Teams of gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, hospitals and a crowded train station in coordinated attacks across India's financial capital Wednesday night, killing at least 82 people and taking Westerners hostage, police said. A group of suspected Muslim militants claimed responsibility.
Parts of the city remained under siege as dawn approached Thursday, with police and gunmen exchanging occasional gunfire at two hotels and an unknown number of people still held hostage, said A.N. Roy, a top police official. Soldiers also took up positions across the city.
I offer my deepest sympathies to the people of India. They've been fighting these bastards for a long time. I know they want far more help from us. India helps with Afghanistan reconstruction. I assume we've helped with shutting down Pakistani support for jihadi terrorism in India. We need to do much more together to fight these murderers.
While I suspect these are local characters (even if affiliated with al Qaeda) with objectives related to India, if these had been sent from Pakistan we might be in a pre-war situation if India were to seek revenge.
Remember I said that I expected Taliban and al Qaeda attacks on Pakistani cities to apply pressure on the Pakistani government to end the Pakistani military campaign in the tribal areas adjacent to Afghanistan.
But what would happen if al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan decide to target India in order to spark an Indian-Pakistani crisis or war? Pakistan is so weak relative to India that Pakistan would pull every soldier out of the frontier areas and rush them east.
And what would happen to our supply lines through Pakistan should another Indian-Pakistani war break out? We surely wouldn't aid Pakistan in fighting our budding ally India. And Pakistan might very well abandon our line of supply to pressure us into helping them.
This is more than just an ugly terrorist attack. This has implications if it extends beyond India-based terrorists and into Pakistan. And even if it doesn't have any foreign ties, the lesson may not be lost on the Taliban and al Qaeda about where a fruitful attack might be directed in the future to relieve the pressure they face in the frontier areas from Pakistan's military.
I guess this is one of those rare jihadi groups that hasn't been all caught up with that hope and change since our election. It's almost as if jihadi hatred hasn't been caused by George W. Bush.
UPDATE (Thursday): Indian commandos have attempted to rescue hostages:
Black-clad Indian commandoes raided two luxury hotels to try to free hostages Thursday, and explosions and gunshots shook India's financial capital a day after suspected Muslim militants killed 104 people.
Rescue efforts continued throughout the day amid sporadic gunfire, with some hostages escaping and others rescued by police. Several bodies were carried out of the five-star Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel, one of 10 sites seized by gunmen on Wednesday night.
More than 300 were also wounded in the highly coordinated attacks by bands of gunmen armed with assault rifles, hand grenades and explosives.
Flames burst from the hotel's top floors and dome shortly after the attack began Wednesday night, and erupted again after commandoes raided the building Thursday.
After dusk Thursday, the soldiers ushered several dozen captives out of the Oberoi hotel, another Mumbai landmark.
Good for them. It is odd that the hostage-takers didn't kill their hostages. But it is odd that some of the attackers have been captured, too. This is not the hallmark of Arab al Qaeda terrorists.
And there is speculation that these terrorists do have ties to Pakistan:
It is too early to tell with any precision who is behind these attacks. The smart money is on the multi-headed hydra of terrorist and extremist groups based in Pakistan and Kashmir. Indeed, Pakistan’s intelligence service has waged a proxy war against India using terrorists for decades. The two nuclear powers have avoided a large-scale exchange, but the Pakistani ISI has repeatedly sponsored or aided terrorist groups targeting civilians in India.
If true, the ISI is insane. But that is by my Western perspective, of course. What they consider rational is what counts. And they may consider it rational to provoke a war with India--even a nuclear exchange.
Perhaps the pro-jihadi types in the ISI and their jihadi friends in the Pakistan Taliban and al Qaeda think that their best hope for a victory is to destabilize Pakistan by provoking India to attack Pakistan and destroy the Pakistani military and wreck the credibility of the civilian government. Death by India, so to speak.
And al Qaeda does seem to have decided that Pakistan is their main target:
"Iraq is now a rear-guard action on the part of al Qaeda," said Gen. James Conway, the head of the Marine Corps and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an interview. "They've changed their strategic focus not to Afghanistan but to Pakistan, because Pakistan is the closest place where you have the nexus of terrorism and nuclear weapons."
I thought this was the case last summer and noted al Qaeda's declaration of war and set out the case in the fall. Remember, the jihadis in Paksitan, including al Qaeda, have bombed Pakistani civilian targets to pressure the Pakistanin government to call off their offensives in the tribal areas aimed at the jihadis. I expected more of that strategy only two days ago. Perhaps I underestimated them and they want to leverage India into applying force far beyond al Qaeda's power to inflict on Pakistan.
After all, India won't occupy Pakistan. And if tens of millions of Pakistanis die as the price for the jihadis to seize control of Pakistan, I'd bet they consider it worth it.
The jihadi version of "hope and change" could be starting in Mumbai right now.
