by Damozel | Further update: Death toll is now at 119. A BBC update indicates that the death toll has risen from 80 to 101. Gunmen are holding people captive in an office block. (BBC News 11-27) Meanwhile, the Indian Prime Minister suggests that the attackers are "from outside India." (CNN) In the same article, CNN reported that six of the dead are foreigners. Among 314 wounded, seven are Britons and two Australian citizens. The same reported estimated that there were 26 gunmen. According to a CNN report from Indian media, NDTV reported at 9 pm ET that 5 have been killed, 9 arrested, and 3 have been escaped.
The New York Times has published an update. At present the alleged Al-Qaeda link is being questioned, as are allegations/implications that the attack was primarily aimed at Westerners. (NYT) Was it or was it not linked to Al Qaeda? Experts most definitely disagree.
Christine Fair, senior political scientist and a South Asia expert at the RAND Corporation, was careful to say that the identity of the terrorists could not yet be known. But she insisted the style of the attacks and the targets in Mumbai suggested the militants were likely to be Indian Muslims and not linked to Al Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Taiba, another violent South Asian terrorist group.
“There’s absolutely nothing Al Qaeda-like about it,” she said of the attack. “Did you see any suicide bombers? And there are no fingerprints of Lashkar. They don’t do hostage-taking and they don’t do grenades.”
The Indian security official, moreover, said the attackers likely had ties to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a guerrilla group run by Pakistani intelligence for the war against India in the disputed territory of Kashmir...Ms. Fair said one incident — “a watershed event” — that continues to anger Muslims were the riots that swept Gujarat State near Mumbai in 2002. The violence killed between 1,000 and 2,000 people, most of them Muslims....
“There are a lot of very, very angry Muslims in India,” she said, “The economic disparities are startling and India has been very slow to publicly embrace its rising Muslim problem... This is a major domestic political challenge for India.”
That, too, was disputed by the Indian official. “This was Mumbai’s 9/11,” the official said. The consequences of the attack, the official said, may be to disrupt any overtures to Pakistan and to ignite a backlash against Indian Muslims. (NYT)
The question whether this was Mumbai's 911 is being debated, but seems somewhat beside the point.
Whoever initiated the attacks, it's certainly the case that India has repeated suffered terrorist attacks during the past 20 years. Gethin Chamberlain at The Guardian says that with 200 already dead in terror attacks this year, it was really a question of when, rather than if, Mumbai too would be hit.
"I only wish to
emphasise here that time is not on our side," he said....
Mumbai itself has been a regular target for terrorists since 1993.....In the aftermath of the other recent attacks, security sources suggested that both Pakistan and Bangladesh had played a part in assisting the bombers and it seems likely that investigators will again look at possible links with those countries to the latest attacks.
Earlier we discussed the allegations in The Times of London that the attackers seemed to be targeting Americans and Britons. At Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria is dubious. And indeed the incoming reports suggest that arguments that the attacks were aimed at the US and Briton might be somewhat self-centered. Zakaria:
Zakaria also thinks the source may prove to be an outside group, since Indian witnesses neither understood nor recognized their language.
CNN's Christine Amanpour says that the attacks have come at a crucial time: the new president of Pakistan just said that Pakistan wants improved relations with India and that the two nations should work together to combat terrorism.
They have often blamed terror attacks on Islamic militants based in Pakistan. Some, they say, are concerned about, for instance, Indian rule over Kashmir. Al Qaeda also has threatened to attack India in revenge for its policies.
Very, very interestingly, this comes at a time when the new president of Pakistan has, in fact, gone further than any previous Pakistani leader in saying they want to improve relations with India, in saying they want to jointly combat terrorism together. The Pakistani president even went so far as saying he would consider renouncing a nuclear strike on India....
Whatever happens in this region is so, so difficult and dangerous because of the flash point it centers on. As I say, though it has come at a time right in the aftermath of the warmest outreach by Pakistan to India in decades.
Amanpour stressed several times during her interview stressed that these attacks have fallen just as Pakistani and Indian government officials have jointly declared that they want to cooperate on ending terrorism.
[I]n the last 10 years or so, particularly since 9/11, there have been a number of very significant attacks blamed by the Indian forces on Islamic militants....
[W]hat's really amazing is that often, it's blamed on tensions with
Pakistan. And yet, this comes at a time where the president of Pakistan
has -- the new president -- has really made an unprecedented overture
to India in terms of trying to warm up relations, trying to secure a
lasting peace. And just today, Indian and Pakistani officials were
having meetings, and they ended it with a joint declaration that they
wanted to cooperate on ending terrorism and combating terrorism. (Amanpour)
She compared the current situation in India to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Just today, there is an interview with the U.S. Marine Corps commandant as basically saying that al Qaeda's focus now is Pakistan. There had been some thought that maybe al Qaeda was in the past trying to launch its attacks also in India, but the Indian secret services and the security services say that they don't have a presence there. But Pakistan is a very, very big worry. It's a failing state. Afghanistan is practically a failed state right now, even after the U.S. in 2001 sent al Qaeda and the Taliban packing.
There's a very difficult and dangerous situation on this subcontinent that really has been the focus of a lot of attention right now, and indeed, the incoming president has said that he wants to step up the number of U.S. forces. U.S. commanders want more forces in that region as well, not just Afghanistan, but to cope with Pakistan as well... [I]t's a brazen attack on the most visible elements and symbols and structures of the economic, the cultural, the tourist, the international hub, as I said, the gateway to India -- which is the world's largest democracy -- which is not a failed state by any stretch of the imagination. Which has a unified political structure, which has an army and security forces. India is not Pakistan or Afghanistan, and yet this has been able to happen here..(Amanpour)
Swaaraj Chauhan at The Moderate Voice has written an important post on India's history of coping with terrorism and its wish for an end to self-centered western policies. As Amanpour too pointed out, India has been the victim of many terror attacks, many of which received "scant attention" in the west.
India has faced many such challenges bravely, and there have been several “9/11s” before. Now the country has also learned a cardinal lesson that these terrorists are the creation, direct or indirect, of bigger international forces/players. And only the big players can really stop the carnage.
Since terror attacks are not showing any signs of abating despite eight years of international “war on terror”… India has decided that it should pay more attention to self-preparedness and the relief and healing measures. The favourite word “revenge” has been taken out of the dictionary.
For the USA and the West some understanding of “terrorism” and “militancy” began only after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. That was the first time when Americans suffered pain and devastation, as a consequence of terrorism, at a personal level.
Before that the repeated reminders from India during the 1980s and the 1990s (when Sikh and Kashmiri terrorists were killing innocent people) about rising terrorism fell on deaf ears and the leaders and the media in the West trivialized the whole issue. At that time there was a strong conviction in the USA that terrorism could happen only ‘elsewhere in the world’.
Frankly, the world is getting tired of the Bush-era adventurism and was hoping that the change in the US leadership would bring some sanity back with a changed foreign policy stance. But there are serious doubts now. And to top it all there is the looming dangerous worldwide recession ahead, that may create serious inner civilian conflicts and unrest far dangerous than terrorism.
Memeorandum has more discussion here.
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