INSTEAD IT WILL CEMENT THE TIES DESPITE THE ELECTION OF A GUY WHO DIDN'T KNOW THEY EXISTED:

Terrorists Paralyze India's Business Capital: Death Toll Mounts in Mumbai as Westerners Are Targeted; New Phase in Radical Islam's Clash With Hindu-Majority Nation (YAROSLAV TROFIMOV and PETER WONACOTT, 11/28/08, Wall Street Journal)

The scale and sophistication of the Mumbai attacks, as well as the choice of targets, however, appeared to point to a more insidious threat that the Indian government has been reluctant to acknowledge so far -- the potential involvement of extremists within the country's own Muslim community, which, at 150 million, is the world's third-largest after Indonesia and Pakistan. It is also one of India's most economically and politically disadvantaged minorities.

In a statement that couldn't be independently authenticated, a previously unknown group, the Deccan Mujahideen, claimed responsibility for the Mumbai operation, describing itself as hailing from the south Indian city of Hyderabad. Hyderabad was the world's largest Muslim-ruled monarchy until it was invaded and annexed by India in 1948.

Indian security officials cast doubt on this statement, saying that the attacks bore the hallmarks of Al Qaeda and Pakistani militant groups. They also claimed to have found a boat on which ammunition for the attacks was allegedly smuggled from Pakistan. That couldn't be confirmed.

While independent security experts said it's likely that the attackers received some support from like-minded radicals in Pakistan, they also stressed that such a massive operation would have been nearly impossible without a deep-rooted local network inside India itself.

"It would be extremely difficult for foreigners to come in and operate in this manner," said Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore. "They certainly had intimate knowledge of the city. The pre-eminent threat to India is home-grown."

Christine Fair, a South Asia specialist at the Rand Corp. think tank, added that the modus operandi of the Mumbai militants -- coordinated small-arms assaults and hostage-takings, rather that suicide bombings -- didn't match the signature of the best known Pakistani militant groups or Al Qaeda.

"I think it's very much a home-grown attack," she said. "There are very deep and unresolved social justice issues for Indian Muslims. They have a lot of motivation."

India's Muslims, some of them still nostalgic for a medieval golden age when most of the subcontinent was under Muslim dominion, are among the country's poorest communities, partly because much of the Muslim professional class emigrated to Pakistan at partition in 1947.

In addition to being disproportionately targeted in outbreaks of religious violence, they are severely underrepresented in the country's government bureaucracy, universities and security services. On literacy scores, young Indian Muslims now lag behind even the country's historically most disadvantaged group, the Dalits, or Hinduism's "untouchables."

While only a small minority of Indian Muslims supports violence, the community is often represented by hardline clerics in India's interest-group brand of politics, where caste and religion-based "vote banks" frequently trump political platforms and ideologies. The global campaign against Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" was launched by an Indian Muslim politician in 1988. Last year, Bangladeshi feminist writer Taslima Nasrin was expelled from Calcutta and eventually had to leave India because of violent protests organized against her by Indian Muslim community leaders who described her writings as disrespectful of Islam.

The biggest previous terror attack in Mumbai, a series of bombings in 1993, was organized by mostly Muslim organized-crime syndicates to avenge deadly anti-Muslim pogroms in the city. Hundreds of Muslims were killed in another wave of communal rioting in the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002.

In following years, bombings and shootings attributed to Islamic militants became increasingly frequent in India, hitting the capital of New Delhi, information-technology hubs Bangalore and Hyderabad, and Mumbai itself.

None, however, was as shocking as this week's assault on Mumbai, in which the attackers seemed to target the symbols of a new, rising India -- luxury hotels such as the Taj and the Oberoi Trident that were packed with tourists and foreign executives, a multiplex cinema, and a restaurant popular with travelers. [...]

Some in Mumbai's large Muslim community fear the attacks may stir the upcoming political campaigns, aware that such controversies can easily end up in religious clashes. "Elections are coming around the corner -- and the politicians want the vote banks," said garment merchant Mohammed Salim, as he watched riot police surround a building known as Nariman House in his Colaba neighborhood.

Located near a mosque, the five-story Nariman House has been occupied for the past two years by the Mumbai office of Chabad, a Brooklyn-based Jewish outreach movement. While serving as a guesthouse and prayer hall for Israeli backpackers, it was low-key and little known outside the immediate area, suggesting that the militants who seized it Wednesday night were extremely familiar with Mumbai's geography.

As of Friday morning, gunmen inside Nariman House were still holding hostage a rabbi identified by Chabad as Gavriel Holtzberg and his family.

Eyewitnesses said one person was killed Wednesday night when the assailants threw a hand grenade at a corner donut shop nearby, and two more were shot dead when the militants opened fire from Nariman House. These two victims were local Indian Muslims, said Khalid Mammoo, a local social worker who helped remove the bodies.

"Terrorism doesn't have any religion," he said.

Disputing the theory that the militants had infiltrated from Pakistan, many in the neighborhood insisted that the attackers were a familiar presence in the area for some time. According to Mr. Mammoo, the attackers had been renting an apartment in or near the guesthouse for the past six months. That couldn't be independently confirmed.

In Mumbai, culprits and survivors sought: Hostages remain trapped as militants hide in two hotels and a Jewish center in the Indian city. The death toll rises to at least 125 (Sebastian Rotella reporting from Madrid and Mark Magnier reporting from Mumbai, India, November 28, 2008, LA Times)

Whatever their origin, it was clear the squads of attackers were well prepared. The militants struck after months of reconnaissance during which they set up "control rooms" in the targeted hotels, according to Indian officials and an owner of one of the hotels.

"It's the opening of a new front, a strike in a place that causes surprise," said Louis Caprioli, a former French counter-terrorism chief. "And it is unique because it's a military operation that leaves the security forces confused and disorganized.

"For the first time in a long time, you see the use of combatants who take hostages, like the Palestinians in the 1970s," he said. "They were ready to die, but they were not suicide attackers."

Past attacks on Indian targets here and abroad have been the work of an evolving, interconnected array of murky Pakistani extremist groups tied to Al Qaeda and, sometimes, current or former Pakistani security officials. They include Lashkar-e-Taiba, which took part in a bloody siege of the Indian Parliament in 2001 and seems a prime suspect in this case, according to officials and experts.

"This is a group affiliated with Al Qaeda," said Sajjan Gohel of the London-based Asia-Pacific Foundation. "There are eerie similarities to the Parliament attacks."

But Lashkar-e-Taiba has reportedly denied involvement. And anti-terrorism officials warned against speculation because the evidence is limited. India has a history of violence by Hindus and criminal mafias as well as Muslim extremists.

Most of Mumbai remained in shock Thursday. Once known as Bombay, the city is home to India's commodities and stock exchanges, which remained closed Thursday amid fears about the effect of the attacks on foreign investment.

In many neighborhoods, 80% of the businesses remained closed as police warned residents to stay home, where many followed the unfolding drama on television.

Simone Ahuja, an Asia Society associate fellow and founder of a video production house in Mumbai, said the choice of targets favored by foreigners was clearly a blow aimed at dislodging closer U.S.-India ties. And she said the damage done to the Taj Mahal hotel, a waterfront landmark that suffered bomb damage and whose giant towers were licked by flames, may leave emotional scars on the city.

"People are in tears watching their city fall," said Ahuja, who shares her time between Mumbai and Minneapolis. "This is like what happened to the World Trade Center. This will fundamentally change the mental and visual landscape."

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 28, 2008 8:10 AM