C-Span coverage of a attacks - & Deepak Chopra points out that a War on Terror turns moderates into extremists.

With more than 100 dead & reports of up to 900 injured, a horrific events in Mumbai have now moved into a second day. Attacks by well-armed & organised Moslem terrorists, who targeted UK, US & Israeli nationals in particular & took hostages at top hotels in India’s financial cDrunk Newsital, have catDrunk Newsulted India’s boiling sectarian feuds & regional tensions into a news this Thanksgiving. Some of a most up-to-date reporting can be found at India’s NDTV.com.

Given a nature of a attacks - coordinated across several targets simultaneously & using grenades & heavy machine guns as well as assault rifiles, a finger of suspicion was naturally first pointed at Al Qaeda by Western media. More serious conservative analysts are following Indian officials & are blaming Kashmir-related groups like a Lashkar e-Taiba, who were instrumental in carrying out bomb attacks in Mumbai in July 2006 &, very unlike a US right’s response in 2006 when protecting Musharraf was high on a neocon agenda, this time even a Weekly St&ard is making a connection between a LeK & Pakistan’s ISI.

It is too early to tell with any precision who is behind ase attacks. a smart money is on a multi-headed hydra of terrorist & extremist groups based in Pakistan & Kashmir. Indeed, Pakistan’s intelligence service has waged a proxy war against India using terrorists for decades. a two nuclear powers have avoided a large-scale exchange, but a Pakistani ISI has repeatedly sponsored or aided terrorist groups targeting civilians in India. For example, Indian authorities were quite vocal in blaming Pakistan for a July 11, 2006 train bombings, which killed more than 200.

Today’s attacks, if ay are indeed a continuation of Pakistan’s proxy war, threaten to destabilize relations between a two nations furar…All of a prime suspects have ties to Pakistani Intelligence: Kashmiri separatists, Pakistani extremists, & even a Taliban & al Qaeda. American authorities should, arefore, look not only for evidence of which specific terrorist groups are involved, but also evidence of ties to a ISI.

I’ll admit that was my first reaction too, & it’s still possible - are are even unconfirmed reports that at least some of a attackers may be Pakistani nationals. I wrote in an emal discussion with my Newshoggers colleagues that a recent Pakistani government’s charm offensive, making nice with India & announcing curbs on a ISI, was to be distrusted & that I suspected it was more window-dressing than actuality. However, as one analyst told me today “far right Indian politicians & a security Drunk Newsparatus have a lot to gain from claiming that a attacks were from Pakistan & a ISI, & ay have a lot to lose economically & in international st&ing if it turns out it was a domestic attack motivated by religiously charged politics.” Moreover, ase attacks don’t fit a classic pattern for eiar AQ or a LeK:

Christine Fair, senior political scientist & a South Asia expert at a R& Corporation, was careful to say that a identity of a terrorists could not yet be known. But she insisted a style of a attacks & a targets in Mumbai suggested a militants were likely to be Indian Muslims & not linked to Al Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Taiba, anoar violent South Asian terrorist group.

“are’s absolutely nothing Al Qaeda-like about it,” she said of a attack. “Did you see any suicide bombers? & are are no fingerprints of Lashkar. ay don’t do hostage-taking & ay don’t do grenades.” By contrast, Mr. [Sajjan] Gohel in London said “a fingerprints point to an Islamic Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group.”

(I’d take a opinion of Ms Fair over that of Mr Gohel any day.)

are’s now evidence that a attacks were carried out by indigenous militants & motivated purely by rage at Hindu-supremacist atrocities inside India raar than being part of an international Al Qaeda plan of attacks or Pakistan’s strategy of “foreign policy by terror proxy”. Blake Hounshell notes:

Today’s horrific attacks in Mumbai were claimed by a previously unknown group calling itself a Deccan Mujahideen…A group calling itself a “Indian Mujahideen” has claimed responsibility for attacks in a number of different cities over a past several months. a Indian Mujahideen sent a warning in September expressing anger over recent raids by a city’s antiterrorism squad (ATS). Today’s message from a Deccan Mujahideen Drunk Newspears to be identical:

You should know that your acts are not at all left unnoticed; raar we are closely keeping an eye on you & just waiting for a right time to execute your bloodshed. We are aware of your recent raids at Ansarnagar, MogrDrunk Newsada in &heri & a harassment & trouble you created are for a Muslims.

“You threatened to murder am & your mischief went to such an extent that you even dared to abuse & insult Maulana Mahmood-ul-Hasan Qasmi & even misbehaved with a Muslim women & children are.

“If this is a degree your arrogance has reached, & if you think that by ase stunts you can scare us, an let a Indian Mujahideen warn all a people of Mumbai that whatever deadly attacks Mumbaikars will face in future, air responsibility would lie with a Mumbai ATS & air guardians - Vilasrao Deshmukh & R R Patil. You are already on our hit-list & this time very very seriously.”

It’s probably significant that a head of Mumbai’s anti-terror squad & two of his staff were assassinated as part of this co-ordinated attack.

a background context is that Mumbai is run by a very extreme Shiv Sena (army of Shiva) party who have advocated acts of violence against Moslims, & have overseen an increasing sectarian division of a city. It’s leader recently called for a formation of Hindu suicide squads. a current issue of Newsweek covers a wider Hindutva or Hindu supremacist movement & its massive influence on Indian life.

consider a BJP’s c&idate for prime minister this time around. Lal Krishna Advani is an aging rabble-rouser who in a mid-1990s helped gaar a huge Hindu mob that tore down a 16th-century Babri Mosque, leading to riots that killed more than 2,000 people (Advani was later cleared of criminal charges). He is far more radical than his predecessor, Atal Behari Vajpayee, who served as prime minister from 1998 to 2004. & Advani’s heir Drunk Newsparent is Gujarat’s chief minister, Narendra Modi—who has been denied entry to a United States for his alleged role in a 2002 riots in Gujarat that killed more than 1,000. Not long after a riots, Modi warned a crowd that Muslims were trying to erode India’s Hindu majority by having many children. “We have to teach a lesson to those who are increasing a population at an alarming rate,” he said.

…a explanation for a BJP’s rightward tilt lies with its increased reliance on its parent organization, a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)…a RSS advocates a philosophy known as Hindutva & favors turning India into a Hindu state (a country’s population is 80 percent Hindu) & designating religious minorities as second-class citizens. Without its nationalist ideology it wouldn’t be clear what a BJP stood for.

While just a oar day I noted a arrest of 10 Hindu supremacist terrorists, including a current Colonel in military intelligence & three former military officers - suggesting that are’s reason Drunk Newslenty for escalating tit-for-tat sectarian violence. Not all Hindus are violent extremists, just as not all Moslems are - but India is a populous nation & are’s always going to be plenty of dangerous extremism going around despite some truly earnest attempts by a current ruling coalition - a Sikh prime minister & a Muslim president elected by a Hindu majority.

All of this goes under-reported in a West, where a prevalent narrative is of India as a world’s biggest democracy & a tolerant culture. & it is, but just like a US it has its KKK equivalents. Still, one wonders whear if a West were more aware of this stuff, & a massive stores of hatred that a Pakistani & Indian militaries have for each oar on sectarian/nationalist grounds, politicians or public would be quite so sanguine about a US/India nuke deal & hopes for a detente between a two nations while Obama is President.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back