Mumbai Terror Attacks

Developing..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7751160.stm

yup

Gunmen have carried out a series of co-ordinated attacks across the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay), killing at least 80 people and injuring 200 more.

At least seven high-profile locations were hit in India's financial capital, including two luxury hotels where hostages were reported to be held.

A fire is sweeping through the Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai's most famous hotel, which is now ringed by troops.

Police said four suspected terrorists have been killed and nine arrested.

Attacks leave India reeling
Witnesses tell of violence
In pictures: Mumbai attacks

The situation is still confused but the city's main train station, a hospital, a restaurant and two hotels - locations used by foreigners as well as local businessmen and leaders - are among those places caught up in the violence.

There are reports of gunfire and explosions taking place elsewhere in the city, and reports of a hostage situation at a hospital.

Commandos have now surrounded the two hotels, the Taj Mahal Palace and the Oberoi Trident, where it is believed that the armed men are holding dozens of hostages.

One eyewitness said that the attackers had singled out British and American passport holders.

If this report is true, our security correspondent Frank Gardner says it implies an Islamist motive - attacks inspired or co-ordinated by al-Qaeda.

See detailed map of the area

A claim of responsibility has been made by a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen.

Our correspondent says it could be a hoax or assumed name for another group.

The motive is far from clear - but the attacks come amid elections in several Indian states, including in disputed Kashmir.

In the latest developments:

• Fire crews have been evacuating people from the upper floors of the Taj Mahal Palace, from where flames and smoke could be seen billowing

• The head of Mumbai's anti-terrorism unit and two other senior officers are among those killed, officials say

• The White House holds a meeting of top intelligence and counter-terrorism officials, and pledges to help the Indian government.

Gunmen opened fire at about 2300 local time (1730 GMT) at the sites in southern Mumbai.

Mumbai journalist: "Gunmen were looking for Westerners"
"The terrorists have used automatic weapons and in some places grenades have been lobbed," said AN Roy, police commissioner of Maharashtra state.

Local TV images showed blood-splattered streets, bodies being taken into ambulances and dramatic shots of what appeared to explosions and fire inside the Taj Mahal hotel.

One eyewitness told the BBC he had seen a gunman opening fire in the Taj Mahal's lobby.

He said he had seen people fall before he fled the lobby

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/world/asia/27mumbai.html?_r=1&hp

“They were talking about British and Americans specifically,” he recounted. “There was an Italian guy, who, you know, they said: ‘Where are you from?’ and he said he’s from Italy and they said, ‘fine’, and they left him alone.”

my brother was there just recently. this is shitting me up.

we've had CNN on here all day and over the last seven hours it's just been anchors watching four or five feeds from indian TV that show soldiers and civilians milling around aimlessly in the street, looking confused. and correspondents calling in on satellite phone explaining that nobody knows anything.

so i read this on the

sorry, meant to post

so i read this on the times of india website:

The high-profile chief of the anti-terror squad Hemant Karkare was killed; Mumbai's additional commissioner of police (east) Ashok Kamte was gunned down outside the Metro; and celebrated encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar was also killed.

and i'm like, what the heck is an encounter specialist. so i do some reading ...

With Tuesday’s encounter, the number of criminals shot dead by inspector Vijay Salaskar touched 78.

They are dreaded by criminals, loathed by human rights activists and envied by their colleagues.

'In a shootout, no one has time for niceties. You kill or get killed.'

wow ... it's like a john woo movie come to life

40 being held hostage in taj mahal hotel

good photo (not graphic or anything)

why hasn't india deployed the Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (COBRA)?

http://tweetgrid.com/grid?l=0&q1=%23mumbai

wow ... it's like a john woo movie come to life

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, November 26, 2008 8:01 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

no shit. wow!

i know this is in no way funny but this afternoon cnn's closed caption had it mistyped as "MUM BILE"

i barely have words for this

This is just terrible coming after the already-execrable BJP-inspired (deny it or not) communal violence against Christians in Orissa in the past few months

Lower class Muslim family? Yay expect 1993 in Mumbai all over again.

thank you jihad

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y155/rgin/Picture2.png

this is some really audacious and scary shit. im still awake imagining what getting caught up in this would be like. so depressing that they knew they had to take hostages to get more attention than previous bombings. good luck mumbai

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/11/first-hand-acco.html

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/11/coordinated-car.html

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=18.922445,72.832242&spn=0.007054,0.007864&z=17&msid=105055855763538009401.00045c9d8b16af3ad1008

The 600 room, 105 year old Taj Mahal palace hotel that's on fire right now

http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/4392/charlesda6.jpg
http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/4392/charlesda6.jpg

I'm traveling from Penn Station tomorrow and I'm suddenly really upset and really worried.

http://blog.wired.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/11/26/mumbai_26_november_attack_terrori_2.jpg

http://i33.tinypic.com/30iz1c8.jpg

so apparently the Deccan Mujahaideen is okay with Versace

cnn reporting all hostages freed from taj mahal hotel

Oh jesus:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/mumbai-terror-attacks-actor-satchwell-forced-to-hide-in-cupboard-20081127-6j4e.html

"Mumbai terror attacks: actor Satchwell forced to hide in cupboard"

Guess what angle *our* media is now going to have about this awful event for the rest of forever.... gah.

(Brooke Satchwell is a hasbeen ex-Neighbours star, fwiw)

This is unbelievable stuff, attacks are still going on, 8 hours after it first kicked off. Gunmen supposedly cruising city in a commandeered police car, AP saying an Orthodox Jewish centre just been taken. Mumbai is a hell of a city, it's unbelievably densely packed. Getting any sort of lockdown is going to be nigh-on impossible.

has anybody come up with any kind of possible rationale for the timing on this?

Like symbolic significance? I always assume with these attacks that they go when the group is ready to execute the attack.

This isnt exactly an Al-Q thing is it? Its some kind of internal corruption/muslim extremist dudes? I dont think I quite understand the machinations of India/Pakistan.

The subway threat for tomorrow is apparently from Al-Q.

The... wait, what subway threat? In the US or in India?

There's talk that Pakistan secret service is behind it, as Pak govt is trying to reign them in. It's really professional either way: they killed three senior Mumbai police chiefs pretty much out of the gate, and have been well armed to boot.

In the US.

Yikes.

Can we not conflate freshmens'-first-midterms level phone-in bullshit with actual people getting killed please

seriously. unsubstantiated terror "threats" are so 2003.

has anybody come up with any kind of possible rationale for the timing on this?

uh, the transition?

The subway threat for tomorrow is apparently from Al-Q.

There is no "subway threat for tomorrow"

I thought that was odd, theres been v little conflation of this with any islam/Al-Q stuff (apart from speculation that they're targeting brits and americans)

yeah gabbneb the rest of the world totally revolves around change.gov
wtf
anyway next week is the beginning of the hajj is about all I know

there's actually direct accounts that they're targeting US/UK'ers

um, AQ kinda revolves around US

Trayce a group called "deccan mujahideen" is claiming responsibility

"AQ" in 2008 is a group that makes cassette tapes and puts them in the mail

Okay, guys. Take this however you'd like, but my friend's father works with homeland security. And he said it's not just media fearmongering, and that there's a credible threat. So -- take that however you will. If I'm nervous and upset about it, though, I'd think it would be understandable.

Okay, guys. Take this however you'd like, but my friend's father works with homeland security.

i lol'd

Mordy, do you know what the phrase "holiday season" refers to?

Gabbneb, I've got a question for you. Where you you living in 2001? Because I was living in NY. So fuck you.

lol

DHS never downplays anything, and they had the same kind of crap in October 2005. I'm not saying it's chicken little, I'm just saying, it's probably chicken little.

I hope it's chicken little. And I'm still traveling tomorrow. But I'd rather that gabbneb didn't discount my upset.

Of course, he's a dick. So I don't know why I expect anything different.

i'm sure they do have "credible" intelligence of a threat, just like we've had many times since 9/11. it's also not "for tomorrow."

It's also evidence that they were talking about something. All the sources underline that there's 0 evidence it had got anywhere near even preparations.

stet: what?

The subway thing: in all the wire stories I can find the intelligence people are saying they have credible evidence that there were people talking about targetting the subway or rail system, and then they all stress that there's mo evidence whatsoever that anything got past talk-- no preparations begun etc.

"We have no specific details to confirm that this plot has developed beyond aspirational planning, but we are issuing this warning out of concern that such an attack could possibly be conducted during the forthcoming holiday season," according to the warning dated Tuesday.

who are these people? are these snippets of conversation grabbed from the air or surveillance being done on specific suspects? I mean wtf is this crap DHS or whoever comes up with and when are they just going to stop with this nonsense. Enough already.

Basically this amounts to an announcement saying "be paranoid and fearful for the next two months or until you forget about it. That is all."

Looks like they've taken the Taj. Video of hostages leaving, Indian tv saying a lot of casualties inside. Jesus.

wiki research seems to suggest possible SIMI association? I don't know. This is all crazy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_Islamic_Movement_of_India#2008

who are these people? are these snippets of conversation grabbed from the air or surveillance being done on specific suspects?

the threat supposedly comes from someone arrested by the FBI in Pakistan who the FBI says has been "reliable and knowledgeable in the past." the report, of discussions that began about 2 months ago, is described as "plausible but unsubstantiated," and the decision to issue the warning aided by information gathered in the last 2 days that the FBI won't specify, tho it's emphasized that there is no evidence that a plot is anything other than aspirational. the threat is unspecific as to whether it's against subways or rail, tho that doesn't seem surprising.

Gabbneb, I've got a question for you. Where you you living in 2001? Because I was living in NY. So fuck you.

I was 5 blocks from the WTC, and walked out of the ash cloud several hours after the 2nd tower fell. I'm not discounting your "upset," which didn't seem to get in the way of your taking another opportunity to call me a dick, but rather noting your misreading - and mischaracterization - of the warning, something that could unnecessarily cause "upset" to other people here.

>has anybody come up with any kind of possible rationale for the timing on this?

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, November 26, 2008 9:37 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Tom:

1) Zardari and Manmohan were getting close, with the nations unprecedentedly avowing to "fight terrorism." Bad choice of words

“There is a little bit of Indian in every Pakistani and a little bit of Pakistani in every Indian and I speak today as a Pakistani, as much as the little Indian in me”- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari quoting his assassinated wife Benazir Bhutto.

http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/2008/11/26/pakistans-zardari-a-little-bit-pakistani-and-a-little-bit-indian/

2) Elections coming up in d'oh Kashmir, and around the country, which have inspired a number of earlier attacks this year, including in Delhi most recently. And the "Indian Mujahaideen" as opposed to the "Deccan" have been involved in them too.

3) Lakshar-e-Taiyba

4) Kashmir, Kashmir, Kashmir....+ Palestine. Rinse, repeat...terrorists wanting to combine anti-western rage with attempts to influence upcoming Indian elections should be no shocker

5) The recent Mumbai police round-up of HINDU-terrorists, undoubtedly inspired by the fringe elements of BJP (that stirred up the anti-Christian assaults in Orissa, as I mentioned above) an idiot-demagogues (Mr. Advani, looking at you) - just earlier this week, they were routed. Media speculation already beginning of their desire to stir up trouble in order to paint Muslims as scapegoats...

I know the Western news media never reports/underreports on Indian attacks, but they're really picked up in intensity and regularity the last year and a half

x-posts Can the obamaites/new yorkers for once get over their self-centeredness?

lols

Reading up on SIMI-related/Indian Mujahideen mass murdering and destruction, this seems like it's really in that vein. Hospitals/train stations in major economic centers, specific attempts to target UK/US persons, etc. I learned a lot about the Babri Mosque and its demolition tonight. Wow.

+ thx vic

I know the Western news media never reports/underreports on Indian attacks, but they're really picked up in intensity and regularity the last year and a half

this has been clear to me. i have not, as yet, been aware of any significance to their timing, however.

Woo!!!!@ Expect more demagoguery! So 2009 really IS attempted to be 1993 all over again!

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/mumbai-terror-pm-advani-to-visit-terror-hit-area/11/56/50193/on

Mumbai Terror: PM, Advani to visit terror-hit area
Press Trust of India / New Delhi November 27, 2008, 11:41 IST
BJP leader L K Advani to accompany Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during visit to terror-hit Mumbai.

"The Prime Minister called me this morning and suggested that we should travel together to Mumbai to examine the situation and express solidarity with the security forces to which I readily agreed," Advani said.

He said that the attacks are unprecedented in nature. It is an audacious attack and a challenge to the nation. While maintaining calm and unity, we must all resolve to break the back of India's enemy.

Advani said both the Central and the Maharashtra governments "have to say a lot" about the last night's terror attacks.

Referring to the attacks, he said hotels, cinema halls and other crowded places were the main targets of the terrorists.

>I learned a lot about the Babri Mosque and its demolition tonight. Wow.

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, November 26, 2008 11:17 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah dude, to fill in the picture clearer of why I am so unsettled by this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lal_Krishna_Advani

Advani is often credited with forging the BJP in to the powerful political entity that it is today. However, the party, which rose under Advani coinciding with the aggressive assertion of Hindu politics, has met with severe criticism from various quarters.

Babri Masjid demolition and the consequences
In 1980, the BJP launched a movement led by Advani on the issue of the Ram Temple. The BJP demanded that a temple dedicated to Lord Rama be created at the site of a mosque where, according to their claim, a temple stood till Babar's invasion of India in 1528. The mosque there destroyed by Hindu extremists in 1992, sparking riots nationwide that cost 2,000 lives. Speaking to correspondents on his appointment as President of the BJP, Advani said: "We must be candid enough to recognise the Hindu anger that exploded on the streets in the early 1990s has given way to a patient wait for the new temple whose construction, I feel is inevitable." However, he was unable to follow through on this, even during his period as Home Minister of the Republic (1998-2004). The reason often quoted is that the rule was by the NDA government and BJP was only a major part of the coalition government.

http://oybay.wordpress.com/2008/11/27/chabad-of-mumbai-taken-hostage-by-terrorists/

gunmen entered mumbai by boat

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-reax27-2008nov27,0,1035797.story

boy terrorists

http://blog.wired.com/defense/images/2008/11/26/mumbai_26_november_attack_terrori_2.jpg

BBC News 24 coverage:

Foreign hostages. Financial capital of India. Foreigners. Financial capital. Popular with tourists. Financial capital of India. British and American passport holders. Foreign hostages. Financial capital of India. Popular with tourists. Foreigners. British and American passport holders. Financial capital of India.

... ad infinitum.

I shouldn't watch rolling news.

Try reading it instead. You get snippets like this instead:

1108 Indian government asks for live Twitter updates from Mumbai to cease immediately. "ALL LIVE UPDATES - PLEASE STOP TWEETING about #Mumbai police and military operations," a tweet says.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7752003.stm

I was impressed that Sky News found an Indian reporter this morning, who was able to confirm that Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull, has confirmed that his tour will continue.

These are the two things which have brought a smile to my face in a morning which has been spent emailing people I met when I was in Mumbai, without quite knowing what to say. I stayed in the Oberoi (the part which was then the Hilton Towers) and hosted a university reunion there.

The image of the terrorists checking Twitter to check on whether there are security forces coming up behind them is oddly hilarious.

This is MADNESS - the main station is a UNESCO heritage site. This would be the equivalent of attacking Times Square, the Ritz, Penn/Union Stations, the Waldorf-Astoria and 7 other targets simultaneously....and the hospital :( This is a city of 19 million so how long can it stay under lock down?

http://news.aol.com/article/78-die-in-mumbai-shootings-reports-say/261363

Among the other places attacked was the 19th century Chhatrapati Shivaji railroad station — a beautiful example of Victorian Gothic architecture — where gunmen sprayed bullets into the crowded terminal, leaving the floor splattered with blood.

"They just fired randomly at people and then ran away. In seconds, people fell to the ground," said Nasim Inam, a witness.

Other gunmen attacked Leopold's restaurant, a landmark popular with foreigners, and the police headquarters in southern Mumbai, the area where most of the attacks took place. Gunmen also attacked Cama and Albless Hospital and G.T. Hospital, though it was not immediately clear if anyone was killed.

The gunmen also seized the Mumbai headquarters of the ultra-orthodox Jewish outreach group Chabad Lubavitch and attacked the Oberoi Hotel, another five-star landmark.
The gunmen appeared to be holed up inside all three buildings on Thursday, nearly 18 hours later, holding foreign and local hostages, as Indian commandos surrounded the buildings.
Among those foreigners held captive were Americans, British, Italians, Swedes, Canadians, Yemenis, New Zealanders, Spaniards, Turks, a Singaporean and Israelis.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/nov/27mum-terrorists-in-touch-with-karachi-via-satphone.htm

Terrorists were in touch with Karachi in Pakistan via satphones

Sheela Bhatt in New Delhi | November 27, 2008 | 11:44 IST

According to highly reliable intelligence sources, two boatfuls of weapons and some 18-20 terrorists most likely came from Karachi in Pakistan.
Intelligence agencies are zeroing in on the Lashkar-e-Tayiba as the agency behind the terror attacks.

The initial interrogation of terrorists captured in Mumbai has yielded some basic information. According to sources, for some time the directions kept coming "live" to the terrorists in Mumbai via satellite phones.

The intelligence sources said information is coming out quite rapidly� because some six terrorists, who are in the custody of the Mumbai police,�are under interrogation right now. He said the entire operation was led by Pakistani operators of the LeT but he doesn't rule out�the involvement of some local youngsters in it.

"They are successful and we have failed," said the police officer with the agency. He said these attacks show that "the terrorists want to show that India is an unsafe place to do business in. The way they have focused on foreigners, they want to make Mumbai unattractive for foreign nationals."

Hmmm

Terror attack planned by Lashkar

New Delhi: Ten people reportedly sneaked into Mumbai via the sea route from Karachi and carried out a pre-planned and well-orchestrated strike in India under the aegis of the dreaded Lashkar-e-Taiba militant outfit.

A report on Times Now quoted intelligence agencies as saying that the timing of the terror attack coincided with efforts at peace talks between the newly elected regime in Pakistan and the authorities in India.

The militants reportedly used speed-boats to get from the coast of Karachi to Mumbai and then spread out into the southern part of the city and spread mayhem around the central business district by storming two major hotels and opening indiscriminate fire at several places.

The report quoted the intelligence agencies as saying that this information came from one of the captured terrorists after last night's heist in India's financial capital that saw more than 87 people lose their lives and 200 being injured with a few hostage dramas continuing for nearly 12 hours.

The report also said that there was no group called the Deccan Mujahideen and the e-mail has been traced back to a fictitious IP address in Russia. It said that the hawkish elements in Pakistan stage-managed this terror attacks to coincide with the visit of Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who was to visit Chandigarh today in the company of his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee, a trip that has since been cancelled.

Troubles ahead for India and Pakistan

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5240992.ece

One of the earliest signs that something was wrong came at about 10.30pm, local time, when two men were seen carrying AK47 rifles and grenades at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Bombay’s main railway station.

Seconds later, the men were spraying the concourse with gunfire, sending the passengers running for their lives. Within minutes, Bombay’s security forces were inundated with news of a horrifying wave of terror attacks across the city.

A five-minute car journey south of the train station, men armed with bombs, grenades and automatic rifles stormed the lobby of Bombay’s best hotel, the Taj Mahal Palace. Witnesses said that they targeted British and American citizens.

“They were very young, like boys really, wearing jeans and T-shirts,” said Rakesh Patel, a British guest at the Taj, whose face was blackened by the smoke.

He told an Indian television channel that he was one of about a dozen foreigners who had been herded together by two armed men and taken up to the hotel’s upper floors.

“They said they wanted anyone with British and American passports and then they took us up the stairs. I think they wanted to take us to the roof,” he said. He and another hostage managed to escape when they reached the 18th floor, he said.

Group behind Mumbai attacks based outside country: Indian PM

Vic, you're aware that AQ training, in particular in recent years, has planned for precisely this sort of attack?

There have been reports of associations with Osama bin-Laden and al-Qaeda from media recovered by Indian Authorities. Bin-Laden has urged SIMI to wage Jihad against India.

Yes I am aware of that. But merely pointing to just AQ is too easy and obtuse a target right now. That may have played a part in the reinvigoration of ideology, but you can clearly trace Lashkar's heritage all the way back to 1989 in Srinagar

Taj's hostages being evacuated, at least partially, but Trident Hotel now also being held hostage

From the last page of that last link:

Close to the domestic airport it appeared that a taxi had been blown up by a bomb. All that was left was a scorched, mangled chassis. Close to the Taj, a boat laden with explosives was reportedly recovered near the Gateway of India.

so...they were really going to go there, the gate. that's akin to the statue of lib. in regards to city landmarks. this is all horrifying

so we know Lashkar has something to do with this? they've denied responsibility and pretty much everyone is pointing to (AQ-linked) Indian mujahideen.

Forgive me for talking out of school here but I get the impression that for the sake of bilateral stability its safer to point to internal forces whether they're behind it or not?

it's obtuse to the extent that you're unaware of/uninterested in internal indian politics, but it's not obtuse to the extent that you see the big picture of an AQ who would like to destabilize the region and perhaps have now turned/added their attention to the internal indian (in addition to/instead of the internal pakistani) side of the equation (as evidenced of a very different, and fairly AQ-like, new kind of attack by an arguably AQ-linked group)

http://indiavikalp.blogspot.com/2008/11/indian-navy-surrounds-terror-suspect.html

Gabbneb, Lashkar is AQ-linked as well. In the 2001 attacks on the Indian Parliament, they stressed those links. But you can't just point to some AQ hierarchy as controlling indigenous groups; their may be shared goals but coordination is oversimplification. Lashkar is Kashmir-focused, and so is IM; of course they can be working together too, can't they? And surely you're not saying that just because a group is denying responsibility, you're going to take them at their word?

It's way too early to come to any sort of consensus of this. It just points to the 4th - and largest - in a string of attacks by IM in 5 months: Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Delhi and now Mumbai on the same day that the Zardari adminstration takes unprecedented steps to vocalize Pakistani desire to "curb terrorism"

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=An+Al-Qaeda+blueprint+says+terrorism+expert&artid=e/b%7CLA5IEn4=&SectionID=b7ziAYMenjw=&MainSectionID=ngGbWGz5Z14=&SectionName=pWehHe7IsSU=&SEO=mumbai,%20terror,%20george%20kassimeris

Also...I am very close to opening that can of worms I shouldn't so apologies to anyone I may offend in advance. But fuck trying to trace origins, or go back to '47. If we are going to play that game ...can someone explain anew the logic of Partition to me: one swath of the subcontinent choosing so "nobly" to remain secular/pluarlistic but never directly dealing with socio-economic oppression of the largest minority, electing a Muslim President for show while still feeding/exploiting extremist communal elements for the sake of elites to regain the status-quo (and win "votes")...and the other swath to kill/burn/force out all the indigenous Hindus in Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh and Baluchistan, to experiment with a failed attempt at statehood that is WHOLLY DEFINED by nothing but religion, and to remain under military rule for most of its existence while whoring out to CIA interests (first against USSR, now against its own rogue elements)

- how does the first swath have almost as many Muslims as the second, when the point of partition was to separate the groups and prevent discrimination? Or what was the point?

- why does the first stubbornly hold onto Kash. when its citizens demand freedom and are not contributing anything but continual reports of vast human rights abuses, and a separatist movement in retaliation? why does the first think it's gaining anything here when the rest of the country is trying to economically look ahead?

- and why does the second think it will in any way win anything by inheriting this radicalized province on its north-east that now has an indigenous self-rule movement when its own north-west is crumbling and spiraling in a world-threatening cauldron of violence, and is under numerous separatist movements of its own?

and let's not even get into the Pashtun problem or lol Afghanistan

so yes, let's try to solve all geo-political problems facing South Asia in the past century neat ilx posts

blueprints do not = direct involvement, but inspiration

IN neat ilx posts

If secularism is the badge of modernity, what is the solution to assimilating groups that define themselves in direct opposition to it, and zealously regard it as the antithesis to their existence?

What an irony? Nobody knows the caste of those brave policemen who fight for India in Mumbai today.

If they have a caste - its called humanity.

^^^ u_u

"If secularism is the badge of modernity, what is the solution to assimilating groups that define themselves in direct opposition to it, and zealously regard it as the antithesis to their existence?"

ok, that's a really serious question. But what is secularism? It's many different things, and not all of them are uncompromising. I don't know a solution to this problem, but maybe a start would be to highlight secularisms that don't provoke people to "zealously regard it as the antithesis to their existence". You'll always have those who will not compromise, but what matters most here are the masses.

> highlight secularisms that don't provoke people to "zealously regard it as the antithesis to their existence".

but Jihad by definition always regards it as such. you'd think after 1300 years in this area it would cool off...

The marginalization of jihad seems the ideal solution, no?

Easier said than done goes without saying.

Too soon: http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2008/11/mumbai-slumdog.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_(film)

buh

Satya

Vichi thanks for all your posts/research here very informative, way better than CNN feed here in Portland. gabbneb thinking this is some AQ/Osama Bin Laden-directed thing lolz

THANKS MOMZ FOR THE EMAIL

"What did I tell you about buildings everywhere going up in flames after Obama become president?"

Yes, there's no need to rip apart this first line of her e-mail, much less the rest of the it, which I'm sparing you guys.

Yeah I'm fully expecting to sit through YOU KNOW THIS IS OBAMA'S FAULT when I get home this afternoon.

Anyway, timing of Mumbai? Well, there's never a "bad time" for a successful terrorist attack. Give any chained primate 10 minutes, and they can rationalize the timing.

That said, doing something like this after the 2008 election but before Inaugaration Day while an outgoing dead duck dont-give-a-fuck president that put security in such a weak state is still in the Oval Office makes some sense for anything directed against Americans -- although I doubt this was the only reason for this, just a factor.

i would tell y'all to ask your moms about the terrorism over the past 8 yrs but i am guessing they're too far gone for logic

momz on my side thinks terrorism disappeared after the Iraq War... so yeah.

ANYWAY...this is a really bad digression from the thread, and I take blame for it.

As cliche as it sounds, GIVE LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF THANKS AND BEST WISHES TO THE FAMILIES AND SURVIVORS OF MUMBAI TODAY!

>The marginalization of jihad seems the ideal solution, no?

I don't know if there's any sarcasm here, but it's the other way around: Jihad comes from marginalization, amongst other things. When you can take a group of people who may have (justifiable or not) socio-economic, racial, regional or democratic concerns, and present a radicalized (and can we say archaic? please?) form of religious militarism to them as the panacea, (without sufficient education) it's unfortunately bought wholesale. Kill the kafira (infidels), solve the problems! But even this is a simplification. The factor of the "odds being against you," actually aid in jihadist zeal, with the promise of martyrdom (particularly with the Shia). There is a lot one could discuss here... how the fragmented history of society and the caste/class divisions (that transcend even Hindu-Muslim divisions, for ex: there are many people who still self-identify w/ my grandfather's "caste" in Pakistan, despite how Islam forbids such identification) cause threats to the pluralism that has always challenged and yet defined the subcontinent. Why did a foreign European power succeed so well in the divide & conquer game here (in the aftermath of one history's wealthiest empires, the Mughals), as opposed to some other Asian civilizations with just as long histories, who were just as economically stagnant in the 18-19th centuries? The amount of division that existed previously was a perfect tinderbox to light a match in, as the communal and regional self-identification runs as high if not higher than the nationalistic, the Brits eventually serving the purpose of uniting people against a civilizational enemy in a way that the Islamic invaders never did

Moreover, this should cause nothing but shame for India's recent chest-beating regarding technological progress: we can send satellites to the Moon, but not prevent teenagers arriving in dinghies to invade our largest city?? Where is the basic POLICE FORCE, aside from just the intelligence/antiterrorism and why isn't it competent enough to prevent this? Oh, right, kyo ki yai Mumbai hai babu , and we're not really here to protect you but to engage in petty small-scale corruption / kick-backs/ run-ins with the underground mafia when we feel like it. I'm reading the response to this on leading Indian blogs, and there is nothing but OUTRAGE - directed at the Indian govt (in addition to the ISI, of course)

Anyway, I hope that Jinnah and Nehru are choking on the tea they're sipping somewhere watching this, as their " two-state solution" may well be the roots of the 21st century's greatest geostrategic challenge so far: a radicalized past meeting a nuclearized future. I still welcome any thoughts/answers to the questions I posed re: Partition even if they sounded more rhetorical

Latest: the stand-off at the Taj is over, hostages released, 1 gunman still fighting off the Army

This is a good take to put things in perspective by an American in Chennai - it's more like an act of war:

http://www.scottcarneyonline.com/blog/2008/11/indias-new-terror-age.html

A coordinated series of terrorist attacks in Mumbai today signals a new age of extremism and sectarian violence that will likely increase over time. Since 2001 there have been 24 major terrorist strikes in India resulting in at least 966 deaths. The last five months have been the most harrowing with 302 dead from ten different attacks. As a hostage standoff continues in Collaba that number could rise even higher before the day is out.

What is most troubling about the recent assault on souther Mumbai is the sudden change in tactics. In the last several years most terrorist attacks have come in the form of coordinated small explosive charges, mostly left in nylon bags in commercial districts or IEDs made out of tiffin containers placed on the backs of bicycles in crowded shopping areas. What happened today doesn't fit the pattern of previous events. This wasn't a terrorist attack, this was a coordinated military assault on southern Mumbai excecuted with precision and calculated to inflict ecomonmic, civic, human and symbolic casualities.

Insurgents armed with automatic weapons ran lose on the streets, raided upscale hotels, took hostages and may have specifically targeted foreigners. They set fires in buildings and hijacked police vehicles. Unlike in previous events they weren't afraid to show their faces. These isn't hit and run tactics. This is urban warfare.

While there is no clear indication of who is behind the most recent string of attacks they must have had significant training and solid financial backing to carry them out. Armed with AK-47's, several boats, satellite phones, grenades and high explosives the group was able to take lower Mumbai completely by surprise and outwit anti-terrorism squads that have been on high alert for months. This level of coordination shows that terrorists here are most likely well networked with other insurgent groups and that they probably share materiel and tactical knowledge. They also have the manpower to embark on large scale operations without putting their entire organization at risk.

While the previous bomb blasts around India could have been carried out by a few dozen dedicated assailants, this attack shows that there must be at least several hundred people planning, training and carrying out logistical missions.

One possible--and even likely--explanation is that whomever is behind this is has been sharing experience and material with any one of the other dozen armed separatist movements across India. The attack today resembles the organizational resilience of other veteran separatist movements in India like the Naxalites, Lakshar e Toiba or even the Sri Lankan LTTE.

This sort of knowledge sharing is not unprecedented. In the past, the LTTE and Naxalites have shared tactical information with groups as far away as the FARC, and while there are vast ideological differences between these groups they are all involved in similar tactical operations and urban warfare. Rediff.com reports that the attackers were in contact with people in Karachi, Pakistan via satelite phone during the operaiton and that the e-mail that claimed responsibility for the attacks had been sent from a source in Russia.

I called my sister-in-law who has family there (what was left of mine like my aunt is in Delhi) who she called and she says the word with Mumbaikars on the street is that the gunmen were speaking Punjabi (which is spoken in both countries)

Great run of posts, Vic. Keep them coming.

^^^ cosign

Yup.

http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/21/stories/2008112162291500.htm

I actually have to run! To do last minute T-day last minute shopping. And if it consoles any of you w/r/t what right-wing crazay-talk you'll be hearing tonight, I just got off the fone with my idiotic republican brother who was shouting about how "we" (India) need to launch missiles onto Karachi right now, or else they'll keep it up. :( I hung up on him after he called me a pacifist Obama supporter

But I will be around later, and hope cooler heads prevail everywhere

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081128/OPINION/664762716/-1/NEWS

http://www.kansascity.com/news/world/story/912285.html

Still clearing the Taj Palace. No one seems to be sure if there are any gunmen left alive.

One is under arrest I understand.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/All_Jewish_hostages_in_India_are_1128.html

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/al-qaeda-behind-mumbai-attack-pakistan-author_100124748.html

1632 [GMT] The BBC's Nik Gowing in Mumbai says: This isn't a mopping up operation, it's a very serious challenge inside the Taj hotel. Officially they have said there's one militant but word is reaching us from official government sources there may be two or three. There could be quite a few hostages inside. Are there booby traps? Are there arsenals of weapons? There must be some pretty gruesome scenes inside.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081128/ap_on_re_us/india_shooting_us_victims

Reading on the NY Times site that fighting has intensified in the Wasabi restaurant and then reading about the restaurant itself makes the whole thing pretty surreal.

Live Earth India cancelled. Bush to speak tonight.

U.S. intelligence agencies warned their Indian counterparts in mid-October of a potential attack "from the sea against hotels and business centers in Mumbai," a U.S. intelligence official tells ABCNews.com.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6368013&page=1

shades of the august 6th presidential daily briefing

Just one more event that will encourage Obama to keep our privacy rights in the dumper where Bush (and Congress) put them.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/archive/2008/11/29/mumbai-maybe-not-such-a-surprise.aspx

man stfu morbz

morbz, go over to asia so you can cynically moan al qaeda to death, then you'll be finally contributing something

stfucked up

Just one more event that will encourage Obama to keep our privacy rights in the dumper where Bush (and Congress) put them.

Man I'm glad you posted because all weekend long all I could think about was "But how will this affect Dr. Morbius?"

They blew up Westerners, hence the Western media has noticed terror attacks in India.

yeah the cops at Chhatrapati Shivaji Station only had batons. pathetic

my brother is now emailing me things literally with uh, "either you are with us or against us" sentences about how India should attack Pakistan...i might have to post them here in an effort to deal with them. it's LOL-y but all a sad LOL, as I have Pakistani friends with family members over there who are increasingly worried

the drumbeat towards conflict is getting louder though, on the streets and in the crowds, a forceful acknowledgment that after so many attacks in the past 10 months this one was more akin to an act of war and deserves a "real response." everyone in the Indian media has already reported on the identity of the one survivor-gunman in custody, the Versace'd-youngster photographed above named Azam Amir Kasav: http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-36798120081201 from Lashkar-e-Taiba that was trained in Pakistan

interestingly they had also planned to return to Pakistan via the Indian fishing boat they used. but as the Reuters article points out they had inside help as well (an in from the hotel, and a guide to the location of the Chabad house)

expect the BJP to now win the upcoming elections as all this happened on Congress' watch; even moderates are going to lean that way. it's kind of a done deal.

and to clarify those earlier post: the Punjabi heard had Pakistani dialects, and my aunt DOES live in Mumbai again, but my mom is currently not talking to her, which is all whatever-stupid

Lots of reports here over the weekend of British involvement. Was there anything in that?

two of the gunmen were British nationals of Pakistani descent

my brother is now emailing me things literally with uh, "either you are with us or against us" sentences about how India should attack Pakistan

Has it not occurred to him that that is PRECISELY what the killers wanted?

this is all just reminding Indians of their vexed position on America's relationship with Pakistan for the past 5-6 decades - the sort of questioning that goes "so the US keeps buying off the Pakistani military elite but it's reported in the press as "billions of $ in aid," that instead of going to infrastructure, education, health care, or anything the masses might really need, instead goes directly to ISI-backed militant groups like L-e-T or Jaish-e-Mohammed that are willing to expand their jihad from beyond Kashmir into the rest of our country?"

but it's more essentialist than that: Osama bin Laden is based in Pakistan. the Taliban were set up by the ISI in Pakistan. al-Qaeda is funded by Saudis and trained in Pakistan, and AQ Khan's islamic-bomb is supposedly on its way to Iran from Pakistan. and you think the ISI is going to help you "win the war on terror" - what? haha. just because the CIA trained the ISI 3 decades ago against the Soviets doesn't mean anyone is answering to you anymore, when everyone's agenda from the military down is simple: to remain in power - which means consolidating the support of the radicals and ideologues for whom Kashmir is the sole issue if need be

it reminds one of an old indian joke: what would happen to Pakistan if India ceded Kashmir in total? an identity crisis

the dilemma goes beyond Bush admin's miscalculation in supporting the Musharraf regime and the labelling of the "key ally in the War on Terror." it harkens back to the Kissinger-Republican habit of supporting military dictatorships to further CIA inentions and expecting them to remain loyal to US interests, at the expense of any indigenous democratic movements. yeah even before Nixon termed Indira Gandhi a "bitch" and admitted that he disliked Indians.it goes back to the Dulles brothers foreign policy, and Nehru's fucked-up assumptions of geopolitics. How is that Non-Aligned Movement treating India now, eh? To say that the US just had to chose Pakistan as an "in to China," and to counterbalance India's tilt towards the USSR is to let Nehru's naivete off the hook, he's still partially responsible. his dictator-daughter just made everything worse (in EVERY category save for the 1971 war!)

few in Pakistan believe Zardari is part of any solution when he's pejoratively known as "Mr. 10%" for his past corruption scandals and even the media speculate on his role in not just his wife's death but his brother in law's - it's openly known he did it. Benazir's own niece writes of her complicity: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-bhutto14nov14,0,5254789.story?coll=la-home-commentary but you can also look up Zardari's past online. the fact that he's the head of state - even nominally when we know the military is still ruling - is appalling

Tariq Ali's excellent Democracy Now interview also expounds on the massive failures of the Bhutto's - great reading http://www.democracynow.org/2007/12/28/pakistan_in_turmoil_after_benazir_bhuttos

>Has it not occurred to him that that is PRECISELY what the killers wanted?

his thinking is convoluted, er i mean patriotic. i might try to take apart and analyze his responses here

from a Pakistani on Sepia Mutiny: http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/005537.html#comments

alybaba on November 28, 2008 01:22 PM · Direct link · “Quote”(?)
As a Pakistani, I don't even know what to say. These acts are without doubt despicable, disgusting and completely unjustified. I know that a lot of people are pointing the finger towards the ISI for providing assistance to the attackers, which is all fine considering the history of such attacks, but don't confuse the ISI for all Pakistanis. As someone who grew up in Karachi in the 80's, we are all too familiar with the brutal tactics of the ISI, which doesn't answer to anyone but it's cabal of leaders in the military. Hell, the military uses the ISI to spy on the civilian government and goes as far as it needs to in order to undermine it.

That being said, what from I've heard from people in touch with ISI sources - they've lost control of the monster they created. Of course, to be taken with a grain of salt.

Even if that occurs to you, how many people in these situations can really turn the other cheek, which is really kind of what you're suggesting. The problem is that everyone's political instincts are well developed enough at this point that it's pretty much just as plausible to imagine that the whole action was in fact planned by elements within the Pakistan security services (remember, every second non-US/UK government source you hear says they're riddled with committed Muslims who see the US and not the Taliban as their real enemy) as it is to imagine that Official Pakistan had nothing to do with it, and the real goal of the action was to prevent any improvement in relations between I and P.

I really despair of resolving issues like this -- the level of cynicism in the world nowadays seems to make the resolution of any quarrel possible only if and when both sides are completely exhuasted by the dispute, or when the environment changes around it. (Look at Russia's inability to look at the end of the Bush era as a chance to improve relations with the US, and instead as an opportunity to make strategic gains in an interregum period and wrongfoot the new US president before he was even in office.

As an aside: Try and imagine the reaction of the world if the Bush (and the US) had said after 9/11 that "This was clearly the act of a few deranged individuals. We will seek out those who planned and executed this deed, but we will not condemn any race, nation, or religion for this act." You'd love to see India do something like this now, but come on... This really was an act of war, it's just a question of by whom?

err, that was an x-post to

Has it not occurred to him that that is PRECISELY what the killers wanted?

if it wasn't obvious

I've read that Mossad funded Hamas (in its earliest days) to foment division with the secular PLO. Certainly the CIA funded groups that later became Taliban and Al Qaeda to foment division with the Afghanistan's secular People's Democratic Party.

I hope the intelligence/covert ops community world wide has figured out that playing with religion is like playing with fire.

Mitya:

No, that's not the question though. We know by whom - just as we knew who had attacked Parliament in December 2001

Remember also the Indian Embassy in Kabul was just destroyed two months ago - http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1828640,00.html?xid=feed-yahoo-full-world-related The goal is to thwart India's influence.

The question is, what to do about it? When you have your own politicians willing to engage in communalism for the almost-predictable majority-minority conflicts to come in your own country, what is attacking the chaos of your next-door neighbor going to accomplish in the wrong run? 1993 in Mumbai all over again?

I understand exactly what you're saying, which is why it's personally hard for me to find the right words to answer my brother without charges of turn-coatism in my family (I come from a v political background in India)

But the "something that has to be done" mindset is not productive if it's only going to exacerbate problems. The only short-term solution I can see to trounce Pakistani forces in a border-skirmish that will be enough red-meat for the masses, and a media "win," - like Kargil in 2002. But this time there are calls for more..not just to launch missiles over Rawalapindi and Karachi but to instigate the separatist movements and dismember Pakistan as a state.

They are advocating nothing less than this:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/11/23/world/23pstan-graf01.jpg

Here: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/23/asia/map.php

waaaht?

On the 'miscalculation of supporting Musharraf', I remember that Pakistan was genuinely on the brink of throwing in its lot with the Taliban immediately post-9/11 and it was Musharraf who got it to change course. Disastrous that may have turned out to be, but it may also have been better than any conceivable alternative.

that wouldve been seriously interesting

May I assume that the expanded Afghan areas in the East and North are Pashtun?

>in the wrong run?

lol, i meant long run, but that's just as apt

it's a very difficult issue. but i just don't think military conflict is any viable solution, as of now...but you're still going to be seen as "soft." and what do you do of the unrest in your own house?

more pedantic articles coming

xpost

I remember that, too, although - as I said above - cynicism in the world is high, including with me. Given that I didn't live in Pakistan at that time, I'm not convinced that the fact that I heard in the media at the time that Pakistan was on the brink of throwing its lot in with the Taliban, necessarily means that it was true.

yes, they're Pashtun and they've had their own separatist movement. Same with the Baloch. Really, what else has held Islamabad together for 60 years but a hatred for India/Kashmir? Which was my response to my brother: your military attack is only going to be counter-productive, as it will unite all Pakistanis and further radicalize different segments of society again

His answer is that India will continue to bleed a death by a thousand cuts, if nothing is done

The most damaging thing - in my opinion - is all the news that there were warnings about the attacks, the subsequent resignations of Indian officials, these reports of heavily armed Indian police initially standing around and not actually doing anything. I still think (more fantasyland) the "reaction" of not reacting is potentiallly a very strong one, and one that has to wrong-foot your opponent. What do you do if your attempts to stir up trouble aren't overtly reacted to?

Musharraf was a confounding double-edged sword: on one hand he was very pragmatic, to the point of ensuring confidence in his control of the military's various rogue elements. On the other, you're just deepening resentment of the Pakistani people against the US by backing an anti-democratic dictator who went so far as to toss out the last vestiges of the rule of law, by attacking the courts to continue his reign

His answer is that India will continue to bleed a death by a thousand cuts, if nothing is done

Can you flesh this out for me? Is he saying no one will respect India as a state unless it attacks Pakistan? Is he saying that India will disintegrate if the authorities don't use this opportunity to unite people against a common enemy (i.e. admitting that India has the exact same problem that you've just attributed to Pakistan)?

Vic, is there any actual confirmation of Britons being involved in these attacks? I've been doing some searching and haven't found any - there seems to have been a general rowing back from the initial reports. It's a total disaster if it's true (it's a total disaster anyway, but you get what I mean)

India will get its 'thousand cuts' if it does the wrong thing(s), too.

Pardon my ignorance, but does India have any policy similar or analagous to devolved sovereignty or semi-autonomy for areas of ethnic or religious majorities?

Ismael: I don't know if the Indian gov't has released that evidence..it's widespread in the media over there though

MW: Most of India is filled with Hindus wherever you go, they are dominant (and number more than a billion!). Religious minorities are scattered throughout (well, Sikhs remain in Punjab), but ethnic minorities are in specific areas, such as in the North East provinces like Assam and Arunachal- and they do have their own separatist movements. From my understanding they don't have political autonomy, but go through the perils of the messy and corrupt democracy like elsewhere in the country

But- and this is to answer Mitya - most of India is united beyond any fear of disintegration now with the Hindu populace putting aside their regional/casteist differences for the sake of the state. Kashmir remains a sticking point, since the collective unconscious still remembers the carving-up aspect of the Partition, and resents losing any more land. His point is not that there should be an attack for "respect," in as much as to thwart the Pakistani-ISI intentions to impede India once and for all - or else, as with Israel, these attacks will continue non-stop

i might as well paste the emails. it started with my fear of pakistan's nuclear status now - this is not 1965 or '71. You don't know who controls what, you don't even know who's controlling the gov't within the military

I said: The point is this: you can fly some low level missiles over Pakistani cities for now and not deal with anything for a few months (or weeks). Fine. Before the attacks return and increase with intensity

But where you're erring is in understanding the fundamentalist Islamic mind

What does every Jihadi want? To be "Shaheed" - marytrdom.

Now that you have nuclear weapons, and so do your irrational next-door neighbors, you think that they'd be dismayed at getting "wiped out" by the larger amount of your radioactive warheads? Haha

NO - they would welcome it. They want you to use all your nukes on them ( and then invite the Afghanis and Wahabis and A-Qaeda to fight you too). They want to die and enter the Garden of Allah - and nothing would make them happier if in death the nuclear waste your entire arsenal unleashed would destroy your country's ecology for decades

Thats not a solution, that's giving them what they want. Just think

Another example: Israel knows Iran is attacking them all the time via Hezbollah, it's proxy. But it can't go and launch missiles over Tehran - that's suicide, since Iran likely has the h-bomb. But it can go into Lebanon and kick Hezbollah there; tere's no risk

Pakistan doesn't "likely" - it definitely has nukes. And how does Shalini's father know what sort of warheads China has supplied it with? Sorry, I don't really trust the efficacy of Indian military intelligence right now

You can't play bluff with paagal fanatics that glorify death - your own as well as theirs, and attacking a destabilized nuclear-laden Islamic fundamentalist country that is your next door neighbor is just not the smartest thing to do, and if that isn't self-evident, then I'm sorry that Fox News fried the remnants of your mind

He responded:

The fundies don't control the N bomb.
The moment after they do--- India, Israel and the USA are all blowing up. God forbid.
The people in charge of the N bomb are logical Pakjabis---the pak armed forces is nearly all from the old Punjab.
To end most of international terrorism, Pakistan has to be dis-membered.
Think---like Yugoslavia---Baluchistan, greater Afghanistan, choota defanged de-nuked pakistan, and Pak occupied Kashmir back to India. That is the only long term solution.
The Pak military will not use N bombs---Jaan sabko pyari hai---(except the drugged out brainwashed kids that did this--all younger than you by the way---OBL and his crazy crew want the N bomb but do not have it and hopefully will not get it---Americans and Israelis know where the Pak N bombs are and will never let them be used.)
And yes Israel wil take out Iran's N bomb before it is viable --- within the next 5 years.
India is not a little girl.
India has to act.
The Indian people demand it.

China and Pakis are very happy tonight.
Indian politicians are weak-lings,
Let us see what happens.
By the way, Obama seems to understand that Pakistan is the problem. But he does not realize that he and the US have no role in deciding the Kashmir issue.

And you think everybody in Pakistan is a fundamentalist and wants to die.
Why wasn't obl among the suiciders?
Because he doesn't want to die yet.
He wants to fool young brainwashed kids to die for his plans.
This was done by ISI with LET. Paki military wants to slow Indian economy.
Because Pakiland is being destroyed, they want India destroyed too--equal equal.
No cricket in Paki---so no cricket in India.

If India does nothing, this type of terrorist action will happen every month.
Kill the crazies while they are still in Pakiland.
Send some cruise missiles into Rawalpindi. These terrorist acts stop tomorrow.
Ultimately Pakistan must be dis-membered by the international community.

weak-lings as opposed to weaklings lol

No cricket in Paki---so no cricket in India

Leaving Australia to win everything oh wait.

I just see shades of the summer of 1914 with that argument, Vic.

I mean his entire response is predicated on the premise that Pak won't use nukes. How can one be so sure? But up there Tariq Ali agrees with that point. Why is it worth the risk?

This was published in the Wall Street Journal, and is also advocating a military response..so just to show it's not just crazies like in my family ;) : http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122781446844662087.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Mumbai Attack Is Obama's First International Challenge

By PRASHANT AGRAWAL

I moved to Mumbai six years ago from New York City, and I have seen India change with each terrorist attack. Wednesday night's attack will prove a defining turning point. India will go from being "resiliently defensive" to "resolutely offensive."

To understand the impact on the financial capital of India one needs to know the unique place the Taj Mahal Hotel and the Oberoi Complex (both the Oberoi Trident and the Oberoi) play in the fabric of the city's life, especially for its professionals. The Taj Mahal Hotel and the Oberoi Complex are not just the Four Seasons and Pierre of New York City. They are Mumbai's lifeline and blood.

As a consultant and a hedge fund manager, I, like thousands of Mumbai professionals, could count on being at these hotels two to three times a week. In any given week, more than a dozen conferences are being held at either hotel attended by the city's lawyers, bankers, consultants and entrepreneurs. The hotels are the Ellis Island for foreign firms and foreign professionals. Whole floors of these hotels serve as offices. The first outpost office of any major MNC is the Taj or the Oberoi: McKinsey, Blackstone, Texas Pacific Group, the list is endless.

But the hotels are much more than financial destinations; they are cultural centers. The best bookshop in Mumbai is in the Taj. Out of the 10 best restaurants in the city, half are in these two hotels. After a late night out, the 24 hour coffee shops of both hotels are filled with young people using them as late-night diners. Visit these same coffee shops in the day and you might see two families having a cup of tea discussing a matrimonial alliance. For a Mumbaiker, these hotels serve as a second home.

Every Indian is familiar with the Taj, its iconic red brick architecture façade serves as the backdrop for so many stories and Bollywood movies. So when Sonia Gandhi, the President of the ruling Congress Party, says that these are attacks on India's prestige, she means it.

If the attacks on the two hotels were not enough, the CST train terminal was hit. One out of every 10 commuters uses the CST (formerly known as the Victoria Terminus) daily. And after attacking the CST, the terrorists hit the Cama Hospital, a hospital for women and children. The last major target was a Jewish center. Mumbai has housed an Iraqi Jewish community for centuries. Not once have they been targeted. That has changed.

These attacks are going to serve as a tipping point for India. India has had no less than 10 terrorist attacks over the last five years described as India's 9/11. And so now is the latest assault.

As the Indian landscape changed, so has the Indian attitude. The first Bollywood movie on the attacks highlighted the resilience of Mumbai citizens. But in conversations, writings and film, people have shifted from resilience to wanting revenge. One of the most successful movies of 2008 highlights an ordinary citizen taking revenge. The surprise hit of 2008 in India is a low-budget thriller called "Wednesday." "Wednesday" is a taut thriller where the audience is held in suspense. The person the audience believes is a terrorist hell-bent on releasing his jailed compatriots is actually a vigilante. He doesn't secure the release; he blows them up.

The audience cheers as he tells the police, "We (the people) are tired of being resilient. Our hands are not tied, we too can hit back." Audiences around the country clapped and cheered his soliloquy. And now with these attacks, the attitude hardens even more. CNN-IBN, the local English news channel, not known for hyperbole, is calling its coverage not Terror in Mumbai, but "War on Mumbai." Local anchors refer to the rescue operations as urban warfare.

Last week, at an Indian leadership summit, I watched Shashi Tharoor, the former U.N. Undersecretary General and India's candidate to be Secretary General, ask Henry Kissinger how India should react to Pakistani agents attacking the Indian Embassy in Kabul. Mr. Kissinger said it wasn't his place to answer. Fair enough, but the question remains what should India do?

India faces tough decisions over the next few weeks and months. Every time India has been hit, there has be no counter reaction. The vast majority of Indians believe that the attacks emanate from Pakistan. While most Indians don't blame Pakistanis, they do blame instruments and agents of the Pakistani government, specifically the ISI. With the bombing in Kabul, the U.S. confirmed that the ISI was involved adding an independent credible voice to India's charges of Pakistani involvement.

In his first speech on Thursday to the nation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said "It is evident that the group which carried out these attacks, based outside the country, had come with single-minded determination to create havoc in the commercial capital." There is little doubt as to which country Prime Minister Singh has in mind.

The people will demand action against the masterminds of the attacks. And perception in India is that it is the ISI guides and masterminds the attacks. Elections in India are in due in the next six months and pressure will mount on the Indian government to act. Joe Biden was right, Barack Obama will face an international test in the first six months. South Asia looks to be that test.

damn right it's not "your place to answer" when you should be behind bars...

terrorists on coke, acid

whoa going on a killing spree is the worst trip idea ever

i dunno, last time i was tripping i ended up at my old high school at 3am and kind of freaked out, that was pretty bad

my friend moved back to Pakistan, or should I say 'got deported', and all I can do is worry that he will become one of these 'paki freedom fighters'. Hopefully they only recruit poor people... and my friend is poor but his dad makes mucho money so it's not like his life is unimportant in monetary terms.

my brother wrote me such a terrible email that i'm considering (temporarily) severing my relationship with him. i am now a terrorist-sympathizer/enabler/fan since i don't support war. almost tempted to post it here to get response ideas but i dont know if i even want to respond at this point

let it air out a little bit guy is just freaked out

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7778074.stm

terrorize the jam like troops in pakistan

War would be bad but it would prolly do wonders for Pakistani/Indian nation cohesion

http://www.mererhetoric.com/archives/11275197.html

i guess i should have read that for wingnuttery before linking it, but still - attack was planned for month prior to election

Arundhati Roy - an Indian Christian author, it should be remembered - quite OTM in the Guardian this week:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/12/mumbai-arundhati-roy

We've forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. As the carnage in Mumbai raged on, day after horrible day, our 24-hour news channels informed us that we were watching "India's 9/11". Like actors in a Bollywood rip-off of an old Hollywood film, we're expected to play our parts and say our lines, even though we know it's all been said and done before.

As tension in the region builds, US Senator John McCain has warned Pakistan that if it didn't act fast to arrest the "Bad Guys" he had personal information that India would launch air strikes on "terrorist camps" in Pakistan and that Washington could do nothing because Mumbai was India's 9/11.

But November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.

---

There is a fierce, unforgiving fault-line that runs through the contemporary discourse on terrorism. On one side (let's call it Side A) are those who see terrorism, especially "Islamist" terrorism, as a hateful, insane scourge that spins on its own axis, in its own orbit and has nothing to do with the world around it, nothing to do with history, geography or economics. Therefore, Side A says, to try and place it in a political context, or even try to understand it, amounts to justifying it and is a crime in itself.

Side B believes that though nothing can ever excuse or justify terrorism, it exists in a particular time, place and political context, and to refuse to see that will only aggravate the problem and put more and more people in harm's way. Which is a crime in itself.

The sayings of Hafiz Saeed, who founded the Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure) in 1990 and who belongs to the hardline Salafi tradition of Islam, certainly bolsters the case of Side A. Hafiz Saeed approves of suicide bombing, hates Jews, Shias and Democracy and believes that jihad should be waged until Islam, his Islam, rules the world. Among the things he said are: "There cannot be any peace while India remains intact. Cut them, cut them so much that they kneel before you and ask for mercy."

And: "India has shown us this path. We would like to give India a tit-for-tat response and reciprocate in the same way by killing the Hindus, just like it is killing the Muslims in Kashmir."

But where would Side A accommodate the sayings of Babu Bajrangi of Ahmedabad, India, who sees himself as a democrat, not a terrorist? He was one of the major lynchpins of the 2002 Gujarat genocide and has said (on camera): "We didn't spare a single Muslim shop, we set everything on fire … we hacked, burned, set on fire … we believe in setting them on fire because these bastards don't want to be cremated, they're afraid of it … I have just one last wish … let me be sentenced to death … I don't care if I'm hanged ... just give me two days before my hanging and I will go and have a field day in Juhapura where seven or eight lakhs [seven or eight hundred thousand] of these people stay ... I will finish them off … let a few more of them die ... at least 25,000 to 50,000 should die."

And where, in Side A's scheme of things, would we place the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh bible, We, or, Our Nationhood Defined by MS Golwalkar, who became head of the RSS in 1944. It says: "Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting on to take on these despoilers. The Race Spirit has been awakening."
Or: "To keep up the purity of its race and culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races – the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here ... a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by."

(Of course Muslims are not the only people in the gun sights of the Hindu right. Dalits have been consistently targeted. Recently in Kandhamal in Orissa, Christians were the target of two and a half months of violence which left more than 40 dead. Forty thousand people have been driven from their homes, half of who now live in refugee camps.)

All these years Hafiz Saeed has lived the life of a respectable man in Lahore as the head of the Jamaat-ud Daawa, which many believe is a front organization for the Lashkar-e-Taiba. He continues to recruit young boys for his own bigoted jehad with his twisted, fiery sermons. On December 11 the UN imposed sanctions on the Jammat-ud-Daawa. The Pakistani government succumbed to international pressure and put Hafiz Saeed under house arrest. Babu Bajrangi, however, is out on bail and lives the life of a respectable man in Gujarat. A couple of years after the genocide he left the VHP to join the Shiv Sena. Narendra Modi, Bajrangi's former mentor, is still the chief minister of Gujarat. So the man who presided over the Gujarat genocide was re-elected twice, and is deeply respected by India's biggest corporate houses, Reliance and Tata.

Suhel Seth, a TV impresario and corporate spokesperson, recently said: "Modi is God." The policemen who supervised and sometimes even assisted the rampaging Hindu mobs in Gujarat have been rewarded and promoted. The RSS has 45,000 branches, its own range of charities and 7 million volunteers preaching its doctrine of hate across India. They include Narendra Modi, but also former prime minister AB Vajpayee, current leader of the opposition LK Advani, and a host of other senior politicians, bureaucrats and police and intelligence officers.

If that's not enough to complicate our picture of secular democracy, we should place on record that there are plenty of Muslim organisations within India preaching their own narrow bigotry.

So, on balance, if I had to choose between Side A and Side B, I'd pick Side B. We need context. Always.

In this nuclear subcontinent that context is partition. The Radcliffe Line, which separated India and Pakistan and tore through states, districts, villages, fields, communities, water systems, homes and families, was drawn virtually overnight. It was Britain's final, parting kick to us. Partition triggered the massacre of more than a million people and the largest migration of a human population in contemporary history. Eight million people, Hindus fleeing the new Pakistan, Muslims fleeing the new kind of India left their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Each of those people carries and passes down a story of unimaginable pain, hate, horror but yearning too. That wound, those torn but still unsevered muscles, that blood and those splintered bones still lock us together in a close embrace of hatred, terrifying familiarity but also love. It has left Kashmir trapped in a nightmare from which it can't seem to emerge, a nightmare that has claimed more than 60,000 lives. Pakistan, the Land of the Pure, became an Islamic Republic, and then, very quickly a corrupt, violent military state, openly intolerant of other faiths. India on the other hand declared herself an inclusive, secular democracy. It was a magnificent undertaking, but Babu Bajrangi's predecessors had been hard at work since the 1920s, dripping poison into India's bloodstream, undermining that idea of India even before it was born.

By 1990 they were ready to make a bid for power. In 1992 Hindu mobs exhorted by LK Advani stormed the Babri Masjid and demolished it. By 1998 the BJP was in power at the centre. The US war on terror put the wind in their sails. It allowed them to do exactly as they pleased, even to commit genocide and then present their fascism as a legitimate form of chaotic democracy. This happened at a time when India had opened its huge market to international finance and it was in the interests of international corporations and the media houses they owned to project it as a country that could do no wrong. That gave Hindu nationalists all the impetus and the impunity they needed.

This, then, is the larger historical context of terrorism in the subcontinent and of the Mumbai attacks. It shouldn't surprise us that Hafiz Saeed of the Lashkar-e-Taiba is from Shimla (India) and LK Advani of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh is from Sindh (Pakistan).

---

Thanks largely to the part it was forced to play as America's ally first in its war in support of the Afghan Islamists and then in its war against them, Pakistan, whose territory is reeling under these contradictions, is careening towards civil war. As recruiting agents for America's jihad against the Soviet Union, it was the job of the Pakistan army and the ISI to nurture and channel funds to Islamic fundamentalist organizations. Having wired up these Frankensteins and released them into the world, the US expected it could rein them in like pet mastiffs whenever it wanted to.

Certainly it did not expect them to come calling in heart of the Homeland on September 11. So once again, Afghanistan had to be violently remade. Now the debris of a re-ravaged Afghanistan has washed up on Pakistan's borders. Nobody, least of all the Pakistan government, denies that it is presiding over a country that is threatening to implode. The terrorist training camps, the fire-breathing mullahs and the maniacs who believe that Islam will, or should, rule the world is mostly the detritus of two Afghan wars. Their ire rains down on the Pakistan government and Pakistani civilians as much, if not more than it does on India.

If at this point India decides to go to war perhaps the descent of the whole region into chaos will be complete. The debris of a bankrupt, destroyed Pakistan will wash up on India's shores, endangering us as never before. If Pakistan collapses, we can look forward to having millions of "non-state actors" with an arsenal of nuclear weapons at their disposal as neighbours. It's hard to understand why those who steer India's ship are so keen to replicate Pakistan's mistakes and call damnation upon this country by inviting the United States to further meddle clumsily and dangerously in our extremely complicated affairs. A superpower never has allies. It only has agents.

oh, i should have either just pasted the whole thing. or just the link - but reading the entire thing over just my excerpts, highly recommended

Worrisome

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/18/mumbai-terror-suspect-pleads-guilty/?hpt=T1

what the fuck?!? never heard of this guy before. shocked and deeply ashamed that an American had anything to do with this

oh man not again

what to be done with these fuckers

people saying pakistan is unusually unified in the face of this. if the taliban are so far gone that they thought this might have worked in their favour then idk what is to be done with them

fairly certain whatever the solution is, it does not involve western intervention

saw this story on al-Jazeera regarding cross-border unity between Indians and Pakistanis, which was touching.
https://storify.com/ajstream/pakistanis

Interesting too to see the #notoalltalibanapologists tag trending, and people calling out Imran Khan.

Oh yeah? What's he said now?

He condemned the attacks outright. It's more around his longstanding policy of wanting the army out of the FATA and his belief that without negotiation and a certain number of concessions to the tribes, there'll never be peace.

he also said a few days ago that if he's elected, he won't send the army to tribal areas. That's getting a bit of traction now. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/national/03-Dec-2014/won-t-allow-army-in-tribal-areas-if-elected-pm-imran

Yes, the FATA are the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. They've traditionally been broadly self-regulating but the army has been active there since around 2001 on and off. It's one of those situations where the army is sent in to quell militancy but the presence of the army also provokes more militancy so there are no easy answers.

supposedly residents of the fata are very much in favour of the army being present.

The only survey ever quoted was conducted by a group with Bill Frist and John McCain on the board of directors, though. It's not easy to judge one way or the other.

Does anyone know what sort of a grip the Taliban has on the people of the FATA?

Weakening, I think. They have their own internal power struggles and a load of them have defected to other groups, including ISIS. The tribal elders in some areas have tolerated their presence, particularly when they were fighting the U.S., but they generally don't get on and there have been countless attacks by the Taliban on their leaders. They're still powerful enough for negotiation to be seen as a necessary strategy by many, though.

thank you, as usual, for your perspective here

when my nephews were in elementary school one of their classmates was killed (w/her dad) in Mumbai, there is a memorial garden at their old school.

pictures from schools in the FATA bombed by militants: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2014/05/pictures-bombed-schools-pakista-201451612222401436.html

Any good articles collating all the facts so far about this latest thing?