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| India-Pakistan |
| Who could be behind the Mumbai blasts? |
| 2011-07-14 |
| Three bombs rocked crowded districts of Mumbai during rush hour on Wednesday, killing at least 21 people in the biggest militant attack on India’s financial capital since 2008 assaults. No one has claimed responsibility. Security analysts say the pattern of the attack points to a local militant group called the Indian Mujahideen (IM). A remote possibility is the Pakistan-based separatist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), known for its sympathies for Al Qaeda and blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. The Indian Mujahideen is described by global intelligence firm Stratfor as “a relatively amateurish group that’s been able to carry out low to medium intensity attacks.” The group is suspected of having been trained and backed by militant groups in neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh. The group first emerged during a wave of bombings in north India in 2007. They have since claimed responsibility for bomb attacks in the cities of Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and New Delhi. The last attack they claimed was in 2010 in the western city of Pune, where a bomb blast at a tourist spot killed nine people. Police say the Indian Mujahideen may also include former members of Bangladeshi militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami. The demands of the Indian Mujahideen, like their targets, have tended to be domestic. The group has declared “open war against India”. Lashkar-e-Taiba, the “army of the pure”, is one of the largest militant groups in South Asia but has not been operating recently. Once nurtured by Pakistan’s military to fight India in Kashmir, it is now under a tight leash since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, for fear of a new attack that would invite retribution on Pakistan. The group claimed responsibility for the attack on an army base in New Delhi’s historic Red Fort which killed three people in late 2000 and for an assault on India’s parliament in 2001 that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of a fourth war. In 2005, it was blamed for bomb attacks on markets in New Delhi that killed more than 60 people. The United States has designated the LeT as a “foreign terrorist organization”. Pakistan banned it in 2002, but critics say it long operated openly under different names. WHY MUMBAI? WHY NOW? India has long been under the threat of militant attacks by a variety of groups ranging from separatists in the northeast to nationalists but there is a possibility the latest strike could be aimed at scuttling fledgling attempts to revive the peace process between New Delhi and Islamabad. India and Pakistan have recently begun talks that were frozen after the 2008 Mumbai attacks and some of the progress has surprised observers. But an attack linked to Pakistan will almost certainly put pressure on India to pull out of talks and take a hardline stance. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #6 ISI |
| Posted by: Water Modem 2011-07-14 12:49 |
| #5 Shakers? Why Mumbai last time? Why not then? I expect a dozen arrests by parkistan over the next 72. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2011-07-14 09:28 |
| #4 Times of India was suggesting it was local gangsters under contract to someone. If India can trace the money back to Pakland, could see a shooting war over this which could well draw in China, who would be deeply alarmed at the possiblity of losing a land route to Pakland and India getting a land route to Afghanistan and on to central Asia. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2011-07-14 05:29 |
| #3 Or those sneaky Joooos of Chabad? |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2011-07-14 04:44 |
| #2 Maybe Amish. Or Mennonites. |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2011-07-14 04:43 |
| #1 Quakers? |
| Posted by: gr(o)mgoru 2011-07-14 01:05 |