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<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #CC0000"><span style="font-size: 17pt">Who attacked Mumbai?</span></span></span>
published: Thursday | December 4, 2008
The shocking attacks on India's commercial capital last week were described as India's 9/11. But while Mumbai's day of terror echoed New York's in the scale of the perpetrators' audacity, the parallels may end there. For while the terrorists operated under the name of a group that would appear to <span style="font-weight: bold">link them to al Qaeda, that may have been a red herring.</span> Almost immediately, suspicion fell elsewhere.
The theory in the Indian press is that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which is roughly Pakistan's CIA, lay behind the attack. The argument goes that the attack bore the fingerprints of one of the ISI's proxy militias in Kashmir, the Lashkar-i-tayyaba. In any event, it did not appear to be a trademark al Qaeda operation.
Brazen terror attacks
The theory behind the ISI's involvement is complex, a<span style="font-weight: bold">nd not a little conspiratorial. Yet, it is perhaps not illogical. It goes as follows: The new Obama administration in the United States (US) is eager to continue warming relations between India and Pakistan, so that Pakistan can concentrate its energy on pursuing the Taliban and al-Qaida in the Pashtun borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Both the Pakistani and Indian governments are willing to pursue this warming, for economic reasons.
However, the ISI, or elements within the ISI, might regard this rapprochement with alarm. These elements believe - possibly not without some cause - that Pakistan's national interests are best served by having either a Pashtun government in Afghanistan, or a weak one. Either way, that means supporting the Taliban, which is largely a Pashtun army.</span>
<span style="font-style: italic">Threatened by the thaw between Islamabad and Delhi, these elements might be keen to provoke hostilities between India and Pakistan. By carrying out brazen terror attacks on Indian soil, they could turn Indian public opinion against the warming. For its part, the current Indian government is derided by its foes as soft on terror, and so it can be expected to react by shoring up its credentials.</span>
If, therefore, India moves troops to the Kashmir border, Pakistan will have no choice but to do likewise. This will take the pressure off the Taliban, and thus put pressure on an Afghan government, which the ISI has little reason to like.
In this theory, Lashkar's own role would not merely be to have done the ISI's bidding. It, too, could benefit from such a shocking incident. Kashmir and Pakistan contest Kashmir, a border state with a Muslim majority. By provoking Hindu anger against Muslims in India, and maybe even reprisal attacks, Lashkar could turn Kashmiri Muslims against the idea of an eventual reintegration into India.
It may seem far-fetched, but in the - shall we say - colourful environment of Pakistan's politics, it is at least plausible. Pakistan is a land of paradoxes: it has a democratic government which, collapsing under the weight of the state's corruption, is remote from the lives of most Pakistanis; it is a country in which rogue and Islamist elements penetrate the security apparatus, but in which a thriving civil society and largely free press talk about it openly.
Indian claims rejected
T<span style="font-style: italic">hat the Pakistanis have not actually rejected Indian claims of Pakistani involvement, but have demanded that India at least produce evidence for its claims, indicates that even they can see that <span style="font-weight: bold">an ISI-backed plot is not an impossible idea</span>.</span>
When we say that the incoming Obama administration will enjoy no honeymoon, that it will have to hit the ground running, we generally speak of its need to manage the financial crisis. But now on the foreign-policy front, as well, it will face a set of difficult challenges from even before the first day.
Hillary Clinton's work has begun.
John Rapley is president of Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI), an independent think tank affiliated to the University of the West Indies, Mona. Feedback may be sent to [email protected].
Does any of it make sense to you ? ? ?
link ..
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #CC0000"><span style="font-size: 17pt">Who attacked Mumbai?</span></span></span>
published: Thursday | December 4, 2008
The shocking attacks on India's commercial capital last week were described as India's 9/11. But while Mumbai's day of terror echoed New York's in the scale of the perpetrators' audacity, the parallels may end there. For while the terrorists operated under the name of a group that would appear to <span style="font-weight: bold">link them to al Qaeda, that may have been a red herring.</span> Almost immediately, suspicion fell elsewhere.
The theory in the Indian press is that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which is roughly Pakistan's CIA, lay behind the attack. The argument goes that the attack bore the fingerprints of one of the ISI's proxy militias in Kashmir, the Lashkar-i-tayyaba. In any event, it did not appear to be a trademark al Qaeda operation.
Brazen terror attacks
The theory behind the ISI's involvement is complex, a<span style="font-weight: bold">nd not a little conspiratorial. Yet, it is perhaps not illogical. It goes as follows: The new Obama administration in the United States (US) is eager to continue warming relations between India and Pakistan, so that Pakistan can concentrate its energy on pursuing the Taliban and al-Qaida in the Pashtun borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Both the Pakistani and Indian governments are willing to pursue this warming, for economic reasons.
However, the ISI, or elements within the ISI, might regard this rapprochement with alarm. These elements believe - possibly not without some cause - that Pakistan's national interests are best served by having either a Pashtun government in Afghanistan, or a weak one. Either way, that means supporting the Taliban, which is largely a Pashtun army.</span>
<span style="font-style: italic">Threatened by the thaw between Islamabad and Delhi, these elements might be keen to provoke hostilities between India and Pakistan. By carrying out brazen terror attacks on Indian soil, they could turn Indian public opinion against the warming. For its part, the current Indian government is derided by its foes as soft on terror, and so it can be expected to react by shoring up its credentials.</span>
If, therefore, India moves troops to the Kashmir border, Pakistan will have no choice but to do likewise. This will take the pressure off the Taliban, and thus put pressure on an Afghan government, which the ISI has little reason to like.
In this theory, Lashkar's own role would not merely be to have done the ISI's bidding. It, too, could benefit from such a shocking incident. Kashmir and Pakistan contest Kashmir, a border state with a Muslim majority. By provoking Hindu anger against Muslims in India, and maybe even reprisal attacks, Lashkar could turn Kashmiri Muslims against the idea of an eventual reintegration into India.
It may seem far-fetched, but in the - shall we say - colourful environment of Pakistan's politics, it is at least plausible. Pakistan is a land of paradoxes: it has a democratic government which, collapsing under the weight of the state's corruption, is remote from the lives of most Pakistanis; it is a country in which rogue and Islamist elements penetrate the security apparatus, but in which a thriving civil society and largely free press talk about it openly.
Indian claims rejected
T<span style="font-style: italic">hat the Pakistanis have not actually rejected Indian claims of Pakistani involvement, but have demanded that India at least produce evidence for its claims, indicates that even they can see that <span style="font-weight: bold">an ISI-backed plot is not an impossible idea</span>.</span>
When we say that the incoming Obama administration will enjoy no honeymoon, that it will have to hit the ground running, we generally speak of its need to manage the financial crisis. But now on the foreign-policy front, as well, it will face a set of difficult challenges from even before the first day.
Hillary Clinton's work has begun.
John Rapley is president of Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI), an independent think tank affiliated to the University of the West Indies, Mona. Feedback may be sent to [email protected].
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