It lacks the political power to ignore the attack, even if it were inclined to do so. India's Congress party-led government is politically weak and nearing the end of its life span. As one might expect, public opinion in India is shifting from stunned to furious. This time, however, the attackers struck in such a way that New Delhi couldn't allow the incident to pass. New Delhi therefore accepted Islamabad's assurances that Pakistan would do its best to curb terror attacks, and after suitable posturing, allowed tensionsoriginating from Islamist attacks to pass. India did not want war with Pakistan it felt it had more important issues to dealwith. India's restrained response to Islamist attacks (even those originating in Pakistan) in recent years has come about because New Delhi has understood that, for a host of reasons, Islamabad has been unable to control radical Pakistani Islamist groups. The Mumbai attack, by contrast, aimed to force a response from New Delhi by being so grievous that any Indian government showing only a muted reaction to it would fall. Since then, New Delhi has not responded in a dramatic fashion to numerous Islamist attacks against India that were traceable to Pakistan.
A December 2001 Islamist attack on the Indian parliament triggered an intense confrontation between India and Pakistan. The most striking aspect of the Mumbai attack is the challenge it presents to theIndian government - a challenge almost impossible for New Delhi to ignore. Whoever invested the time and took the risk in organizing this attack had a reason to do so.Let's work backward to that reason by examining the logical outcomes following this attack. In the highly politicized atmosphere of Pakistan's radical Islamist factions, however, terror frequently has a more sophisticated and strategic purpose. There is a tendency to regard terror attacks as ends in themselves, carried out simply for the sake of spreading terror. More important than the question of the exact group that carried out the attack, however, is the attackers' strategic end. It could have been linked to al Qaeda primeor its various franchises and/or to Kashmiri insurgents. While precisely which radical Pakistani Islamist group or groups were involved is unknown, the Mumbai attack appears to have originated in Pakistan. Too much planning and training were involved in this attack for it to havebeen conceived by a bunch of guys in a garage. Conceivably, they might have lacked links to any group, but this is hard tobelieve. Rather than being centrally controlled, ad hoc teams are created with links to one or more groups. So while the precise number of attackers remains unclear, the attackclearly was well-planned and well-executed.Įvidence and logic suggest that radical Pakistani Islamists carried out the attack.These groups have a highly complex and deliberately amorphous structure. It traveled via ship from Karachi, Pakistan, later hijacked a small Indian vessel to get past Indian coastal patrols, and ultimately landed near Mumbai.Įxtensive preparations apparently had been made, including surveillance of thetargets. The second group appears to have just arrived. One group, possibly consisting of Indian Muslims,was established in Mumbai ahead of the attacks. While it is not clear precisely who carried out the Mumbai attack, two separate units apparently were involved. But attacks on various other targets, from railroad stations to hospitals, indicate that the more general purpose was to spread terror in a majorIndian city.
The operational goal of the attack clearly was to cause asmany casualties as possible, particularly among Jews and well-to-do guests offive-star hotels. The attack was not complex because of the weapons used or its size, but in the apparent training, multiple methods of approaching the city and excellent operational security and discipline in the finalphases of the operation, when the last remaining attackers held out in the Taj Mahalhotel for several days. Last Wednesday evening, a group of Islamist operatives carried out a complex terroroperation in the Indian city of Mumbai. STRATEGIC MOTIVATIONS FOR THE MUMBAI ATTACK
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