Surviving Mumbai Gunman Traced to Pakistan; Increasing Strain In Chronically Strained Relations Between India and Pakistan

by Damozel | Though Islamabad denies it, Saeed Shah, a reporter for The Guardian, believes he has found the surviving gunman's home:  a poor village called Faridkot in Pakistan.  According to some villagers, Faridkot is a recruiting center for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group which is believed to have orchestrated the terrorist attack. (The Guardian)  In nearby villages, there are radical madrassas.  "The nazim (mayor) of Tara Singh, Rao Zaeem Haider, said: 'There is a religious trend here. Some go for jihad, but not too many.'" (The Guardian)   

This report confirms what India and most observers seem to have assumed:  that the Mumbai attacks originated on Pakistani soil.

Pakistan, of course, has been demanding proof. 

Pakistan has condemned the attacks, denied any involvement by its state agencies and vowed full cooperation in investigations, but has called for proof of Pakistani involvement.  (reuters-uk)

Condi thought there was already such proof and said so on FoxNews.(reuters-uk; via)

"I think there's no doubt that Pakistani territory was used, by probably non-state actors," Rice told CNN's "Late Edition."

She has just returned from a trip to the region to urge cooperation between the old enemies India and Pakistan.

"I don't think that there is compelling evidence of involvement of Pakistani officials," she added.

She asked Islamabad to help bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks.  Now it seems that Pakistan has raided a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp "on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani side of disputed Kashmir region." (reuters-uk)

The BBC says that a number of militants have reportedly been arrested and that the camp has been seized by the military.

Cernig says:

Whether the LeT was the controlling group behind the Mumbai attacks or not (and I'm still sceptical about that) there's no doubt that it is a dangerous group, that it is responsible for other attacks inside India including the 2006 Mumbai bombings and that it has always been the creature of Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency. It'll be interesting to see whether this is a token strike, the beginnings of the kind of faux-clampdown that has characterised previous Pakistani offensives against their own terror proxies or something more serious born out of genuine worry that the jig might be up for Pakistan's talking out of both sides of its mouth on terrorism.

Most Americans I know seem blithely unaware of just how strained the situation is between these two nuclear-armed nations all the time.  After all, they've fought three wars since 1947.

Cernig:

Just for fits and giggles, this is how close India and Pakistan are to nuclear war.

The Pakistani High Commissioner in London, Wajid Shamsul Hassan, said he had learned from sources that India was about to launch a military strike to "teach Pakistan a lesson".

Speaking to Sky News, he said: "On the day of the Mumbai attacks, I got some information in London that India was going to act very drastically against Pakistan in retaliation to what happened."

The senior diplomat said had alerted the Pakistani government and President Asif Ali Zardari to the threat.

In turn, Mr Zardari urgently contacted high level British and American officials who intervened to calm the situation.

Accusations over Mumbai may have made matters worse, but this is the ground-state of relations on the sub-continent.

A hoax telephone call on November 28 almost started a war (via Blood and Treasure).

A hoax telephone call almost sparked another war between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan at the height of last month's terror attacks on Mumbai, officials and Western diplomats on both sides of the border said on Sunday.

Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani President, took a telephone call from a man pretending to be Pranab Mukherjee, India's Foreign Minister, on Friday, November 28, apparently without following the usual verification procedures, they said.

The hoax caller threatened to take military action against Pakistan in response to the then ongoing Mumbai attacks, which India has since blamed on the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), they said.

Mr Zardari responded by placing Pakistan's air force on high alert and telephoning Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, to ask her to intervene....(ToL)

It wasn't a joke:  it seems to have been a deliberate attempt to provoke a war, "thereby diverting Pakistani forces away from the fight against Islamist militants near the Afghan border."(ToL)  Pakistan says that it did follow verification procedures. 

Jesus. 

Memeorandum has more.

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