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MoEnzyme
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Mumbai
« on: 2008-11-29 05:10:21 » |
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Just thought I would start the thead. I think the subject line says it all; it qualifies as "Serious Business" on its face. Others are welcome to fill in the details.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Mumbai
« Reply #2 on: 2008-11-29 16:46:31 » |
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Quote from: Mermaid on 2008-11-29 13:43:40
whispers on the street say that its a false flag operation. you wont hear it on cnn or fox or msnbc..neither will you read it on nyt, wash.times etc.
meanwhile.. http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20081126_red_alert
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. |
Mermaid, how close is this to where you live? Do you think that it was a false flag operation? It seems to me like it was quite an elaborate plan to have been successfully faked by government actors.
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Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:Mumbai
« Reply #3 on: 2008-11-29 17:18:11 » |
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[Blunderov] Interesting analysis from Stratfor but they do not go so far as to suggest that the consequences which they predict might actually be the precise intentions of the the Mumbai "terrorists" - whoever they may be (I smell al Qaeda, me). I also smell a trap eerily reminiscent of the brilliantly successful 9/11 gambit which caused the USA to so spectacularly over-react and then completely self-destruct.
It is perhaps noteworthy that the timing of the Mumbai attack is before inauguration day. Perhaps it is reckoned in certain circles that Obama may not prove to be so much of a clot as the present fuckwit. This would be, IMO, a pretty shrewd guess.
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Blunderov
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Re:Mumbai
« Reply #4 on: 2008-11-29 18:17:13 » |
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[Blunderov] The ownership of the outrage seems to have become political football. It's fascinating. The West' game seems to be whether the political disaster (of which Stratfor previously spake) can be cunningly deflected by depicting the attacks as having emanated from the UK rather than Pakistan! But even in this, so to speak, "best case" scenario, the political price is still horrendous; the last eight cataclysmic years of the so called "war on terror" are clearly admitted to have been to no avail whatsoever. Expect a new round of civil liberty proscriptions - after all, the last ones worked so well.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1090565/Mumbai-terrorists-funded-cash-raised-UK-mosques.html
Mumbai terrorists were 'funded by cash raised in UK mosques'
By Mail On Sunday Reporter
Last updated at 10:34 PM on 29th November 2008
A banned Islamic terrorist group funded with cash raised in British mosques is believed to be behind the Mumbai attacks.
Kashmiri separatists Lashkar-e-Taiba, ‘The Army of the Righteous’, which has strong links to Al Qaeda, is accused of previous terrorist outrages in India.
And intercepted telephone and radio communications before and during the latest attacks apparently suggest a link.
Indian officials say at least one of the gunmen captured after the attacks is part of a Lashkar network.
The group last week denied any responsibility and the unknown group Deccan Mujahideen said it was behind the atrocity.
But earlier this year another group, the Indian Mujahideen, which has links to Lashkar-e-Taiba, sent an email to Indian police warning it was planning an attack in Mumbai.
The message read: ‘We are keeping a close eye on you and just waiting for the right time to execute your bloodshed...Let the Indian Mujahideen warn all the people of Mumbai...You are already on our hit list and this time very, very seriously.’
Lashkar-e-Taiba has been blamed for violence throughout India, including the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament building in New Delhi and a strike at an amusement park in Hyderabad in 2007. It is accused of being behind a series of train bombings in Mumbai in 2006, which claimed almost 200 lives.
The group is outlawed in Britain and the US. In 2006, a Coventry man was sentenced to nine years in jail for conspiring to provide funds for its terrorist activities
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Mumbai
« Reply #5 on: 2008-11-29 18:55:41 » |
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Quote from: Blunderov on 2008-11-29 17:18:11 [Blunderov] Interesting analysis from Stratfor but they do not go so far as to suggest that the consequences which they predict might actually be the precise intentions of the the Mumbai "terrorists" - whoever they may be (I smell al Qaeda, me). I also smell a trap eerily reminiscent of the brilliantly successful 9/11 gambit which caused the USA to so spectacularly over-react and then completely self-destruct.
It is perhaps noteworthy that the timing of the Mumbai attack is before inauguration day. Perhaps it is reckoned in certain circles that Obama may not prove to be so much of a clot as the present fuckwit. This would be, IMO, a pretty shrewd guess. |
Yes, if there is any US incompetance at this point its all on GWB's administration. Obama is going to have more than a month to set up his policies on this before he is responsible for anything. While I think he has done an effective job of appearing presidential on economic issues, I think he will be well served by the "one president at a time" approach on the Mumbai incident. Last I heard he only made general denouncements of the incident and news was made of the fact that he has been well-briefed on the incident. I think that's about all he'll do publicly until inauguration day on that, but I think his response will be quick at that point.
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Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Fritz
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Re:Mumbai
« Reply #6 on: 2008-11-29 22:34:43 » |
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I apologize for the heavy quantity of this posting, but it was the only way I could think of to display the multi modal onslaught I have experience slurping the net on this very sad violation of fellow human beings. I noted in my mind (and am ready to be corrected) but that the train station attach in India presented one shot carnage for the global media to touch on; while this attack protracted nature allowed for days for media frenzy and launching of platforms and agendas by many around the world. If one wanted to be a Viron then this attack facilitated the splicing of many Memes in the social fabric of he world.
To what end, I assume, time will tell ... my gut reaction was; it was to open another front by someone else to the east of he middle east, since the Iran front is on hold for now. So I guess I will ignore the man behind the curtain for now.
Sad
Fritz
Source: Guardian
Date: Sunday November 30 2008 00.01 GMT
Author: Gethin Chamberlain in Mumbai
Mumbai terror attacks: Nightmare in the lap of luxury
The terrorist rampage that gripped the world for three days began in silence as eight killers stepped from a boat on to a dark city beach. Now India demands to know who they were, where they came from ... and most of all, why the security forces failed to prevent them
Soldier prevents people from approaching the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai on November 29, 2008. Photograph: Pedro Ugarte/AFP
From the moment a small boat nudged the shore of Mumbai's Fisherman's Colony on Wednesday evening and decanted eight young men clad in orange anoraks, the plan was simple: kill and keep killing to the very last breath.
The little group paused to shed their waterproof jackets, revealing jeans and T-shirts. Picking up their bulging rucksacks from the black inflatable, they turned silently and set off towards the heart of India's financial capital.
The beach was virtually empty, most of the residents of the area having retreated indoors to watch the final stages of the one-day cricket match between India and England. India won, but it was the last piece of good news the country would have until yesterday morning when Mumbai was finally freed from the grip of an audacious terrorist outrage that claimed the lives of at least 195 people.
For 62 hours, the gunmen roamed freely around some of the city's most prestigious hotels, killing at random, holding Mumbai and the wider world in horrified thrall.
Despite the lure of the cricket, one man had ventured out onto the beach on Wednesday evening. Bharat Tamore, an assistant supervisor at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, was gazing out to sea when he spotted the dinghy drifting noiselessly towards the beach.
It was 9.15pm and by the light of the moon Tahore watched the men jump off. They were young, no more than 25, thin and good-looking, 'like Bollywood stars,' he recalled later, although their faces wore a grim, determined look. On their backs were blue rucksacks, and in their hands red carry-bags heavy enough to cause one of the smaller men to stumble. They were students, they said, when he asked what they were doing: 'They told me that they were tense and that they didn't need any more tension.'
The young men slipped away into the night in the direction of the Taj Mahal Palace and the ornate splendour of the Gateway of India.
But they were not the only ones on the move. Across the southern tip of the city, others were also collecting weapons and heading out to get the carnage under way. How many there were, no one seems quite sure: as many as 40, some sources suggested.
The key questions are what they intended to achieve in their murderous rampage, their identities, and who sent them to Mumbai. Answers are likely to come in the first instance from one of those who clambered out of the inflatable on Wednesday night - 21-year-old Mohammad Ajmal Mohammad Amin Kasab - the only terrorist known to have been captured alive by Indian security forces. As details of his interrogation were disclosed yesterday in the Indian media, the first proper understanding of what happened in three days of bloodshed began to emerge out of the contradictory details - building a case that pointed ever more strongly towards Pakistan. It is not just the Indian media who are saying out loud what many suspected, but also state officials. What they had only hinted at in the beginning - with Kasab's interrogation - was yesterday stated more boldly. '[The] investigation carried out so far has revealed the hand of Pakistan-based groups in the Mumbai attack,' said Sri Prakash Jaiswal, India's Minister of State for Home Affairs.
As Kasab left the docks, it was in the company of a man the police say has been identified as Ismail Khan, the terrorists splitting into pairs of small kill teams.
The journey that followed across Mumbai - described in the Indian press - took the two men first by taxi to the CST railway station, where Kasab was chillingly photographed as he paused, amid the gunfire and grenades that killed as many as 50 people, in grey combat trousers, a dark blue T-shirt and wearing a rucksack with spare ammunition on one shoulder.
From the railway station Khan and Kasab moved on to the Cama and GT hospitals, firing as they went. According to the same sources, it was during their progress through Mumbai that the pair shot dead the Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare and another senior officer. Their killing spree was only halted when Khan was shot down in the Girgaum Chowpatty locality of south Mumbai, and when Kasab surrendered.
Now Kasab is talking, and what he has to say is likely to define the future relations of two nuclear-armed rivals - India and Pakistan. Yesterday a Pakistani official said it would divert troops to its border with India and away from fighting militants on the Afghan frontier, if tensions erupt in the wake of the attacks on Mumbai. That the tensions will increase in the coming days seems likely.
Already, if the accounts of his questioning are to be believed, Kasab has revealed that, like him, most of his fellow attackers hailed from Pakistan - although that has yet to be confirmed. He revealed that the group had been planning the attack for months. Some are thought to have taken jobs in the targeted hotels, others had checked in as guests a few days earlier, using their rooms to stockpile weapons. Kasab - from Faridkot in Pakistan - and eight others had visited Mumbai a few months earlier, posing as students and taking a room in the Colaba market area, which they used as a safe-house to store the supplies they would need for the attacks. According to police, Kasab told them that the main planner arrived in Mumbai a month ago to film potential targets to help train the gunmen. Once he was satisfied that they were ready, the boat team members were each issued with an AK-47 rifle, a pistol, 350 bullets and eight hand-grenades.
A recovered GPS device suggested they set out from the Pakistani port of Karachi in a larger boat - though such is the friction between the two countries that such reports have to be treated with caution - before overpowering the crew of another vessel and sailing to within four nautical miles of Mumbai. There, they transferred to speedboats and made for the shore. So began a night of terror.
Even as Kasab and Khan were attacking the CST station, another pair of gunmen hit the the Leopold Café, a popular haunt for backpackers. Witnesses described how the gunmen took weapons out of backpacks and hurled grenades, killing at least one person. More gunmen moved through the area in a hijacked police vehicle, firing indiscriminately.
At Nariman House, the attackers went for a Jewish centre run by Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, and his wife Rivka. The couple's son Moshe, two, was rescued by his nanny. They were the only survivors.
But the images of horror that will forever be associated with one of India's darkest days were reserved for elsewhere - the imposing Oberoi and Taj Mahal Palace hotels, frequented by Western business travellers and well-heeled Indians. Here it was the restaurants that took the brunt of the initial assault, but the terrorists quickly fanned out to round up more hostages. At the Taj, the first shots were fired near the swimming pool before the gunmen swarmed into the hotel.
It was in the Taj that a sinister new element to the attack emerged. Survivors said the gunmen were particularly interested in British and American guests, singling them out as targets and ignoring other nationalities. Guests scattered in panic as the carnage continued. 'There were people getting shot in the corridor. There was someone dead outside the bathroom,' said 28-year-old Australian former Neighbours actress Brooke Satchwell.
Bharat Tamore had reached the hotel only a few minutes earlier. Changing into his uniform ready for the night shift, he heard gunshots coming from the fashionable Shamiana restaurant above. 'I stepped out and saw staff and guests running. It was then I remembered those eight boys,' he said.
Paralysed by fear, he crouched with staff in the kitchen, listening to the crump of explosions and crackle of machine-gun fire until 4am, when they made a dash for freedom.
At the Oberoi, Madhu Kumar, 58, had sat down to a meal with her husband Ashok, 65, and two friends. Panic spread through the room as a gunman burst in, herding them up the stairs. 'He had a scarf like a bandana and a scarf on his mouth and he was carrying a machine gun,' she said. 'There was a stampede. We had heard a commotion and a lot of loud firing. Everybody got panicky. I saw a girl with a bleeding arm. She had been shot.'
She noticed that the gunman was quite fair-skinned and spoke in English - he was a Kashmiri, perhaps, she said. As they moved up the stairs, she heard a gunshot behind her. 'This man was shot by a terrorist behind us. The terrorist said "wait", and I heard the shot and he fell. They were just shooting people at random.'
Caught on the hop and hopelessly outgunned, police struggled to cope. The first team to respond consisted of just eight members of the Mumbai force, each armed with a revolver. It took until 2am for the first military personnel to arrive, a group of 40 Marine commandos summoned from their beds to go to the Taj. Even then, no one was able to give them any information about the layout of the hotel. They did not know the strength of their opponents or what weapons they possessed. Entering the hotel, they found about 15 bodies, but before they could do anything else the terrorists opened fire and hurled grenades. By the time the firing stopped, the gunmen had slipped away into the maze of corridors and passageways in the old building.
Now in the aftermath that has left almost 200 dead - perhaps more in the final counting - it is not simply the question of who sent Kasab and his fellow gunmen to Mumbai that is exercising a shocked India. After three days of combat in which a handful of highly trained and motivated gunmen held off against massively superior Indian forces before being at last overwhelmed, what India wants to know is how its security forces could have been caught so flat-footed yet again, when they should have been at the highest state of vigilance after a series of murderous attacks around the country this year.
How, too, some asked, had they failed so dramatically to bring the situation under control during the best part of three days?
Sitting in a side street listening to the sound of loud blasts and gunfire emanating from Nariman House, Rakash Bhaud, the local leader of the far-right Hindu party Shiv Sena, blamed the central government for the failures that, he said, had left them at the mercy of Pakistan-backed terrorists.
'There is a deep anger here against the government for not providing security for the common people,' he said. 'The extremists have taken advantage of this. We don't have the security to fight against this.'
If the attackers' intention was to stir up tensions between India and Pakistan - and by extension, Hindu and Muslim - they most certainly succeeded. Anti-Pakistan slogans were being chanted freely by the crowds who gathered to watch the storming of Nariman House.
As the firing died away yesterday morning, the work of getting the city back on its feet began. In the restaurant at the Oberoi hotel, staff were starting to sweep the broken glass away from the tables on which meals abandoned by the fleeing guests still lay. But it may take a lot longer to sweep away the memories of the events of last week and the old enmities it has stirred up.
For now, however, it is a moment for India to come to terms with what has happened. 'I had arranged to meet a friend in the Oberoi Trident lobby on Wednesday night,' said Malani Agarwal, 31, a radio presenter on Mumbai Radio. 'He said he was coming late, so I went upstairs to a lounge bar called the Dragon Fly which is a few doors away. Then we saw a lot of "fireworks" in the lobby. Ten minutes later we felt a tremor. That was the first grenade, then another one. People started getting texts about a gang war at Leopold's Café and then the Oberoi. The Dragon Café has bulletproof glass and you could see bullets lodged in the windows. That was really scary. We put the television onto the news and saw the Taj burning. The army coming. We all just felt numb. Too scared to move really. It was the worst night of my life. This will be a wake-up call.'
• Additional reporting: Randeep Ramesh
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Source: gotharmist
Date: November 29, 2008
Brooklyn Rabbi and Wife Killed in Mumbai Terror Attacks
After Indian commandoes stormed a Chabad-Jewish Center in Mumbai, where some of the workers had been taken hostage, the NY Times reports, "In the end, six of the hostages were killed, including the Brooklyn couple who operated the center."
Israeli defense minister Ehud Barack said on Israeli television, "The house was completely ruined from within, mainly from the explosions set off by the Indians. They found five bodies - two women and three men. Some of the bodies were tied up. To judge by the accompanying signs, some of the people were killed a good number of hours previously."
Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, who grew up in Brooklyn, and his wife Rivka, 28, were among the dead. Their almost 2-year-old toddler son Moshe survived, after his nanny spirited him out. Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky of the Chabad Lubavitcher organization (pictured, left, with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly) said of the boy, "Today he became an orphan, without a dad and mom who lovingly embrace him," and also praised his Indian nanny, "Moshe was heroically rescued from that hell by his nanny."
Mayor Bloomberg said, "We have lost two New Yorkers. This is a tragic loss for the Lubavitch community, and for our entire City." Another rabbi told the Daily News that Rabbi Holtzberg "was the nicest gentleman you can imagine. Never saw him without a smile." His family says that he and his wife will be buried in Israel.
Right now, the death toll in the Mumbai terror attacks is at 183 people; there has been some criticism of the Indian response.
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Source: Aljazzera
Date: Thursday, November 27, 2008
03:22 Mecca time, 00:22 GMT
Scores killed in Mumbai attacks
At least 80 people are reported to have been killed and 250 wounded in a series of gun and grenade attacks across the Indian city of Mumbai.
"It seems to be a terrorist attack, many places are under siege by gunmen," A.K. Sharma, a government police commissioner, said on Wednesday.
Attacks were launched on about eight places in Mumbai, India's main financial centre, police said.
Armed men attacked a crowded Mumbai train station, a restaurant popular with tourists and several luxury hotels, often firing indiscriminately.
"They entered the passenger hall of the station and started firing," Sharma said.
"The terrorists have used automatic weapons and in some places grenades have been lobbed. The encounters are still going on and we are trying to overpower them," A.N. Roy, a senior police officer, said."
'People panicking'
Malay Desai, a correspondent for the Mumbai Mirror, told Al Jazeera: "There are reports
"Not all of the members of the planned operation have been gunned down yet, a lot of them are still roaming around the streets in Mumbai, firing at will and creating panic among the people of Mumbai."
He confirmed that there had been a blast outside the city's airport, saying it was a "peak time for flights coming from the West to Mumbai".
A group calling itself the Deccan Mujahedeen claimed responsibility for the attack, the AFP news reported, but Mahan Abedin, an insurgency analyst, told Al Jazeera: "At this stage, that name does not necessarily mean that much. I've never heard of that group."
'Westerners held hostage'
Hemant Karkare, the chief of the police anti-terrorist squad in the city, was killed during the attacks, Indian television channels reported.
Three members of staff were shot dead at the luxury Taj Mahal hotel in Colaba district, the Press Trust of India reported.
Westerners were also being held by armed men at the venue, according to media reports.
"They wanted anyone with British or American passports," one witness at the hotel told the NDTV Indian news channel. "They wanted foreigners."
Kashif Khusro, a journalist for the Times Now newspaper, told Al Jazeera hostages were being held at the city's Trident hotel.
He said: "Army commanders have surrounded the luxury hotel - there are three hostages inside.
"Three of the gunmen have been shot. The gunmen inside are armed with automatic weapons."
Another three people died in a bomb blast in a taxi in the south east of the city.
'Serious attack'
Speaking from Mumbai, Al Jazeera's Riz Khan said: "This was a serious attack by people armed with AK47s. "The police were taken by surprise ... they are not equipped for this. The attacks would have been organised as they struck several areas at once."
He said landmarks and heavily populated areas had come under attack.
"Seeing these two major landmarks - the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels - on fire is psychologically damaging for people in India and is comparable to the affects the September 11 attacks had on Americans in 2001."
One woman, who gave her name as Souad, escaped an attack on the Oberoi hotel in the city.
She told Al Jazeera: "We heard no alarms, nothing. My husband opened the door and we couldn't see outside - it was so dark with all the smoke - we couldn't breathe.
"We were on the 17th floor of the hotel and we used towels to protect ourselves and then ran and got a taxi and then we just drove as far away as we could."
'Nowhere safe'
Police said there were reports of shootings in other parts of the city, including some in five-star hotels.
Al Jazeera's Matt McClure said: "There was at least five attacks - the largest on a Mumbai railstation and there were three on large, luxury hotels.
"It seems clear what the intent is here - to sow fear and leave people worried and thinking 'nowhere is safe'.
India has witnessed a series of co-ordinated attacks in recent months.
A little-known Islamic group, the Islamic Security Force-Indian Mujahedeen, claimed responsibility for serial blasts last month in which 80 people died in India's northeast state of Assam.
A total of 12 explosions shook the northeastern state, six of them ripping through crowded areas in the main city of Guwahati.
Six weeks earlier, the capital New Delhi had been hit by a series of bombs in crowded markets that left more than 20 people dead, the attacks were claimed by a group calling itself the Indian Mujahedeen.
Ibn Salame
United States 27/11/2008
Why doesn't this "NEWS" site report the entirety of this story? That the terrorists have also targeted a Jewish center in Mumbai, and that the terrorists are Muslims stating that their religion is propelling their attack?
Judith
United States 27/11/2008 Mumbai Attacks In response to Ibn Salame, US: this was in the earlier reporting on Aljazeera: "The attackers also stormed the Mumbai headquarters of Chabad Lubavitch, an Orthodox Jewish group, where a rabbi and his family were staying. Rabbi Gabriel Holzberg's wife and a two-year-old child were later freed after Indian commandos entered the Chabad building. Holzberg was reported to have been injured." Stop fanning flames! There is enough hate in the world.
Vineeta Sastry
Kenya 27/11/2008 Mumbai Attacks I do not believe this to be the work of Indian muslims. All Indian citizens will equally prosper if our country develops. This is the work of jealous outsiders, who are anti-Israel, anti-US etc. Ordinary Indian muslims have no problems with jews/Americans etc. Foreign islamic terrorists like to attack and then pretend like they are from within India, so as to erode our national fabric. But muslims/non-muslims alike die in these random attacks, no Indian muslim will do this kind of thing.
gul
United States 27/11/2008 Mumbai bombing It's sad and depressing to see the scores of innocent people getting killed in senseless violence. Even more depressing is the attitude of Indian hierarchy and intelligence agencies who traditionally have placed the entire blame on the shoulders of its poor neighborhood, which herself is the victim of terrorism way beyond them. India must understand the intentions of these terrorists are to heighten the tension between India and Pakistan and destabilise a nuclear-armed Southeast Asia.
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Jeruslum Post
Author JPOST.COM STAFF
Date : Nov 28, 2008 23:05 | Updated Nov 29, 2008 17:28
Israel condemns Mumbai terror attack
Israel's Ambassador to the US, Sallai Meridor issued a statement on Friday condemning the multiple terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.
"Israel strongly condemns the terrorist attacks which have taken place in Mumbai, India. Israel stands behind the people of India and our hearts go out to the victims and their families.
"We extend our condolences to the families in the United States and elsewhere, who have lost their loved ones in these barbarous attacks and wish the wounded a speedy and full recovery.
"This brutal mass murder, and its tragic aftermath, resonate with all Israelis and underscores the need for close cooperation with our friends and allies. A concerted global front to fight against terror and extremism, anywhere and everywhere, is now more than ever, an imperative.
"We are of course shocked and saddened by the intentional and brutal terrorist attack on the Chabad Center at Mumbai. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Chabad community and the families in Israel and all over the world, at this difficult hour," the statement said.
Six Jews and Israelis were killed in the attack on the Chabad House in Mumbai. An officer in the Indian commando unit said the hostages were killed many hours before his men stormed the building.
He also said one of his men had died during gun-battles with the gunmen holed up in the building.
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Sunday Herald
Mumbai: the grief, the anger
MUMBAI: AFTER THE SEIGE: Eyewitness report by Ray Thibodeaux
BOMB BLASTS and flurries of machine-gun fire between heavily armed militants and Indian security forces stretched into a fourth day in Mumbai yesterday. Amid a hailstorm of bullets and bombs, and columns of thick black smoke, the last three assailants made a final desperate stand against hundreds of Indian police commandoes in black flak jackets at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel.
"We have had bombs in Mumbai before and we have had terrorist attacks. But this has crossed a line," said V N Athawalla, a police commander posted in front of a government hospital handling many of the wounded.
The militants had appeared well-trained and well-organized as they quickly fanned out across the city late on Wednesday, laying siege to the symbols of modern India. They included two luxury hotels, the city's main railway station, a tourist café, two hospitals and a Jewish outreach centre.
Just hours into the siege, it became clear that well-trained and well-organised assailants had virtually shut down a city of 14 million people. The boldness and ferocity of the attacks stunned Mumbai, known as the Maximum City for its extremes of wealth and destitution, its never-ending boil of pedestrians, outdoor markets and noisy traffic.
By yesterday, the attackers had left a trail of devastation with nearly 200people killed and about 295 people injured. 22 foreigners - a Briton, two Americans and at least five Israelis - were known to have been killed in the chaos, widening the scope of the ordeal that many in Mumbai are calling India's 9/11.
Today, as police recovery teams carry on their room-by-room search for bodies at the two hotels in the centre of the mayhem, the death toll is expected to rise. Well into yesterday afternoon the air was filled with the boom of percussion grenades police commandoes used as they cleared out booby traps and any remaining gunmen hiding themselves the wreckage of the hotels.
As the attacks narrowed to the historic Taj hotel in the southern tip of Mumbai, the shock and grief of the terror attacks appeared to be giving way to outrage.
With the Deccan Mujahideen claiming responsibility, there is rising fear here that a backlash by Hindu hardliners could lead to communal violence in Mumbai, a restive city with a history of deadly riots between its Hindus and its minority Muslim population.
Indian officials now say that at least 15 gunmen carried out the operation. An Indian intelligence document from 2006 obtained by The Washington Post claimed members of a Pakistani terrorist cell, the Lashkar-i-Taiba, were being trained in maritime assault.
Even as Indian army troops and police commandos battled for control of the two hotels and the Jewish centre, massive crowds of bystanders began to gather, alternately cheering on the security forces and calling on India's government to get tough on terrorism.
"We should go to where they live and kill them in their own houses," shouted Ganesh Kargutkar, a 38-year-old auto parts salesman. "If we know who they are - and it is coming out they are from Pakistan - we should bomb them like they have done to us. No diplomacy, no more talking."
More than 550 hostages had been freed after two sleepless nights barricaded behind locked doors as gunmen roamed the hallways of the luxury hotels lobbing grenades and shooting indiscriminately into some of the rooms.
At the historic Taj hotel, white sheets tied together to make a rope dangled from some of the hotel's sixth floor windows near the top of the charred, bullet-pocked hotel, a symbol of utter desperation and horror experienced by the hostages as fires, sprays of bullets and bomb blasts shook the building.
Phillip Meyer, a French national here on a business trip for a cement company, was one of the hostages at the Trident Oberoi hotel, another luxury hotel where so far at least 30 bodies, mostly hostages, were recovered in the aftermath of the chaos.
"The problem was on the other side of the door. I heard bombs and shooting outside, but there was no way to know what was happening," he said before heading to the airport.
During much of the siege, sporadic gunfire and bomb blasts echoed through the narrow alleys in the neighborhoods at the southern tip of Mumbai, where many shops have been closed down since the attacks began.
Shrapnel and stray bullets had injured at least four bystanders - including two journalists - in front of the Taj.
By midnight on Friday, Indian special forces unit known as the "Black Cats" were in their final push to end a siege at the Nariman Building, where three gunmen had held at least five hostages, including a rabbi with dual Israeli-American citizenship and his wife at a Jewish outreach centre.
Earlier in the day, gunmen on the fourth floor of the Nariman building opened fire on nearby buildings as police sharpshooters tried to get into position. Police tried to cordon off much of the area to keep a crowd of more than a thousand bystanders out of the line of fire, a tricky feat after many onlookers weaved through the neighborhood's narrow alleys for a better view of the action.
On the first day of the siege, the gunmen sniper-fired into an apartment block across the street, killing at least one woman and two children, according to eyewitnesses.
The rescue of the hostages inside the Nariman building seemed to move in slow motion, drawing criticism from onlookers as well as eventual condemnation from Israel, who blasted India for botching the raid. The hostages were mainly Israelis and Americans of Jewish descent.
India's Hindu opposition nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has accused the ruling Congress party of being soft on terrorism, partly to court Muslim votes in next year's elections.
Narendra Modi, a rising star in the BJP and the controversial chief minister in the Indian state of Gujurat, blasted the government's lax security, and called on security forces to get tough on terrorists.
His comments struck fear in many of Mumbai's Muslims, who suspect Modi's involvement in the 2002 Gujarat riots in which more than 1,000 people, mainly Muslims, were killed by Hindu mobs.
Communal riots between Mumbai's Hindus and minority Muslim population broke out in Mumbai in 1992 and 1993, leaving more than 900 people dead.
"There are many Hindu people who are angry, and so I am fearful," said Muhammed Khan, a Muslim resident of Mumbai who has worked as a taxi driver for the past eight years.
As one of Mumbai's worst outbreaks of terror ends, details are starting to emerge about the attackers. On the streets of Mumbai, anger is building against Pakistan.
The Mumbai attacks are the sixth terrorist assaults in India this year alone, killing at least 144 people.
In 2006, bomb blasts ripped through Mumbai's railway station killing more than 180 people. After recent arrests, Indian officials suspect a militant group known as the Indian Mujahideen of orchestrating that attack.
Police and terror experts are investigating links between that terror cell and the Deccan Mujahideen, which claimed responsibility for the Mumbai assault.
Investigators are also looking into evidence that Pakistani militant groups, linked to Pakistan's intelligence service had trained the Mumbai gunmen.
Several gunmen had been staying at the posh hotel days before the attacks were carried out. Mumbai police found rucksacks of ammunition and grenades as well as several credit cards and at least £900 in cash.
"It is no longer between people, it is between governments. Pakistan was behind these bombings. They have sent terrorists here to kill us. What can we do?" said Suresh Solomon, 48, who worked as a driver at the Taj hotel for 12 years.
Standing across the street from the Taj, his eyes teared as firefighters scrambled to put out a fire that had broken out on the first floor of the hotel, sending thick black plumes of smoke in the air.
Much of the hotel appeared gutted by flames, leaving its windows shattered and charred black. On the bottom floor, high-end retail shops like Louis Vuitton and Bulgari had some of the windows shattered, the shiny leather handbags and suitcases still neatly arranged in their displays.
As the time of the assaults, Pakistan's foreign minister had been visiting India for peace talks. But relations between the two countries chilled almost instantly once details surfaced that Pakistan might be linked to the attacks.
Little is known about the Deccan Mujahideen, the group that has taken responsibility for the attacks. Some experts said they are linked to the Indian Mujahideen, an Islamist terror group that has claimed responsibility for several recent attacks against civilians in India.
Most of the terror attacks in India have included deadly blasts from bombs left in busy markets or railway stations. In the minds of many people in Mumbai, the latest assault was carried out by a squad of trained mercenaries, many of whom came by sea and joined up with others on their team to take over or destroy several of the city's landmarks where there were likely to be large concentrations of foreigners.
An Indian "Black Cat" special forces unit said the gunmen appeared to have a detailed knowledge of the layout of the hotels, giving them a tactical advantage over the Indian army troops and police commandoes sent in to dislodge them.
At the Taj and Oberoi, the gunmen demanded passports from hostages to single out British and American nationals.
Meanwhile, much of the city has yet to get back to normal. Many businesses and markets remained closed yesterday. The usual racket and bustle of cars and people had not returned, making an almost eerie silence for such a vibrant port city.
About 42 million Indians are employed in the country's tourism industry, much of it centered in Mumbai, seen as the financial and entertainment gateway into India.
Analysts are wary that the latest attacks could dampen the country's tourist sector, which brings in about 6% of the country's gross domestic product.
"We are a resilient city. We will bounce back. It might take a few days, maybe a month, but we will not let even this keep us from doing what we need to do to live," said Cyrus Cooper, 62, a retired stock trader.
His neighbourhood had been turned into a war zone strewn with the crumpled wreckage of cars and motorcycles destroyed in several grenade attacks.
Wandering through the mayhem near the Nariman were two Irish tourists who walked among the commandos and Indian army soldiers, snapping photos with their digital cameras.
They had finished eating at the Leopald Café near the Taj and had just returned to their hotel room when they heard a bomb blast on the street below.
"I wasn't sure what India would be like, but I really didn't expect this," said James Conaty, 26, who said Mumbai was the first leg of their tour around the world.
"This is not a good start," he added.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gateway Pundit
Author: Anjem Choudary:
Date: Friday, November 28, 2008
British Hate Preacher Choudary Gloats Over Mumbai Terror Attacks
"Any Brits killed had only themselves to blame."
British hate preacher Anjem Choudary blamed the Mumbai attacks on Great Britain.
Choudary has spoken out about conquering Great Britain from the outside.
The Daily Star reported:
HATE preacher Anjem Choudary last night praised the slaughter of 125 people in Mumbai.
And in a vile rant he said any Brits killed had only themselves to blame for being on the “battlefield” in the war Muslims nuts are waging against the world.
Extremist Choudary, 41, the right-hand man of exiled cleric Omar Bakri, 50, and former leader of banned hate group al-Muhajiroun, said the attacks were revenge for the West’s “crusades” against Islam.
Outspoken Choudary, whose family live on £25,000-a-year benefits in London, raged: “Any Britons or Americans who visit Muslim countries are entering a battlefield and risk being used as hostages by al-Qaida to publicise its cause.”
===============================================================
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/11/deepak-chopra-mubai-terrorist-attacks.html
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Deepak Chopra Blames Washington For Mumbai Terrorist Attacks ...Update: Iran Agrees
Deepak Chopra believes "Washington" was responsible for the attacks in Mumbai.
HuffPo and CNN reported:
Chopra: What we have seen in Mumbai has been brewing for a long time, and the war on terrorism and the attack on Iraq compounded the situation. What we call "collateral damage" and going after the wrong people actually turns moderates into extremists, and that inflammation then gets organized and appears as this disaster in Bombay. Now the worst thing that could happen is there's a backlash on the Muslims from the fundamental Hindus in India, which then will perpetuate the problem. Inflammation will create more inflammation.
CNN: Let me jump in on that because you're presuming something very important, which is that it's Muslims who have carried out these attacks and, in some cases, with Washington in their sights.
Chopra: Ultimately the message is always toward Washington because it's also the perception that Washington, in their way, directly or indirectly funds both sides of the war on terror. They fund our side, then our petrol dollars going to Saudi Arabia through Pakistan and ultimately these terrorist groups, which are very organized. You know Jonathan, it takes a lot of money to do this. It takes a lot of organization to do this. Where's the money coming from, you know? The money is coming from the vested interests. I'm not talking about conspiracy theories, but what happens is, our policies, our foreign policies, actually perpetuate this problem. Because, you know, 25% of the world's population is Muslim and they're the fastest growing segment of the population of the world. The more we alienate the Muslim population, the more the moderates are likely to become extremists.
It makes you wonder who he thinks "the right people" are.
America has been going after Al-Qaeda and the nations that harbor and fund terrorists for 7 years now.
To blame the attacks in Mumbai on American policy in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever
is just wrong.
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http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2008/11/mumbai-terror-attacks.html
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Mumbai terror attacks
UPDATED & BUMPED: Hostage standoffs continue:
Fresh gunfire and explosions were heard late Thursday in Mumbai as police battled terrorists at three sites almost 24 hours after the first wave of violence hit the city.
Fresh explosions have been heard at the Taj Mahal hotel, where police are trying to free hostages.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh suggested the group behind the terrorist attacks, which killed 125 people, was based outside the country.
CNN reporters said regular gun fire and blasts could be heard Thursday at the Oberoi and Taj Mahal hotels and a Jewish center in the city. . . .
"It is evident that the group which carried out these attacks, based outside the country, had come with single-minded determination to create havoc in the financial capital of the country," [Singh] said. . . .
Authorities found 8 kilograms (17 pounds) of RDX, one of the most powerful kinds of military explosives, at a restaurant near the Taj, indicating that the attackers may have been planning more violence.
Gunmen also remained holed up in a building called Chabad House, where several Jewish families live. Rabbi Gabriel Holtzberg, the city's envoy for the community, was being held inside with his wife, a member of the Hasidic Jewish movement said. The couple's 18-month-old baby was released unharmed.
Possibility of an al-Qaeda link is unclear:
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 insisted the style of the attacks and the targets in Mumbai suggested the militants were likely to be Indian Muslims and not linked to Al Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Taiba, another violent South Asian terrorist group.
“There’s absolutely nothing Al Qaeda-like about it,” she said of the attack. “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.” By contrast, [security expert Sajjan] Gohel in London said “the fingerprints point to an Islamic Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group."
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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Mermaid
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Re:Mumbai
« Reply #7 on: 2008-11-30 01:02:23 » |
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i am nowhere close to mumbai atm altho' i flew out of mumbai a month or so ago when i commented that the city is decaying and is absolutely scary...i was glad to be out of there.
meanwhile re false flag...i do smell pakistan's involvement..but pakistan does not have the capability or intelligence to pull off something like this..neither does the domestic islamic militants. this does seem like an al-queda op..having said that what is 'al queeda' really?
two thoughts:
1. interesting that it happened on when it would be thanksgiving in the united states.
2. making specific demands for hostages of british and american nationalities...and of course, the jewish chabad house massacre. this effectively suggests that all three countries are at risk along with india. us, britain and israel are drawn into this geopolitical intrigue. they will want to be a part of india's solution/retaliation because..well..they were the ones who were really 'targetted' in mumbai. pains were taken to inform everyone that its not a domestic problem..if it were a mere domestic issue between india's muslims and hindus, us, britain and israel cannot demand to get into the game..now they can claim personal injury and threats to their national security.
with obama wanting a surge in afghanistan and pakistan not co-operating particularly, i suppose they'd need an ally in the area to have their bases. and there is no way, bigger guns are not going to want to poke their nose into the businesses of two countries that have nukes.
mumbai is outraged. people are angry and sick of it. they are going to want the indian govt to do something...something loud and big. its making me nervous.
eta: and oh..anyone who uses a name like 'deccan mujaheddein' is not from india.
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Blunderov
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Re:Mumbai
« Reply #8 on: 2008-11-30 03:12:00 » |
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<snip>Deepak Chopra Blames Washington For Mumbai Terrorist Attacks ...Update: Iran Agrees*
Deepak Chopra believes "Washington" was responsible for the attacks in Mumbai.
HuffPo and CNN reported:
Chopra: What we have seen in Mumbai has been brewing for a long time, and the war on terrorism and the attack on Iraq compounded the situation. What we call "collateral damage" and going after the wrong people actually turns moderates into extremists, and that inflammation then gets organized and appears as this disaster in Bombay. Now the worst thing that could happen is there's a backlash on the Muslims from the fundamental Hindus in India, which then will perpetuate the problem. Inflammation will create more inflammation.
CNN: Let me jump in on that because you're presuming something very important, which is that it's Muslims who have carried out these attacks and, in some cases, with Washington in their sights.
Chopra: Ultimately the message is always toward Washington because it's also the perception that Washington, in their way, directly or indirectly funds both sides of the war on terror. They fund our side, then our petrol dollars going to Saudi Arabia through Pakistan and ultimately these terrorist groups, which are very organized. You know Jonathan, it takes a lot of money to do this. It takes a lot of organization to do this. Where's the money coming from, you know? The money is coming from the vested interests. I'm not talking about conspiracy theories, but what happens is, our policies, our foreign policies, actually perpetuate this problem. Because, you know, 25% of the world's population is Muslim and they're the fastest growing segment of the population of the world. The more we alienate the Muslim population, the more the moderates are likely to become extremists.
It makes you wonder who he thinks "the right people" are.
America has been going after Al-Qaeda and the nations that harbor and fund terrorists for 7 years now.</snip>
To blame the attacks in Mumbai on American policy in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever
is just wrong.[Bl.] (My bolding and underlining)
[Blunderov] It's worth emphasizing that the underlined text is the opinion of the Gateway pundit and not CNN (necessarily).
The comments at the site itself are instructively rabid. It's pathetic really; "We can't possibly ever have given any reasonable person offence because we are universal bearers of sweetness and light wherever we go in the world (as witness the petals continuously strewn at our feet), therefore these attacks have got nothing to do with us and must be to do with the pureness of evil inherent in Islamic fundamentalism only." Denial is not just a river in Egypt as they say.
<snip>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 insisted the style of the attacks and the targets in Mumbai suggested the militants were likely to be Indian Muslims and not linked to Al Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Taiba, another violent South Asian terrorist group.
“There’s absolutely nothing Al Qaeda-like about it,” she said of the attack. “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.”</snip>
[Blunderov] Au contraire. If I understand matters aright, one (1) of the original attackers has survived. They seem to have made no attempt to do anything other than go down fighting as hard as possible. I would call that as suicide attack if not a suicide bombing. Same difference in the end.
Seems the call has gone out to spin the origins of this attack away from al Qaeda and the, by implication, lost "War on Terror".
* A typically sly rightest attempt to poison the well.
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Blunderov
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Re:Mumbai
« Reply #9 on: 2008-11-30 04:24:50 » |
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[Blunderov] A mine of information. Mind numbing complications appear to be the order of the day. Hyperlinks and a wealth of comments available at site.
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/11/mumbai.html
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Mumbai posted by lenin
The shocking and depressing news from India would seem to defy any glib conclusions or slogans beyond the patently obvious - namely, that this grotesque hunting and killing of innocents is likely to succeed in (what appears to be) its principle aim of generating both a repressive response from the Indian state and a communal reaction. The facts so far reported do point to some general conclusions about the likely aims, and possible culprits. There has been a claim of responsibility from the 'Deccan Mujahideen', which could be related to the 'Indian Mujahideen' (IM), who in turn are alleged to be the latest incarnation of banned right-wing Islamist groups, the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). The former originated in Uttar Pradesh in 1977, inspired by the Iranian revolution, championing a Deobandi strain of Muslim revivalism. The latter originated in Kashmir in 1990 and is, alongside the Jaish-e Mohammed, one of the larger Islamist groups operating in Pakistan. It has been associated with figures belonging to 'Al Qaeda'. This is presumably the basis for Indian intelligence claims that the violence of the IM is the result of ISI subventions across the subcontinent. Whatever the ratio of truth and falsehood in those claims, two other dimensions are probably far more important: one is the domestic aspect of communal violence, and the other is the global politics of the jihadis presumed to be involved. The choice of targets suggests that the emphasis must be on the latter. One analysis in the Telegraph explains that the symbolic significance of the attack on the Taj Mahal hotel is that it was built to give the Indian upper class somewhere decent to stay in an age of colonial racism and segregation. The hotel is now "a symbol of Western decadence", because of the rich tourists it attracts. Similarly, the train station attacked was a terminus busy with tourists. Unlike the attacks in 2006, which were designed to exact maximum casualties among Hindu civilians, this attack seems to have been designed to kill foreigners.
Let's suppose that the 'Deccan Mujahideen' is indeed a name chosen by members of the IM based in the Deccan plain of Maharashtra. According to the Indian government, the IM is a front for members of the banned SIMI and LeT groups. But these are very different organisations - if not doctrinally, then certainly in origin and manner of organising. SIMI was originally the student wing of the Jama'at-i-Islami Hind (JIH), who expelled it on the basis of its ultra-radicalism (the JIH today work alongside the Indian communist parties against the BJP and Congress Party). It was a tiny sect for years. But the accelerating trends in communal violence over the last two decades of the twentieth century saw it gain members beyond its areas of strength in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, into some areas of the south. It has been banned several times, the first time shortly after 9/11 on the basis of claims of involvement in terrorist activities. Human rights advocates among others noted that Hinduta groups promoting racist violence, with close ties to the government, were not banned. They argued that the ban was a pretext for harrassing and terrorising Muslims in general, and indeed subsequent events bore this assessment out. The police slaughtered protesters supporting SIMI's legalisation in Lucknow shortly after the first ban was imposed. The subsequent massacre of 2,000 Muslims in the state of Gujarat, with the involvement of state officials including Narendra Modi, demonstrated that the Indian state was indeed on the war path against Muslims. The recent finding by the Justice Navati commission, exculpating Modi and pinning the blame for the violence on a 'Muslim mob' who are held responsible for the burning to death of 58 Hindu passengers on a train, rather suggests that the war is not over. Actually, a number of armed Hindutva groups were reportedly able to train and operate with impunity under the BJP.
At any rate, the bans on SIMI appear to have been based on insubstantial evidence of involvement in terrorism. In August this year, for example, a Delhi High Court tribunal lifted the ban, stating that evidence from the home ministry was inadequate to maintain it, although the Supreme Court threw this ruling out. The bans would certainly have seriously impacted on the organisation's size and ability to act, given that its members must retire from the organisation after thirty while new recruitment would have been impossible under conditions of illegality. This weakened organisation was held responsible by the Indian authorities for the Mumbai bombings in 2006 as well as attacks against Hindus in Malegaon the same year, both of which were communal attacks (subsequent attacks in Malegaon this year appear to have been carried out by Hindu nationalists seeking to re-create the fabled 'Aryan' state of old, the 'Hindu Rashtra' ideology of the BJP). It is possible that the SIMI, or elements of it, have engaged in some attacks. Eight years of repression, scapegoating, and some of the worst anti-Muslim violence for years, might have radicalised layers within it. However, the Indian state has too much of an interest in demonising all Islamist groups as a means toward repressing Muslims in general for its claims to be taken at face value.
LeT supposedly has connections with SIMI, but to the extent that these are reported they seem tenuous, and LeT is a very different kind of organisation. It was funded from the start by the Pakistani state to facilitate its control over the Kashmiri struggle for independence, which emerged through years of torture and murder by the Indian state (the Indian government's widespread practise of torture has led to the formation of a people's tribunal to combat it). This is part of the Pakistani state's general strategy of promoting various groups to create a pro-Pakistan consensus across central and southern Asia. Even under the conditions of the 'war on terror', the ISI has been able to redeploy these groups, including LeT, moving their camps to avoid detection by US bombers and so on. Unlike SIMI in India, LeT has some real social weight in Pakistan - after the US bombing of Afghanistan in 1998, it mobilised 50,000 youths at a religious gathering near Lahore at which attendees vowed to avenge the attacks. It also undoubtedly has a willingness and an ability to plan and execute highly sophisticated attacks. This doesn't mean any accusations against them are reliable, or that the ISI in any sense co-ordinated it. The Indian government is already more or less explicitly blaming Pakistan, which is one reason to be wary of such claims.
Whoever the 'Deccan Mujahideen' turn out to be, Jason Burke argues that the signs point to them being a home-grown movement. This means that any attempt to comprehend what is happening has to start with the Indian social structure, and particularly the position of Muslims in Indian society. So, let's stick with the obvious. Indian Muslims, comprising 13.5% of the population of India, are poor and disenfranchised: under-represented in most official organs, among the most exploited layers of society, and vulnerable to chauvanistic attack by Hindu nationalists. Their status as an insecure minority within a Hindu-majority state is one of the deadliest issues in Indian politics. The rise of atrocious Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) throughout the 1990s reflected the growth of communal politics that was due to a number of factors. Demographically, Muslims were a faster growing group than any other, a fact that right-wing politicians sometimes ascribed to illegal migration by refugees from Bangladesh (many of these were actually Hindus). The rise of Islamist politics amid the disintegration of Congress hegemony (the Congress Party had failed to alleviate the extreme polarities of wealth or fulfil its pledges on poverty as outlined in Ghandi's Garibi Hatao programme was accompanied by the rise of other forms of politics rooted in caste or regional interests - so, for example, the Dalit party sought to build a coalition between Muslims and low caste blocs. Hindutva politicians and activists successfully exploited these changes to argue that the Muslim population was a surging menace, and that it would become a threat to the security of the Hindu population. The BJP's rapid ascent helped to accelerate the rise of communal violence. The party, which had at its core another organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, known for its fascistic tendencies, began its most illustrious phase with bouts of vicious sectarianism. One of these was the demolition of the Babar mosque in Ayodhya, in 1992. The demolition was not really an attack on a religious symbol so much as an attack on a symbol representing the integration and acceptance of Muslims. It was an attack on the very idea that Muslims were a part of Indian society, which the BJP explicitly rejected in their literature and speeches. And it duly prompted one of the worst riots in recent Indian history. Subsequently, it incited pogroms against Muslims in Bombay/Mumbai in 1993. (Just in passing, it was the far right BJP ally Shiv Sena, whose candidate threatened the extermination of the city's Muslims, which changed Bombay's name to its Marathi name, Mumbai, in 1995). The BJP are the most vicious exponents of communal politics, and it is no exaggeration to say that they came close to fascism at times, albeit the Indian ruling class wasn't ready for that level of repression and instability. It is now quite possible that they will sweep back to power, and the Gujarat massacre may be multiplied many times over.
All of this bodes extremely ominiously for the future of the world's largest democracy. Every filthy reactionary and pogromist will be strengthened, while the more violent jihadi groups will probably expand under a wave of state terror and communal violence. The only hope is in the Left organising a coalition to stop this horrible political logic in its tracks, and to my mind that entails defending Muslims from the inevitable resurgence of anti-Muslim hatred, while opposing the politics of the jihadis. The hypocritical policy of banning Islamist groups over allegations of terrorism while tolerating and even encouraging violent Hindutva groups has to be opposed. Those who try to mount pogroms have to be fought in the streets. Any escalation of the struggle with Pakistan also has to be opposed. Even if Manmohan Singh's government doesn't treat Pakistani intelligence as the ultimate culprit, there are other ways in which escalation can take place. Given that the largest concentration of India's Muslims is based in Jammu and the Indian-occupied area of Kashmir, any generalised repression by the Indian state will inevitably intensify the Kashmir conflict - and provoke further set-piece atrocities such as we have seen over the last day or so.
Labels: communism, india, islamism, mumbai, racism, terror
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Mermaid
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Re:Mumbai
« Reply #10 on: 2008-11-30 11:27:27 » |
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havent read the lenin article fully yet, but..look...'Deccan Mujahideen' claiming "responsibility", to me, indicates that this is a false flag operation. deccan is the line that separates south from the north. in terms of religion, culture and geography. to call oneself by the deccan name and go about asking for only american and british guests at the taj is just plain smacking suspicious. that name also suggests that there is communal unrest in the south between moslems and hindus.
another little tidbit that keeps circulating that irritates me is about the 'disenfranchised and poor' moslem population of india. first of all, there are also a lot of 'disenfranchised and poor' hindus in india. as there are 'disenfranchised and poor' xians. and esp atheists(this is true of the south more than the north).
but here is the deal...the truth is that a lot of 'disenfranchised and poor' moslems and xians used to be 'disenfranchised and poor' hindus before they converted to a religion that offered them a financial incentive than crumbling and sometimes morally bankrupt hinduism. these folks were 'disenfranchised and poor' as hindus and later as moslems. this is true of the tribals that converted to xianity.(and village loads of whom were slaughtered by extremist hindu elements for converting...but thats another ugly tangent we dont want to take now)
there are also the other kind of moslem who is not a recent convert..the one who can trace back his lineage all the way to mecca or the moghuls...the ones who run the leather industries and own pharmaceutical companies of india. poverty in india doesnt discriminate between moslems and hindus.
interestingly, there was a conference in newyork at the un ...sponsored by the american moslems of india(?) to showcase the plight of the dalits who are also of a caste that cleans toilets in india. while digging around wondering why moslems are suddenly crying out for the dalit's cause, i found out that a lot of dalits had converted to islam and within islam, they found out that they were still being treated as untouchables even though islam forbids the discrimination of moslems within an islamic society. hence the conference. its mind numbing...communal friction and its history..and its current avatar is just a numbers game.
back to the mumbai attacks..the more i read and hear from india, i am convinced that this is a false flag attack. india's security is on 'war mode' now. pakistan is warning america that it will pull its troops from the afghan border if india makes any threatening move. it has already moved a hundred thousand to the india-pak border anticipating war.
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Mumbai
« Reply #11 on: 2008-11-30 18:18:37 » |
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From wikipedia:
Quote:| False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, flying the flag of a country other than one's own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and have been used in peace-time; for example, during Italy's strategy of tension. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag
Hmmm, well I suppose it doesn't need to be an Indian government entity. It could be any number of actors pretending to act on befalf any number of other supposedly aggrieved parties, whether their interests actually mesh or not. We do need to remind ourselves of the insane behavior we are describing in the first place. All the actors need is a convincing narrative which can be erriely detatched from any real world interest . . . and religion provides as good a suspect as any. Personally I'm not at all sympathetic to the 911 Truthers, but then the Mumbai case may be more complicated and to be fair I know next to nothing about all the cultural factions in and around India that may have an interest in this, so to pretend to know what's really going on here is ludicrous from my point of view. I'm always a bit skeptical of complicated conspiracies, but then just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you, and the addition of money to any equation tends to lubricate action and obviate the need for any discussion to make it happen. I'm just wondering who benefits? Its still a relevant question necessary for any conspiracy to answer before it can even begin to actually work. Certainly the Indian populace are unhappy with their government now, so I would wonder how any government actor benefits from that?
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Mumbai
« Reply #12 on: 2008-12-01 06:58:16 » |
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Interesting analysis of the Mumbai attack as human resources problem.
Mumbai: Exporting Pakistan’s Resources
November 27th, 2008 By Gary Brecher
Full Article:http://exiledonline.com/mumbai-exporting-pakistans-resources/
Excerpts:
Quote:"What’s clear is that this was a labor-intensive enterprise. Terrorism is usually a matter of spending as few of your people as you can, but somebody connected with Al Qaeda or its Pakistani fan club decided to spend a lot of lives here. That's what's interesting, looking at these attacks cold-bloodedly. Suppose you're an Al Qaeda honcho deciding how to get maximum bang for your resources. Until now the solution has been bombs, most of the time. Because bombs can be planted by a few men, and if they set the timers right and keep a low profile, there's a good chance those men will get away to plant more bombs another day. And since good men are hard to find, especially good men willing to risk having their fingernails pulled out in a police basement, that's the way most terrorist movements decide to go.
"Not this time. If these guys sent men to ten different locations in Mumbai, they spent a lot of lives. They'd have to assume that none of these men will come back alive. Suppose they sent ten men to each location. You need numbers for this sort of frontal assault in a heavily policed city, so that seems like a good number. Even if the real number turns out to be lower, say seven men to each location, that's 70 supporters' lives spent in one raid. Not the sort of thing that makes your Human Resources manager happy.
"But it comes down to what you might as well call market forces, and in those terms it makes perfect sense. Supply and demand. Supply: it looks like the gunmen came from Pakistan by ship. Supplies of dumb trigger-happy young Pakistanis in a hurry to find martyrdom are basically infinite. Thanks to the CIA, ISI and Saudi funding, there are now more than 4000 madrassas, martyrdom academies, in Pakistan.
"Now quality, that's a different issue. How much is the life of one of these cannon-fodder kids worth, to the movement? That depends on a lot of factors. If you're that Al Qaeda HR manager and you had to construct your dream recruit, he'd speak unaccented American or British English; he'd be white, or East Asian looking; he'd be comfortable in urban/yuppie life anywhere in the West; he'd have a cool head, know how to smile like a car salesman all the time and talk sports; and underneath he'd have total Terminator dedication to the cause and be immune to the attractions of the evil world you'd be sending him to infiltrate. [The attackers weren't] smooth enough to get through normal hotel security to plant a bomb, but they didn't have to be. They just stormed in through the front door, firing at full automatic.
"That's why this talk about whether security at the hotels was adequate is ridiculous. Hotel security is aimed at stopping sneak attacks, bomb-planters. To stop the sort of heavily-armed suicide squads that hit these hotels, you'd need a full platoon of infantry. So what you see here is something economists would understand as well or better than traditional military analysts. I hate to sound cold-blooded, putting it this way, but what happened is that Pakistan's islamists had a surplus of raw labor, and thought of a way to get it to a place where it maximized its global value in terms of pure blood and destruction." |
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Re:Mumbai
« Reply #13 on: 2008-12-01 11:59:23 » |
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well..we have an election coming up(next year..2009)...the right wing hindu party(crap..i didnt think i'd say that combination of words in my lifetime) is trying to scramble back.
but here is the deal..work backwards. who gains most from the mumbai attacks and what is likely to happen in the near future...other than the most obvious, i.e. tension between india and pakistan. pakistani politicians arent stupid. we have been having show downs for 6 decades now and they have never tried anything like this. why now? why mumbai? why so blatant an attack? and esp...how could they afford this? why make britain, america and israel feel vulnerable now by specifically targetting them? having said that...consider this..how many brits, americans and israelis were killed in the attacks..the final figure is almost 200. and for a hostage situation, wasnt the strategy all wrong? if the idea is to negotiate, why have series of attacks all over the city, thinning the forces? who'd be negotiating after there has already been loss of life? why negotiate with the indian govt for foreign 'hostages' after killing indians and going on a rampage? was there even any kind of communication or demands? nothing. nada. what kind of 'hostage crisis' were they planning to cook up..and if they really werent..why the show of making britains, americans and israelis feel like they are victims too in this particular set of attacks. this, among many other details, screams 'false flag' to me.
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Mermaid
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Re:Mumbai
« Reply #14 on: 2008-12-01 12:08:20 » |
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having said all this, india can punish pakistan with a blow so cruel that pakistanis, terrorists or not, would be crushed. all they have to do is work towards sanctions against pakistan so that the pakistan team will never play cricket in the international arena. never. ever. now..*that* would be war. never underestimate the power of cricket in the subcontinent.
(only slightly joking)
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