Sophisticated Attacks, but Al Qaeda Link Disputed
HONG KONG They came wearing black hoods, firing automatic weapons and throwing grenades. They took hostages and attacked two hotels, a café, a train station and other popular and undefended soft targets.
Who are they? The answer to that question remained in dispute Thursday as security officials and experts attempted to untangle the few clues to the attackers likely identity. But there was a general agreement that the nature of the attacks seemed a marked departure from other recent terror assaults in India. In earlier attacks, assailants used much cruder tactics, for instance leaving bombs planted on bicycles in crowded markets.
This time, the assault was uniquely disturbing, said Sajjan Gohel, a security expert in London, because it seemed directed at foreigners, involved hostage-taking and was aimed at multiple soft, symbolic targets. The attacks aimed to create maximum terror and human carnage and damage the economy, he said in a telephone interview.
The hostage-taking was the first involving an Indian terrorist group and affecting foreigners since the 1999 hijacking of an Air India flight to Afghanistan.
The identity of the Mumbai attackers remained a mystery.
An e-mail message to Indian media outlets that claimed responsibility for the bloody attacks in Mumbai on Wednesday night said the militants were from the Deccan Mujahedeen. Almost universally, experts and intelligence officials said that name was unknown.
Deccan is a neighborhood of the Indian city of Hyderabad. The word also describes the middle and south of India, which is dominated by the Deccan Plateau. Mujahedeen is the commonly used Arabic word for holy fighters. But the combination of the two, said Mr. Gohel in London, is a front name. This group is nonexistent.
Some global terrorism experts with experience in South Asia said that, based on the tactics used in the attacks, the group was probably not linked to Al Qaeda although that assertion was challenged by other analysts.
Its even unclear whether its a real group or not, said Bruce Hoffman, a professor at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the author of the book Inside Terrorism.
That theory was echoed by an Indian security official who spoke in return for anonymity because he was not authorized to be identified and who said the name suggested ties to a group called Indian Mujahedeen, which has been implicated in a string of bombing attacks in India killing around 200 people this year alone.
On Sept. 15, an e-mail published in Indian newspapers and said to have been sent by representatives of Indian Muhajedeen threatened potential deadly attacks in Mumbai. The message warned counter-terrorism 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 reported killed.
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.
Theres 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 dont do hostage-taking and they dont do grenades. By contrast, Mr. Gohel in London said the fingerprints point to an Islamic Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group.
Mr. Hoffman he said the attacks, which he called tactical, sophisticated and coordinated, perhaps pointed to a broader organization behind the perpetrators. The Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, said the attacks probably had external linkages.
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. India blamed that group 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 attackers might have emerged from an outlawed militant group of Islamic students. Photographs from security cameras showed some youthful attackers carrying assault rifles and smiling as they launched the operation.
There are a lot of very, very angry Muslims in India, Ms. Fair said, The economic disparities are startling and India has been very slow to publicly embrace its rising Muslim problem. You cannot put lipstick on this pig. This is a major domestic political challenge for India.
The public political face of India says, Our Muslims have not been radicalized. But the Indian intelligence apparatus knows thats not true. Indias Muslim communities are being sucked into the global landscape of Islamist jihad, she said. Indians will have a strong incentive to link this to Al Qaeda. Al Qaedas in your toilet! But this is a domestic issue. This is not Indias 9/11.
That, too, was disputed by the Indian official. This was Mumbais 9/11, he said. The consequences of the attack, the official said, may be to disrupt any overtures to Pakistan and to ignite a backlash against Indian Muslims.
Reflecting a widespread assessment in Pakistan, Moonis Ahmar, a professor of international relations at Karachi University, called the attacks a well-thought out conspiracy designed to destabilize relations between India and Pakistan and sabotage efforts at reconciliation.
Hindus make up about 80 percent of Indias 1.13 billion population and Muslims 13.4 percent. Experts disputed the complexity of the operation.
Mr. Hoffman said: These arent just a bunch of radical guys coming together to cause mayhem.
This takes a different skill set. It doesnt take much skill to make a bomb. This is not just pressing a button as a suicide bomber and dying. You dont learn this over the Internet.
But Ms. Fair did not agree that the attacks on Wednesday necessarily required deep planning and training.
This wasnt something that required a logistical mastermind, she said. These were not hardened targets. A huge train station with zero security. Two hotels with no security, both owned by Indians. Leopolds Café. How hard is it, really? Its not rocket science.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/world/asia/28group.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
