The World's Greatest Blog

Mumbai has seen a number of attacks on its hotels, railway stations and public areas from a team of (allegedly) twenty-five gunmen. The newspapers keep dropping the word Al-Qaeda into their articles and saying it “bears all the hallmarks” of an Al-Qaeda style attack. I would like to stop them there. Can anyone pin down a definition of Al-Qaeda’s style? From aeroplanes with knives (September 11th, New York) to Underground rail systems with bombs and mobile phones(July Bombings, London), this latest attack is new in its use of guns and attempt to take hostages.

There’s another thing I wish to bring to people’s attention – the gunmen in the pictures have Western haircuts, Westernised clothing and one is wearing a Versace T-shirt – hardly the garb of a man who despises Western corruption of his home country.

I thought it didn’t fit and I guessed it was more likely an Indian territorial dispute, something like Kashmir. Then I saw the demands of the gunman in the news (they were made in Urdu) – he was talking about deaths in Kashmir, not about getting troops out of the Middle East or the Royal Family out of Saudi Arabia

Mumbai Gunmen - as published by The Times

. The focus on getting British and American citizens as hostages (the gunmen were interested in UK & US passports), is part of a plan to gain more leverage.

A British or American hostage will gain far more media coverage and put far more pressure on the Indian government than hostages of any other nationality – even their own. Deaths due to terrorist attack happen frequently in India – there have been many bombings. However, targeted attcks on Westerners could ruin the tourist trade and will focus international attention more sharply on India’s disputes with Pakistan and their compeitive nuclear programmes.

The only links I can see so far between Al-Qaeda and the gunmen in Mumbai, are that the Taliban are present on the Afghanistani-Pakistani border. The Taliban were linked to Al-Qaeda training camps and may well have harboured Osama Bin Laden himself. The Taliban or Al-Qaeda may have aided these attacks.

However, the motive is more likely to be nationalism rather than the Anti-American religious fanaticism of Al-Qaeda, in which case, elements of the previous military regime in Pakistan may well be implicated in directing this attack leading to further instability in the region.