Shadowy Mujahedeen target Hindu-Muslim divide

The spectacular attacks in Mumbai are the latest in a series of assaults that are straining relations between Hindus and Muslims, threatening to aggravate tensions between India and Pakistan and highlighting India's growing struggle with terrorism.

Yesterday's attacks differed from the others in that the attackers singled out two luxury hotels frequented by foreigners, seeking out foreign nationals and reportedly taking some hostage in an apparent attempt to terrorize overseas visitors and perhaps disrupt India's booming trade with the outside world.

It was also much more sophisticated than most previous attacks. While earlier attackers usually used crude improvised explosives, these ones had automatic weapons and grenades.

“You have a huge group of dedicated gunners who have been trained to go into these hotels,” said Reva Bhalla, an expert with the private intelligence company Stratfor. “These things take a lot of co-ordination. They were very well armed and they had a plan.”
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While no one is certain yet exactly who is responsible, one possible suspect is the Indian Mujahedeen, a group that emerged about a year ago.

It has claimed responsibility for a series of previous attacks, including one in the city of Ahmedabad on July 26 in which the attackers caused an explosion in the city's crowded old quarter, then set off car bombs at the hospitals where victims were being taken. Another attack in the Rajasthani city of Jaipur took 60 lives in May. Some of the bombs were carried on bicycles.

The group has typically sent e-mails to news organizations giving just a few minutes warning before its attacks. They claim to be driven by various injustices to Muslims, such as attacks on Muslim residents of Ahmedabad in 2002.

Little is known about the group that reportedly took responsibility for yesterday's attacks, the Deccan Mujahedeen. The Deccan Plateau is a huge terrain covering much of southern India. But there is speculation it may have links to the Indian Mujahedeen. That group, in turn, has been linked to the Students' Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI, which the Indian government outlawed in 2001.

In an account this fall, which was questioned by a skeptical Indian media, police said that Indian Mujahedeen had recruited disgruntled Muslims from north India, enlisting them from a region known for providing criminals for the Mumbai mafia.

In recent months, the mysterious attackers have hit centres from Delhi to Bangalore to Surat, claiming more than 200 lives this year. India's Home Ministry reports that there have been 64 bomb attacks in the past six months alone. As recently as Sunday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was calling for urgent action against the terrorist threat. “I only wish to emphasize here that time is not on our side,” he said.

Most of the attacks have been against so-called soft targets such as markets and religious sites.

Wednesday's attack recalled an assault by Kashmiri militants armed with automatic weapons on the Indian parliament in New Delhi in 2001.

The Mumbai attacks are bound to strain Hindu-Muslim relations as Hindus blame Muslims and Muslims complain they are being unfairly accused of harbouring extremist sympathies.

India's roughly 150 million Muslims often complain that they are second-class citizens, most of them poor and many discriminated against by their Hindu neighbours. But so far, few have gravitated to the cause of international jihad.

The nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, has accused the coalition government, led by Mr. Singh's Congress Party, of being soft on terrorism. BJP politicians and other Hindu nationalists often argue that Muslims are conspiring to take over or undermine the predominantly Hindu country.

In fact, at least some of the terrorists appear to be Hindu. This month, police arrested 10 Hindus associated with a group, New India, suspected of plotting one bombing.

The Mumbai attacks are also expected to aggravate relations between India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947. India blames most terrorist attacks on militant groups based in Pakistan or Bangladesh. When a suicide bomber killed 41 people in an attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in June, India said that Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, was to blame.www.theglobeandmail.com