. It should have targeted the fraudulent intermediaries, something it did not do precisely because it had connived with them for 'operational' reasons.

The blind pursuit of Indian students is incongruous with the facts of the case. First, does the Homeland Security consider India as an adversary that would pump in its 'agents' into the US to indulge in unlawful missions there like some hostile neighbours and countries breeding Islamic radicals would possibly do? Secondly, considering the known keenness among Indian students to study in American universities with the legitimate objective of receiving higher education and jobs, the entrants would have responded to the 'invite' from this fake university with enthusiasm and come in only on legal travel documents.

In case a fake university was created by a fraudulent group outside of the government, it would have been the responsibility of the FBI to unearth that activity before any entrants were trapped but in this case, a US government agency itself was the creator of an illegal entity, spending a whole lot of time, energy and funds to set it up just to be able to show that they had caught some Indian students on the wrong foot.

Even if some students might have suspected the credentials of the university, they would rightly expect the US government to deal with any irregularities about the institution they had joined in. But in this case, US undercover agents themselves were behind a university that fronted a trap operation. This is neither a good intelligence effort nor a worthwhile national security mission. 

In any case, India should strongly object to this offending move of the US agencies and treat it as an affront to its national standing. Is it possible that this is a deliberate act of Ali Milani to put India on par with those nations that had received adverse attention of President Trump and thus spoil Indo-US relations? The US policy makers should be interested in closely auditing the output of the country's agencies entrusted with counter-intelligence work.

The FBI should be concentrating on spurious institutions run by unlawful elements on its soil. Becoming a party to an operation meant to entice students to a fake university established by agents of the government themselves does not add up to a legitimate intelligence work in this case.

The FBI and other intelligence agencies, it is presumed, would be focusing on detection of sleeper cells of terrorists in the US that were posing a greater threat than before because of the unsuccessful 'war on terror'. The danger had further increased with the known use of social media by the adversary for spreading radicalisation.

The Commission on 9/11 had brought out many failings of the US intelligence particularly, the inadequacy of follow up on signals that had indicated presence of radical aliens on American soil. American agencies can hardly afford not to devote all their time and resources to the serious threats to the security of US from terrorists and clandestine infiltrators. Violations of immigration laws and procedures can be detected - without resort to devious trap operations - through a professionally competent intelligence-based endeavour. (The writer is a former Director, Intelligence Bureau)

By D C Pathak