More Politi on India

Daniel Politi has a follow-up online article on Slate about the attacks in Mumbai:

More than a day after groups of gunmen descended on southern Mumbai and carried out a string of highly coordinated attacks targeting "well-known symbols of India's prosperity and places where Westerners and Israelis gather," as the Washington Post summarizes, government forces were still working to gain control. The attacks have left at least 143 people dead, according to early-morning wire reports, and more than 300 injured. The New York Times highlights that there are widespread fears the death toll will rise since people who escaped the hotels reported "stepping around bodies". It's still not known who was behind the attacks, although it's clear the gunmen were well-prepared. The Los Angeles Times hears word the militants "struck after months of reconnaissance during which they set up 'control rooms' in the targeted hotels". And the Wall Street Journal hears unconfirmed reports that the attackers had been renting an apartment for the past six months near the Jewish center that was attacked. USA Today highlights that whoever they were, the gunmen delivered "an unmistakable message: This U.S.-friendly democracy of 1.2 billion people has joined the front lines of the global war on terrorism".
There were signs that Indian commandos were gaining control of the hotels, but the situation remains far from clear. As the Associated Press details, less than an hour after an Indian official insisted their operations were almost over, loud explosions and gunfire could be heard at the luxurious Taj Mahal hotel. People who had been trapped in the hotel streamed out and told harrowing tales, but there appear to be several militants still at-large with a few hostages in at least one of the hotels. By the time the papers went to press, Indian commandos were launching a counterattack at the center run by the Orthodox Jewish group Chabad Lubavitch, where nine hostages believed to be Israeli citizens were being held. Early-morning wire stories report the raid on the Jewish center continues, while explosions could still be heard coming from the Taj Mahal hotel. The siege of the Oberoi hotel appears to have ended.
Even as the tense situation was still unfolding, India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, had no qualms about pointing fingers and affirming that those who organized the attacks were "based outside the country" in what everyone describes as a thinly veiled accusation that Pakistan was involved. In a separate front-page piece, The New York Times says the attacks will almost certainly complicate US efforts to improve the relationship between India and Pakistan. President-elect Barack Obama has made it clear he wants to continue with efforts to improve the relationship between the two nuclear-armed neighbors in an effort to get Pakistan to focus more on the militants in its tribal regions than on India. But if Indian authorities find even a hint of Pakistani involvement, and especially if there's a connection to rogue elements of Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, "the slightly warmer relationship that has been fostered between the neighbors would no doubt return to a deep freeze", says The New York Times. And in the end that might actually have been the main goal of the attackers.
No one knows who was involved, but there are plenty of theories. In a separate front-page piece, the Washington Post notes several experts said that the sophisticated nature of the attacks suggested the militants had received training abroad and had a connection with foreign Islamic extremists, perhaps even al-Qaeda. "No indigenous Indian group has this level of capability," one intelligence expert said. Several analysts were quick to see similarities between the attacks and previous actions by Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Muhammad, two networks of Muslim extremists that have targeted India in the past. A local newspaper reports that three of the suspects are members of Lashkar-i-Taiba, but the group issued a statement denying all involvement. Some speculate the attacks could mark a new front on the war against terrorism. "For the first time in a long time, you see the use of combatants who take hostages, like the Palestinians in the 1970s," a former French counterterrorism chief tells the Los Angeles Times. "They were ready to die, but they were not suicide attackers."
In an interesting counterpoint to conventional wisdom, The Wall Street Journal suggests that the highly organized nature of the attacks, combined with the choice of targets, "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." Even if there was foreign involvement, the attacks wouldn't have been possible without the help of a deep local network of militants. "I think it's very much a home-grown attack," one expert tells The Wall Street Journal. "There are very deep and unresolved social justice issues for Indian Muslims. They have a lot of motivation." India's Muslim community of 150 million is the third-largest in the world, but they are one of the country's most disadvantaged minorities, both politically and economically. Despite the focus on targets that were popular with foreigners, the vast majority of the victims were Indian.
In one interesting theory, some analysts say that the attackers didn't pursue the high-profile operation to send a specific message but rather to impress Islamic militants around the world. "The motive is very, very clear," an expert tells USA Today. "This outfit wants to attract sponsors abroad. There's a lot of money in it."

Rico says if it's money they want, we should give it to them. Suitably booby-trapped, of course...