Again the most powerful and influential western media – the NYTs – manages to muddy the waters when defining the enemy of the west in their article today, Sophisticated Attacks, but al Qaida link disputed.
UPDATE: The NYT’s evidently rethought the original headline with language of “al Qaida link disputed”, and changed it to “But by whom”?….. H/T to Dave Noble for noticing. END UPDATE
A day after the terror attacks in Mumbai that killed over 100 people, one question remained as impenetrable as the smoke that still billowed from one of the city’s landmark hotels: who carried out the attack?
Security officials and experts agreed that the assaults represented a marked departure in scope and ambition from other recent terrorist attacks in India, which targeted local people rather than foreigners and hit single rather than multiple targets.
The Mumbai assault, by contrast, was “uniquely disturbing”, said Sajjan Gohel, a security expert in London, because it seemed directed at foreigners, involved hostage-taking and was aimed at multiple “soft, symbolic targets.” The attacks “aimed to create maximum terror and human carnage and damage the economy,” he said in a telephone interview.
But the central riddle was the extent to which local assailants had outside support. The Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, said the attacks probably had “external linkages”, reflecting calculations among Indian officials that the level of planning, preparation and coordination could not have been achieved without help from experienced terrorists, particularly groups affiliated to Al Qaeda. The planning of the attack has profound political implications for both India and its neighbor, Pakistan.
But the identity of the Mumbai attackers remained a mystery.
An e-mail message to Indian media outlets taking responsibility for the attacks in Mumbai on Wednesday night said the militants were from a group called Deccan Mujahedeen. Almost universally, experts and intelligence officials said that name was unknown.
What is it that escapes the logic of the western press? What these human cockroaches are is just another global jihad movement. Does it really make a difference that it’s a new name rather than an established group of jihad fighters? Or that they do not use traditional AQ methods?
What they are is yet another band of the Islamic jihad movement that wages war on land they wish to claim for their own Caliphate. Whether they wear an AQ badge, or carry membership cards doled out by Osama Bin Laden matters not one bit. They are part and parcel of the same universal enemy that is a rose by any other name.
Yet there are some that refuse to face that reality.
The Indian official also suggested the foot-soldiers in the attack might have emerged from an outlawed militant group of Islamic students. Photographs from security cameras showed some youthful attackers carrying assault rifles and smiling as they launched the operation.
“There are a lot of very, very angry Muslims in India,” Ms. Fair said, “The economic disparities are startling and India has been very slow to publicly embrace its rising Muslim problem. You cannot put lipstick on this pig. This is a major domestic political challenge for India.”
“The public political face of India says, “Our Muslims have not been radicalized.’ But the Indian intelligence apparatus knows that’s not true. India’s Muslim communities are being sucked into the global landscape of Islamist jihad,” she said. “Indians will have a strong incentive to link this to Al Qaeda. ‘Al Qaeda’s in your toilet!’ But this is a domestic issue. This is not India’s 9/11.”
That, too, was disputed by the Indian official. “This was Mumbai’s 9/11,” he said. The consequences of the attack, the official said, may be to disrupt any overtures to Pakistan and to ignite a backlash against Indian Muslims.
Reflecting a widespread assessment in Pakistan, Moonis Ahmar, a professor of international relations at Karachi University, called the attacks a well-thought out conspiracy designed to destabilize relations between India and Pakistan and sabotage efforts at reconciliation.
Hindus make up about 80 percent of India’s 1.13 billion population and Muslims 13.4 percent. Experts disputed the complexity of the operation.
Mr. Hoffman said: “These aren’t just a bunch of radical guys coming together to cause mayhem.”
“This takes a different skill set. It doesn’t take much skill to make a bomb. This is not just pressing a button as a suicide bomber and dying. You don’t learn this over the Internet.”
But Ms. Fair did not agree that the attacks on Wednesday necessarily required deep planning and training.
“This wasn’t something that required a logistical mastermind,” she said. “These were not hardened targets. A huge train station with zero security. Two hotels with no security, both owned by Indians. Leopold’s Café. How hard is it, really? It’s not rocket science.”
To ignore the obvious will minimize the ability to combat the enemy. The sooner the world stops placing more import on the name, a common method of warfare, and the connections – rather than the shared ideology – the better.
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.