MUMBAI ATTACKS: The media looks at who's to blame

[See SAJAforum's full coverage of the Mumbai attacks]

With the Mumbai attacks, the US media is giving an unprecedented level of coverage to a developing news story in India. The Western media clearly appreciates the import (and not just the spectacle) of what's happening, given the geopolitical implications. But it's also extremely slippery terrain, because for most Western media outlets, it's a matter of playing catchup with decades of India-Pakistan resentments.

Case in point, the still-evolving issue of who's to blame: Was it an indigenous Indian militant group (Deccan Mujahideen) or in fact a Pakistani group, as Indian officials are alleging/hinting (but which Pakistan denies)? Some experts suspect that the sophistication of the attack, and of the weaponry, points to a possible alignment with al-Qaeda. This morning, Munir Akram, the former Pakistan ambassador to the UN, spoke on the Takeaway, a nationally-broadcast public radio program produced by my station, WNYC. He pushed back hard against the Indian establishment, and claimed the attacks resulted from socio-economic disparities within India:

"It's almost a Pavlovian reaction from India. Every time something goes wrong in India, Pakistan is blamed... It's obviously an indigenous group - and there are so many indigenous problems in India, so many divisions. Muslims are at the bottom of the socio-economic class. Huge resentments. There are oppressions. There are acts of pogroms that have happened against them. And anger, obviously is now turning to resistance, and some sort of organized resistance. So it's very difficult straightaway to make connections with external forces."

That notion was rejected by another guest, MJ Gohel of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, who spoke from London:

"This idea that there is some group called the Deccan Mujahideen is ridiculous. The fact is that no such group even exists... The name means absolutely nothing. What matters is the modus operandi. The modus operandi here is of an al-Qaeda linked Islamist group which wanted to perpetrate terror on a mass scale... These are the fingerprints of a global jihadi group. As far as the Pakistani connection is concerned, unfortunately there is a long history of this. One can go back in time to 1989, when cross-border terrorism started in Pakistan, and the militants were coming across the border. It's an established fact."

On NPR, the reported assessment is still very cautious. NPR's Jackie Northam said the picture is still very unclear" and that Indian officials are not sharing information. She also noted homegrown resentments that could be at the root of the problem. At the end of the segment however, the host, Steve Inskeep says that an Indian official has identified one of the militants as a Pakistani national.

On this CNN segment, there was skepticism about the existence of a "Deccan Mujahideen," with analyst Will Geddes referring to them as having "come out of nowhere."

The NYT's Mark Mazzetti cites analysts who find "mounting evidence" of the role of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba:

The American officials cautioned that they have reached no hard conclusions about who was responsible for the operation, as well as how it was planned and carried out. Nevertheless, they said that evidence gathered over the past two days pointed to a role for Lashkar-e-Taiba, or possibly another Pakistani group based in Kashmir, Jaish-e-Muhammad.

The American officials insisted on anonymity in describing their current thinking declined to discuss the intelligence information that they said pointed to Kashmiri militants.

Similar thoughts in the Washington Post:

Counterterrorism officials and experts said the scale, sophistication and targets involved in the Mumbai attacks were markedly different from previous terrorist plots in India and suggested the gunmen had received training from outside the country. But they cautioned it was too soon to tell who may have masterminded the operation, despite an assertion from a previously unknown Islamist radical group.

Officials in India, Europe and the United States said likely culprits included Islamist networks based in Pakistan that have received support in the past from Pakistan's intelligence agencies.

Same article, further down:

"This is a new, horrific milestone in the global jihad," said Bruce Riedel, a former South Asia analyst for the CIA and National Security Council and author of the book "The Search for Al Qaeda." "No indigenous Indian group has this level of capability. The goal is to damage the symbol of India's economic renaissance, undermine investor confidence and provoke an India-Pakistani crisis."

Several analysts and officials said the attacks bore the hallmarks of Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Muhammad, two networks of Muslim extremists from Pakistan that have targeted India before. Jaish-i-Muhammad was blamed for an attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001.

According to Counterterrorism blog, a spokesman for the Jamat-ud-Dawa, the political wing of Lashkar, has been unusually staunch in rejecting responsibility:

Earlier this evening, I spoke via telephone with the official representative of JUD, Abdullah Muntazir, to discuss the situation in Mumbai and mounting allegations of involvement by LET and/or Pakistani Islamists. Muntazir strongly denied these charges, referring to the attacks as an "internal problem" for India. He repeatedly insisted to me, "we have nothing to do with it", and blamed Indian "propaganda" for "divert[ing] the attention of the public media" --- which he described as "their usual practice." Interestingly, during our conversation, Muntazir went even further and actually condemned the events that have taken place in Mumbai as needless "carnage": "Islam does not permit killing civilian people." He added, "I don't think that this is a legitimate tactic."

Please help us out by leaving updates in the comments section, with links to credible reports.

Comments

[Omer Dar]

The whole region is burning not much in fire as it is in hatred. Afghanistan has its government shackled to chains in Kabul; Militancy elsewhere. Pakistan struggling with spillover from Afghanistan and often resulting into casualties resultant of either suicide bombings from terrorists or drone missions. And now Mumbai gets a share too. Over the dinner table its we are neighbors and we need to live together in peace and harmony. Under this five course setting is an army of rats waiting not only to chew on the leftovers but even the roots. Decades have passed and acceptance of mere social existence of each other is what causes this all. And as a result a cancer of radical extremism emerges. Either its Afghanistan's warlord dominance strategy or fundamentalist approach of a selected few in Pakistan or even religious left wing radicalism in India. The end result is suffering, pain and atrocities. Confidence building measures are what these all stake holders need at this time instead of playing political dart ball. Terrorism is a global scenario and, whatever rhetoric behind it, should be stopped as a mutual goal.

[Jaya Kamlani]

Omer Dar,

You make so much sense. So how do we get rid of this hatred that is eating away at our very being, at our co-existence as one race, the human race?

If everything must begin at the roots, let us begin fresh. Let us start with a grassroots movement to bring peace and love to this world. Let us realize there really is only ONE God. These religious differences are killing us all.

If media can put people at the top, and media can bring people down, then surely media can start a peaceful movement too by sending out peace messages, otherwise we will all destroy each other, and that is not going to make God proud of us. So let us start something new. From hereon I am going to sign off my comments on this forum with peace. You can too. Tell ten of your friends to do so, and let this peace movement spread. Let good vibrations spread. Together, we can accomplish so many wonderful things in life. After all, this is the holiday time of the year when we wish everyone peace and love.

With death comes new life. So let us bury the hatred. Let us plant new trees and flowering shrubs and let us see them bloom like budding new friendships.

Peace,
Jaya Kamlani

[Jaya Kamlani]

Tune in to Fareed Zakaria's GPS show tomorrow on CNN @ 1:00 p.m. He will be interviewing Mr. RATAN TATA, owner of the fabulous Taj Hotel that was center of Mumbai attacks this week. I got a glimpse of the video clip that was shown of the interview this evening on CNN. Mr. Ratan Tata said he is going to rebuild the Taj Hotel, no matter how long it takes.

Dear Mr. Ratan Tata, you have my sympathies regarding this week's tragic events. I am one who frequented your charming Taj Hotel and loved to have my tea and snacks at the Seaview Room of the hotel and look out to the Arabian Sea and watch the cruise boats and gandolas glide by the waters at the Gateway of India. Wish you the very best in rebuilding the landmark of Mumbai.

Jaya Kamlani

[Jaya Kamlani]

In my last comment I mentioned the "Seaview Room" at the Taj Heritage Hotel.
Upon jogging my memory, I believe it was the "Sea Lounge" from where you could look out to the sea. It was not on the main floor, but one floor above, next to the Palm Restaurant.

** Do watch Mr. Ratan Tata on CNN @ 1:00 pm (EST) this Sunday (tomorrow) on the Fareed Zakaria show.

Jaya Kamlani

[Jaya Kamlani]

India’s Home Minister offers to resign
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081130/ap_on_re_as/as_india_shooting

A day after the siege ended, corpses were still being brought out of the ritzy Taj Mahal hotel where three suspected Muslim militants made a last stand before Indian commandos killed them in a blaze of gunfire and explosions.

India's home minister, meanwhile, has offered to resign in the wake of the deadly Mumbai attacks, a top aide said Sunday. R.K. Kumar said the minister, Shivraj Patil, sent his resignation to the prime minister to take responsibility for the attacks. The prime minister has yet to respond.

Death toll has been revised down to 174.

Jaya Kamlani

[anrosh]

everybody now wants to talk only about how they wined and dined at the rich and the finest in bombay. so what if the media has forgotten about the poor and the faceless - reporting about them would not get their ratings high or their help them rise on their career graph. if south bombay has to be hit to remove the cover over the faces of politicians and media to sit up and see SO BE IT. this is not the first time that bombay/india has been hit .. did you guys know that at all ?

[Jaya Kamlani]

“Pakistan charity under suspicion in India attacks”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081205/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan_shootings_militant_test

Washington and India view Jamaat-ud-Dawa as the successor to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant organization that India says trained the 10 gunmen who killed 171 people in India's commercial capital.

Lashkar-e-Taiba is believed to have been created with the help of Pakistan's intelligence agency in the 1980s to fight Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region. It was banned in 2002 by Islamabad amid U.S pressure after New Delhi linked it to an attack on its parliament that helped pushed the nuclear-armed neighbors close to war.

Soon after the ban, Lashkar-e-Taiba changed its name to Jamaat-ud-Dawa, according to the U.S. State Department, which in 2006 listed it as a terrorist organization and blocked its assets…. Read complete story via link.

*** NOTE: If you cannot access a Yahoo article months after it is posted, paste a line of the story in the Search field, and it will bring up the news article. The link does not work after a few weeks.

Jaya Kamlani

[ashish dimri]

Dear Sree,
I also share views presented by Jaya and Anrosh.
We are showing symapathies for affluent ones.
However,lets not forget many contables, lay hotel staff became casualties.
Who is going to take care of them.
Indian media is doing a great job after ages.
It is treating hard news with respects.
Lets hope, good stories will help our policy makers to understand real meaning of democracy!
yours sincerely,
ashish dimri