Prime Suspects = Home-grown militants

Raid involving the taking of hostages suggests only marginal link to al-Qaida

The Mumbai attacks are unique in the history of recent violent militancy, Islamist or otherwise. As Indian security agencies race to work out who was behind them they will be negotiating a maze of conflicting clues.

A group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed the operation. The name indicates a local group - the Deccan is the central Indian plateau - and a probable link to the Indian Mujahideen who started a bloody bombing campaign a year ago.

It is this group, too, that threatened the people of Mumbai with "deadly attacks" two months ago and has credibly claimed responsibility for the series of attacks in recent months.

Its texts are full of references to early Islamic history and key thinkers who are characteristic of modern jihadist ideology. In the local version of the global Islamist militant discourse, the Crusader-Zionist alliance has been expanded to become the Hindu-Crusader-Zionist alliance.

Most analysts believe the Deccan Mujahideen is a loose and fragmented movement of Indian Muslims, often young and well-educated. A similar phenomenon has been seen from Indonesia to Morocco.

If there is a link to al-Qaida it seems likely that it would be ideological rather than organisational, though this will take some time to become clear.

Certainly, the style of the attack - more a mass guerrilla assault on a series of soft targets in a major city than the standard spectacular and suicidal blasts that we have become associated with strikes linked closely to the al-Qaida hardcore - seems to indicate a group that is at best an affiliate of Osama bin Laden's organisation.

Hotels have frequently been a target, but the use of boats - the attackers arrived in Mumbai in inflatable boats - is rare. An exception was the strike on the American warship the USS Cole in 2000.

Hostage-taking, too, is not a usual feature of core al-Qaida attacks, nor the targeting of theatres. The mass assault has been seen before, in Saudi Arabia in 2004, but the guns and grenade style is more reminiscent of operations of militant groups in Kashmir (and elsewhere in India), or more recently in Afghanistan. Tourism has also been targeted elsewhere, notably in Indonesia and Egypt.

Putting together this jumble of tactics and the targeting of an Orthodox Jewish centre and the apparent singling out of UK and US citizens would seem to indicate a homegrown Indian Islamic militant outfit, though with al-Qaida's continual evolution it is difficult to be sure.

New Delhi reflexively blames Islamabad for any such activism - perhaps with good reason following its experience in Kashmir during the 1990s.

Last night, when asked about reports that the attacks could have been planned in Pakistan, Lord Malloch-Brown of the Foreign Office told the BBC : "We are hearing the same things as you are about some Pakistan connection, but we devoutly hope it is not true."

Indian diplomatic sources yesterday spoke of groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Mohammedi, both based in the Pakistani province of Punjab, as potential suspects. One source recalled the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul in July, an attack which both US and Indian officials linked to Jalaluddin Haqqani, an Afghan militant chief with a longstanding relationship with Islamabad's spy agencies.

The Kabul attack, the raid on the Indian parliament in 2001, the Pakistan-provoked war in Kargil in 1999 and the Mumbai atrocity occurred during periods of relative detente between the neighbours.

However, experts said they had never heard of the Deccan Mujahideen, and suggested that the radical Students Islamic Movement of India (Simi) might have been behind the Mumbai attacks.

One hint to the inspiration of the attackers is a theological point. Whereas in the Middle East suicide bombers play the main role in attacks, in Kashmir militants see themselves as fedayeen: those who risk death but do not kill themselves, which could be seen as attempting to usurp God's will. The Mumbai attackers seem to fall into the latter category.

The "external links" mentioned by the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, could mean Pakistan or al-Qaida, a no doubt intentional ambiguity.

Even if it there is some involvement, rogue or otherwise, by the Pakistani security establishment, autonomous Pakistani jihadi groups or a more direct link to al-Qaida, it will have been alienated and angry young Indian Muslims who heeded the call to arms.

Jason Burke

The Guardian, Friday November 28 2008

 

 

Who could have done it?

Deccan Mujahideen
Six hours after the attack, Indian media received an email from this unknown group, claiming responsibility. Experts are sceptical. An Indian news channel reported the email's sender was traced to Russia.

Indian Mujahideen
Recent bomb attacks on cities including Ahmedabad and Delhi were thought to be this group's work. But analysts believe the IM does not have the resources to conduct the Mumbai operation alone.

Crime syndicates
Mumbai's most notorious crime boss, Dawood Ibrahim, has been accused of masterminding the March 1993 blasts in Mumbai. At that time he lived in Dubai, but later moved to Karachi. Indian intelligence alleges he is holed up in the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan.

Pakistani terror groups
Al-Qaida-linked Lashkar-e-Taiba has been active in fighting Indian security forces in Kashmir since 1993. In the past, LeT was alleged to have close links with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency. But from what is known so far, few believe Pakistan played a role in the Mumbai attacks.
Maseeh Rahman