Apparently terrorists stormed south Bombay by boat, and after shooting their way into the city took over the wealthiest hotels in the city looking for Westerners. A day later and they’re still there.
There are more groups out in India that want to blow each other up than you know. Between the radical hindus, the Sihks, the Tamil Tigers, the radical Muslims, the ISI, and the people’s front of Judea, there are more grudges than you can shake a stick at. To assume that a bunch of Saudis hiding in Afghanistan crossed over Pakistan through several war fronts to attack westerners in India is really kind of vain, don’t you think?
To assume that a bunch of Saudis hiding in Afghanistan crossed over Pakistan through several war fronts to attack westerners in India is really kind of vain, don’t you think?
Which still makes the assumption that Al-Qaeda is a single organised entity rather than an umbrella Ideology shared by numerous different groups all quite happy to adopt the name.
Although not directly comparable, it’s hardly uncommon even in more tightly “regulated” terrorist groups like the IRA which splits and has offshoots like the Provisional IRA, the Real IRA, the Continuity IRA and so on. They share a common aim, I dare say all of the various groups consider themselves to be representative of the idea of the IRA if not [part of] the “official” organisation, but they’re disparate groups of people who may not even be funded by the same sources let alone taking instruction from the same chain of command.
I don’t see why it would be so out of the realms of possibility for a group in India, calling itself Al-Quaeda [in India] to take it on itself to carry out attacks in the style of the blokes in Afghanistan or Iraq yet be effectively totally independent from, say, Bin Laden.
But to your point, yes, looking less and less like a Al Queda terror plot and more and more like a Paki-vs-Indi blow up. Their desire to keep western hostages notwithstanding and clearly a great way to get headlines around the world.
I was thinking about that too (the vanity) early on yesterday evening when it was breaking news on all the national channels… every talking head trying to work out how Bin Laden must be involved somehow.
This is a bit more than the usual IRA/TTLE lemonade stand fundraising.
He remembers the two sauntering into the waiting hall, plonking their handbags on the floor, taking out a gun “which looked like an AK-47”, and walking toward the platforms where they gunned down late-evening commuters on the city’s busy suburban train network.
“Their audaciousness was breath-taking,” he says.
“One man loaded the magazine into the gun, the other kept shooting. They appeared calm and composed. They were not in the slightest hurry. They didn’t seem to be afraid at all.”
The men entered a platform and shot a man near an automated teller machine.
Then they turned around and shot another commuter at the grubby, dark-tiled drinking water station around the corner.
Then, the “foreign looking, fair skinned” men, as Mr Mishra remembers them, simply carried on killing.
The 9/11 comparison is pretty dead on target IMHO - this is far more of an escalation in terror than any attack on India to date, with a coordinated attack of hundreds of heavily armed guerillas on the wealthiest city in India, and they’ve seen some dramatic ones (including their parliament being stormed by guerillas). The Indian public appears to be in a mix of shock and anger, and the Indian PM this morning blamed unnamed “neighbors” for harboring the terrorists and promised consequences. If there is a Pakistani link to this attack it could get very ugly, VERY fast.
I bloody well hope not*. It gives the NATO forces ‘free reign’ to continue clandestine raids, and it means Kashmir just became a wasteland. Hopefully a scorched rather than irradiated one.
Great, now I’m absolutely petrified. This horrendous incident looks set to get worse. Oh joy.
*Means yes, pretty much certainly is, but there’s not a lot the Pakistani government could do about it. I don’t think they’ll let the Indians in to search the mountains. Unless the new President is really persuasive he’ll leave office under duress if that happens. That said, it would be the best route he could take and might help repair old wounds. More chance of any negative statement sticking to Teflon Tony than that happening.
It sounds flip and glib to say that these attacks constitute India’s 9/11. But that, in fact, is the truth.
The significance of 9/11 was that it made Americans conscious of the danger they were in and aware that nothing was safe; that terrorists could destroy such powerful symbols of American prestige as the World Trade Center.
In our case, 26/11 has had the same impact. By striking at the heart of prosperous and largely peaceful south Bombay, the terrorists have served notice that there is nothing they cannot do, and nowhere that they cannot reach.
Bomb blasts are painful, traumatic events. But this long drawn-out crisis is far worse in the damage it has done to the Indian psyche. The inability of the authorities to bring the situation under control in a few hours has worried and frightened Indians. With each hour that the crisis continued, we felt vulnerable, impotent and humiliated. It was as though we had lost control of our destiny. And we would never feel safe again.
I had a girlfriend who was actually in Mumbai for the massacres and bombings in 92/93. Her family moved to America not long after. From what I heard, it was pretty effing horrific.
It’s looking more like it’s related to the troubles in Kashmir. Westerners weren’t separated out because of any grudge against America or Britain. Simply because by killing Americans, the terrorists believed they could draw a greater degree of worldwide attention to their cause. That’s a pretty terrifying bit of information if it turns out to be true.
They found the body of a young bubbly lady I knew, the wife of a good friend. She’s just in her 20s. Her life was only beginning.
She was there for a night, and they used her as a hostage. We were all on edge in the office. The confirmation came in the evening. Now we’re all tired from grieving for her loss and I guess I just need to get it off my chest.
All of this indiscriminate killing is really senseless. I can even perhaps understand that a placed bomb may result in a ‘wrong place, wrong time’ death.
But taking hostages of and executing foreign nationals not related to your cause, not even remotely! How does such meaningless intentional and personal slaughter of defenseless civilians help their cause? If they are aggrieved by a government, why not target specific elements in that government? How does killing a frightened young woman of absolutely no relation to your cause create any kind of support except for your enemies?
I hope God designed a special hell for these bastards.
Killing government employees is really no different than murdering people completely unrelated to your cause whom you’ve taken hostage. It’s still murder and terrorists need to be suppressed with an iron fist.
India needs to get off their asses. Their poor security let this happen. Interpol still doesn’t have clearance to go to India and investigate the events, 48+ hours after they were initiated. Bureaucracy is fucking this up.
I don’t know what made them think that they’d bring any sort of good attention to their cause by killing innocents. That is such bullshit. If anything, the world will stand united against whatever fight they were fighting for, regardless of how just they think it is. Gandhi didn’t bring change to his country by committing murder. Why can’t more people learn from him?