Dear digest readers,

This urgent situation in Mumbai involves the world. Mumbai strongly appears to be the trigger needed for a long-planned, widely threatened "calculated international crisis to challenge obama" as the US expands wars in Southeast Asia.The immediate target appears to be Pakistan but the entire world is the goal --- and the imperatives for the u.s. were laid out decades ago by Zbigniew Brzezinski, now an Obama team adviser. “Hegemony is as old as Mankind…” Brzezinski said as former U.S. National Security Advisor. For more background, specific warnings and signs of what's coming to save the sinking ship by restructuring the world and its resources under US hegemony see http://www.burbankdigest.com/node/146 and http://www.burbankdigest.com/node/148)

Rather than a regular issue of the digest, I'm going out on a limb by sending my assessment as work-in-progress, a collage of info., as a vital warning of what I believe is brewing. First because, if correct, it is will be devastating. Both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers and the reverberations of US escalation could be world-shaking. Second because the media coverage itself of this situation is such a valuable lesson in how capitalist propaganda develops and works to create political public opinion and response. Excerpts below plus TV 'news' reveals two main US-UK propaganda tangents: India needs assistance dealing with 'Islamic terrorists" (not, of course, with its own fascist Hindu BJP party-led violence against Muslims). These 'terrorists' it has been predetermined are Islamist by definition since they targeted westerners/Americans, British and Jews, and somehow must be influenced and/or led by the us standby 'al-qaeda', which Pakistan-- is unwilling or unable to stop. Occasional barbs are thrown at the Indian Naxalite revolutionaries struggling for self-determination (aka 'terrorists') and Nepal's Maoists -- fairly winning democratic elections doesn't stop U.S.-Israeli 'terrorism' charges if the results do not suit u.s. imperialist domination --- as evident with Hamas & Hezbollah.

There are many signs this is calculated to be the opening salvo for major new US political and military moves. Preparations have been made with the new dem.party (largely George Soros funded) prez' stuffed with a 'collaborative' neocon and neolib imperialist --- zionist team.

Yesterday we learned, US could OK Afghan "surge" before Obama takes office, http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed2/idUSN24537423.

A Mumbai latimes article (linked below) dutifully picks up the plot-line saying : "...the masterminds may have intended to send 'a challenge to the new president of the United States' "].

The plans afoot, increasingly evident (beyond the prerequisite regime change) from the psywar proliferation of 'al qaeda threats', the NYT/state propaganda organ's editorial A Military for a Dangerous New World http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/opinion/16Sun1.html?th=&emc=th&pagewan...
Barack Obama will face the most daunting and complicated national security challenges in more than a generation -- and will inherit a military that is critically ill-equipped for the task.

And an astoundingly inflammatory NYT 11/23/08 Jane Perlez article originally entitled in hard copy "Redrawn Map has Pakistan Worried" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/world/asia/23pstan.html?_r=1&pagewante... - almost immediately renamed and revised online as "Ringed by Foes, Pakistanis Fear US Too", with the original US Army/Ralph Peters before & after maps of Pakistan scrubbed everywhere on the internet). Perlez' report dishes out the goods then dismissively treats Pakistani fear as conspiracy-theory generated:
A redrawn map of South Asia has been making the rounds among Pakistani elites. It shows their country truncated, reduced to an elongated sliver of land with the big bulk of India to the east, and an enlarged Afghanistan to the west. That the map was first circulated as a theoretical exercise in some American neoconservative circles matters little here. It has fueled a belief among Pakistanis, including members of the armed forces, that what the United States really wants is the breakup of Pakistan, the only Muslim country with nuclear arms. “One of the biggest fears of the Pakistani military planners is the collaboration between India and Afghanistan to destroy Pakistan,” said a senior Pakistani government official involved in strategic planning, who insisted on anonymity as per diplomatic custom. “Some people feel the United States is colluding in this.”...

That notion may strike Americans as strange coming from an ally of 50 years. But as the incoming Obama administration tries to coax greater cooperation from Pakistan in the fight against militancy, it can hardly be ignored. This is a country where years of weak governance have left ample room for conspiracy theories of every kind. But like much such thinking anywhere, what is said frequently reveals the tender spots of a nation’s psyche. Educated Pakistanis sometimes say that they are paranoid, but add that they believe they have good reason...

So how will the promise by President-elect Barack Obama for a new start between the United States and Pakistan be received here? How can it be begun?
One possibility could be some effort to ease Pakistani anxieties, even as the United States demands more from Pakistan. That will probably mean a regional approach to what, it is increasingly apparent, are regional problems. There, Pakistani and American interests may coincide. American military commanders, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, have started to argue forcefully that the solution to the conflict in Afghanistan, where the American war effort looks increasingly uncertain, must involve a wide array of neighbors.
Mr. Obama has said much the same. Several times in his campaign, he laid out the crux of his thinking. Reducing tensions between Pakistan and India would allow Pakistan to focus on the real threat — the Qaeda and Taliban militants who are tearing at the very fabric of the country. “If Pakistan can look towards the east with confidence, it will be less likely to believe its interests are best advanced through cooperation with the Taliban,” Mr. Obama wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine last year.

But such an approach faces sizable obstacles, the biggest being the conflict over Kashmir. The Himalayan border area has been disputed since the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, and remains divided between them....Pakistanis warn that the United States should not appear too eager to mediate. First, they caution, India has always regarded Kashmir as a bilateral question. India, they note, also faces a general election early next year, an inappropriate moment to push such an explosive issue.

Second, some Pakistanis are concerned about the reliability of the United States as a fair mediator. “Given the United States’ record on the Palestinian issue, where the Palestinians had to move 10 times backwards and the Israelis moved the goal posts, the same could happen here,” said Zubair Khan, a former commerce minister who has watched Kashmir closely. It was discouraging, Mr. Khan said, that the United States ignored the importance of the huge nonviolent protests by Muslims in Kashmir against Indian rule this summer. “Anywhere else, and they would have been hailed as an Orange Revolution,” he said, referring to the wave of [U.S. / Soros sponsored] protests that led to a change in the Ukrainian government in 2004.

Such distrust has been exacerbated by what Pakistanis see as the Bush administration’s tilt toward India. Exhibit A for the Pakistanis is India’s nuclear deal with the United States, which allows India to engage in nuclear trade even though it never joined the global Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Pakistan, with its recent history of spreading nuclear technology, received no comparable bargain. The nuclear deal was devised in Washington to position India as a strategic counterbalance to China. That is how it is seen in Pakistan, too, but with no enthusiasm.
“The United States has changed the whole nuclear order by this deal, and in doing so is containing China, the only friend Pakistan has in the region,” said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani Army general. Further, Pakistan is upset about the advances India is making in Afghanistan, with no checks from the United States, Mr. Masood said.....

If the Obama administration is indeed to convince Pakistanis that militancy, not the Indian Army, presents the gravest threat, it will not be easy.... among ordinary Pakistanis, many regard Al Qaeda more positively than the United States, polls find. Talk shows here often include arguments that the suicide bombings in Pakistan are payback for the Pakistani Army fighting an American war. ...

Ralph Peters “Blood Borders: How a Better Middle East Would Look”
http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899
... As for those who refuse to “think the unthinkable,” declaring that boundaries must not change and that’s that, it pays to remember that boundaries have never stopped changing through the centuries. Borders have never been static, and many frontiers, from Congo through Kosovo to the Caucasus, are changing even now...
Oh, and one other dirty little secret from 5,000 years of history: Ethnic cleansing works....

Wikipedia: Ralph Peters (born 1952) retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel, graduated from the U.S. Army War College, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. His last assignment was to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence. He retired in 1998 with the rank of Lie... novelist and essayist....works for New York Post, has sometimes written under the nom-de-plume Owen Parry.
Before and after maps from Blood borders: How a better Middle East would look, 'Armed Forces Journal,' June 2006
In an article titled Blood borders: How a better Middle East would look, Peters conducted a thought experiment by changing the borders in the Middle East: "In each case, this hypothetical redrawing of boundaries reflects ethnic affinities and religious communalism—in some cases, both." [9]...

In a recent column for Armchair General Magazine he wrote in support for regime change in Syria, Iran and Pakistan:
Syria's determination to develop nuclear weapons apes Iran's and North Korea's nuke programs, as well as Pakistan's successful bid to join the club of nuclear powers. ... Given a choice between taking out Osama Bin Laden and his entire leadership network and eliminating renegade nuclear engineers, the latter option might do far more for our long-term security.[11]...

Peter's article "Constant Conflict" was controversial for this section:
There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.
Through a Glass Darkly
Constant Conflict
RALPH PETERS
PARAMETERS US Army War College Quarterly
Summer 1997, Vol. XXVII, No. 2
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/parameters/97summer/peters.htm

from Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a “New Middle East”
by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
...Anglo-American occupied Iraq, particularly Iraqi Kurdistan, seems to be the preparatory ground for the balkanization (division) and finlandization (pacification) of the Middle East. Already the legislative framework, under the Iraqi Parliament and the name of Iraqi federalization, for the partition of Iraq into three portions is being drawn out (and pushed by Joe Biden)
Moreover, the Anglo-American military roadmap appears to be vying an entry into Central Asia via the Middle East. The Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are stepping stones for extending U.S. influence into the former Soviet Union and the ex-Soviet Republics of Central Asia. The Middle East is to some extent the southern tier of Central Asia. Central Asia in turn is also termed as “Russia’s Southern Tier” or the Russian “Near Abroad.”Many Russian and Central Asian scholars, military planners, strategists, security advisors, economists, and politicians consider Central Asia (“Russia’s Southern Tier”) to be the vulnerable and “soft under-belly” of the Russian Federation.

It should be noted that in his book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. National Security Advisor, alluded to the modern Middle East as a control lever of an area he, Brzezinski, calls the Eurasian Balkans. The Eurasian Balkans consists of the Caucasus (Georgia, the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Armenia) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan) and to some extent both Iran and Turkey. Iran and Turkey both form the northernmost tiers of the Middle East (excluding the Caucasus4) that edge into Europe and the former Soviet Union.

The Map of the “New Middle East”
A relatively unknown map of the Middle East, NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan, and Pakistan has been circulating around strategic, governmental, NATO, policy and military circles since mid-2006. It has been causally allowed to surface in public, maybe in an attempt to build consensus and to slowly prepare the general public for possible, maybe even cataclysmic, changes in the Middle East. This is a map of a redrawn and restructured Middle East identified as the “New Middle East.”

MAP OF THE NEW MIDDLE EAST
Note: The following map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. (Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006). Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO's Defense College for senior military officers. This map, as well as other similar maps, has most probably been used at the National War Academy as well as in military planning circles.
This map of the “New Middle East” seems to be based on several other maps, including older maps of potential boundaries in the Middle East extending back to the era of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and World War I. This map is showcased and presented as the brainchild of retired Lieutenant-Colonel (U.S. Army) Ralph Peters, who believes the redesigned borders contained in the map will fundamentally solve the problems of the contemporary Middle East.
The map of the “New Middle East” was a key element in the retired Lieutenant-Colonel’s book, Never Quit the Fight, which was released to the public on July 10, 2006. This map of a redrawn Middle East was also published, under the title of Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look, in the U.S. military’s Armed Forces Journal with commentary from Ralph Peters.5
It should be noted that Lieutenant-Colonel Peters was last posted to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, within the U.S. Defence Department, and has been one of the Pentagon’s foremost authors with numerous essays on strategy for military journals and U.S. foreign policy....

Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters’ map of the “New Middle East” has sparked angry reactions in Turkey. According to Turkish press releases on September 15, 2006 the map of the “New Middle East” was displayed in NATO’s Military College in Rome, Italy. It was additionally reported that Turkish officers were immediately outraged by the presentation of a portioned and segmented Turkey.8 The map received some form of approval from the U.S. National War Academy before it was unveiled in front of NATO officers in Rome. The Turkish Chief of Staff, General Buyukanit, contacted the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, and protested the event and the exhibition of the redrawn map of the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.9 Furthermore the Pentagon has gone out of its way to assure Turkey that the map does not reflect official U.S. policy and objectives in the region, but this seems to be conflicting with Anglo-American actions in the Middle East and NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan. [ Suleyman Kurt, Carved-up Map of Turkey at NATO Prompts U.S. Apology, Zaman (Turkey), September 29, 2006. http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&hn=36919]

Is there a Connection between Zbigniew Brzezinski’s “Eurasian Balkans” and the “New Middle East” Project?
Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives (New York City: Basic Books, 1997).
http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/basic/book_detail.jsp?isbn=0465027261
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NAZ20061...

Pak nukes under US control soince 911: Stratfor Report 11/20/07 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2556824.cms .

Digest: Par for US plans, but in opposition to opinions of other 'national security experts', the same 'fresh faces and thinkers' who've wrought unprecedented destruction, the US with its UK sidekick, agreed the terrorists are their always dependable 'al-qaeda'. Strafor, "the shadow CIA", has already issued a geopolitical 'red alert' & CFR is all over it emphasizing pakistan/ISI 'terrorism' connections. Obviously neocon-neoliberal are strategically inseparable.

Are India and Afghanistan colluding to destroy Pakistan?
The Nation (Pakistan)
24-11-2008
http://www.asianewsnet.net/news.php?id=2808&sec=1
An article in The New York Times says that there is an “increasing belief” among Pakistanis, including members of the armed forces, that what the US really wants is the breakup of Pakistan, the only Muslim country with nuclear arms. “One of the biggest fears of the Pakistani military planners is the collaboration between India and Afghanistan to destroy Pakistan,” an unnamed senior Pakistani government official involved in strategic planning, was quoted by the newspaper as saying. “Some people feel the United States is colluding in this.”

and then this obscenity the other day...

Bill Kristol, a Fox Television commentator and arch American neoconservative revealed recently what many had long suspected was US thinking about the current international situation. Kristol recounts that in a 90-minute, mostly off-the-record meeting with a small group of journalists in early July, President Bush "conveyed the following impression, that he thought the next president's biggest challenge would not be Iraq, which he thinks he'll leave in pretty good shape, and would not be Afghanistan, which is manageable by itself… It’s Pakistan." We have "a sort of friendly government that sort of cooperates and sort of doesn’t. It's really a complicated and difficult situation." Right on cue, presidential candidate Barack Obama took the baton from Bush in his speech July 15, in which he argued that more focus and resource were required on both Afghanistan and Pakistan... http://www.daily.pk/local/other-local/8161-pakistan-the-next-us-target.h...

Digest: Some background info.on India at bottom you may may find useful too. But first, in case you've forgotten the long history of u.s. state terrorism, just see many digest issues plus here's a couple of recent reminders revealing a bit more about Obama adviser Brzezinski's service to u.s. fascist history:

Security Blanket: Western Democracy and the "Strategy of Tension"
Chris Floyd
... We've written often of the Pentagon's plan to foment terrorism where needed to achieve the goals of the "National Security State" [ http://collectioncf72.blogspot.com/2005/04/darkness-visible-pentagon-plan-to.html]... the "El Salvador option," death squads, "High-Value Targeting," etc. have been an integral part of the Anglo-American subjugation of Iraq. Indeed, they are a pillar of the "counterinsurgency doctrine" proclaimed by the other president-in-waiting, David Petraeus, and now avidly embraced by the War Machine. As Tara McElvey reports in The American Prospect, the Pentagon is eager to apply "High-Value Targeting" and refinements of the "Phoenix Program" -- in which U.S. forces and local proxies murdered more than 20,000 people -- and the whole panoply of "psy-ops" to imperial imbroglios around the world, applying them "to Afghanistan, then Pakistan, the Philippines, Colombia, Somalia, and elsewhere."... This is but one of a staggering array of examples of the use of "the strategy of tension" by "advanced" Western democracies of the modern world. This week came yet another. As Robert Mancini reports in the Guardian, the former president of Italy, Francesco Cossiga, let a great many cats out of the bag [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/24/comment] ...
... more war is what we've been promised by our agents of change....an even bigger War Machine, "tougher" security measures, national ID cards packed with personal data and tracking devices, more surveillance cameras, new "preventive detention" laws--and more unbounded authority to use public money to bail out the elite. Yet how to make this happen in the current atmosphere of exhaustion and anxiety? How to catalyze the public into continuing to support the Security State? How to discredit the rising chorus of opposition to neocolonialism, elite cronyism, rampant militarism and growing authoritarianism?. Was Joe Biden was talking about " the strategy of tension", The Gladio way, when he said the "young president" would be tested by a crisis, and forced to take unpopular measures in response? www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1650-security-blanket-we...

CIA OPERATION CYCLONE
Zbigniew Brzezinski played a pivotal role in Operation Cyclone, the codename for a CIA program to arm the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, 1979 to 1989. The idea was to give the Soviets its own ‘Vietnam war’, thus bogging them down in a long and costly war. Brzezinski’s recent efforts to contain Russia is to encircle it in the Caucuses - turning former Soviet satellite states, rife with anti-Russian sentiment, into full-fledged NATO members. There are fears that Brzezinski intends to escalate the conflict between Russia and the West under Barack Obama’s presidency. Especially worrisome are statements by Obama that he has ‘learned an intense amount from Dr Brzezinski’, prompting some critics to conclude that an Obama presidency will be a repeat of the Carter administration’s geopolitical manoeuvrings. : http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&It...

"Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization."
Z. Brzezinski.The Grand Chessboard, 1997

The CIA's "Operation Cyclone" - "A Few Stirred up Muslims"
Sun Oct 27 01:09:29 2002
http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=271
[Zbigniew] Brzezinski not long ago revealed that on July 3, 1979, unknown to the American public and Congress, President Jimmy Carter secretly authorised $500million to create an international terrorist movement that would spread Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia and "destabilise" the Soviet Union... The CIA called this Operation Cyclone and in the following years poured $4billion into setting up Islamic training schools in Pakistan (Taliban means "student").Young zealots were sent to the CIA's spy training camp in Virginia, where future members of al-Qaeda were taught "sabotage skills" - terrorism. Others were recruited at an Islamic school in Brooklyn, New York, within sight of the fated Twin Towers. In Pakistan, they were directed by British MI6 officers and trained by the SAS. The result, quipped Brzezinski, was "a few stirred up Muslims" - meaning the Taliban. The Wall Street Journal declared: "The Taliban are the players most capable of achieving peace. Moreover, they were crucial to secure the country as a prime trans-shipment route for the export of Central Asia's vast oil, gas and other natural resources."

The Pentagon P20G Plan to Provoke Terrorist Attacks
11/1/02
by Chris Floyd
"Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)"--will carry out secret missions designed to "stimulate reactions" among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose them to "counterattack" by U.S. forces.... What kind of measures exactly? Well, the classified Pentagon program puts it this way: "Their sovereignty will be at risk."...
http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd1101.html

Digest: after my final comment, back to MUMBAI with media & intel reports:
We have been forewarned and drugged with passive hope. The stage has been set. Obama and his hardcore team, the meticulously selected new imperial executors, are ready for this barbaric, brazen pretext to 'justify' his promised 'surge' in afghanistan and beyond: more US 'expanded definition of self-defense' attacks on other sovereign nations, counting on Obama to win our support or at least our ongoing pacification and silent complicity in further crimes against humanity to advance fascist u.s. agenda we have the responsibility to resist .

===============================================

Mumbai terror attacks has al-Qaeda hallmarks: UK, US experts
27 Nov 2008, 2219 hrs IST, AGENCIES
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Mumbai_terror_attacks_has_al-Qaeda_ha...
WASHINGTON: The multiple terror attacks in Mumbai that have killed over 100 people have the "hallmarks" of the al-Qaeda, anti-terrorism experts
have suggested, even as they indicated other well-known terror outfits with links to Pakistan may be behind the strikes. Bruce Riedel, a veteran CIA officer and former senior director for South Asia and the Middle East on the White House National Security Council, said the attacks had the hallmarks of an al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic group such as Lashkar-e Toiba (LeT), which is based in Pakistan and has links to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency. "India has been a major target of terrorism for the last several years, Bombay in particular," Riedel, one of the top advisors to US President-elect Barack Obama, has been quoted as saying in The Washington Times. "The vast bulk of these attacks have been carried out by Islamic extremist groups such as Lashkar-e Toiba, which has close links to al-Qaeda," said Riedel, who is expected to figure in the next US administration in some prominent fashion, perhaps in South Asia.

Several well-known security specialists and former senior administration officials have taken the position that while the al-Qaeda is a good suspect to ponder about, other well known terror outfits with links to Pakistan like the Lakshar-e-Taiba may well have been behind the coordinated blasts.

Meanwhile, British intelligence officials have also expressed suspicion of al-Qaeda’s hand in Mumbai attacks. Spy agencies around the world had little warning of the terrorist attack in Mumbai, which bore some al-Qaida hallmarks but appears unlikely to be linked to the group's core leadership, global intelligence officials said on Thursday.

Westerners in India's financial center were targeted in the spectacular attack comprised of multiple, simultaneous assaults - a signature of past al-Qaeda actions including the Sept. 11 attacks. But the Indian attack was carried out by gunmen and not the suicide bombers frequently employed by al-Qaida and its affiliates.

The group that claimed responsibility - Deccan Mujahideen - was unknown to security officials, a British security official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding the work. He said terror threats in India had been increasing but the scale of the attack on Wednesday was a surprise and there were no indications attacks would target Westerners. ``We have been actively monitoring plots in Britain and abroad and there was nothing to indicate something like this was about to happen,'' the official said.

Britain is the former colonial power in India and Pakistan and closely monitors terrorist suspects in those countries. The majority of the nearly 2 million British Muslims are of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin. More than 2,000 terror suspects are being monitored in the UK alone, with dozens more being watched in other countries, Britain's security services have said. Another British security official told the AP on condition of anonymity that, though it is too early to know for sure, the attack doesn't look to have been directed by al-Qaida's core leadership. But he said the fact Westerners had been singled out suggested it was inspired by Islamic extremist ideology.

Western security officials believe attacks organized, directed and funded specifically by al-Qaida's core leadership along the Afghan/Pakistan border are not frequent. More common are incidents in which terrorists have either some limited contact with al-Qaida leaders, or are inspired to carry out attacks by the ideology of Islamic extremism.

A U.S. counterterrorism official warned against leaping to conclusions but said the Mumbai attacks bore some hallmarks of operations by Pakistani groups that have fought Indian troops in the divided Kashmir region. ``Some of what we're seeing is reminiscent of past terrorist operations undertaken by groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed,'' the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed ``external forces'' and the Indian navy said its forces were boarding a cargo vessel suspected of ties to the attacks.Navy spokesman Capt. Manohar Nambiar said Thursday that the ship, the MV Alpha, had recently come to Mumbai from Karachi, Pakistan.

Pakistan's Port and Shipping Minister Nabil Gabol said Indian authorities had not asked him for information about what he called a ``false allegation.'' ``They should not drag Pakistan into this just to overcome their own political problems,'' he told The Associated Press.Pakistani officials in Britain said they were unaware of the plot. In September, a massive suicide truck bomb devastated the Marriott Hotel in the capital, Islamabad, killing at least 54 people, including three Americans and the Czech ambassador. ``This type of terrorism is spreading, through Pakistan and now India, but we were all surprised by such a large-scale attack like this,'' said Wajid Hassan, Pakistan's High Commissioner in London. ``This is no coincidence that this type of attack happened so soon after the bombing of the Marriott Hotel. People from all countries are being paid to fight this al-Qaida war. This is a war that goes beyond any nationality.''

Few terrorism experts have heard of the Deccan Mujahadeen. ``Initially we saw violence in India imported from outside - with allegations of Pakistani government support - but now we are seeing new, homegrown groups,'' said Nigel Inkster, director of Transnational Threats at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. ``There is a possible link to al-Qaida,'' he said. ``Logically it would be easier for al-Qaida to get things done in India than in the U.S. and Europe. Everyone's been expecting some type of pre-U.S. election or post-U.S. election spectacular, and there is some speculation that this is it.''

Red Alert: Possible Geopolitical Consequences of the Mumbai Attacks (Open Access)
Stratfor Today » November 27, 2008 | 0434 GMT
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20081126_red_alert
Summary
If the Nov. 26 attacks in Mumbai were carried out by Islamist militants as it appears, the Indian government will have little choice, politically speaking, but to blame them on Pakistan. That will in turn spark a crisis between the two nuclear rivals that will draw the United States into the fray.
Analysis

* Militant Attacks In Mumbai and Their Consequences
At this point the situation on the ground in Mumbai remains unclear following the militant attacks of Nov. 26. But in order to understand the geopolitical significance of what is going on, it is necessary to begin looking beyond this event at what will follow. Though the situation is still in motion, the likely consequences of the attack are less murky.

We will begin by assuming that the attackers are Islamist militant groups operating in India, possibly with some level of outside support from Pakistan. We can also see quite clearly that this was a carefully planned, well-executed attack.

Given this, the Indian government has two choices. First, it can simply say that the perpetrators are a domestic group. In that case, it will be held accountable for a failure of enormous proportions in security and law enforcement. It will be charged with being unable to protect the public. On the other hand, it can link the attack to an outside power: Pakistan. In that case it can hold a nation-state responsible for the attack, and can use the crisis atmosphere to strengthen the government’s internal position by invoking nationalism. Politically this is a much preferable outcome for the Indian government, and so it is the most likely course of action. This is not to say that there are no outside powers involved — simply that, regardless of the ground truth, the Indian government will claim there were.

That, in turn, will plunge India and Pakistan into the worst crisis they have had since 2002. If the Pakistanis are understood to be responsible for the attack, then the Indians must hold them responsible, and that means they will have to take action in retaliation — otherwise, the Indian government’s domestic credibility will plunge. The shape of the crisis, then, will consist of demands that the Pakistanis take immediate steps to suppress Islamist radicals across the board, but particularly in Kashmir. New Delhi will demand that this action be immediate and public. This demand will come parallel to U.S. demands for the same actions, and threats by incoming U.S. President Barack Obama to force greater cooperation from Pakistan.

If that happens, Pakistan will find itself in a nutcracker. On the one side, the Indians will be threatening action — deliberately vague but menacing — along with the Americans. This will be even more intense if it turns out, as currently seems likely, that Americans and Europeans were being held hostage (or worse) in the two hotels that were attacked. If the attacks are traced to Pakistan, American demands will escalate well in advance of inauguration day.

There is a precedent for this. In 2002 there was an attack on the Indian parliament in Mumbai by Islamist militants linked to Pakistan. A near-nuclear confrontation took place between India and Pakistan, in which the United States brokered a stand-down in return for intensified Pakistani pressure on the Islamists. The crisis helped redefine the Pakistani position on Islamist radicals in Pakistan.

In the current iteration, the demands will be even more intense. The Indians and Americans will have a joint interest in forcing the Pakistani government to act decisively and immediately. The Pakistani government has warned that such pressure could destabilize Pakistan. The Indians will not be in a position to moderate their position, and the Americans will see the situation as an opportunity to extract major concessions. Thus the crisis will directly intersect U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan.

It is not clear the degree to which the Pakistani government can control the situation. But the Indians will have no choice but to be assertive, and the United States will move along the same line. Whether it is the current government in India that reacts, or one that succeeds doesn’t matter. Either way, India is under enormous pressure to respond. Therefore the events point to a serious crisis not simply between Pakistan and India, but within Pakistan as well, with the government caught between foreign powers and domestic realities. Given the circumstances, massive destabilization is possible — never a good thing with a nuclear power.

This is thinking far ahead of the curve, and is based on an assumption of the truth of something we don’t know for certain yet, which is that the attackers were Muslims and that the Pakistanis will not be able to demonstrate categorically that they weren’t involved. Since we suspect they were Muslims, and since we doubt the Pakistanis can be categorical and convincing enough to thwart Indian demands, we suspect that we will be deep into a crisis within the next few days, very shortly after the situation on the ground clarifies itself.

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Obama speaks to Rice on Mumbai terror attack
28 Nov 2008, 0159 hrs IST, PTI
WASHINGTON: President-elect Barack Obama has spoken with the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over phone to get an update on the situation in Mumbai. It is said that Obama received an intelligence briefing on the terror attacks in Mumbai in which 125 people have been killed so far.Obama is spending Thanksgiving Day in Chicago at his home town but is receiving regular situational updates from the State Department Operations Center and the National Counter Terrorism Center. The President-elect, aides say, continues to monitor the situation closely and appreciates the cooperation and information sharing from the Bush administration. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3767126,prtpage-1.cm...

US, Pakistan condemn Mumbai attacks
27 Nov 2008, 1043 hrs IST, PTI
WASHINGTON: US president-elect Barack Obama today pledged full support to India to "root out" terrorist networks as the international community
denounced as "outrageous" the multiple terror strikes in Mumbai that claimed at least 100 lives. Obama, who is continuously monitoring the situation, spoke to Indian Ambassador Ronen Sen over phone and conveyed his message that his thoughts and prayers are with the people of India.
A statement issued by his Chief National Security Spokesperson Brooke Anderson said the Mumbai terror attacks demonstrated "the grave and urgent threat" of terrorism. "The United States must continue to strengthen our partnerships with India and nations around the world to root out and destroy terrorist networks," it said.The Democratic president-elect told Sen that he is completely supportive of all actions of the Bush Administration to be of whatever assistance to the Government of India in dealing with the menace. ...

Expressing shock and horror over the terror strikes, Pakistan offered "complete cooperation" to India to fight the menace unitedly. "I am shocked and horrified at the Mumbai incidents," Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who is currently visiting India, said.He also stressed the need for strengthening of the bilateral Joint Anti-Terror Mechanism.

British Premier Gordon Brown, who sent a message of condolence to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said the "outrageous" attacks will be met with a "vigorous response"."I have sent a message to Prime Minister Singh that the UK stands solidly with his government as they respond," he said.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev declared that the use of terrorism to resolve issues was "impermissible."...

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'Dark forces' attacked Mumbai: New York mayor
27 Nov 2008, 0640 hrs IST, AF
NEW YORK: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Wednesday said that bloody attacks in Mumbai were a reminder of "dark forces" in an increasingly
inter-connected world."Today a horrific series of attacks in Mumbai, India reminded us that there remain dark forces in the world that think killing innocents is a way to advance an agenda," Bloomberg said in a statement.He said New York and Mumbai shared much in common, including their diversity and importance to the business world. Recalling that New York police were alerted earlier Wednesday to a reported al-Qaida plot against the transit system, Bloomberg said: "We live in a world that is knit closer together than ever....
"Just today, we dealt with an unsubstantiated report of potential terrorism here in New York. This report led the NYPD (New York Police Department) to take precautionary steps to protect our transit system, and we will always do whatever is necessary to keep our city safe."

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Nepal Maoists condemn Mumbai terror attacks
27 Nov 2008, 2041 hrs IST, TNN
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Rest_of_World/Nepal_condemns_Mu...
Nepal’s Maoist prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda condemned the attacks, calling them barbaric. In a message to Indian premier Dr Manmohan Singh, the former revolutionary, whose armed war on the state had led to the death of over 14,000 people, said the attacks - directed against innocent people and to terrorise the industrial and commercial centre of India, deserve unequivocal condemnation from all over the world."
In the message issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Nepal PM said the "government and people of Nepal unreservedly deplore in strongest terms these cowardly terrorist attacks" and express "full solidarity with the government and people of India at this hour of distress".
The Mumbai attacks came after Indian external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee leaving Kathmandu on the completion of his three-day visit. Before he left, MUkherjee said India and Nepal would soon sign an updated extradition treaty that would include transnational crime. The treaty is expected to be a shot in the arm for India’s fight on terrorism.

MPs escape terrorist attack in Mumbai
27 Nov 2008, 1233 hrs IST, PTI
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Mumbai/MPs_escape_terrorist_at...
MUMBAI: It was a narrow escape for four MPs, who were having dinner at the Taj Hotel, when the terrorists struck the luxury establishment last
night. Bhupendrasinh Solanki, BJP MP from Godhra in Gujarat, N N Krishnan Das of CPM from Palghat in Kerala, Mani Tripathi, a BSP parliamentarian from Uttar Pradesh and one more MP from Maharashtra were visiting the metropolis as members of the Parliamentary Committee on Subordinate Legislation. ....

Mumbai attackers may be Pakistani nationals
27 Nov 2008, 1359 hrs IST,PTI
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/rssarticleshow/msid-3764564,prtpage-1...
MUMBAI: Preliminary investigations on Thursday pointed to involvement of at least some Pakistani nationals in the serial terror attacks in Mumbai that left over 100 dead and 270 others injured. "There are indications that the perpetrators of the crime, who arrived in Mumbai by boats, are Pakistani nationals," authoritative sources said.The indications are based on information gathered from captured terrorists, the sources said. Maharashtra deputy chief minister R R Patil, who also holds the Home portfolio, said revealing detailed information on the terror strikes could prove detrimental at this juncture. ( Watch )
"We have total clues. But disclosing information would not help the case," Patil said. "This is an attack on the country. We will disclose information at an appropriate time," he said. Meanwhile, reports that Colaba police have impounded four boats allegedly used by the terrorists to reach the Mumbai coast.

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Experts debate India attack al-Qaida link
Published: Nov. 27, 2008 at 7:22 AM
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/11/27/Experts_debate_India_attack_al-Qa...
MUMBAI, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Terrorism experts say they disagree on whether the Mumbai terrorist attackers are linked to al-Qaida or other outside groups.
Some such as Christine Fair, senior political scientist and a South Asia expert at the RAND Corp., told The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) the Mumbai attacks did not fit the patterns usually employed by al-Qaida or Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmir group used by Pakistani intelligence forces to target Indian interests in the disputed territory."There's absolutely nothing al-Qaida-like about it," she said of the Mumbai attacks that began Wednesday and continued into Thursday. "Did you see any suicide bombers? And there are no fingerprints of Lashkar. They don't do hostage-taking and they don't do grenades."
One unnamed Indian counterterrorism expert, however, disagreed, telling the newspaper the terrorists could be linked to Lashkar because the attacks seemed designed to torpedo relations between India and Pakistan. Or, the source said, they may be from an outlawed militant Islamic student group.
Sajjan Gohel, a security analyst in London, told the Times, "The fingerprints point to an Islamic al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist group" because attackers targeted "soft, symbolic targets and multiple coordinated attacks aimed to create maximum terror and human carnage and damage the economy."

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Death toll rises to 125 in India terrorist attacks
1:04 PM PST, November 27 2008
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-mumbai28-2008nov28,0,689674.story?page...
The attacks apparently targeted American, Israeli and British citizens for use as hostages, the officials said.... A dozen police officers also were slain, including the head of Mumbai's anti-terrorist unit.... Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the nation by television this evening, pledging that the militants "would not succeed in their nefarious design." Singh asserted that the group behind the attacks "was based outside the country" and warned India's neighbors "that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated." After past terrorist attacks here, Indian leaders have pointed the finger at Pakistani Islamic extremists or intelligence operatives, two forces that often team up for operations in South Asia. Pakistan's defense minister on Thursday condemned the Mumbai attacks and warned India to refrain from blaming Pakistan, a longtime rival....
...Some referred to the attacks as "India's 9/11," comparing the targeting of India's business elite and foreign investors to the 2001 attacks in the United States. Mumbai is South Asia's financial hub and an entertainment capital, and many of the glitzy targets symbolize the new cosmopolitan face of the world's largest democracy.
Once known as Bombay, the city is home to India's commodities and stock exchanges, which remained closed today even as officials worried about the effect of the attacks on foreign investment.
Although Mumbai has been the scene of several terrorist attacks in recent years, experts said Wednesday's assaults required a previously unseen degree of reconnaissance and planning. The scale and synchronization of the attacks pointed to the likely involvement of experienced commanders, some said, suggesting possible foreign involvement.
As many as 16 groups hit nine sites on the southern flank of this crowded metropolis of 19 million. Among the targets were the city's domestic airport and a railway station; the Leopold Cafe, a restaurant popular with foreigners; two hospitals; a police station; and the Mumbai office of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish outreach group, Chabad Lubavitch....

Western counter-terrorism officials were watching closely today for answers to the key question raised by the Indian prime minister: possible connections to foreign terrorism networks. The timing and dimensions of the Thanksgiving eve assault on multiple Western targets suggest the involvement of Al Qaeda or one of its Pakistani allies, according to two senior European counter-terrorism officials interviewed today.But officials warned against speculation because the evidence remains limited and the incident is not over. Most Al Qaeda-linked attacks involve bombs and suicide attackers rather than well-trained, commando-style gunmen using automatic weapons and grenades to take hostages."The MO is different than previous mass-casualty attacks," said a senior European counter-terrorism official. "It's too early to tell. We are not drawing any definitive conclusions." In fact, an Indian extremist group could have pulled off the attacks to advance Al Qaeda's war on the West, some experts said. Precedents would be the Madrid train bombings in 2004 or the Bali bombings in 2002, major strikes executed by local militants with only indirect ties -- training, ideological contacts -- to the core leaders of Al Qaeda, said Louis Caprioli, a former counter-terrorism chief in France.
In either scenario, the masterminds may have intended to send "a challenge to the new president of the United States," Caprioli said.

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November 28, 2008
Sophisticated Attacks, but by Whom?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/world/asia/28group.html?ref=world&page...

...On Sept. 15, an e-mail message published in Indian newspapers and said to have been sent by representatives of Indian Mujahedeen threatened potential “deadly attacks” in Mumbai. The message warned counterterrorism officials in the city that “you are already on our hit-list and this time very, very seriously.”
Several high-ranking law enforcement officials, including the chief of the antiterrorism squad and a commissioner of police, were, indeed, reported killed in the attacks in Mumbai.

With relations long strained between India and Pakistan, particularly over the disputed territory of Kashmir, suspicions turned toward Al Qauda, or Pakistani militant backing. The Indian security official said the attackers likely had ties to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a guerrilla group run by Pakistani intelligence in the conflict with India in the disputed territory of Kashmir. On Thursday, the group denied involved in the Mumbai attacks. India also blamed Lashkar-e-Taiba for a suicide assault on its Parliament by gunmen in December 2001 that led to a perilous military standoff with Pakistan.

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 began the operation.
Christine Fair, senior political scientist and a South Asia expert at the RAND Corporation, was careful to say that the identity of the terrorists could not yet be known. But she pointed to India’s domestic problems, and long tensions between Hindus, who make up about 80 percent of India’s population of 1.13 billion, and Muslims, who make up 13.4 percent.“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,’ she said. “But the Indian intelligence apparatus knows that’s not true. India’s Muslim communities are being sucked into the global landscape of Islamist jihad.” “Indians will have a strong incentive to link this to Al Qaeda,” she said. “But this is a domestic issue. This is not India’s 9/11.”

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Chabad-Lubavitch representatives in New York and Israel are working alongside the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the U.S. Consulate in Mumbai and a volunteer team of local residents to ascertain the well being of the Holtzbergs and other Jews in the area.
http://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/772305/jewish/Terrorists-Stri...

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Coordinated nature of Mumbai shootings points to shadowy Islamist group
Indians aware of scale of threat facing country, with over 200 lives claimed already this year
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/26/india-attacks-mumbai-terror-...
* Gethin Chamberlain
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 26 2008 20.40 GMT

With India in the grip of a wave of terrorist attacks that have claimed more than 200 lives already this year, it was only a question of when, rather than if, Mumbai would be hit.
Despite claims by India's security forces to have rounded up many of those involved in the wave of bombings that struck Delhi in September, there appeared to be little national confidence that the killings were at an end.It was only on Sunday that the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh – announcing the formation of a task force to tackle terrorism - warned of the scale of the threat facing the country."I only wish to emphasise here that time is not on our side," he said. "We cannot afford a repetition of the kind of terrorist attacks that have recently taken place in Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Guwahati and some other urban centres."
Although tonight's killings involved gunmen rather than the bombs used in the earlier attacks, the degree of co-ordination involved points to the same hand at work.
The most obvious suspect will be a group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen, an offshoot of the banned SIMI (the Students Islamic Movement). It claimed responsibility for the bombings in Delhi, Bangalore, Jaipur and Ahmedabad and following the Delhi bombings it issued an explicit threat that Mumbai would be next.In an email it accused the ciy's anti-terrorism squad of harassing Muslims....

In the aftermath of the other recent attacks, security sources suggested that both Pakistan and Bangladesh had played a part in assisting the bombers and it seems likely that investigators will again look at possible links with those countries to the latest attacks.Following the Delhi bombs in September Muslims protested in the national capital, blaming SIMI and demanding that Pakistan abstain from involvement in terrorism in India.

India frequently blames Pakistan for involvement in terrorist activity on its territory, particularly in the contested region of Jammu and Kashmir.
However, the Indian authorities have also acknowledged that the country has its own home-grown terrorist problem.

Maoist Naxalite insurgents have grip on large swathes of the country – one estimate suggests they are active in 55 per cent of the landmass – and are fighting a long-running and bitter war which has claimed thousands of lives. On Sunday the prime minister described the Naxalites as the "most serious internal security threat" facing India today. He warned a conference of the country's most senior police officers that "the inability of intelligence agencies and the police to obtain pinpoint and actionable intelligence on time has enabled these outfits to carry out some high-profile attacks.
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Wednesday November 26 2008. It was last updated at 10.25 on November 27 2008.

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Who are the Deccan Mujahideen?
Blake Hounshell
Wed, 11/26/2008 - 7:34pm
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/10392
One must always be suspicious when a "new" terrorist organization crops up. Today's horrific attacks in Mumbai were claimed by a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen. But one India journalist claims the pattern of the attacks suggests that Lashkar-e-Taiba, a nasty Islamist organization based in Lahore, Pakistan, and with a significant presence in Kashmir and links to al Qaeda, may be to blame.

Here's where it gets interesting -- and I stress here that I am just speculating. Lashkar-e-Taiba's main goal is to expel India from Kashmir. In the past, some have accused elements of the Pakistani military and intelligence services of having ties to the group. Pakistan's government has always hotly denied such accusations.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has in recent weeks moved closer to the United States, made some significant gestures toward India, and moved to shut down the political wing of the ISI, Pakisan's powerful intelligence service (that's the unit that tries to steal elections). How likely is it that some angry "rogue elements" of the ISI, aligned with Kashmiri jihadists and a team of Indian domestic extremists, sought to head off these moves? I have no idea, but it's definitely a theory worth exploring.

There's another more straighforward explanation for today's attacks -- revenge. A group calling itself the "Indian Mujahideen" has claimed responsibility for attacks in a number of different cities over the past several months. The Indian Mujahideen sent a warning in September expressing anger over recent raids by the city's antiterrorism squad (ATS). Today's message from the Deccan Mujahideen appears to be identical: You should know that your acts are not at all left unnoticed; rather we are closely keeping an eye on you and just waiting for the right time to execute your bloodshed. We are aware of your recent raids at Ansarnagar, Mograpada in Andheri and the harassment and trouble you created there for the Muslims. "You threatened to murder them and your mischief went to such an extent that you even dared to abuse and insult Maulana Mahmood-ul-Hasan Qasmi and even misbehaved with the Muslim women and children there.
"If this is the degree your arrogance has reached, and if you think that by these stunts you can scare us, then let the Indian Mujahideen warn all the people of Mumbai that whatever deadly attacks Mumbaikars will face in future, their responsibility would lie with the Mumbai ATS and their guardians - Vilasrao Deshmukh and R R Patil. You are already on our hit-list and this time very very seriously." The chief of Mumbai's ATS was killed in a gun battle with some of the attackers today.

UPDATE: On CNN just now, terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna says that the Indian Mujahideen are most likely to blame, and they are the same group as the Deccan Mujahideen. "No other group has the capability," he said, emphasizing the group's strength in Mumbai. He also pointed out that such attacks would have taken months of planning.
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NYT LEDE
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/mumbai-attacks-day-two/?th&e...

Update | 2:08 a.m. Blake Hounshell writes on Foreign Policy’s Passport Blog [see above] that one must always be suspicious when a “new” terrorist organization crops up. The Passport Blog is not alone in asking about the sudden emergence of the Deccan Mujahideen, who claimed responsibility for the Mumbai attack.
The group, previously unknown, is named for an area in southern India. Some analysts are saying that the group is likely connected to the Indian Mujahideen, which has made credible claims of responsibility for other recent attacks in India. In May, the Indian Mujahideen threatened to attack tourist sites if the Indian government continued to support U.S. foreign policy, according to Reuters India. [ http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-36726120081127]

Mayor Michael Bloomberg also saw a parallel between the two diverse financial capitals, pointing out that New York dealt with its own terrorist threat yesterday
[ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/nyregion/27Subway.html?ref=nyregion]....

“There are seven of us inside hotel Oberoi,” the man identified as Sahadullah told India TV.“We want all Mujahideens held in India released and only after that we will release the people.”“Release all the Mujahideens, and Muslims living in India should not be troubled,” he said.

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REUTERS PROPAGANDA
Q+A- Who could be behind the Mumbai attacks and why?
Thu Nov 27, 2008 8:32pm IST
http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-36726120081127

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Militants armed with automatic weapons and grenades attacked luxury hotels, hospitals and a famous tourist cafe in India's commercial capital Mumbai late on Wednesday, killing at least 101 people.

* WHO IS BEHIND THE ATTACKS?
The attacks were claimed by a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen in an e-mail to news organisations. Deccan is an area of southern India.
But it is not clear if the claim is genuine, and analysts say the bombings are almost certainly the work of a different group.
The most likely perpetrators, they say, are either the Indian Mujahideen or Lashkar-e-Taiba.

* WHO ARE LASHKAR-E-TAIBA?
Lashkar-e-Taiba is one of the largest Islamic militant groups in South Asia, based in Pakistan and fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. Security analysts say it is a well-funded and highly organised group that sympathises with al Qaeda. Lashkar-e-Taiba denied being behind the Mumbai attacks and said it condemned them.
The group was blamed for bomb attacks on markets in New Delhi that killed more than 60 people in 2005, as well as an assault on India's parliament in 2001 that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of a fourth war.

* WHO ARE THE INDIAN MUJAHIDEEN?
Indian police say the Indian Mujahideen is an offshoot of the banned Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), but that local Muslims appear to have been given training and backing from militant groups in neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh.SIMI has been blamed by police for almost every major bomb attack in India, including explosions on commuter trains in Mumbai two years ago that killed 187 people. Police said the Indian Mujahideen may also include former members of Bangladeshi militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami.

* WHO DOES INDIA BLAME?
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the attacks were probably plotted by a group based in a neighbouring country.But Indian governments often blame neighbouring Pakistan or sometimes Bangladesh for supporting or harbouring militant groups which have launched attacks on Indian soil.

* WHAT CAN BE INFERRED FROM THE ATTACKERS' TACTICS?
The Mumbai attacks were unusual in that they involved coordinated attacks by gunmen on multiple targets, hostages were taken, and foreigners were specifically targeted.
Several analysts say these tactics point to Lashkar-e-Taiba as being involved. The attacks on symbolic targets designed to gather maximum publicity, and the specific targeting, point to a group following al Qaeda ideology and tactics.
The attacks also show a considerable degree of sophistication, another factor pointing to an experienced group like Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The Indonesian Mujahideen have also surprised police with the sophistication of their attacks, however, although until now these have always been bomb attacks on Indian targets.
In May, the Indian Mujahideen made a specific threat to attack tourist sites in India unless the government stopped supporting the United States in the international arena.
The threat was made in an e-mail claiming responsibility for bomb attacks that killed 63 people in the tourist city of Jaipur. The mail declared "open war against India" and included the serial number of a bicycle used in one of the bombings.

* WHAT CAN BE INFERRED FROM THEIR DEMANDS?
A man speaking Urdu with a Kashmiri accent phoned an Indian TV station, offering talks with the government and accusing the Indian army of killing Muslims in Kashmir. This suggests the attackers are involved with a Kashmiri group like Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The demands of the Indian Mujahideen -- like their targets -- have always tended to be much more domestic. The group issued an e-mail threat in September to attack Mumbai but directed its anger at the Mumbai police anti-terrorist squad, accusing them of harassing Muslims."If this is the degree your arrogance has reached, and if you think that by these stunts you can scare us, then let the Indian Mujahideen warn all the people of Mumbai that whatever deadly attacks Mumbaikars will face in future, their responsibility would lie with the Mumbai ATS and their guardians," it said.

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WORLD -
Times Topics: Terrorism in India
News about terrorism in India, including breaking news and archival articles published in The New York Times.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories...

Terrorism’s Impact Grows as Indian Election Nears
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: September 23, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/world/asia/24india.html
NEW DELHI — Politics in India, as in neighboring Pakistan and the United States, is increasingly singed by terrorism.

India, the world’s largest democracy, is reeling from four bomb attacks in four months, the latest in the heart of the capital on Sept. 13. How to deal with that threat has moved front and center in the campaign for the national election early next year.The main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., has called the administration “soft” on radical Islamist organizations and unable to protect citizens from wanton strikes.
“Save India” will be the party’s campaign theme, Arun Jaitley, one of the party’s top strategists, said in an interview last week as other B.J.P. leaders rallied near the site of one of the most recent bombings. “How do you save India from this kind of terrorism?” Mr. Jaitley asked. “The core issue will be terrorism.”
The government is scrambling to defend its record, even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acknowledges “vast gaps” in intelligence gathering on terrorist networks operating in this large, fractious country.
The latest attacks have drawn attention to a larger and more dangerous problem: a feeble criminal justice system that offers no protection for witnesses and has a paucity of police officers, and in which suspects of terrorism and other crimes are regularly killed in skirmishes with law enforcement authorities, rather than tried in courts of law.

India’s fight against terrorism is complicated by a political landscape in which parties vie for Hindu and Muslim voters’ loyalty. In addition to the radical Islamist groups blamed for the bombings, there are radical Hindu organizations that have been accused most recently of deadly attacks on Christians in several states. Maoist rebels and ethnic separatist guerrillas in the northeast have also made attacks. Still, the blasts that shook the capital on Sept. 13 have placed the greatest pressure on Mr. Singh’s administration, if only because they struck popular shopping and entertainment districts.

Five bombs exploded in three corners of the city, killing 24. The police responded by stepping up security in bazaars, combing Muslim-majority areas and, last Friday, engaging in a shootout with a young man they described as the mastermind of the three most recent blasts....
Of most concern, perhaps, is that Indian officials say they believe the attacks have been carried out by homegrown jihadist groups, trained or aided by organizations based in Pakistan.

A group calling itself Indian Mujahedeen has claimed responsibility for the latest four attacks, sending chilling e-mail warnings to Indian news media minutes before the attacks. Written in English, the messages combine the language of global radical Islam with distinctly Indian grievances, including attacks on Muslims in Ahmedabad in 2002.

The police have said the group is probably tied to a radical organization called the Students’ Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI, which was banned in 2001, before Mr. Singh took office. His Congress Party-led coalition has repeatedly hesitated on banning SIMI. In a source of embarrassment to the government, the man arrested in the shootout on Friday, local news reports said, is the son of a local leader with the Samajwadi Party, a coalition partner in the government.

Meanwhile, the B.J.P. has been reluctant to ban a Hindu right-wing group, the Bajrang Dal, which the police accuse of leading the anti-Christian violence. The Bajrang Dal is part of a network of Hindu organizations that make up an important base of support for the B.J.P.

Election dates have not been set, though voting must take place before May, when Mr. Singh’s five-year term ends. Whether the B.J.P.’s antiterrorism plank will resonate in this still largely poor and agrarian society is unclear.

Terrorism resonates mostly with urban Indians, said Yogendra Yadav, a researcher with the Center for the Study of Developing Societies who studies voting patterns. His 2005 public opinion poll on sources of insecurity nationwide found that terrorism ranked far lower than common crimes and communal riots. The opposition is calling for a resurrection of a tougher antiterrorism law that was in place during its rule. That law allowed for longer preventive detention and allowed confessions extracted by the police to be used in court. Human rights groups criticized it as a tool for rounding up innocent people, largely Muslims, and it was repealed in 2004 by Mr. Singh’s administration.

A government-appointed panel has recommended new antiterrorism provisions that resemble the old law; the government has not announced its decision.

Kapil Sibal, a member of the cabinet, argued that India’s current laws, which allow citizens to be held for as many as 90 days without being charged, were stricter than even the Patriot Act in the United States, and said that the government was already strengthening its intelligence and law enforcement systems to respond to terrorism.

A veteran Congress Party politician, Mr. Sibal rattled off the numerous terrorist attacks during the B.J.P.’s tenure. They included the infamous hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight in 1999, in which the B.J.P. government released Ahmed Omar Sheikh, a terrorism suspect, in exchange for the civilian hostages. Two years later, Mr. Sheikh, the leader of a Pakistan-based group called Jaish-e-Muhammad, played a key part in the kidnapping and beheading of Daniel Pearl, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

An important indicator of how India may vote will come in November, when four important state elections are held.
Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

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Is al-Qaida behind the Mumbai terror attacks?
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Israel news, Mumbai, terror
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1041684.html
According to prior intelligence, the little known terror organization Deccan Mujahideen (The army of Deccan) is behind the orchestrated string of terror attacks in the financial hub of Mumbai Wednesday evening, which left at least 125 people dead and hundreds wounded.

However, India's security officials believe that the Deccan Mujahideen is actually a front for the veteran extremist Muslim organization Lashkar a-Tayeb (Army of believers). Lashkar a-Tayeb was founded in 1989 by the Pakistani security service and was outlawed in 2003 by then Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf outlawed the group, in response to pressure from the U.S. and India.

According to Indian officials, the connection between the two organizations surfaced during questioning of terrorists that have been caught following Wednesday's attacks, but no official blame has been cast, and India does not intend to involve Pakistan.
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Experts believe the main goal of Wednesday's terror attacks was to destabilize India's regime, harm the country's economy and its ethnic fabric while inciting the country's large Muslim population.

The armed group, which appears on many countries' terror lists, operates in hopes of liberating Kashmir, but has also carried out attacks inside India in the past, including an attack on an Indian military base in May 2002, in which 36 soldiers lost their lives.

The group's ideological platform revolves around anti-Western ideas and relies on attacking points of interest and tourist attractions in India as a means of achieving its political goals.

It is clear to all the experts who have examined the chain of events that began Wednesday evening that the group in question is well organized, and that the attacks were meticulously planned well in advance. The fact that the terrorists targeted ten different locations simultaneously indicates the group's high organizational skills and its attention to detail.

Experts believe that some 50 to 60 militants were involved in carrying out the attacks. Nine of them have been arrested and have undergone questioning so far. Between 15 and 20 terrorists were killed during the attacks. The remainder of the group members are still holding hostages at different locations across the city. According to reports, four terrorists are holding at least eight hostages at the Chabad center in Mumbai.

An initial investigation by Indian authorities revealed that the terrorists traveled to Mumbai by boat. Police officers have located the boat, and in it they uncovered large quantities of weapons and grenades.

An analysis of the group's previous operations reveals ties to the global al-Qaida terror group and the followers of Osama bin-Laden in Afghanistan. Abu Zubeida, one of the top al-Qaida militants currently in U.S. custody, was arrested in March 2002 in a joint Pakistani intelligence ? CIA operation, at a Decca Mujahideen safehouse.

Oudai Pashkar, a former senior Indian army officer, said that several months ago, another little known group calling itself Mujahideen India carried out an attack. In his opinion, an operation like the one in Mumbai and previous one accredited to Decca are beyond the capabilities of local organizations, and therefore are likely the work of a worldwide network such as the global Jihad or al-Qaida.

As in similar incidents in Pakistan, Iraq and Spain, in this incident, the terrorists targeted Western symbols and tourist attractions, in efforts to harm the economy while killing as many people as possible, especially Westerners - Americans, British and even Jews are seen as a target.

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Last update - 21:27 27/11/2008
Indian officials: 8 captives freed from Mumbai Chabad center
By Haaretz Staff and News Agencies
...An Israeli hostage inside the Chabad center called the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi on Thursday afternoon and said that the terrorists forced her to call and relay their demand of the release of several militants currently held in Indian jails....

Ask the government to talk to us and we will release the hostages," the militant, identified by the India TV channel as Imran, said, speaking in Urdu in what sounded like a Kashmiri accent."Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir? Are you aware how many of them have been killed in Kashmir this week?" he said.
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1041535.html

A FEW HAARETZ READER COMMENTS

"They acknowledged they`re from pakistan and its ship brought them"

"The terrorist attack was because of the disputed Province of Kashmir and Jammu and not because of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict."

"Don`t be so quick to blame Muslims. Previous "terrorist" attacks of this sort in India have been done by HINDU extremists."

"The new world order is out-of-order, thanks to the US foreign policy. This criminal act has links outside of India. If the CIA is not behind this, then it is coming out of one of the US allies in the region."

"The dIvided Pakistan MAP last week NYT. The first thing that came to mind. The Indian embassy in Kabul etc: Even if there was no connection with that heavy map in the NYT (the Paschztuns to Afghanistan and some new state in the south of Iran and Pakistan called Belushistan), it is not realistic to put Pakistan on a butchers table and to expect the Muslims to stay cool."

===== FYI BACKGROUND MATERIAL ABOUT INDIA'S NATIONALIST / VIOLENTLY RACIST ANTI-MUSLIM BJP PARTY=====
INDIA: HINDU NATIONALISM (HINDUTVA) RETURNS TO POLITICS
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/398.htm
The present ruling party in India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has recently made several key political appointments that indicate its intention to return to the distinctive Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) ideology that swept it to power in March 1998. A politically motivated revival of militant Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) would not bode well for [MUSLIMS!!!!] Christians and other religious minorities of India who, under the BJP, have suffered the worst persecution in all India's years of independence.

WILL HINDUTVA WIN VOTES FOR THE BJP?
During 2001 the BJP was forced to moderate its hard-line Hindutva stance in order to keep its coalition government together. However, in mid February 2002, when twenty percent of India's population went to Legislative Assembly elections in four key states -Punjab, Uttaranchal, Manipur, and the most populous and politically significant 'kingmaker state' of Uttar Pradesh - the BJP lost all four states. Now, with crucial elections coming up in ten states in the next eighteen months and national elections looming in 2004, the BJP desperately wants to regain its lost ground.

On 1 July 2002, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) published an article by Amrit Dhillon, a journalist in New Delhi, entitled "Extremist Agenda Pushed in the Pursuit of Votes." Dhillon states, "The decision to revert to its 'purist' ideological roots is manifest in recent decisions. The BJP has chosen Vinay Katiyar, a vociferous supporter of the demolition of the former Babri Masjid mosque at Ayodhya, built on a holy site also claimed by Hindus, to lead the party in Uttar Pradesh. His appointment is a clear indication that the party intends to use the temple issue in Uttar Pradesh to rally Hindu support."

Related Hindu organisations that come under the same umbrella as the BJP have stepped up their militant language. According to the same SCMP article, Ashok Singhal of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or World Hindu Council (VHP - a sister organisation to the BJP) is on record as having said that the bloody sectarian riots in Gujarat earlier this year have been "the first positive response of the Hindus to Muslim fundamentalism in 1,000 years".

"Commentator Inder Malhotra described it as 'the politics of hate', adding: 'The BJP's silence on the VHP's ranting is eloquent, showing that it is prepared to claw its way back to power through any means. '"

The promotion of Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani to the position of Deputy Prime Minister (a position that does not even exist in the Constitution) also has great political significance. Advani is a controversial Hindu hardliner.
According to another SCMP article of 1 July, entitled "Three Ministers Quit ahead of Cabinet Reshuffle", Advani "is said to nurse a deep-rooted bias against the country's Muslims and has been formally charged by the Central Bureau of Investigation over his role in the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992.
"The choice of Mr. Advani as deputy premier came three months after the country's worst religious bloodshed in a decade, in the western state of Gujarat, where nearly 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed by Hindu mobs."

The following four paragraphs are from a 3 July SCMP article, again by Amrit Dhillon in New Delhi, entitled "Cabinet reshuffle clears way for Hindu revivalism".
"Sections of the BJP and its extremist Hindu affiliates.[had] dared not promote their ideological poster boy, Mr. Advani, for fear of antagonising their secular allies. They feared that Hindu hardliner Mr. Advani was simply too hawkish to be acceptable to the allies as a possible successor to moderate Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. "All that has now changed. Throwing caution to the wind, the party has pushed Mr. Advani to the forefront as the rightful heir to Mr. Vajpayee and, far from revolting, the allies have accepted it without demur. Analysts say Mr. Advani's appointment marks the end of the Vajpayee era and the return of the BJP to its original moorings. "Despite knowing that the party intends to reassert its original Hindu revivalist agenda - of which Mr. Advani's promotion is just one sign - the allies have given in. 'The reshuffle heralds the domination of the BJP over its allies,' said Congress party spokesman Jaipal Reddy.
"In the cabinet expansion, the BJP has got the lion's share of posts and is in charge of all the key portfolios. It now has 56 ministers in the 77-strong cabinet, hence the Congress party's charge that the coalition government is actually 'a government of the BJP, for the BJP'."
Neelesh Misra, an Associated Press writer, in a 1 July article entitled, "India's P.M. Shakes Up Cabinet", quoted Jaipal Reddy, the spokesman of the main opposition Congress party as saying, "BJP is brazenly getting back to its original agenda of Hindutva." Misra also quoted Communist Party of India leader A.B. Bardhan as saying, "Advani is a symbol of hard-line Hindutva.... His coronation as deputy prime minister is something more than meets the eye."

Hindu Nationalists Win Key Vote in India
Local Elections in Restive, Wealthy Gujarat State Go Against Ruling Party for Fourth Straight Time
The Congress party conceded defeat Sunday in elections in the western Indian state of Gujarat after early results indicated a large victory for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party under its contentious leader Narendra Modi. (Ajit Solanki - AP).
Bharatiya Janata Party supporters wear masks of Narendra Modi, the party leader. Modi angered Muslims, who say he colluded in deadly 2002 sectarian riots. (By Sanjit Das -- Bloomberg News)

Gujarat, India
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/23/AR200712...
Monday, December 24, 2007
NEW DELHI, Dec. 23 -- Hindu nationalists won a solid victory Sunday in a closely watched election in Gujarat, one of India's wealthiest and most restive states, further weakening the ruling Congress party ahead of national elections.

The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, won 117 of 182 seats in the state legislature, setting the stage for it to gain power in Parliament. The Congress party won 62 seats, with smaller parties taking the rest.
The BJP's controversial leader, Narendra Modi, campaigned on a pro-business platform that attracted middle-class Hindus. But as the state's chief minister, Modi had angered the state's Muslims, who along with human rights groups accuse him of complicity in 2002 sectarian riots that left more than 1,000 Muslims dead.
Congress party members played down the defeat, saying that the BJP benefited from simmering hostilities between the state's Hindu majority and Muslims, who make up 9 percent of Gujarat's 50 million people."The victory is certainly limited to Gujarat, and a certain kind of divisive politics has worked there," Singhvi said.

The Congress party, led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has been weakened by internal squabbling with its coalition partners over a recent civilian nuclear deal with the United States, according to analysts.

Modi's supporters describe him as India's George W. Bush, for being tough on Muslim terrorists and invoking the idea of an ever-present Islamic threat, which has earned him the nickname "India's 9/11 Leader." Human rights activists and critics blame him and some of his more zealous followers for stoking religious hatred.
In a recent speech, Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi called members of Modi's government "merchants of death."But the party has also been largely silent on the issue of the riots, fearing it would garner more votes for Modi because of the anti-Muslim feelings.
"Modi's win in Gujarart is a loss in India," said Shakeel Ahmed, a Muslim civil rights activist. "We have very poor neighbors and growing extremism. If he wins again, this means that violence against Muslims can be used for political gain."

Nationalist alarm rousts India's ruling party
Gautaman Bhaskaran
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20080606gb.html
Friday, June 6, 2008

The BJP may not have a magic mantra for India's ills, some of which has been caused by the soaring oil prices and the U.S. economic slowdown. The BJP now has Lal Kishen Advani as its prime ministerial candidate. Advani, although excellent for the party, does not augur well for the nation. Unlike Vajpayee, who was a moderate, Advani is a hardcore Hindu nationalist [ Hindutva]...on record as saying he would like India to be a Hindu nation. The country's Muslim population, second only to Indonesia's, is understandably nervous.

For its part, the Congress, by far the most secular party, should be well aware of its failings. Inflation is officially quoted at around 8 percent, although nongovernment sources say it's more like 11 percent. The stock market is around 16,000, down from the January high of 21,000. The steep hike in world oil prices has put New Delhi in a tight spot, forcing it to put off by at least a week any rise in domestic prices of gasoline and diesel. The common man suffers as prices of most food items are higher, including those of vegetables, fruits and grains. The hike Wednesday in gasoline and diesel prices will push up the costs of transport and other essential services and goods. The 600 million poor of India are finding living even more tortuous. Already, housing shortages have forced many of the poor into slums. With property values, including those of rentals, up by 50 percent in the past 12 months, the middle classes have also begun to feel the heat.

The Karnataka election was the first test of the farm-loan waivers announced in the federal budget in February. Although 40 million poor farmers will benefit, lending banks are clearly unhappy with the program as it piles on more bad debt. It also may encourage the attitude among borrowers that they need not repay loans to financial institutions.

The BJP may not have a magic mantra for India's ills, some of which has been caused by the soaring oil prices and the U.S. economic slowdown.

Already, India's computer/software and related companies have shown their discomfort by announcing the first job cuts. In some ways, the computer industry was responsible for spiraling prices. Young technocrats in cities with a relative surplus of cash have pushed up prices and demand.

Indeed, the Congress needs to act now if it is to check the BJP, and return to power in 2009.