Category Archives: India

Link collection Dec 26 08

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Here are a few links to articles I feel are worth the read both opinion and news.

First from Girl on the Right on Mumbai and the attack and mutilation of the jews there. On the treatment of the Jews in Bombay

A nice reconstruction of the events.

Secondly, on Sweden and the continuing riots and destruction by Muslim immigrants with less and less of a veneer of cause for them. Check Gates of Vienna but you may have to scroll up to see the beggining of this article. I cant figure out how to get a direct link there for a given piece. but its one of the finest sites on the internet overall.

Shoppers in Hong Kong bombed with acid. Someone dropped bottles of acid and corrosive liquids from a high building onto crowded streets. No arrests yet.

Pakistani text books may hold the answer to why so much hate towards India.Pakistanis are taught it from childhood.

On the security fence in Israel and the ghettoizing of the Palestinians. Very good read.

More on what appear to be looming hostilities between India and Pakistan.

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According to the Times of India, an explosion two days ago in Lahore Pakistan, a car bomb is being blamed on Indian terrorists and there are rumors of arrests of Indian nationals in Pakistan. This is being called a new low for Pakistan as most Indians see this as an attempt to manufacture a reason for Pakistan not to cooperate with the Mumbai probes.

Also it would appear that Pakistan has moved troops from its Afghan border to borders with India. There is also intelligence that indicates significant moves by the Indian military positioning itself for moves on Pakistan.

From the Indian Times…

Even as India persists with its protests against Pakistan’s refusal to take action against the perpetrators of 26/11, Islamabad’s diversionary tactics have touched a new low.

On Thursday, Pakistan pulled another rabbit out of its hat. That the car bomb blast in Lahore on Wednesday, which left a woman dead and 3 others injured, was triggered by four Indians.

Pakistan media, quoting anonymous sources, identified one of the bombers as one Satish Anand Shukla, allegedly a resident of Kolkota. The stunt, clearly fabricated to justify inaction against Lashkar leaders by drawing a parity between the jihadis who attacked Mumbai and fictional Indian agents, left Indian officials seething with anger.

Senior Indian officials were quick to rubbish the reports in Pakistan media, saying this had not been conveyed to any Indian agency by Islamabad. The Indian High Commission in Islamabad too denied having received any information from the Pakistanis.

From The Press Trust of India, Indian Government warns citizens not to visit Pakistan:

New Delhi, Dec 26 (PTI) Fearing trouble for its nationals in Pakistan, India today advised them to avoid being in the neighboring country even as it rubbished as “hogwash” the reports that some Indians were involved in terrorism there.
In the first such advisory since the 1971 war, the Ministry of External Affairs cautioned that travel to and presence in Pakistan was not safe for Indians in the wake of media reports there that some Indians have been held on the charge of terrorism.

New Delhi said the reported “arrests” in Lahore and Multan were suspected to have been made by elements who work outside of civilian control as top police officers there were ignorant about any such development.

Media reports in Pakistan have claimed that “Indian nationals” identified as Satish Anand Shukla, Ram Kumar, Ram Chandar and Prakash were arrested for a bomb blast in Lahore two days back.

“It is hogwash and meant to confuse people,” Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma told reporters when asked to comment on reports on the arrests.

External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said “there have been reports in the Pakistani media that several Indian nationals have been arrested over the last two days in Lahore and Multan and are being accused of being terrorists.” He said “since it has also been reported in the Pakistani media yesterday that the senior police officer in Lahore was unaware of the arrest in his city, it seems that this is the work of other agencies in Pakistan that operate outside the law and civilian control.” “Indian citizens are, therefore, advised that it would be unsafe for them to travel or be in Pakistan,” Prakash said. PTI

According to Stratfor.com a geopolitical think tank in the US, Pakistani troops have been redeployed from positions near Afghanistan to the border with India.
Pakistani troops, already on a high alert footing, have been moved from the border with Afghanistan to the border with India in anticipation of a ground attack from that direction, media reported Dec. 26
Troops have been moved to Lahore as well as Jhelum and Kashmir. Pakistani air force continues surveillance on sensitive targets within Pakistan. In essence the situation continues to escalate.
Pakistan overall seems to be doing its usual bag of tricks. Denial, fake cooperation, the appearance of lack of cogency between and within its various armed services. This may be real fracturing or it may be a tactic by services such as the ISI to appear fractured in order to not bear responsability for the clear aid training and funding of numerous terrorist attacks on India and Indian interests elsewhere such as the embassy bombing in Afghanistan for which the Indian government openly accused Pakistan’s ISI of having committed.
Add to that this new tactic of a minor terrorist attack on it’s own people to try and blame the Indians for retaliating and as the Times reports, Pakistan has reached a new low.
While there is still a strong likelihood for Pakistan and India to deescalate this situation and avoid military conflict the signs at the moment are all for some kind of engagement.

Eeyore for Vlad.


a short photo essay on Mumbai and an observation or two.

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I notice that the people of India after having suffered the horrors of not just the Mumbai attacks but the series of multiple bombings that have gone on all year in India, the attack on the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan and countless assaults on India her people and institutions by Muslim militants actually get to vent their frustration on the appropriate symbol set.

Indians vent rage on Islamic effigy

Indians vent rage on Islamic effigy

By the crescent moon and star there is no doubt in these peoples minds who exactly or what is causing their suffering. What I find interesting is the sharp contrast to western peoples reaction to similar acts of horror. Instead of Tony Blair claiming that it wasn’t Muslims committing these actions but people ‘defaming’ Islam and then importing five thousand more halal butchers and hundreds of thousands of more Muslims mostly from Pakistan to prove his point or George Bush after 911 insisting that Islam is the religion of peace and we should not look unfavorably on Islam or Muslims the people of India seem to have it about right. Could it be that they are not yet completely crippled by political correctness? Or could it be their proximity to Pakistan and other Islamic states makes it hard to deny what the problem is.

One thing is a safe bet. Had American or especially British people reacted like this after attacks on their civilians, (also without warning or cause) the demonstrators would be arrested by the state for hate crimes and in the UK likely killed by their grateful Islamic immigrants.

(The images here are all newly released ones from The Times of India. A great source to follow the events Post Mumbai.)

Perhaps its because the people of India took it personally, as it was meant to be, when these horrors where vested upon them. Below is a small sample of some of the images recently released. These are not suitable viewing during dinner. But if you don’t know what you are fighting, how can you summon the will to fight it? In that spirit I repost. do be warned they are graphic.

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India Pakistan Mumbai and the rhetoric from both sides.

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The likelihood of a military action by Pakistan seems higher each day in this complex and escalating situation between these two nuclear neighbors.

To begin with, Pakistan is not a country in the usual sense while India is. Specifically Pakistan doesn’t seem to have branches of the state controlled by a central government. The organizations likely responsible for the series of brutal attacks on India through bombings in its financial district and shopping areas and so on, organizations such as the ISI (Pakistan’s intelligence coordinating agency or Inter Services Intelligence) do not seem to answer to the government of Pakistan. This leads to India’s dilemma…

Does the government of Pakistan actually encourage the ISI and other branches of the Pakistani military to conduct terrorist attacks on India? If so they are at war but the government is merely hiding behind the excuse of terrorism to abdicate direct responsability for the attacks.

Does the government not sponsor these attacks but is unable to control those branches of the state which at the moment clearly appear to be responsible for the attacks? If so then India would have less reason to attack the government but would still feel the need to deal militarily with the offices and facilities of the organizations which appear to have trained equipped and planned the missions to attack India.

Is Pakistan basically a failed state and each organization is working to its own agenda and there is no central body which can be said to have authority over the actions of the Pakistani Military? essentially this is the same as the paragraph above except for a matter of degree. The following video of Taliban-Al Queda offering to support the army of Pakistan with suicide bombers should the enemy be India does speak to who the likely allies are who are attacking India. Chances are that a large percentage of the ISI and other Pakistani agencies are working with the Muslim extremists and it can be argued that the taliban in some ways are the true government.

[kaltura-widget wid=”ukjbuj4sdg” width=”410″ height=”364″ addpermission=”3″ editpermission=”3″ /]It is worth noting that this video was broadcast on Indian mass media and available on the Times of India web site. This alone means the level of jingoism in the popular press in India is elevating putting pressure on India to take convincing action against Pakistan in some ways.

Stratfor makes the case that the Indian government which is dovish is weak and that if it fails to act will fail leading to a new Indian Government which is overtly hawkish. While its true that typically a hawkish party often softens its tone once it’s in actual power not acting is guaranteed to cause continued terrorist attacks in India and a growing loss of confidence in the governments ability to protect the interests and safety of the people of India.

The Times of India also broadcast this video about the identity of the one surviving terrorist in the Mumbai attacks as being Pakistani. As you will see, the Pakistani official government denies what is presented as clear evidence of Pakistani origins and support for his mission.

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All in all it would appear that the media is setting up the people of India for a military action of some kind on Pakistan. Its well worth reading the various Stratfor analysis of this situation available here on Vlad. Ill post some of the links at the bottom of this article. Add to this rumors of troop buildups along the India side of the India Pakistani border and higher military alert levels as well as Pakistani air force missions flying along the India border at increased frequency and for previously not done surveillance and it would appear that both sides are anticipating some military events.

This does not mean a war necessarily. It could be as little as Indian air strikes on the same target areas the US is conducting in lawless areas of Pakistan where the Taliban and Al Queda are based and operating from. It could also mean strikes against ISI facilities however within Pakistan proper and or training facilities for the Pakistani military where rumor has it the terrorists were prepared for the Mumbai attacks. This would certainly lead to escalation though and even the Government of Pakistan would have to take an official position against the Indian attacks no matter how justified.

Stratfor on India Pakistan situation.

Stratfor: on India Pakistan and Mumbai. an analysis of probable retaliation

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Next Steps in the Indo-Pakistani Crisis

December 8, 2008 | 1923 GMT


Graphic for Geopolitical Intelligence Report

By George Friedman

Related Special Topic Page

In an interview published this Sunday in The New York Times, we laid out a potential scenario for the current Indo-Pakistani crisis. We began with an Indian strike on Pakistan, precipitating a withdrawal of Pakistani troops from the Afghan border, resulting in intensified Taliban activity along the border and a deterioration in the U.S. position in Afghanistan, all culminating in an emboldened Iran. The scenario is not unlikely, assuming India chooses to strike.

Our argument that India is likely to strike focused, among other points, on the weakness of the current Indian government and how it is likely to fall under pressure from the opposition and the public if it does not act decisively. An unnamed Turkish diplomat involved in trying to mediate the dispute has argued that saving a government is not a good reason to go to war. That is a good argument, except that in this case, not saving the government is unlikely to prevent a war, either.

If India’s Congress party government were to fall, its replacement would be even more likely to strike at Pakistan. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress’ Hindu nationalist rival, has long charged that Congress is insufficiently aggressive in combating terrorism. The BJP will argue that the Mumbai attack in part resulted from this failing. Therefore, if the Congress government does not strike, and is subsequently forced out or loses India’s upcoming elections, the new government is even more likely to strike.

It is therefore difficult to see a path that avoids Indian retaliation, and thus the emergence of at least a variation on the scenario we laid out. But the problem is not simply political: India must also do something to prevent more Mumbais. This is an issue of Indian national security, and the pressure on India’s government to do something comes from several directions.

Three Indian Views of Pakistan

The question is what an Indian strike against Pakistan, beyond placating domestic public opinion, would achieve. There are three views on this in India.

The first view holds that Pakistani officials aid and abet terrorism — in particular the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), which serves as Pakistan’s main intelligence service. In this view, the terrorist attacks are the work of Pakistani government officials — perhaps not all of the government, but enough officials of sufficient power that the rest of the government cannot block them, and therefore the entire Pakistani government can be held accountable.

The second view holds that terrorist attacks are being carried out by Kashmiri groups that have long been fostered by the ISI but have grown increasingly autonomous since 2002 — and that the Pakistani government has deliberately failed to suppress anti-Indian operations by these groups. In this view, the ISI and related groups are either aware of these activities or willfully ignorant of them, even if ISI is not in direct control. Under this thinking, the ISI and the Pakistanis are responsible by omission, if not by commission.

The third view holds that the Pakistani government is so fragmented and weak that it has essentially lost control of Pakistan to the extent that it cannot suppress these anti-Indian groups. This view says that the army has lost control of the situation to the point where many from within the military-intelligence establishment are running rogue operations, and groups in various parts of the country simply do what they want. If this argument is pushed to its logical conclusion, Pakistan should be regarded as a state on the verge of failure, and an attack by India might precipitate further weakening, freeing radical Islamist groups from what little control there is.

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Pakistan clearly supports terrorism against India

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IBN.

Cost of delays: Jamaat has flushed accounts, says report

CNN-IBN

TimePublished on Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 08:27 in World section

TagsTags: Mumbai Terror Attack, Jamaat-ud-Dawa , New Delhi


HEADQUARTERS OF TERROR? A file photo of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa office in Mudrike, Pakistan.

HEADQUARTERS OF TERROR? A file photo of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa office in Mudrike, Pakistan.

New Delhi: Even before Pakistan can walk the talk on terror, a report published in the Wall Street Journal claims that the UN-banned outfit Jamaat-ud-Dawa – an alleged front of terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba – has already transferred huge monies out of most of its public bank accounts.

An Pakistan finance ministry official told the Journal on conditions of anonymity, that the Jamaat has moved thousands, maybe even millions of dollars in recent days.

Though the Pakistan government has ordered that all assets and bank accounts of the Jamaat be frozen, an account in the Lahore branch of Bank Al-falah Ltd remains open for supporters to deposit donations.

Pakistan is yet to formally ban the organization said to be behind the November 26 attacks in Mumbai that killed 217 people.

An unnamed senior official of the Interior Ministry said Pakistan had not banned the organisation, but being a signatory to the UN charter, the government was under obligation to implement its decisions and take action against the Jamaat.


Every Jew a .22

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This new video of Michael Savage talks about the renewed slaughter of the Jewish people by the religion of peace all around the world. It quotes the founder of the Jewish defense league stating “Every Jew a .22”. Most and probably every Jew will balk at this. None or very few will heed this advice.

Perhaps if it had been stated in a more erudite fashion…

“Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them” for example then maybe they will listen?

No, every Jew knows that phrase and all are overly familiar with the details and minutia of the Holocaust..

Maybe if it was funny..

“If history teaches us anything its that people don’t study history”

Maybe that will work.

Thanks for the heads up Occidental Soapbox

“trying to control stray dogs by neutering veterinarians” Canada’s National Post on Mumbai

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George Jonas is one of Canada’s truly bright lights in journalism. He really calls it in this article in Canada’s National Post, arguably the only major newspaper in Canada that isn’t trying to sell Canada’s ‘official mandatory culture’. Before I post this article there is a development that I think needs to be reported. India was accused of violating Pakistani air space twice today, December 12th in two separate areas of the Pakistani Indian border. Pakistan has downplayed the incident but India is denying it took place. this is likely pressure by India on its nuclear neighbor Pakistan because the token arrests and changes in policy towards terrorist groups are never enforced for long. Terrorists who are arrested for crimes against India etc. are released as soon as no one is looking and the incarceration usually looks more like Club Med than Club Fed.

from Stratfor:

Stratfor sources have said that Pakistan, under pressure from both India and the United States, has removed several dozen operatives from Inter-Services Intelligence. However, Islamabad has refused to hand over any Pakistani nationals to India. Furthermore, India does not trust that Pakistan is willing and/or able to rein in militant Islamists. This is because Islamabad has arrested such actors and banned militant Islamist groups in the past, only to allow them return to business as usual.

This situation, along with domestic pressure, is forcing the Indian government’s hand and pushing it toward taking unilateral military action against Pakistani-based militants. That said, New Delhi is concerned that any conflict with Pakistan could worsen security for India and in the broader region. Trying to balance between the need to act and the need to exercise caution, New Delhi likely ordered the incursions as a means to sustain the pressure to shape Pakistani behavior

Lastly I would like to add that Pamela Geller’s speculation, which is in no way confirmed, that the police in Mumbai who had a clear shot at a terrorist and did not take it (this much is true) were Muslims may factor in to the severity of the Mumbai attacks. I would very much like to know if its true. If it is, it only makes the point in the article below more valid.

On to the Jonas article…

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Mark Steyn: Jews get killed but Muslims feel vulnerable

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Mark Steyn: Jews get killed, but Muslims feel vulnerable

By MARK STEYN
Syndicated columnist
Shortly after the London Tube bombings in 2005, a reader of Tim Blair, The Sydney Daily Telegraph’s columnist wag, sent him a note-perfect parody of a typical newspaper headline:

“British Muslims Fear Repercussions Over Tomorrow’s Train Bombing.”

Indeed. And so it goes. This time round – Mumbai – it was the Associated Press that filed a story about how Muslims “found themselves on the defensive once again about bloodshed linked to their religion”.

Oh, I don’t know about that. In fact, you’d be hard pressed from most news reports to figure out the bloodshed was “linked” to any religion, least of all one beginning with “I-” and ending in “-slam.” In the three years since those British bombings, the media have more or less entirely abandoned the offending formulations – “Islamic terrorists,” “Muslim extremists” – and by the time of the assault on Mumbai found it easier just to call the alleged perpetrators “militants” or “gunmen” or “teenage gunmen,” as in the opening line of this report in The Australian: “An Adelaide woman in India for her wedding is lucky to be alive after teenage gunmen ran amok.”

Kids today, eh? Always running amok in an aimless fashion.

The veteran British TV anchor Jon Snow, on the other hand, opted for the more cryptic locution “practitioners.” “Practitioners” of what, exactly?

Hard to say. And getting harder. For the Wall Street Journal, Tom Gross produced a jaw-dropping round-up of Mumbai media coverage: The discovery that, for the first time in an Indian terrorist atrocity, Jews had been attacked, tortured and killed produced from the New York Times a serene befuddlement: “It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene.”

Hmm. Greater Mumbai forms one of the world’s five biggest cities. It has a population of nearly 20 million. But only one Jewish center, located in a building that gives no external clue as to the bounty waiting therein. An “accidental hostage scene” that one of the “practitioners” just happened to stumble upon? “I must be the luckiest jihadist in town. What are the odds?”

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India has proof that Pakistan was behind the attacks in Mumbai

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From The Times of India

NEW DELHI: India

has proof that the Inter Services Intelligence was involved in planning the Mumbai terror attacks and training the terrorists

who killed more than 180 people during a 60-hour siege of the country’s financial capital, sources said in New Delhi on Thursday.

The names of trainers and the places where meticulous training took place are also known to the government, the sources said.

The United States is believed to have even more evidence, some of which it has shared with India, they said.

Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, who was in Pakistan on Wednesday, is believed to have told his Pakistani interlocutors that Washington

had enough evidence to show a Pakistani hand in the attack, the sources said.

Sources here also refuse to believe that the Pakistani army did not have knowledge of the Mumbai operation given that ISI is controlled by it.

At the same time, sources do not believe that the civilian government in Pakistan is involved in the attack. In fact, one view is that the civilian government itself may be a target of the strike which may be used by the army to heighten tensions with India to return to power.

Washington has asked Pakistan to crackdown on Lashkar-e-Taiba, which now goes under the name of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, and to arrest its chief Hafiz Mohd Saeed because it has evidence of their involvement in the attack, the sources said.

The attack was planned, equipped and organised in Pakistan where the terrorists were trained and provided logistical support.

Contrary to the version that the terrorists used a hijacked Indian fishing boat to reach Mumbai after sailing from Karachi, the view here is that much more sophisticated means were used.

The sources spoke of a clear disconnect between the Pakistani civilian government and the all-powerful military establishment, which is causing difficulties for India in dealing with the situation.

Islamabad’s about-turn on sending the Director General of ISI to India is cited as an instance of this disconnect.

During a telephone conversation Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the Mumbai attack, President Asif Zardari had referred to an earlier Pakistani proposal for a meeting between the ISI chief and the head of India’s external intelligence agency, RAW.

Singh told Zardari that this was acceptable to India, after which Pakistan government had announced that the ISI head would travel to India.

After a post-midnight call on Zardari by Army chief Gen Ashfaque Kayani this decision was reversed with the President taking cover under a “mis-communication” with the Indian prime minister. Instead it was decided to depute a Director-level officer to India.

When the terror attack took place Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was in India and had consciously decided not to cut short his visit. However, the Indian government was told at 2.30 am that a special aircraft was being sent less than 4 hours later to take him back to Pakistan.

In what observers see as a clear message to the civilian government, the Pakistan army chief’s plane was sent to Delhi to pick up Qureshi, who boarded the flight around 7 am.

The view here is that the Pakistan army is using the current developments as a way out of the difficult situation it faces in the areas bordering Afghanistan where its writ does not run. Some 900 desertions are said to have taken place from the army.

Stratfor: analysis and comparison, New York and Mumbai. Superb.

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Once again the boys at Stratfor do an excellent analysis and determine the likely source of the plan used at Mumbai. For more on Ramsey Yussef, I reccomend highly Fred Burton’s book, ‘Ghost’ available through the store here at Vlad Tepes.

Its an account of his capture among other events in counter terrorism and Fred Burton is also the author of this article.

The film ‘The Path to 911’ made as a miniseries by ABC (if you can get the version with the scenes Bill Clinton forced to be deleted put back in and intact) as also an amazing documentary about how this and other terrorist activities are organized and how 911 eventually succeeded.

Eeyore for Vlad.

India flag at half mast in Ottawa after the Mumbai attacks

India flag at half mast in Ottawa after the Mumbai attacks

From the New York Landmarks Plot to the Mumbai Attack
December 3, 2008

By Fred Burton and Ben Wes

RELATED SPECIAL TOPIC PAGES
Militant Attacks In Mumbai and Their Consequences
Travel Security
Terrorist Attack Cycle
On the surface, last week’s attack on Mumbai was remarkable for its execution and apparently unconventional tactics. But when compared to a plot uncovered 15 years ago that targeted prominent hotels in Manhattan, it becomes apparent that the Mumbai attack was not so original after all.

The 1993 New York Landmarks Plot
In July 1993, U.S. counterterrorism agents arrested eight individuals later convicted of plotting an elaborate, multistage attack on key sites in Manhattan. The militants, who were linked to Osama bin Laden’s then-relatively new group, al Qaeda, planned to storm the island armed with automatic rifles, grenades and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). In multiple raids on key targets combined with diversionary attacks, they aimed to kill as many people as possible.

The planned attack, which came to be known as the “Landmarks” plot, called for several tactical teams to raid sites such as the Waldorf-Astoria, St. Regis and U.N. Plaza hotels, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, and a midtown Manhattan waterfront heliport servicing business executives and VIPs traveling from lower Manhattan to various New York-area airports. The militants carried out extensive surveillance both inside and outside the target hotels using human probes, hand-drawn maps and video surveillance. Detailed notes were taken on the layout and design of the buildings, with stairwells, ballrooms, security cameras and personnel all reconnoitered.

The attackers intended to infiltrate the hotels and disguise themselves as kitchen employees. On the day of the attack, one attack team planned to use stolen delivery vans to get close to the hotels, at which point heavily armed, small-cell commando teams would deploy from the rear of the van. Stationary operatives would use hand grenades to create diversions while attack teams would rake hotel guests with automatic weapons. The attackers planned to carry gas masks and use tear gas in hotel ballrooms to gain an advantage over any security they might come up against. They planned to attack at night, when the level of protection would be lower.

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Stratfor: an analysis on motives for the Mumbai attacks. as usual, superb thought by Friedman

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Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack
December 1, 2008

By George Friedman

RELATED SPECIAL TOPIC PAGE
Militant Attacks In Mumbai and Their Consequences
Last Wednesday evening, a group of Islamist operatives carried out a complex terror operation in the Indian city of Mumbai. The attack was not complex because of the weapons used or its size, but in the apparent training, multiple methods of approaching the city and excellent operational security and discipline in the final phases of the operation, when the last remaining attackers held out in the Taj Mahal hotel for several days. The operational goal of the attack clearly was to cause as many casualties as possible, particularly among Jews and well-to-do guests of five-star hotels. But attacks on various other targets, from railroad stations to hospitals, indicate that the more general purpose was to spread terror in a major Indian city.

While it is not clear precisely who carried out the Mumbai attack, two separate units apparently were involved. One group, possibly consisting of Indian Muslims, was established in Mumbai ahead of the attacks. The second group appears to have just arrived. It traveled via ship from Karachi, Pakistan, later hijacked a small Indian vessel to get past Indian coastal patrols, and ultimately landed near Mumbai.

Extensive preparations apparently had been made, including surveillance of the targets. So while the precise number of attackers remains unclear, the attack clearly was well-planned and well-executed.

Evidence and logic suggest that radical Pakistani Islamists carried out the attack. These groups have a highly complex and deliberately amorphous structure. Rather than being centrally controlled, ad hoc teams are created with links to one or more groups. Conceivably, they might have lacked links to any group, but this is hard to believe. Too much planning and training were involved in this attack for it to have been conceived by a bunch of guys in a garage. While precisely which radical Pakistani Islamist group or groups were involved is unknown, the Mumbai attack appears to have originated in Pakistan. It could have been linked to al Qaeda prime or its various franchises and/or to Kashmiri insurgents.

More important than the question of the exact group that carried out the attack, however, is the attackers’ strategic end. There is a tendency to regard terror attacks as ends in themselves, carried out simply for the sake of spreading terror. In the highly politicized atmosphere of Pakistan’s radical Islamist factions, however, terror frequently has a more sophisticated and strategic purpose. Whoever invested the time and took the risk in organizing this attack had a reason to do so. Let’s work backward to that reason by examining the logical outcomes following this attack.

An End to New Delhi’s Restraint
The most striking aspect of the Mumbai attack is the challenge it presents to the Indian government — a challenge almost impossible for New Delhi to ignore. A December 2001 Islamist attack on the Indian parliament triggered an intense confrontation between India and Pakistan. Since then, New Delhi has not responded in a dramatic fashion to numerous Islamist attacks against India that were traceable to Pakistan. The Mumbai attack, by contrast, aimed to force a response from New Delhi by being so grievous that any Indian government showing only a muted reaction to it would fall.

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Plan was to kill 5000. ISI involved. Captured terrorist talks in Mumbai

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Clearly Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence is involved in the planning and execution of this operation in Mumbai. There will be repercussions by the Government of India on Pakistan. Hopefully it will be severe enough to give pause to anyone else planning similar operations.
Sooner or later, it comes down to deterrence and the end of perception of weakness.

*** Pakistan army violates ceasefire for second time ***

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According to Stratfor.com premiere geopolitical think tank Pakistan has violated a ceasefire with India for the second time within 24 hours. India apparently did not return fire.

The Indian army officer who reported this in the Press Trust of India claimed it was the second breach of the ceasefire within 24 hours and took place across two states.

It’s quite remarkable how hard it is to start a war with Buddhists and Hindu’s isn’t it? But that is clearly what Pakistan’s ISI is determined to do. Islam will not rest till it has destroyed both nations. They may get their wish soon.